Really?....lol. Can a baby feed itself? Keep itself warm? Care for itself? Your way to smart to play this game. So if my wife doesn't feed our newborn and the baby dies, she and I won't be arrested for negligence? Where do you get the hair brain idea that that taking care of your kid is voluntary?....lol. That might be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Someone is held responsible for that child, so there is no voluntary to it. Jesus, the lengths you go to to defend this is astounding. Shiva really? Really?
Im glad that you cede that a zygote is clearly not a baby and now wish to discuss further down the chain. The question being discussed is not "when is pregnancy discovered" but when is a baby present. Try to stay on point. Clearly the zygote is not a baby so the next logical question is "when during pregnancy does a baby/living human exist". You are the one that claims abortion is killing a baby but you have provided no support for this claim. Do you have any ?
While under the laws of the United States we have both positive and negative Rights the United States is founded upon the principle of inalienable Rights which, by definition, are only negative Rights. The "Right to Life" is a negative Right in that it cannot be violated by others. Of note in the case of positive and negative Rights they only extend to "persons" and to date no one has offered any historical evidence of "personhood" prior to birth. This matter was addressed in depth during the Supreme Court review of arguments in Roe v Wade and even the attorneys defending the law were unable to provide precedence for establishing personhood prior to birth. All that this argues for is that the fetus must be removed intact and then allowed to die on it's own. Is that not true? No, removing a person from an iron lung for whatever reason would not constitute murder unless the patient owned and was operating the iron lung on their own. I own a house and that doesn't give someone the Right to stay in my house even if I invite them in. I have the Right to remove them from my property if they are intruding on it. The same is true for the owner of an iron lung. They have no obligation to allow someone else to use it if they choose not to. This is independent of what anyone else would choose to offer or do. Of course killing the person in the iron lung would be murder but this addresses the inalienable Right to Life of a person and a fetus prior to viability cannot be considered as a person (no precedent) so it doesn't have anything to do with abortion.
While there is a legal obligation for the guardians of a child to care for it there is no requirement that they be the guardians of the child. I will cite the following as an example: If a woman can legally "abandon the child" then there must also logically be a legal means for the woman to abandon a fetus. Of course there is and it's called abortion.
A single cell is not a baby, not for a brief period of time, not ever. Repeating this over and over again does not make it so. What I am trying to do is have a serious debate. Repeating your premise over and over again without providing support is not valid argument for anything. We can fool with mother nature and it does work. The happy life you live depends on agriculture, livestock farming, technology and a wide variety of other things .. all of which are fooling with mother natuer. This is not what most pro-abortionists are arguing. Every time a cell divides, be it animal or human, a new life is created. Of course I agree.
By medical definition a baby exists at the moment of birth and not before. This was previously addressed. http://www.politicalforum.com/abortion/235538-up-next-after-birth-abortions-29.html#post1061037251
I agree. I already know that you have no basis for your claims so there is no point in revisiting this fact.
Indeed. Yet restrictions and bans on abortion prior to birth are common, so we can see that being a person is not necessary to get legal protection. Yep, you got it. Thats according to your view. But also note that I am still talking about my hypothetical but very plausible future scenario of ubiqutous artificial wombs. So the foetus could easily be saved. While maybe not of much concern for you, it will be a crucial thing for majority of people, because I am sure overwhelming majority does support mandatory healthcare providing in emergency if possible (positive right to life in addition to negative). I can see how this is a consistent view, even tough I surely disagree with it. I am more interested in your own opinion, not what is legal, as that differs a lot in time and space and often may be full of contradictions.
Haha! Boy you backtracked off that "voluntary" statement yeah? Point I am making is in or out of the womb, the baby must rely on someone other then themselves in order to survive. This dumb idea that you keep bringing up that "it can be anyone who takes care of the baby" is irrelevant. Fact remains, baby requires someone else to take care of them, trying to use that idea to perp abortions is asinine.
