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Is "When Does Life Begin?" a Scientific or Moral Question? Both?


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12 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Yes, but smac repeatedly responds with other's attempts to discuss with things like this: 

And that's fine (his thread), but it shuts down a part of what is definitely relevant to the OP and title, IMO.

Not so.  I have not shut anything down.  I have simply declined to participate in certain parts of this discussion.  I have said nothing prohibiting other people from discussing those things.

Thanks,

-Smac

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37 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Nor are the unborn.

That depends on the stage of the pregnancy and whom you ask. 

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But not under the law.  Animals can't vote, aren't obligated to pay taxes, etc.

But they are afforded certain protections that are based on a degree of personhood. You can stomp on a snake or a cockroach without consequence, but you can't stomp a dog to death. 

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But they are not afforded constitutional rights.

They can have many rights. It's a fuzzy boundary, like I said. 

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I can respect that position, even though I disagree with it.  "Viability" is too vague and malleable a term.  From Wikipedia:

That's where I think states can step in and firm up the threshold. 

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If there is no "uniformed gestational age that defines viability, then that creates real difficulties in creating legal restrictions on when an abortion can be performed.

Is a baby born at 24 weeks "viable" or "nonviable?"  Hard to say, since 20-35% of them survive.

Moreover, what happens when and if medicine and technology advance to the point that a fetus can survive outside of the womb at a very early stage of gestation?


 

 

That's where the arbitrariness can come in the make the decision, as it does with when you can drive, buy a gun, or drink.

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Under the law, yes, we have.

On paper, mostly, but in practice, not even remotely. 

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I disagree with some of this, but in the main I agree that racism is still a problem in the U.S.  Nevertheless, the law recognizes people of all races as persons.

Does it mean anything for the law to recognize it if it's not enforced?

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Of the two rights (live v. privacy), which is more fundamental?

The former is expressly protected under the Constitution, whereas the latter is not.

Depends. It's not unilateral, as I pointed out with the example of harvesting organs. 

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Slaveholders would disagree with you about that.  They certainly felt that their rights were imperiled by recognizing the personhood of black people.  And they were right to be concerned.  Under the law, black people as chattel/property allowed slaveholders to exercise dominion over slaves, whereas black people as persons deprived slaveholders of these property rights.

 A valid point point (slaves were more "persons" than are fetuses according to prototypical conceptualizations), but the right to own slaves as property and the right to the privacy of one's own body are not even remotely comparable rights.

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Moreover, the "abortion is okay because the baby's right to live is infringing on the right of the mother" can be rebutted with "abortion is not okay because the mother's right to abortion is infringing on the baby's right to live."

But as currently read, the Constitutional right to privacy takes priority over a qualified right to life. 

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Yes, it would.  We did some of this restructuring for black people, so why not for babies?

Because the right to privacy is worth preserving. The right to own people was not. 

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Pro-abortionists are arguing backwards from a dogmatic position.  It's just rationalization.

I entirely disagree. I was long opposed to abortion, and after reading as much of the research and the law as I could, I became convinced that my position was irrational. I find the act abhorrent, personally, but I cannot argue against the facts. 

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The difference is that those opposed to abortion have, I think, the better moral argument.

 

I disagree. I think one has to marginalize the agency of women quite significantly to feel like imposing such burdens on them is a more moral action, which is why the anti-abortion argument finds primary purchase among groups that have historically marginalized the agency of women and acted as agents for the marginalization of women.

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I'd be open to that, certainly.  

I agree.  So let's change the law.

Lotta deadbeats out there who make up the base of the anti-abortion camp who wouldn't be so open to it, but the point is that the argument for the extension of full personhood is arbitrary and capricious.

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She already is "eating for two."

And because the fetus does not enjoy full personhood, she's on the hook herself for it.

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Right.  Just like abortion laws establish a threshold that applies to everyone.

You're ignoring my point. What is arbitrary in the example you provided was the temporal threshold, and it is arbitrary out of necessity. The arbitrariness that would attend deciding which rights would enjoin the extension of full personhood to a fetus is not necessary (since it's just a function of not sincerely wanting to consider a fetus fully a person, but just to transfer a single constituent right to the fetus) and is fundamentally different. 

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I agree.

 

Then your point about arbitrariness already being a part of many laws is irrelevant. 

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I agree with you.  So let's change the law?

I'm not arguing that we should change the law, I'm pointing out how little the implications of extending personhood to fetuses have been considered, since it is an entirely arbitrary and capricious suggestion.

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To some extent, yes.

The majority of Americans (and particularly women) disagree with you that women's rights should be marginalized.

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That when balancing the right to life versus other constitutional rights, the latter is more important.

But the example I provided shows that that is not how the Constitution sees it.

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But you're only proving my point.  You're speaking of the right to life of the first person versus the right to live of the second.  Abortion hardly ever involves such a contest.

