Roe v. Wade Potentially Dead

[Ragerunner]

36 minutes ago, teddyaware said:

With all the exceptions to the no abortion rule being advocated on this thread, I have honest question: In light of the highly unusual circumstances surrounding Mary’s first pregnancy and the extreme power imbalance that existed between her and God the Father, would Mary have been justified had she aborted Jesus, and would the act not be considered a sin? 

Are you kidding? Her pregnancy was unlike any other pregnancy on earth, ever.

Many of the exceptions discussed hear are about the life and health of the mother, incest, rape etc. which many states are looking to not allow. (Which are current options under the church’s current position.)

I think you comment is very offensive.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Ragerunner

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

Which means we must trust women's judgement about aborting a child.

Only within certain parameters.  My point was that we don't believe in absolute liberty. I don't see any reason to just trust a woman's judgment in regards to ending the life of another. 

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

What in your mind is an acceptable reason for an abortion, asking because you're more knowledgeable than me, for sure. 

I agree with the church's position on this one.  

Extreme measures for extreme circumstances only. 

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by pogi

[mtomm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Where "mitigate the consequences" means "end the life of another person," that sort of mitigation may not be available.

Treating lung cancer does not entail the elective killing of another person.

Here's my take: Absent force, coercion or deceit, an unexpected/unwanted pregnancy is a natural and foreseeable consequence of engaging in sexual activity, and when we ignore that we A) infantilize women (and men), and B) dehumanize the unborn child (by, for example, comparing her to lung cancer, STDs, etc.).  Apart from the foregoing circumstances, the risk of pregnancy is an inherent part of coitus.  And when that risk actualizes, there is at that point another life, another person, that is part of the equation, or ought to be.  

Comparing an unborn child to lung cancer, STDs, etc. is a poor analogy.  It dehumanizes the child and disregards the fact that his life is at stake.  Nevertheless, the issue you raise about "self-inflicted conditions" merits some attention.  To that end, I offer the following analogy: Back in 2019 the Utah Supreme Court published a decision that may have some utility (emphases added):

An injury arising from "actions {that} are inherent in the game of basketball" does not give rise to a legal claim.

The risk of injury is part of the game of basketball.  If you want to avoid such risks, don't play the game.  I am not diminishing the seriousness of a knee injury (my father suffered a knee injury in his youth while playing football, and it has adversely affected the entirety of his life since then).  But if such an unintentional - but nevertheless foreseeable - injury were to happen to a player today in Utah, the player would not have legal recourse.  He must cope with the injury as best he can.  

If women (and men) want to avoid the risk of an unwanted pregnancy, they have the option of not "playing the game."  If they do decide to play the game, and if a risk "inherent in the activity" actually comes to pass, then the law may limit what sorts of legal remedies are available to address that actualized risk.

Now that it appears SCOTUS is returning this issue to the states to decide (where it should have been for the last half century), we will see a variety of approaches to addressing this issue.  Some approaches will work better than others.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Well, there goes the equal protection clause. 

[smac97]

27 minutes ago, mtomm said:

Quote

Now that it appears SCOTUS is returning this issue to the states to decide (where it should have been for the last half century), we will see a variety of approaches to addressing this issue.  Some approaches will work better than others.

Well, there goes the equal protection clause. 

How do you figure?  

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

53 minutes ago, pogi said:

Only within certain parameters.  My point was that we don't believe in absolute liberty.

It bears emphasis that even under Roe there were constraints on abortion:

Quote

Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973),^[1] was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.

Note that it does not say "without any government restriction."

Quote

In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in McCorvey's favor ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether to have an abortion. It also ruled that this right is not absolute and must be balanced against governments' interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life.^[4][5] The Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother.^[5] The Court classified the right to choose to have an abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the highest level of judicial review in the United States.^[6]

Roe never created an unfettered "absolute" right to abortion. 

Ironically, the pending decision from SCOTUS could make abortion laws in some jurisdictions nearly "absolute."  California, for example, seems to be headed toward an everything-up-to-and-possibly-even-including-infanticide approach.

53 minutes ago, pogi said:

I don't see any reason to just trust a woman's judgment in regards to ending the life of another. 

I agree with the church's position on this one.  

Extreme measures for extreme circumstances only. 