Interesting that even medical dictionaries support the concept that no baby exists until birth although I would add that medical dictionaries are not intended to define what is a human and what is not for the purposes of the abortion debate. I would argue that "a living human" exists prior to Birth but not at least until significant brain function exists which is somewhere between 20-24 weeks.
and medical practitioners used to wrap in blankets people who had fevers the times change along with understanding. You are here because mommy didn't abort you; true or false? yet, you promote the killing of babies while you yourself are a hypocricy to that stand
But as far as legality is concerned, it is not your strange version of viability that is used, but ordinary medical definition, meaning viability with artificial aid. So my example with artificial wombs is entirely valid in legal sense.
You keep on repeating your "killing babies" claim but provide no support. You hypocrisy argument (aside from being a logical fallacy) is not support for your claim that the zygote .. or anytime after.. is a baby.
And I would accept that as a valid argument although I may or may not agree with it based upon all of the considerations that would need to be evaluated. At least it's a valid argument and that in and of itself has merit. Once again I will return to a basic problem and that is the lack of precedent to establish "personhood" prior to birth. There simply isn't any precedent in recorded history. Those that argue against abortion need to face this simple fact before anything else. It supersedes their emotional arguments and personal beliefs. But we can establish new legal precedent in the United States and we have an excellent means of doing so. It's called a Constitutional Amendment and that is what's required if things are going to change at all. Arguments like the one presented can be used in support of a Constitutional Amendment and that is what's required. Simply beating around the bush and ignoring that legal precedent is the actual issue fails to even address the issue at hand.
I agree with the personhood argument. At least from a constitutional perspective. The Constitution was never intended to give rights to a fetus.
I would address this with a citation from Roe v Wade: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html The issue of viability become technically moot if personhood is not established until birth but the State does have an interest in fetal development and the court acknowledged that. The Court in Roe v Wade did address artificial viability but it is not a good foundation for the establishment of inalienable Rights such as the Right to Life as the Court also notes. It is somewhat ironic though that when anti-abortion laws basically originated in the 19th Century in America they were not about protecting the fetus. They were overwhelmingly to protect the life of the woman as abortion was highly dangerous.
Well, with that I surely agree. It is not a good foundation. As far as real foundation for inalienable right to life is concerned, there is no consensus on this forum, in courtrooms and in society in general.
Actually there is a consensus on what establishes an inalienable Right as it has limiting criteria. 1. It is that which is inherent in a person unaffected by the acts or actions of others. 2. It cannot violate or infringe upon the inalienable Rights of any other person. Related to 2 above an inalienable Right cannot impose any obligation upon another person as that would be an infringement upon the inalienable Rights of the other person. When we review the political philosophy of inalienable Rights as they were first proposed under authors like John Locke and the founders of America and they continue on through their development today the two criteria noted above are the foundation for all inalienable Rights. If something proposed does not meet those two criteria then it cannot be an inalienable Right. That doesn't imply that a proposal is "bad" but it cannot be based upon an inalienable Right. For example the issue of "feeding an infant" has been addressed. We require the care and feeding of children but that is not based upon an inalienable Right and we limit it to the voluntary guardians of the child. Even the parents can turn their children over to the State so that they don't have to feed and care for their child. We do that out of compassion for the child and not because the child has an inalienable Right to be fed. It is a good thing but it is not based upon inalienable Rights.
your refusal to admit that you are a living breathing hypocricy does not help you in your quest to kill the most innocent
Thats Lockian concept of rights, that only negative rights are true inalienable rights. Many dont agree, including me. I think you can infringe on the rights of another person when protecting your rights. Killing is OK in self-defense, and stealing is OK when you do it to save life or health of yourself or someone else. I think positive rights also exist. The whole debate of rights is a subjective opinion with no consensus, since rights are social constructs, opinions, and not facts.