I think you misunderstand. I'm speaking of the right to PRIVACY of the first person, who is already dead. As I quite clearly pointed out, the right to life of a living person does not even supersede a DECEASED person's right to PRIVACY.

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Well yes, it does.  Or it should.

It does not, and there are a lot of laws you'd have to overturn in order to have it your way.

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I submit that the right to privacy (which isn't ennumerated in the Constitution) is less important than the right to life (which is).

The long history of the interpretation of multiple Constitutional rights by the Supreme Court disagrees with you.

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The right to life, yes.  Isn't that the most fundamental of all constitutional rights?

But there's absolutely no precedent anywhere for that. 

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Then let's do it in increments.  Let's start with granting them rights under the 14th Amendment to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.  Then let's add more as they get older.

Again, this is an arbitrary and unprecedented compartmentalization of rights. On what grounds should we overturn settled law and infringe on privacy rights to satisfy a disingenuous argument about the full extension of personhood with only a limited extension of rights? 

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And since that threshold differentiates a baby's right to life versus not having that right, it's a pretty important threshold.  So let's put that threshold at conception.

Which is a completely arbitrary threshold that entirely dismisses the pregnant woman's right to privacy and isn't even really accurate. Conception can take a range of days to take place, and it certainly doesn't happen immediately after sex, which makes the anti-abortion crowd's unilateral opposition to morning after pills (emergency contraception), which function entirely and exclusively to prevent fertilization, a violation of their own rhetoric, since it stops pregnancy even before the threshold of life. 

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Yes.  I am suggesting that we move the threshold.

Which would reduce the Constitutional rights of women.

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I submit that if we are going to be arbitrary, let's do so in a way that preserves the most fundamental constitutional right: the right to live.

While infringing on the rights of women who have full access to all Constitutional rights as born persons? You've still not adequately addressed the fact that the Constitution already protects those rights against the right to life of others. 

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Yes.  So let's change them.

First, I don't think conception is an arbitrary threshold.

Second, at some point the "rights of others" (the mother's rights) fail to supersede the rights of the baby.  You acknowledge this, right?  The whole viability thing?  So the quesiton is what is that point?  Rather than using a vague and malleable standard like "viability," let's use conception.

 

But that's also vague and malleable. Conception does not happen immediately upon ejaculation. It can take a range of several days to take place. We answer the question of what point by balancing the woman's right to privacy.

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So did freeing the slaves.  The slave's right to freedom trumped the slaveholder's right to property.

A consistent prioritization across the Constitution. As we have seen, the Constitution also already determines that another's right to life cannot infringe upon my right to privacy over my own body. 

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And we already concede that there is a point at which the baby's right to life can supersede the woman's right to "privacy."  The question is where that point is located.

And the question has already been adequately answered in a way that weighs the competing rights. No adequate argument has been made for why that point is problematic, and the simple fact that conception has a slightly smaller margin for error is not reason enough to infringe upon the woman's rights, especially since the desired threshold (immediately following ejaculation) actually doesn't match the rhetoric ("conception," or the beginning of life). 

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I'm not speaking of evangelical opposition.  Roe was, from a legal perspectively, very poorly reasoned.  Even the pro-abortion crowd acknowedges this.  And the law of the land now is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, anyway.

I was speaking of evangelical opposition when I said, "it's only been since the mid-seventies, when evangelical leaders decided to make abortion the standard under which it would muster the religious right to frustrate government attempts to desegregate their schools, that our particular society has slowly built of the nerve to attempt to popularize a black and white notion of full personhood at conception." Your response was "Actually, it was the Supreme Court that did that."

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In my view, the Tenth Amendment makes this a "states rights" issue.

But because this arbitrary and capricious argument immediately infringes upon the Constitutional rights of women, it goes right back to being a federal issue.

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18 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Yes, but smac repeatedly responds with other's attempts to discuss with things like this: 

And that's fine (his thread), but it shuts down a part of what is definitely relevant to the OP and title, IMO.

 

Oh no! Not disagreement on the internet!! 

;)

 

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18 hours ago, JAHS said:

I knew one lady who went to her doctor and said she wanted an abortion.

The doctor asked "How far along are you?"

The lady replied "He's 17 years old now". 

 

Well, its proponents say "on demand" and "at any stage" so ... :D :rofl: :D 

Yes, I know abortion is no laughing matter.  Remember, you're talking to someone who was a preemie.

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25 minutes ago, smac97 said:

With respect, I disagree.  Infanticide is designated as such because we as a society acknowledge the personhood of the baby.

We as a society freed the slaves because we (eventually) acknowledged the personhood of slaves.

We as a society predicate a number of things on acknowledged personhood.  

Abortion is predicated on ignoring or denying the personhood of unborn babies.  I am proposing that we change this.

Thanks,

-Smac

Well I happen to agree.

But that is not my point here.

My point is that there is no basis or REASON for a consensus on your proposal. In an age of boundless and erroneous scientism and selfishness  it cannot be "proven", and that is what the masses want.