Same here.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

This just in from . . . The Satanic Temple:

-Smac

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

Where "mitigate the consequences" means "end the life of another person," that sort of mitigation may not be available.

Treating lung cancer does not entail the elective killing of another person.

Here's my take: Absent force, coercion or deceit, an unexpected/unwanted pregnancy is a natural and foreseeable consequence of engaging in sexual activity, and when we ignore that we A) infantilize women (and men), and B) dehumanize the unborn child (by, for example, comparing her to lung cancer, STDs, etc.).  Apart from the foregoing circumstances, the risk of pregnancy is an inherent part of coitus.  And when that risk actualizes, there is at that point another life, another person, that is part of the equation, or ought to be.  

Comparing an unborn child to lung cancer, STDs, etc. is a poor analogy.  It dehumanizes the child and disregards the fact that his life is at stake.  Nevertheless, the issue you raise about "self-inflicted conditions" merits some attention.  To that end, I offer the following analogy: Back in 2019 the Utah Supreme Court published a decision that may have some utility (emphases added):

An injury arising from "actions {that} are inherent in the game of basketball" does not give rise to a legal claim.

The risk of injury is part of the game of basketball.  If you want to avoid such risks, don't play the game.  I am not diminishing the seriousness of a knee injury (my father suffered a knee injury in his youth while playing football, and it has adversely affected the entirety of his life since then).  But if such an unintentional - but nevertheless foreseeable - injury were to happen to a player today in Utah, the player would not have legal recourse.  He must cope with the injury as best he can.  

If women (and men) want to avoid the risk of an unwanted pregnancy, they have the option of not "playing the game."  If they do decide to play the game, and if a risk "inherent in the activity" actually comes to pass, then the law may limit what sorts of legal remedies are available to address that actualized risk.

Now that it appears SCOTUS is returning this issue to the states to decide (where it should have been for the last half century), we will see a variety of approaches to addressing this issue.  Some approaches will work better than others.

Thanks,

-Smac

 

Bravo! 👌

[Analytics]

5 hours ago, Nofear said:

We mortals lack the ability to mitigate dead. An aborted fetus is a dead fetus. As you know, many consider abortion tantamount to murder. Even if one doesn't equate the two (I don't), the idea of allowing one the liberty of changing one's mind does not necessarily mitigate the moral obligation to the potential human. Those that would argue for uninhibited right to abortion must also argue that the mother has no moral obligation to the potential human or that any moral obligation that is present is inferior to the whim of the mother.

I don't follow your argument here. One can argue that having an abortion ought to be a legal right without getting into the nuances of whether exercising that right in a particular circumstance is moral or not.

An analogy that comes to mind is somebody needing a kidney transplant, and you being the perfect donor. If you go through the extremely painful, inconvenient, relatively dangerous, and temporarily debilitating process of donating a kidney, he lives. If you don't, he dies.

Should you have the legal obligation to save this person's life? After all, it's a human life!

Do you have the moral obligation to save their life?

Those are two different questions.

[mtomm]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

How do you figure?  

Thanks,

-Smac

Women and men both engage in the same act to create a baby. Women are the only ones who are subjected to the health or life risks and the economic consequences of a pregnancy. When we tell a woman she has no choice but to accept those risks you have disadvantaged her because of her sex. 

[Analytics]

5 hours ago, bluebell said:

I always thought this was the dumbest analogy ever for abortion (it was very popular in my philosophy classes in college), because it’s only relevant to people who get pregnant due to rape.

For those pregnancies that happen because people had sex irresponsibly, it’s not relevant at all.

It reminds me of the joke where a man walked into a bar and hypothetically asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. She says well, for a million dollars, sure. He then asks if she'd sleep with him for fifty bucks. Insulted, she asks, "What kind of a woman do you think I am?!" to which he replies, "We've already established what kind of a woman you are. Now we're just haggling over price."

My point is that if we concede that it is morally acceptable for society to give a rape survivor the choice of whether or not to carry to term a baby from a rape, we are conceding that the rights of embryos and fetuses are different than the rights of biologically self-sufficient human beings. If a rape survivor may legally abort a pregnancy because carrying it to term would be detrimental to her own wellbeing, why shouldn't other women have the same choice if they determine that carrying to term other pregnancies would be determinantal to their wellbeing? 

