Because one second it is still inside its creator's body, and therefore her property. The next second (or however long the birth ordeal takes), it's outside, ergo, a person.
And you're clearly putting up a strawman - by the time she lets it get gestate long enough to get viable, she clearly wants to whelp the thing, or she'd have taken care of it long ago.
They're not cows, contrary to what you seem to advocate.
You seem, like most statists, to be a victim of all-or-nothing thinking, i.e., you seem to think that what's not banned is mandatory, which is also not true.
How the heck do you derive that? God doesn't have time to write down every possible situation and how to rule on it. That should be obvious to you; didn't you once say "I think God is lazy"?
As it stands, there were -- I forget the exact number, 900-something -- laws, based upon old Moses' laws, that Jews derived in order to be absolutely specific. And I'm sure that still wasn't quite enough for everyone. But really, you keep insisting upon the Bible, which is not necessary for our present discussion.
The founders of this country did the same thing: what's not in the constitution is delegated to the states, to use their own best judgement to decide upon. Is that so hard to understand?
Tim
-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @
Finally, someone gives a practical counter-reasoning on the subject! And to think, it only took a week and 30 replies to turn up.
My argument is moral rather than practical, and Rich seems to hold a third angle yet. It certainly hasn't been disproven that arguing on the internet is like the special olympics.
Yeah, but that's practically what psychology is all about. A somewhat silly subject, but occasionally leads to interesting thoughts. Like I said, lots of possibilites -- only a few of them right. It can, of course, be useful in an argument to try and coax different behavior out. ;-)
Tim
-- Deep Fryer: A very philosophical monk. Website @
It's basically the same reasoning that I used in an argument with John S. Dyson back on the 27th Novembr 2003.
net
Why does producing a moral argument let you off the hook of thinking about the practical effect of your stance? In this particular case, moral scruples about late term abortions just send unwilling mothers- to-be off to back street abortionists, so they do don't do a thing to protect the fetus.
What's 'funny' about it is that you could say such a silly thing. The issue was just as, if not more, controversial at the time of Roe V Wade as any time after and Reagan had nothing to do with it.
Oh sure. 'Religion' did not exist before. Or is it your theory none of them voted before?
Whichever, it's patently absurd.
They disagree for the same reason they disagreed long before Roe v Wade and why the laws Roe v Wade struck down existed in the first place. That's why 'Roe' had to do an end run around the democratic process through the courts.
Btw, 'Roe' (not her real name) is now pro life and 'anti-Roe v Wade'.
That's absurd since I provided a purely scientific DNA argument for the Pro life side.
There is nothing 'arbitrary' about religion and if you think so just try some 'arbitrary' alteration of Islam and see what happens.
Your arbitrary use of arbitrary seems to be nothing more than the thoughtless hurling back of whatever word comes your way and that vapid use could be hurled against any philosophy, rendering the word meaningless.
It's true in that you've not provided any philosophical or scientific basis. All you do is simply 'declare' what you believe to be, and that is arbitrary.
Trying to inject 'legal' as a basis is circular and begs the question because whether it should be legal or not *is* the question.
That's simply restating your arbitrary declaration, except you've made it even more arbitrary in giving one person the power to arbitrarily declare a 'thing' you claim they 'own' to be a person.
How many times does she get to change her mind? It's not a person this week but next week it is but, wait, no, she changed her mind and it's not, again.
And that, you laughingly claim, is not arbitrary.
Oh? And what existential 'fact' magically turned it into a person upon being 'pooped'? Other than you just arbitrarily declaring it to be, that is.
Why? According to you it was just a 'thing' before pooping.
What is it when half in and half out? If a foot is out is that 'part' a 'person' but the rest not?
Why not declare it 'not a person' unless it demonstrates an IQ over
75, regardless of age, And when you say no then provide the philosophical basis for why being 'pooped' is a superior definition.
In the first place, you have no idea what my positron on the matter is because I've not stated it. All I did was give a proper rendition of the Pro Life position in rebut to your hate filled dishonest misrepresentation of it.
I already explained, in the portion you dishonestly snipped out, why that is nonsensical rubbish and it is still the case that laws against one person murdering another person does not make either of them 'cattle'.
I not only grasp the concept of 'freedom' but also grasp the concept that with 'freedom' comes responsibility and that 'freedom' is not being able to do just 'anything'. As the saying goes, your 'freedom' to sling your fist around ends where another person's nose begins and that's because both ends of the slinging are persons with their own rights.
And if, as Pro Lifers believe, the unborn is a person then the same kind of limitation applies there as on slinging fists.
Yes, you've established how proficient you are at hating people.
Funny, the law specifies it and the SCOTUS upheld it.