Ain't gonna happen, brother. Resistance is futile because it is one set of morals against another, and it appears we are in the minority on this swing of the pendulum.

When there are only 42 humans left on the planet things may look different. ;)

Uh, no that's not Mormon doctrine, for the newbies. :)

 

Edited by mfbukowski
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14 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh no! Not disagreement on the internet!! 

;)

 

Ha!

I'm fine with disagreement (it's a part of most all threads here and it's what makes discussions interesting, IMO).  But that's not what I was referring to.

Not a big deal....but it's difficult to discern exactly what this thread is about when it appears smac keeps shifting around or dismissing anything he thinks is irrelevant (even when it's a direct response to the question in the title). 

Edited by ALarson
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2 hours ago, ALarson said:

I believe that the spirit enters the body upon birth and leaves upon death.  That's when I believe life begins and ends in our human form.  I know some will disagree (about the entering the body stage) and I understand that.  

After giving this subject much thought (and giving birth to several children), I agree with you and believe life begins when the spirit enters the body (at birth, imo).  That is consistent with our beliefs about when death takes place (at the moment the spirit separates from the body).  

As far as abortion goes, I oppose it (except for a few exceptions).  I think it destroys a potential life and that’s wrong to do (my opinion).

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1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Not at all.  There are a number of substantive differences between end-of-life decisions and abortion.  The consent of the individual is often at the forefront.

Of course there are a number of differences, but the main point is that "life" is not some trump card the presence of which overrules all other considerations. The consent is often at the forefront, but even when consent cannot be given, there are circumstances in which family is given authority to end life. It's a semantic game because we could just frame an abortion as removing the "measures designed to prolong life." 

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I think that argument can be sustained, though.

I've not seen it done justice, and as I pointed out in my previous post, the anti-abortion rhetoric is inarguably and explicitly aimed at preventing abortive measures even before the possibility of life beginning. This simply is not about life. 

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Sure they do.  Try telling a drowning person that he has no preference to breathe.

A drowning person is not a fetus.

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Moreover, a three-day old baby also has "no preferences to declare," but that doesn't mean we let the mother kill her.

Because the law already extends rights to born persons that prevent it. 

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I disagree.  End-of-life decisions are all "downstream" from an acknowledgment of Person B's personhood.

I would say abortion is upstream of it. Like I said, this is about "life" not being a monolithic trump card.

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I submit that abortion is "downstream" from an acknowledgment of the baby's personhood.

That doesn't accord with our society's prototypical conceptualization of personhood. 

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Okay.  "Life" is an integral part of personhood.  I'll go along with that.

Pretty much the same thing could have been said about slaves prior to the Civil War.  Slaves were "conceptualized as a different entity" than non-slaves, and such that non-slaves experienced "a vastly different type of 'life'" than a slave.

But we were wrong about that, correct?  We were wrong to conceptualize slaves as nonpersons.  We corrected that conceptualization.  We can do the same with in utero babies.

But Black people were not always conceptualized that way. A specific socio-economic framework had to arise in which they were went from full personhood to qualified personhood. Abortion has always been practiced to one degree or another, and full personhood has never been extended all the way to pre-conception. 

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1 hour ago, Dan McClellan said:
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But not under the law.  Animals can't vote, aren't obligated to pay taxes, etc.

But they are afforded certain protections that are based on a degree of personhood.

CFR, please.  I am not aware of any constitutional rights attaching to animals.  I am also not aware of animals being given "a degree of personhood" under the law.  (Edit to add: I take this back.  I have heard of bequests to animals in a will being upheld in the law, though I am open to correction on this point.)

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You can stomp on a snake or a cockroach without consequence, but you can't stomp a dog to death. 

Again, CFR that such laws are "based on {animals being granted under the law} a degree of personhood."

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But they are not afforded constitutional rights.

They can have many rights. It's a fuzzy boundary, like I said. 

Again, CFR that animals have "rights."  Which ones?

And if we can extend constitutional rights to animals, why not in utero babies?

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I disagree with some of this, but in the main I agree that racism is still a problem in the U.S.  Nevertheless, the law recognizes people of all races as persons.

Does it mean anything for the law to recognize it if it's not enforced?

But it is enforced.  Not perfectly, but it is enforced.  The law recognizes people of all races as persons.  

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Of the two rights (live v. privacy), which is more fundamental?

The former is expressly protected under the Constitution, whereas the latter is not.

Depends. It's not unilateral, as I pointed out with the example of harvesting organs. 

The example where the personhood of both individuals is assumed, right?

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Slaveholders would disagree with you about that.  They certainly felt that their rights were imperiled by recognizing the personhood of black people.  And they were right to be concerned.  Under the law, black people as chattel/property allowed slaveholders to exercise dominion over slaves, whereas black people as persons deprived slaveholders of these property rights.