[jkwilliams]

3 hours ago, bluebell said:

I didn't say anything about rights or personhood, and that was intentional. 

It's a scientific fact that abortion ends a life.  Different ideologies disagree about whether or not that life has a right to continue to live, but science is clear.  It is "living" at the point that it is aborted.  Abortion kills it.

And my point stands.  You asked why we don't see the same pushback from attempts to mitigate negative consequences from bad choices except for abortion. I provided an example that shows it's not just abortion that is seen in that light.  If STDs could only be treated by taking a leg from a shelter cat, you'd get pushback on treating STDs as well (probably more pushback that you get for abortion from some sectors). 

Humans generally start to pushback against mitigating consequences for bad choices when that mitigation negatively affects other innocent living things; it doesn't really matter what the topic is.  And the affected living thing doesn't even have to be human.  Our sense of "justice" is generally piqued under those conditions, and mercy for the inflicted gets weighed against mercy for the one their choices will inflict.  We might collectively be willing to cut down a sequoia to cure every kid who has leukemia, but try to get us to collectively agree to cut down a sequoia to save someone who has cirrhosis of the liver from drinking and you'd have a fight on your hands.

 

 

You are quite right. A better analogy would be treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, which current law in my state makes a felony. By unresolvable, I simply mean we are never going to come to any kind of consensus on this issue. Given this lack of agreement, I prefer to err on the side of individual rights over state control. 

But I should have taken my own advice. No one is going to change their mind here, and it’s pointless to argue about it. I’m hopeful that at some future date, there will be enough of a backlash against the draconian no-exceptions laws being passed today that we will eventually see reasonable compromise. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

[pogi]

50 minutes ago, Analytics said:

An analogy that comes to mind is somebody needing a kidney transplant, and you being the perfect donor. If you go through the extremely painful, inconvenient, relatively dangerous, and temporarily debilitating process of donating a kidney, he lives. If you don't, he dies.

Should you have the legal obligation to save this person's life? After all, it's a human life!

Do you have the moral obligation to save their life?

Those are two different questions.

One is dealing with saving a life from a terminal illness and the other is dealing with deliberately killing a life who has no terminal condition.   I'm pretty sure those are not legal equivalents. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by pogi

[pogi]

39 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My point is that if we concede that it is morally acceptable for society to give a rape survivor the choice of whether or not to carry to term a baby from a rape, we are conceding that the rights of embryos and fetuses are different than the rights of biologically self-sufficient human beings. If a rape survivor may legally abort a pregnancy because carrying it to term would be detrimental to her own wellbeing, why shouldn't other women have the same choice if they determine that carrying to term other pregnancies would be determinantal to their wellbeing? 

The rape survivor's choice is being restored because that choice was deprived from her in the first place - she never consented.  Not so for others. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by pogi

[Analytics]

4 minutes ago, pogi said:

One is dealing with saving a life from a terminal illness and the other is dealing with deliberately killing a life who has no terminal condition.   The right to life protects us from being killed, it does not require that our lives be preserved from disease.  

That seems like a pretty arbitrary place to draw the line. Why shouldn't we have the moral obligation to save the life of another if we have the power to do so?

But even if you draw the line there, an embryo does have a terminal condition and can't survive without the help of another any more than the person with failed kidneys. Maybe an embryo has the "right to life" in some abstract way, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has the right to reside in another human's body for nine months.

[Analytics]

6 minutes ago, pogi said:

The rape survivor's choice is being restored because that choice was deprived from her in the first place - she never consented.  Not so for others. 

That proves my point. By your reasoning, the rape survivor's choice is more important than the fetus's alleged "right to life." That is conceding that the fetus's "right to life" is not paramount and that at least some things pertaining to the wellbeing of the mother are more important.

[smac97]

26 minutes ago, mtomm said:

Women and men both engage in the same act to create a baby.

Okay.

26 minutes ago, mtomm said:

Women are the only ones who are subjected to the health or life risks and the economic consequences of a pregnancy.

These are matters of biology, not the Equal Protection Clause.

The EP Clause

Quote

is part of the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The clause, which took effect in 1868, provides "nor shall any State ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws". It mandates that individuals in similar situations be treated equally by the law.
...

