Abortion is NOT a woman's right

Under the US Constitution, as well as based upon historical precedent going back at least 2,000 years, the preborn are not "persons" but that doesn't imply that based upon compelling arguments that "personhood" cannot be established by the US Constitution.

Once again we return to the pragmatic paradox that the preborn occupy the body of the woman and impose an involuntary obligation upon her and an involuntary obligation violates the Inalienable Rights of the Person. There cannot be a conflict between the Inalienable Rights of two person so how is that paradox to be resolved pragmatically?

There needs to be compelling arguments to impart "personhood" for the preborn and circular arguments based solely upon personal opinion or religious beliefs are not compelling in a nation dedicated to the Protection of the Inalienable Rights of the Person.

 

Since there are lots of pro-lifers who aren't religious, banning abortions doesn't necessarily violate the Separation of Church and state. I know two people who are atheists, and yet they don't believe that abortions should be legal. Besides, if you type in "pro-life atheist" in google, you will find lots of results. But yes, I agree that there also needs to be secular arguments against abortions.

As a response to your first sentence, yes, pro-lifers believe that the laws should be changed so that the fetus is a person.

 

Most dictionaries define it as an "individual human." One can't possibly be an individual if one is INSIDE a person and dependent on connection to that person to sustain life. A Catholic source expounds on personhood below. Notice it is not a scientific term, but a socially constructed one:

http://www.ascensionhealth.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=190&Itemid=172

 

You can't just win a debate with semantics.

 

Neither can you with wishful thinking or idiotic assertions or diversions. We all have seen that you are only capable of such irrelevant methods.

 

"You just can't win a debate with semantics" =

 

Well, I never said that consent to have sex is a direct consent to pregnancy.... however, I do believe that consent to sex is an implied consent to pregnancy and I have debated the issue extensively (here.)

Do you disagree that a woman (in general) risks pregnancy every time she has sex and even if she is using birth control?

How is that not an assumption of risks?

To use your car analogy, the passenger representing the fetal child would be completely unaware of the fact that they were picked up (by the driver) and put into the car in the first place.

In some cases, yes.

But that would be more analogous to a rape pregnancy.

Analogies can only be carried so far. You can't fully equate the two (pregnancies and giving someone a lift).

There are some more fitting analogies to compare and to illustrate the assumptions of risks. One is a person who dons all the protective gear to play football. The helmet and pads would be analogous to birth control (for example) and we all know (or should know) that players still get injured despite all their efforts to prevent it, that the players "imply consent" to the risks for their injuries when they decide to participate, etc.

1. Unless the other person you connected yourself to had consented, you would be guity of assault.
2. Disconnecting yourself in a way that violates their rights would get you a charge of (at least) manslaughter.

You don't have the right to create another person and then kill them because you later regretted creating them.

No-one is claiming that a newly created child has any 'greater rights'.

They only have the same right to not be murdered that everyone else has.

see above.

I hope you will remain considerate of the others (like mine).

 

(My bold)

Well, cannibals & slave-owners & robber barons. Slave-owners & robber barons were more indirect consumers of their people, of course. Hard to tell who's the most unsavory of the lot. Cannibalism has likely passed from the US, unless our economy truly goes into the crapper. Slavery is mostly gone too, although you could make an argument for wage-slavery.

My vote would be for robber barons, except that you don't see that many these days. Now they tend to be corporate entities, with all the petty evils that accompany them. There just aren't any great-souled villains anymore, like in the Roaring '20s or the Gilded Age.

 

Here's one of your statements which you had made.

And here's my response to this.

Conjoined twins legally are not allowed to kill their other twin.

 

Yes, I highly disagree with this statement based upon science. A woman can only get pregnant about four days out of the month and even then its unlikely. When a woman can only get pregnant a maximum of about four days a month she's obviously not "risking" pregnancy every time she has sex. For roughly 26 days of the month she doesn't risk pregnancy at all. We can also note that up to 50% of the time when a woman does become impregnated that she has a "miscarriage" naturally often never even knowing she was pregnant.

 

Of all the points I have raised with direct responses to your posts, this is the one you choose to contest?

I digress.

Your point about when and how often a woman can actually get pregnant is understood.

Now, how about the fact that so many women still manage to get pregnant even while trying to prevent it with birth control and by abstaining from sex on the days they 'thought' sex might lead to a pregnancy?