A valid point point (slaves were more "persons" than are fetuses according to prototypical conceptualizations), but the right to own slaves as property and the right to the privacy of one's own body are not even remotely comparable rights.

One could just as easily say that "the right to live and the right to privacy are not even remotely comparable rights."

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Moreover, the "abortion is okay because the baby's right to live is infringing on the right of the mother" can be rebutted with "abortion is not okay because the mother's right to abortion is infringing on the baby's right to live."

But as currently read, the Constitutional right to privacy takes priority over a qualified right to life. 

I acknowledge that.  I am proposing that we change that.

For a long time, the Constitutional right to property held by slave owners took priority over the slaves' rights to life and liberty.  But we changed that.

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Yes, it would.  We did some of this restructuring for black people, so why not for babies?

Because the right to privacy is worth preserving. The right to own people was not. 

The rights to life and liberty are also "worth preserving."

And the slave owner's "right" pertains to the right to hold property.  That is certainly worth preserving, yes?  But in the end the property rights of slave owners were superseded by the slaves' rights to life and liberty.

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Pro-abortionists are arguing backwards from a dogmatic position.  It's just rationalization.

I entirely disagree.

I figured.  I entirely disagreed with your assertion, which is why I repeated it.  But it so happens that I think my invocation of it is more apt.  Slave owners had a "dogmatic position" pertaining to their property rights.  This allowed them to rationalize their ownership of other human beings.  It allowed them to "argue backwards" from owning other human beings.

But in the end, they were wrong.  Their dogmatic position was wrong.  Slaves were persons, not merely property.  Downstream rationalizations centered on "property rights" didn't work.

In the end, I think the pro-abortion crowd's dogmatic position is wrong.  In utero babies are persons, not merely "clumps of cells" or parasites.  Downstream rationalizations centered on "privacy rights" do not, for me, work.

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I was long opposed to abortion, and after reading as much of the research and the law as I could, I became convinced that my position was irrational.

I have done the same thing, but I have come very much to the opposite conclusion.

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I find the act abhorrent, personally, but I cannot argue against the facts. 

What "facts" are you referencing here?

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The difference is that those opposed to abortion have, I think, the better moral argument.

I disagree.

I'm okay with that.  I appreciate your willingness to discuss this topic.  It's difficult, but we're pretty much staying civil and courteous.  Thanks for that.

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I think one has to marginalize the agency of women quite significantly to feel like imposing such burdens on them is a more moral action,

The "burden" of pregnancy is not imposed on women by society.  It's the foreseeable consequence of their volitional behavior.

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which is why the anti-abortion argument finds primary purchase among groups that have historically marginalized the agency of women and acted as agents for the marginalization of women.

Around 50% of women are "pro-life," so this characterization doesn't really work for me.

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I'd be open to that, certainly.  

I agree.  So let's change the law.

Lotta deadbeats out there who make up the base of the anti-abortion camp who wouldn't be so open to it, but the point is that the argument for the extension of full personhood is arbitrary and capricious.

No, it's not.

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Right.  Just like abortion laws establish a threshold that applies to everyone.

You're ignoring my point. What is arbitrary in the example you provided was the temporal threshold, and it is arbitrary out of necessity. The arbitrariness that would attend deciding which rights would enjoin the extension of full personhood to a fetus is not necessary (since it's just a function of not sincerely wanting to consider a fetus fully a person, but just to transfer a single constituent right to the fetus) and is fundamentally different. 

I think extending (recognizing, really) personhood for in utero babies is necessary.  As necessary as it was to extending (recognizing, really) personhood for black people.

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I agree with you.  So let's change the law.

I'm not arguing that we should change the law,

Okay.  But I am.

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I'm pointing out how little the implications of extending personhood to fetuses have been considered, since it is an entirely arbitrary and capricious suggestion.

To paragraph Inigo Montoya: You keep using those words ("arbitrary and capricious").  I do not think they mean what you think they mean.

Was freeing the slaves and granting them rights under the Constitution "arbitrary and capricious?"  Nope.  Neither, I submit, would granting such rights to babies in utero.

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Me: If the government is going to impose a principled-but-still-somewhat-arbitrary distinction about personhood, about the right to life, then I would prefer that the distinction favor life.

You: Over and against the Constitutional rights of the pregnant woman?

Me: To some extent, yes.

The majority of Americans (and particularly women) disagree with you that women's rights should be marginalized.

Please don't misrepresent my position.  I acknowledge the significance of women's rights.  I also recognize the significance of the rights of in utero babies.

To ultimately find one very important right (the baby's ennumerated right to life/liberty) more important than another (the mother's non-ennumerated right to privacy) is not to "marginalize" the latter.

Moreover, Gallup has the split on abortion within the margin of error (48% of women self-identify "pro-choice," and 47% self-identify as "pro-life").  The total overall is an even split (48% each), not a "majority."  Do you similarly disparage 47% of women for their pro-life stance?   

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That when balancing the right to life versus other constitutional rights, the latter is more important.