1.  Failinger, Marie (2009). "Equal protection of the laws". In Schultz, David Andrew (ed.). The Encyclopedia of American Law. Infobase. pp. 152–53. ISBN 9781438109916. Archived from the original on July 24, 2020. The equal protection clause guarantees the right of "similarly situated" people to be treated the same way by the law.

How is this law implicated?  As a preliminary matter, are a biological male and a biological female similarly situated vis-à-vis pregnancy?  It seems not since men cannot get pregnant.  So if they are not "similarly situated," how is the Equal Protection Clause implicated?

26 minutes ago, mtomm said:

When we tell a woman she has no choice but to accept those risks you have disadvantaged her because of her sex. 

What are your thoughts about the father of the unborn child being disadvantaged because of his sex?  The child is his, but he has essentially no say in whether it is carried to term or not.  If the mother wishes to abort, there's nothing he can do about it.  And if she wants to carry the child to term and give birth, he's on the hook for child support.

In the end, I don't think the father and the mother are "similarly situated" for the purposes of the Equal Protection Clause.  Do you disagree?

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

That seems like a pretty arbitrary place to draw the line. Why shouldn't we have the moral obligation to save the life of another if we have the power to do so?

Some claim that their kidney donation was a moral choice.  It was not a legal choice though.  We don't imprison people for not donating a kidney, we do imprison people for killing innocent life.  We could argue if the law needs to be adjusted to require others to intervene to protect against terminal illness, but that is a different question all together with different considerations and implications.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

But even if you draw the line there, an embryo does have a terminal condition and can't survive without the help of another any more than the person with failed kidneys. Maybe an embryo has the "right to life" in some abstract way, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has the right to reside in another human's body for nine months.

Embryos in no way have a "terminal condition".  In medical terminology a "condition" is a disease.  Embryos are in a healthy state of homeostasis in every way and only require the proper environment to survive - not much different from newborns in that regard. 

To suggest that fetus has no right to be in the womb of its mother - doesn't that just sound like we are getting kind of absurd here?  It has a God given right by nature to be there.  But if technology advances enough to where a mother can successfully remove the embryo from her body without causing death, then we can talk more about this.  Until then, the right to life trumps the rights of residence or liberty as a general rule.

 

Edited May 9, 2022 by pogi

[smac97]

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Quote

We mortals lack the ability to mitigate dead. An aborted fetus is a dead fetus. As you know, many consider abortion tantamount to murder. Even if one doesn't equate the two (I don't), the idea of allowing one the liberty of changing one's mind does not necessarily mitigate the moral obligation to the potential human. Those that would argue for uninhibited right to abortion must also argue that the mother has no moral obligation to the potential human or that any moral obligation that is present is inferior to the whim of the mother.

I don't follow your argument here. One can argue that having an abortion ought to be a legal right without getting into the nuances of whether exercising that right in a particular circumstance is moral or not.

I think that's kind of unrealistic.  If we are going to impose such a significant burden on women, we ought to have some pretty good reasons for it, and we ought to be able to explain and justify those reasons.

This is a hugely important issue, and one that has both scientific/biological and philosophical/ideological ramifications.  

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

An analogy that comes to mind is somebody needing a kidney transplant, and you being the perfect donor. If you go through the extremely painful, inconvenient, relatively dangerous, and temporarily debilitating process of donating a kidney, he lives. If you don't, he dies.

Did the kidney donor cause the medical circumstances giving rise to the need for a transplant?  Nope.

Even under Roe we as a society essentially imposed on women a duty to not harm her unborn baby in some circumstances.  Conversely, we have never imposed any duty on any party to donate a kidney.

So the analogy doesn't seem to hold up.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Should you have the legal obligation to save this person's life?

Legally?  No.  Again, we have never imposed an affirmative duty to donate a kidney.

Conversely, we have always had some constraints on affirmatively killing an unborn child.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

After all, it's a human life!

But there is no "duty of care" to donate a kidney.

We have always had a "duty of care" in some form for expectant mothers.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Do you have the moral obligation to save their life?

Arguably, yes.  Legally, no.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Those are two different questions.

But in the end, the legal duty is what is at issue.  Any "moral" duty merely informs, but does not establish, a legal duty.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

It reminds me of the joke where a man walked into a bar and hypothetically asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. She says well, for a million dollars, sure. He then asks if she'd sleep with him for fifty bucks. Insulted, she asks, "What kind of a woman do you think I am?!" to which he replies, "We've already established what kind of a woman you are. Now we're just haggling over price."