 

(My bold)

Well, the first problem you have is the hypocrisy of the state & federal governments. The GOP campaigns on Right to Life, TX Gov. Perry for instance stands @ a podium to the glare of the lights & the storm of microphones, & declares that the restrictions on abortion clinics there are a blow for life. (TX meanwhile has turned down enormous funding through Medicare for reproductive health services for women otherwise unable to afford the services.) The official TX state motto is in danger of becoming "barefoot & pregnant". Those restrictions & the continued reduction of TX reproductive health care services state budgets have caused Planned Parenthood to close down many of its clinics in TX. & abortions will be available @ only two or three sites in TX, I believe, if the recent legislation on abortion clinics survives court scrutiny.

No, the problem is that TX, NM, MS - well, the US as a whole, in the grouping of industrialized nations - ranks 48th or so out of 50 for child health care. Outcomes for infants/children are very poor. & balancing state & federal budgets on the backs of the unborn, infants, toddlers, children, public education, young mothers & so on will only exacerbate the problem.

Our young people may be relatively politically unformed, but they can tell when they're being lied to. The free-'n'-easy lifestyles hurled @ us in the MSM are diversions, pure & simple.

The whole notion of social & personal restraint in pursuit of higher goals is a good one, MO. But it needs to be implemented across the society & actually put into practice. Saying that self-control is only for the poor schlepps who haven't gotten theirs yet, while unlimited hedonism is one of the rewards of the "masters of the universe", simply isn't going to play.

 

(My bold)

This is an odd argument. Half of the fetus' genetic endowment comes from the mother-to-be. Can she then rescind her 50%? After all, it "belongs" to her.

 

Poor women, of course! A two-fer! Bonus points for young, minority, under-educated, illiterate, ...

 

The fetus is a totally separate organism from the woman.

 

This doesn't come up much. Usually parents opt for surgery to separate them soon after birth, even at the risk of one or both not surviving. Some conjoined twins are co-dependent, so they are sustaining each other. "Generally, the outcome in all cases of parasitic twins is death." - See more at: http://www.babymed.com/pregnancy-co...-vanishing-twin-syndrome#sthash.6meI33yq.dpuf

 

(My bold)

@ the point that we have artificial uteri, or that we can safely "harvest" the embryo & implant it in a willing mother's uterus - then you'll have a point. The fetus is genetically related & yet distinct from the woman, but mechanically & biologically, the fetus is intimately linked & enclosed within the woman.

 

(My bold)

If you mean to pass a Constitutional amendment - itself an arduous process - establishing the personhood of the fetus, you will certainly have to define what a person is. & in legalese, no small feat in itself. You might as well start working on the project, drafting & putting a constitutional amendment through to success is a v. long project anyway.

 

Yes, but it's not legal for them to deliberately kill the conjoined twin with surgery.

 

Cite the law for murder specific to conjoined twins.

 

Yes I've seen and read that, though your opponent didn't even offer any responses they just conceded the points.

Whether she risks pregnancy or not isn't relevant to consent, we all risk things everyday yet it is not implied that we consent to the consequences of those risks, we do not withhold treatment to the football player simply because of the implied consent to injury.

Never said it wasn't, but yet again we do not withhold treatment based on an implied consent, otherwise no smoker would be treated for cancer and no sports player would be treated for injuries.

and yet we do not withhold treatment in order to repair those injuries due to that "implied consent"

1. So if the woman has not consented and/or is initially unaware that the fetus has attached itself to her then the fetus is guilty of assault.
2. So you are asserting that a consent to do something cannot be withdrawn, in that case a woman who initially consents to sex and then withdraws that consent should not be able to claim rape.

IVF clinics do it all the time, so the right does exist, unless you can show a IVF clinic that has been prosecuted for the destruction of surplus embryos.

You may not be claiming it but that is what you are alluding to .. Explain how a fetus could be given equal rights to the women without it infringing on her rights, as soon as the fetus is given equal rights you create a conflict . .so someone, somewhere is going to have to decide which rights take precedence over the other.

I am as considerate to others as they are to me.

 

Show me some evidence which proves otherwise.

 

Why me? You made the claim, so support it.

 

I made no claims. You made this claim that it's legal for somebody to kill their conjoined twin, but you gave no evidence to support your original statement.

 

Cite the post where I made that claim.