But the example I provided shows that that is not how the Constitution sees it.

That is how a bare majority (this is, five out of nine) Supreme Court Justices saw it.  In 1992.  From Wikipedia (emphasis added):

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At the conference of the Justices two days after oral argument, Justice David Souter defied expectations, joining Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, John Paul Stevens, and Harry Blackmun, who had all dissented three years earlier in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services with regard to that plurality's suggested reconsideration and narrowing of Roe. This resulted in a precarious five Justice majority consisting of Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Byron White, Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, and Clarence Thomas that favored upholding all five contested abortion restrictions. However, Justice Kennedy changed his mind shortly thereafter and joined with fellow Reagan-Bush justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter to write a plurality opinion that would reaffirm Roe.

And again, I think this was, and is, a states rights issue.  

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But you're only proving my point.  You're speaking of the right to life of the first person versus the right to live of the second.  Abortion hardly ever involves such a contest.

I think you misunderstand. I'm speaking of the right to PRIVACY of the first person, who is already dead. As I quite clearly pointed out, the right to life of a living person does not even supersede a DECEASED person's right to PRIVACY.

Ah.  I mis-read your post.  My apologies.

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It does not, and there are a lot of laws you'd have to overturn in order to have it your way.

Yes.  A lot of laws needed to be changed when the slaves were freed, too.  A hassle, to be sure, but I think the freed slaves thought the paperwork and effort was worthwhile.

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The right to life does not supersede a deceased person's right to privacy.

The long history of the interpretation of multiple Constitutional rights by the Supreme Court disagrees with you.

Kinda sorta.  Have you read Planned Parenthood v. Casey?  Again from Wikipedia:

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The Court overturned the Roe trimester framework in favor of a viability analysis, thereby allowing states to implement abortion restrictions that apply during the first trimester of pregnancy. The Court also replaced the strict scrutiny standard of review required by Roe with the undue burden standard, under which abortion restrictions would be unconstitutional when they were enacted for "the purpose or effect of placing a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion of a nonviable fetus."

How is it that abortion is not an unfettered constitutional right?  Doesn't your viewpoint demand that?  But Casey allows restrictions on abortion.  

Again, I submit that the right to privacy (which isn't ennumerated in the Constitution) is less important than the right to life (which is).  Casey allows for this rationale, provided that restrictions can meet the "undue burden" standard.

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The right to life, yes.  Isn't that the most fundamental of all constitutional rights?

But there's absolutely no precedent anywhere for that. 

Then let's create one.  If we could establish a precedent for granting personhood to slaves, why can't we do it for in utero babies?

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Then let's do it in increments.  Let's start with granting them rights under the 14th Amendment to not be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.  Then let's add more as they get older.

Again, this is an arbitrary and unprecedented compartmentalization of rights.

Granting personhood to slaves was not "arbitrary."  And yes, it was "unprecedented," but it was still worthwhile.

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On what grounds should we overturn settled law and infringe on privacy rights to satisfy a disingenuous argument about the full extension of personhood with only a limited extension of rights? 

The same grounds we used to overturn settled law pertaining to slaves.  Granting personhood to the slaves massively infringed on the property rights of the slave owners.

And what is this "disingenouous" stuff?  We have been communicating quite cordially, so why are you now making a nasty (and false) accusation?

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And since that threshold differentiates a baby's right to life versus not having that right, it's a pretty important threshold.  So let's put that threshold at conception.

Which is a completely arbitrary threshold

No, it's not.  And if it is, it is less arbitrary that the alternative candidates for "threshold" (viability, first breath, etc.).

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that entirely dismisses the pregnant woman's right to privacy

No.

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and isn't even really accurate.

I don't know what you mean here.

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Conception can take a range of days to take place, and it certainly doesn't happen immediately after sex, which makes the anti-abortion crowd's unilateral opposition to morning after pills (emergency contraception), which function entirely and exclusively to prevent fertilization, a violation of their own rhetoric, since it stops pregnancy even before the threshold of life. 

Fertilization, then.  The zygote.  How's that for a threshold?

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Yes.  I am suggesting that we move the threshold.

Which would reduce the Constitutional rights of women.

And freeing the slaves reduced the Constitutional rights of slave owners.  And yet it was still a necessary thing to do.

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I submit that if we are going to be arbitrary, let's do so in a way that preserves the most fundamental constitutional right: the right to live.

While infringing on the rights of women who have full access to all Constitutional rights as born persons?

Yes.  Both are entitled to Constitutional rights.  But if these rights conflict, if we need to choose one over the other, I submit that the right to life and liberty (which are ennumerated rights) predominate over the right to privacy (which is not an ennumerated right).

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You've still not adequately addressed the fact that the Constitution already protects those rights against the right to life of others. 

I'm not sure what you are saying here.

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First, I don't think conception is an arbitrary threshold.