The definition is "An abortion in which the person performing the abortion, deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus. (18 U.S. Code 1531)"
Btw, to get around the ban on a procedure you claimed doesn't happen some abortionists have taken to injecting the fetus with lethal drugs to kill it before hand, in another late term abortion you will, no doubt, also claim doesn't happen.
formatting link
"In response to the Supreme Court decision upholding the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, many abortion providers in Boston and around the country have adopted a defensive tactic. To avoid any chance of partially delivering a live fetus, they are injecting fetuses with lethal drugs before procedures."
Since you've had a bunch of idiot neo-cons writing your laws, and packing the Supreme Court with more idiot neo-cons, the fact that your legal system has been polluted with a "pro-life" propaganda slogan doesn't make the slogan any less political, and certainly doesn't make it part of the legitimate medical vocabulary.
In effect, you've corrupted your legal system, and are now carrying on as if that legitimises your feeble - and impractical - attempts to subvert a woman's right to choose.
Now that the electorate has finally gotten sick of Republican idiots, we can at least hope that this particular lunacy will eventually vanish from the law books.
That's not a "definition" in the schoalarly sense of the word; it's a "definition" riddled with "weasel words" meant to bias the reader to have a particular reaction to it. One could write one from the opposite point of view, obviously, referring to e.g., the "organic cell mass" rather than a "living fetus."
Every live human on the planet has uncountably many cells both die naturally and be killed through "overt acts" (e.g., taking a shower! -- you're sure to get SOME live cells in there) each and every day. The cells that make up that cow you're going to have for dinner are really not all that different than those making up a fetus; in my mind the distinction of what sort of entity deserves legal protection and what doesn't can't really be argued from a biological perspective since most all animals are so similar at the biological level. When I see one of those bumper stickers that says, "abortion stops a beating heart!" (which isn't even true if the abortion is performed within about a month after conception) I often think, "well, yeah, it does, but so does slaughtering a chicken..."
I'm not attempting to make either a pro-choice or pro-life argument here, just pointing out that biologically based arguments (from either side) don't really hold a lot of weight IMHO.
Your argument might have had at least the appearance of 'scholarly' if you had left in the definition you attempt to critique.
"Living fetus" is accurate, unobscure, and to the salient point (for example, the procedure is not proscribed if the fetus is already dead and we are not talking about removing the fallopian tube) while your "organic cell mass" is precisely the thing you claim, "weasel words," in an attempt to obfuscate.
In the first place, "organic cell mass" completely ignores it being living tissue but, beyond that, it means nothing, or anything.
Shall we perform an operation on the ocular nerve or will a doctor use your supposed 'non weasel words' "organic cell mass?" And if you have a liver problem will he refer to it as your "organic cell mass?" Or if you suffer from ulcers is the term for it an "organic cell mass" disorder?
The answer is obviously "no" so why is it 'scholarly' to use meaningless "weasel words" for the 'one thing'? Well, it would seem to be rather obvious, wouldn't it? Obscuring the nature of the matter in order to avoid "a particular reaction" is precisely your reason but that is not 'scholarly', it's dishonesty.
Of course, that doesn't even get to the nonsense of a T-bone steak and a side order of broccoli also being an "organic cell mass" but you come to it below.
What you are doing is a version of "false equivalency" where every irrelevant 'similarity' between things is discussed while summarily ignoring all matters of substance.
Why stop at "cow and fetus' being "not all that different?" According to your "organic cell mass" and subsequent false equivalencies a jelly fish and humans are "not all that different," and at least it's alive. And a human is "not all that different" from a T-bone steak with side order of broccoli, or a dead tree stump.
But it is precisely all the things you chose to summarily ignore that differentiate a human being from a dead tree stump and while you may not find 'much difference' between the two I dare say the rest of the human race does.
Frankly, I find your whole argument rather stunning in it's obvious absurdity.
If you see no distinction between murdering another human being vs killing a chicken then you have a lot more ethical and moral problems than dealing with the abortion question.
According to your version of "biologically based arguments" whether a doctor operates on your liver, ocular nerve, or brain "organic cell mass" doesn't matter but I dare say if you came into the office with a hang nail and he cracked open your skull to fix it your opinion about "not all that different" would suddenly change.
But, not to worry. We'll just call that frontal lobe he's about to cut out an "organic cell mass" so as to not elicit "a particular reaction" from you.
Well, you can't do that, because to get DNA from the fetus, you'd have to violate her body, which in the USA she's supposed to be protected from.
And in the second place, the DNA is irrelevant, because it is INSIDE HER BODY!
Do you, or do you not, own your own body?
Do you, or do you not, have a right to have your body safe from being pierced, cut into, or otherwise violated, such that you let a gang of fanatics override your Free Will?
If government power doesn't stop at our skin, then Liberty is meaningless.
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.