Self defense is an inalienable Right of the Individual and using the necessary force required is not an infringement upon the inalienable Rights of another individual. The key is "necessary force" and not "unnecessary force" of course. The Right to Life addresses "murder" which is the unnecessary taking of the life of another person. The killing of another individual in defense of one's own life is not a violation of the Right to Life so long as that is the only means necessary to protect one's own Right to Life. This, of course, argues against capital punishment which is never necessary to protect anyone's life. Capital punishment is an act of revenge which violates the inalienable Right to Life and which is completely unnecessary for a justice system established to protect the inalienable Rights of the Individual. For pragmatic reasons we know that the government must infringe upon inalienable Rights, such as the Right of Liberty of the individual, for the protection of the inalienable Rights of others but such infringement should always be the least infringement possible to achieve the greater protection of inalienable Rights of individuals in society as a whole. In rare cases we can even justify minimal infringement on the inalienable Rights of the Individual when it benefits society to do so. We see that in the Roe v Wade decision where some protections which infringe upon the Rights of the Woman are imposed in the third trimester of pregnancy. The fetus, even at viability, is not a person but the "State" (society) does have an interest in protecting the potential personhood of the fetus so abortions are greatly limited at that point. At the sametime we see full protection of the woman's inalienable Rights duting the first trimester where she can have an abortion on demand. The court was faced with this problem of protecting the Rights of the Woman as well as considering the interests of the State (society) in Roe v Wade and I believe they did a relatively good job in accomplishing that. The decision respects the Rights of the Woman while still providing protection to the potential personhood of the fetus when it would acquire the Rights of a Person at birth. The court's decision did infringe upon the inalienable Rights fo the Woman but did so to the least extent possible to serve the interests of the State (society) and the future Rights of the baby at birth. As I've repeatedly noted as well we could extend "personhood" to the pre-born by establishing Constitutional precedent for it. It is the only legal means to accomplish this but it requires individuals that will address creating a Constitutional amendment that would be ratified by the States. The criteria for establishing new precedent related to personhood of a fetus prior to birth are high requiring 3/4ths of the States to ratify the amendment but that is a good thing. Establishing personhood, and therefore inalienable Rights, needs to meet a very high standard. It must be something that we, as society, agree upon to a very high degree. That is reflected by how hard it is to pass a Constitutional amendment. As I've also stated I don't see much of a problem in extending personhood to a fetus at viability which would afford it inalienable Rights by Constitutional amendment. I don't believe that going further than that would be ratified by the States. That is an opinion but I believe it's a well informed opinion. Such an Amendment would merely enforce what the Roe v Wade decision was in the first place though as protections are already afforded to the fetus at viability under Roe v Wade.
Viability threshold as currently defined by supreme court (Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey) is tied to medical technology. I think this was a particularly clever move from the supreme court. It would be sufficient for decades to come, but sometime in not-so-distant future, all foetii (there is no mention of embryos, tough) will be viable and thus either abortion from 8 weeks onward will be open for a ban, or some other limit will have to be found. So if the consensus could not be reached, the debate was effectively pushed into the future.
As I've personally noted my opinion is that the dependency on someone else prohibits an inalienable Right from existing and the use of medical technology is a dependency upon someone else which would preclude the establishment of an inalienable Right. As I've also noted at natural viability, where medical technology is not required, I can see extending "personhood" to the fetus because the woman can have the fetus removed and it would survive on it's own. That, IMHO, can establish a foundation for extending "personhood" to the fetus which would establish it's Right to Life. Currently a fetus is not a person but has protections under Roe v Wade that I do not disagree with. But it is true that until there is a Constitutional Amendment to address this issue and which is ratified (consensus is not required, only a 3/4ths endorsement by the States) the matter will keep being pushed into the future. I can see an amendment establishing personhood of a fetus at natural viability being ratified. I would even support it so long as that was the limitation and as long as the woman's life and health remain protected. There are other problematic issues related to this under current law though such as the tax deduction for dependents because if a fetus at viability is defined as a person then they would rightfully be considered as a dependent on tax returns. There is also the question of involuntary manslaughter if the woman does something stupid like falling down a flight of stairs which results in the death of a viable fetus. Do we prosecute a woman if this happens? I'm sure there are thousands of pragmatic legal considerations if a viable fetus was declared to be a person under a Constitutional amendment that I haven't even considered. Perhaps someday my opinion and those pragmatic considerations can or will be addressed. I really don't know. What if science is able to take a fetilized egg and raise it? Who pays the cost and who is responsible for the resultant child when it gains independent sovereignty? Does the zygote only gain protection if a person "adopts" it when it is removed from the womb of the woman for medical science to grow it into an independent sovereign person? There are simply so many unanswered questions and pragmatic considerations that haven't been addressed by anyone to date.