Second, at some point the "rights of others" (the mother's rights) fail to supersede the rights of the baby.  You acknowledge this, right?  The whole viability thing?  So the quesiton is what is that point?  Rather than using a vague and malleable standard like "viability," let's use conception.

But that's also vague and malleable.

Not nearly as "vague and malleable" as "viability" or "first breath."

Let's go with fertilization.  A zygote.

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Conception does not happen immediately upon ejaculation. It can take a range of several days to take place. We answer the question of what point by balancing the woman's right to privacy.

We also answered questions about slave owners' property rights by balancing the slaves' right to life and liberty.  In the end, the latter rights had to take precedence over the former rights.

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So did freeing the slaves.  The slave's right to freedom trumped the slaveholder's right to property.

A consistent prioritization across the Constitution. As we have seen, the Constitution also already determines that another's right to life cannot infringe upon my right to privacy over my own body. 

Yes, it can.  Again, I encourage you to read Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The question is not if the government can create laws that infringe on a woman's right to abortion.  The question is one of timing and degree.

And I'm proposing that we change that.  If babies are persons, they are entitled to protection under the Constitution.

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And we already concede that there is a point at which the baby's right to life can supersede the woman's right to "privacy."  The question is where that point is located.

And the question has already been adequately answered in a way that weighs the competing rights.

With respect, I disagree.  Hence this discussion.

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No adequate argument has been made for why that point is problematic,

The personhood of a fetus is as important and relevant to Constitutional protections as the personhood of a freed slave.

That argument is adequate for me.  Apparently not for you, and I'm okay with that.

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and the simple fact that conception has a slightly smaller margin for error is not reason enough to infringe upon the woman's rights, especially since the desired threshold (immediately following ejaculation) actually doesn't match the rhetoric ("conception," or the beginning of life). 

Again, let's go with fertilization/zygote.

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I'm not speaking of evangelical opposition.  Roe was, from a legal perspectively, very poorly reasoned.  Even the pro-abortion crowd acknowedges this.  And the law of the land now is Planned Parenthood v. Casey, anyway.

I was speaking of evangelical opposition when I said, "it's only been since the mid-seventies, when evangelical leaders decided to make abortion the standard under which it would muster the religious right to frustrate government attempts to desegregate their schools, that our particular society has slowly built of the nerve to attempt to popularize a black and white notion of full personhood at conception." Your response was "Actually, it was the Supreme Court that did that."

Ah.  Okay.

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But because this arbitrary and capricious argument immediately infringes upon the Constitutional rights of women, it goes right back to being a federal issue.

You are really wearing out the "arbitrary and capricious" thing.  This thread has included a number of substantive and reasoned and defensible arguments for my position.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited by smac97
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7 hours ago, california boy said:

A very even-handed response.  I don't think anyone argues that a fertilized egg isn't life.  The only debate is when the spirit enters the body.  Without a spirit, then there is no mortal existence.  The human body is just a receptacle for the spirit.  

Now if anyone knows for certain when the spirit enters the body, then I am all ears.  And when that religious belief becomes scientific fact then hand me the protest sign and count me in.  Until then, this decision and belief has to be left up to each individual because the Constitution demands that.

I think this is fairly complex though since clearly some laws limiting abortion are constitutional. Further I think many might say Roe v Wade, regardless of what one thinks of it as policy, is a problematically decided ruling in terms of reasons. (Not that that matters given the political dimension of the court) Further whether one thinks it should be left up to the individual or not is orthogonal to the quesiton of its morality. There have been many deeply immoral practices allowed legally throughout US history.

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48 minutes ago, Dan McClellan said:
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Not at all.  There are a number of substantive differences between end-of-life decisions and abortion.  The consent of the individual is often at the forefront.

Of course there are a number of differences, but the main point is that "life" is not some trump card the presence of which overrules all other considerations.

We freed the slaves and granted them personhood and rights under the Constitution, even though doing so "overrule{d} all other considerations."

So perhaps we can grant personhood to in utero babies, too, even though similar ramifications could be in play.

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The consent is often at the forefront, but even when consent cannot be given, there are circumstances in which family is given authority to end life.

I acknowledge that.  But that authority still presumes the personhood of the patient.

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I think that argument can be sustained, though.

I've not seen it done justice, and as I pointed out in my previous post, the anti-abortion rhetoric is inarguably and explicitly aimed at preventing abortive measures even before the possibility of life beginning. This simply is not about life. 

I disagree.  It is very much about life.

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Sure they do.  Try telling a drowning person that he has no preference to breathe.

A drowning person is not a fetus.

And a slave was not a person.  Until he was.

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Moreover, a three-day old baby also has "no preferences to declare," but that doesn't mean we let the mother kill her.

Because the law already extends rights to born persons that prevent it. 

So let's extend rights to the unborn.  That's my point.

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I disagree.  End-of-life decisions are all "downstream" from an acknowledgment of Person B's personhood.

I would say abortion is upstream of it.

Only because the pro-abortion crowd ignores or rejects the personhood of in utero babies.  Similarly, slave owners insisted on keeping their property rights "upstream" from the personhood of the slaves.  I think both positions are wrong.

So let me clarify that abortion should be downstream from an acknowledgment of the baby's personhood.

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Like I said, this is about "life" not being a monolithic trump card.

I think the life/liberty rights of the child supersede the privacy rights of the mother.

I also think the life/liberty rights of slaves superseded the property rights of the slave owners.

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I submit that abortion is "downstream" from an acknowledgment of the baby's personhood.

That doesn't accord with our society's prototypical conceptualization of personhood. 

And recognizing the personhood of slaves didn't accord with antebellum society's "prototypical conceptualization of personhood."  And yet we did it anyway.

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Okay.  "Life" is an integral part of personhood.  I'll go along with that.

Pretty much the same thing could have been said about slaves prior to the Civil War.  Slaves were "conceptualized as a different entity" than non-slaves, and such that non-slaves experienced "a vastly different type of 'life'" than a slave.

But we were wrong about that, correct?  We were wrong to conceptualize slaves as nonpersons.  We corrected that conceptualization.  We can do the same with in utero babies.

But Black people were not always conceptualized that way.

So what?  Conceptualizations are not set in stone.  We can change them if we want to.

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A specific socio-economic framework had to arise in which they were went from full personhood to qualified personhood.

Yes.  And that framework severely injured the property rights and financial interests of the former slave owners.  But we did it anyway.

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Abortion has always been practiced to one degree or another,

And slavery has always been practiced to one degree or another. 

Rape has always happened to one degree or another.  And murder.  And theft.  And so on.

Surely you would not suggest that longevity, by itself, conveys legitimacy/morality?

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and full personhood has never been extended all the way to pre-conception. 

So let's change that.

On a side note, I am curious as to your position on the innovation of same-sex marriage. 

Did you oppose it because marriage "w{as} not always conceptualized that way?" 

Did you oppose it because allowing it would require the creation of "a specific socio-economic framework?" 

Did you oppose it because heterosexual marriage "has always been practiced to one degree or another?"

Did you oppose it because it lacked precedent?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited by smac97
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21 minutes ago, smac97 said:

And yet we still agree on those "moral calls," even if they are not "unproven and unprovable."

Well, the majority agree on them...until they agree on something else, at least. 

 

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We agree that a one-day-old baby is a "person," yes? 

Legally, yes. 

 

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And that it is immoral to kill that baby?

Usually.

However, I can think of (admittedly, very rare) cases in which I might be willing to agree that it is morally acceptable to either allow an infant to die or to deliberately, humanely end his life. 

 

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I wouldn't differentiate the basis for "these judgments" as you do. 

Fair enough. 

 

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I think these judgments rest on both "the scientific or social facts as such" and "on moral judgment calls about how one evaluates these facts."

But scientific facts, in and of themselves, don't tell us anything about whether something is right or wrong.

Ultimately, it is how we evaluate the facts in light of our moral judgment that governs how we behave and what kinds of laws we enact. 

 

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2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Agree, except there are no moral "facts" even upon which to base anything.

We would just then argue if whatever criteria we chose for brain maturation etc was morally "right"

It just moves the subjective decision up or down a notch, but the answer still remains debatable. ;)

 

I don't think I referred to moral facts, so I think we actually might be in complete agreement. ;) 

 

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4 minutes ago, Amulek said:
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We agree that a one-day-old baby is a "person," yes? 

Legally, yes. 

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And that it is immoral to kill that baby?

Usually.

However, I can think of (admittedly, very rare) cases in which I might be willing to agree that it is morally acceptable to either allow an infant to die or to deliberately, humanely end his life. 

Same here.  I think there are also rare cases where abortion could be morally acceptable.

4 minutes ago, Amulek said:

But scientific facts, in and of themselves, don't tell us anything about whether something is right or wrong.

But they help us develop an informed and reasoned basis for deciding "whether something is right or wrong."

4 minutes ago, Amulek said:

Ultimately, it is how we evaluate the facts in light of our moral judgment that governs how we behave and what kinds of laws we enact. 

Agreed.

Thanks,

-Smac

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2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Agree, except there are no moral "facts" even upon which to base anything.

Murder is wrong.  Rape is wrong.  Slavery is wrong.

Are these moral statements, or a factual ones?  Or is it both?

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

We would just then argue if whatever criteria we chose for brain maturation etc was morally "right"

It just moves the subjective decision up or down a notch, but the answer still remains debatable. ;)

I dunno.  I think there are some things that are beyond the parameters of reasoned and principled disagreement.

Thanks,

-Smac

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3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

This cannot in principle happen

Religious / moral beliefs are about what should be, while science purports to be about "what is", free of moral implications.

The world described by science doesn't care if mankind exists or not, or if this planet becomes a cloud of dust, much less worrying about the fetuses of one species over another.

When does a canine fetus become a "dog"? When does it take on "puppiness"?

This is a totally arbitrary subjective human decision in which science becomes irrelevant.

As a moral decision, a consensus covering all of humanity will never be found, and belief that it can be based on scientific evidence is a logical category mistake

 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_mistake

And that is exactly my point.  Since there is no scientific way of determining when a spirit enters the body, deciding when that happens is totally a matter of personal belief.  And since it is solely a personal belief, then I personally don't see the right of any group to impose their personal belief on others.  The Supreme Court ruled correctly.  The only vote that matters on this issue is the mothers.  

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1 hour ago, Dan McClellan said:

That doesn't accord with our society's prototypical conceptualization of personhood. 

Which is automatically "infalliby correct"?

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Here is something to think about - Many people have been convicted and found guilty in the murder of an unborn child (stabbing the pregnant mother in the uterus).  

Does anyone disagree with those convictions?  Doesn’t it seem like a double standard to suggest that it is murder if the death of the child was unwillingly inflicted upon the baby and mother, but perfectly legal and moral if the death of the child is wanted and initiated by the mother?

Should it be considered legal and moral it the mom wants to kill the baby for any reason, but considered murder if someone else does?  Why should the child be considered in one scenario and not the other?

 Does that not seem messed up to anyone else?

 

Edited by pogi
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11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Murder is wrong.  Rape is wrong.  Slavery is wrong.

Are these moral statements, or a factual ones?  Or is it both?

I dunno.  I think there are some things that are beyond the parameters of reasoned and principled disagreement.

Thanks,

-Smac

As you know what is a "fact" is determined by the Trier of facts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trier_of_fact

That doesn't help your argument in times like these. 

Edited by mfbukowski
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7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:
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Murder is wrong.  Rape is wrong.  Slavery is wrong.

Are these moral statements, or a factual ones?  Or is it both?

I dunno.  I think there are some things that are beyond the parameters of reasoned and principled disagreement.

Thanks,

-Smac

As you know what is a "fact" is determined by the Trier of facts. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trier_of_fact

In a litigation context, yes.

But when crafting legislation, I could see some things so well-established as to be axiomatically "factual."  Malum in se is an illustration of this idea.  You would be hard-pressed to claim that "rape is wrong" is only a matter of opinion, and not a "fact."

IMHO.

Thanks,

-Smac

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5 minutes ago, pogi said:

Here is something to think about - Many people have been convicted and found guilty in the murder of an unborn child (stabbing the pregnant mother in the uterus).  

Does anyone disagree with those convictions?  Doesn’t it seem like a double standard to suggest that it is murder if the death of the child was unwillingly inflicted upon the baby and mother, but perfectly legal and moral if the death of the child is wanted and initiated by the mother?

Should it be considered legal and moral it the mom wants to kill the baby for any reason, but considered murder if someone else does?  Why should the child be considered in one scenario and not the other?

 Does that not seem messed up to anyone else?

 

Yeah, but whatcha gonna do aboutit?😠 ;)

 

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3 minutes ago, smac97 said:

In a litigation context, yes.

But when crafting legislation, I could see some things so well-established as to be axiomatically "factual."  Malum in se is an illustration of this idea.  You would be hard-pressed to claim that "rape is wrong" is only a matter of opinion, and not a "fact."

IMHO.

Thanks,

-Smac

I agree but that argument would not fly today

If the topic of discussion was rape, you would get back comments saying that even rape is normal In some tribal cultures, when women in one's own tribe are not available.

The belief is that every judgment should be based on scientific evidence. Of course that's a ridiculous belief but that is the predominant belief today. 

Malum in se I think would not work, and clearly it does not apply in the case of abortion. We are going against popular culture here.

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2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I agree but that argument would not fly today

If the topic of discussion was rape, you would get back comments saying that even rape is normal In some tribal cultures, when women in one's own tribe are not available.

CFR, if you please.  I could see people explaning the existence of rape, but not denying that it is wrong.

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

The belief is that every judgment should be based on scientific evidence. Of course that's a ridiculous belief but that is the predominant belief today. 

Malum in se I think would not work, and clearly it does not apply in the case of abortion. We are going against popular culture here.

I know.  So let's see what we can do to change popular culture.  Through persuasion.

Thanks,

-Smac

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38 minutes ago, california boy said:

And that is exactly my point.  Since there is no scientific way of determining when a spirit enters the body, deciding when that happens is totally a matter of personal belief.  And since it is solely a personal belief, then I personally don't see the right of any group to impose their personal belief on others.  The Supreme Court ruled correctly.  The only vote that matters on this issue is the mothers.  

I don't see how that follows. Again my analogy to shooting into a box without checking to see if a person is inside. Not being able to check is not a justification to shoot. Instead it is a justification that you shouldn't shoot. To say that it should be up to the shooter since anyone else doesn't know either strikes me as a deeply problematic argument.

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