I think most pro-life folks oppose abortion in most circumstances, with some few limited exceptions (rape, incest, life of the mother).  These exceptions reflect genuine and profound moral dilemmas.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My point is that if we concede that it is morally acceptable for society to give a rape survivor the choice of whether or not to carry to term a baby from a rape, we are conceding that the rights of embryos and fetuses are different than the rights of biologically self-sufficient human beings.

I think we are conceding that the woman, having been impregnated against her will, did not consent to the behavior that resulted in pregnancy.  Again, a genuine moral dilemma.

52 minutes ago, Analytics said:

If a rape survivor may legally abort a pregnancy because carrying it to term would be detrimental to her own wellbeing, why shouldn't other women have the same choice if they determine that carrying to term other pregnancies would be determinantal to their wellbeing? 

Because the life of the child matters.

Thanks,

-Smac

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I

Should you have the legal obligation to save this person's life? After all, it's a human life!

Do you have the moral obligation to save their life?

Those are two different questions.

Were your choices the reason that they need your kidney to live?  If yes, then I believe there is a moral responsibility to save his life. 

If no, then I don't believe there is a moral responsibility to save the life, but it still might be the right thing for someone to do personally.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, jkwilliams said:

I’m hopeful that at some future date, there will be enough of a backlash against the draconian no-exceptions laws being passed today that we will eventually see reasonable compromise. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Hopefully that will be the case.  As it stands, each side just keeps getting more and more extreme so it doesn't seem likely.  I don't think anything short of a nationwide disaster will be able to unify us again.

[smac97]

51 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

You are quite right. A better analogy would be treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, which current law in my state makes a felony.

My understanding is that ectopic pregnancies have an essentially 0% chance of viability (see also here).  

I'm curious as to what state you are in.  Recent news items have referenced a bill pending in Missouri:

Quote

A bill awaiting a vote in a Missouri House committee would create a new offense of trafficking abortion-inducing devices or drugs in the state, and would ban abortions or attempted abortions on a woman carrying a pregnancy at more than 10 weeks.

It would also make it a felony to perform, induce or attempt an abortion on a woman with ectopic pregnancy.
...
The Missouri State Medical Association also called for the language related to ectopic pregnancy to be removed from the bill.

State Senator Caleb Rowden, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, said on Twitter that the bill was “DOA” in that chamber if it makes it out of the House.

“Not all “pro-life” bills are actually pro-life,” he said.

The above article was published on March 11, 2022.  Fastforward to March 23, 2022:

Quote

Missouri lawmakers on Tuesday removed a provision from an anti-abortion bill that critics said would criminalize ending ectopic pregnancies following condemnation from Democrats and some Republicans.

House Bill 2810 would have created the crime of trafficking abortion-inducing drugs or devices and prohibit anyone from delivering, prescribing or dispensing anything used for an abortion that violates state or federal law.

Under the first version of the bill, violations would have been a class A felony in some cases, punishable with 10 to 30 years in prison or a life sentence. That included if the abortion was performed on a woman with an ectopic pregnancy. Ectopic pregnancies occur when a fertilized egg implants outside the uterus. They are not viable pregnancies and can threaten the life of the woman.

The measure sparked outrage. The Missouri House Democratic Caucus said the legislation underscored “the ignorance of all GOP abortion policy and the extreme measures they take to stand between a woman and her doctor.”

The bill sponsor, Branson Republican Rep. Brian Seitz, maintained it was misconstrued by its opponents. He pointed to wording in the bill that the criminal violations occurred only when the abortions were performed “in violation of any state or federal law” – and that it’s legal in Missouri to end ectopic pregnancies.

On Tuesday, the House Special Committee on Government Oversight voted to drop the ectopic pregnancy language.

“We removed the devices … and we also removed the language on ectopic pregnancy,” Rep. Jered Taylor, a Republic Republican and committee chair, said. “Those were the two concerns that the committee members shared in committee.”

Rep. Wes Rogers, a Kansas City Democrat, said the changes showed that the committee process worked. Many Democrats had “deep and serious concerns” about the original bill, he said. “I appreciate the fact that people were willing to listen and realize the bill probably needed to be changed,” Rogers said, though he made clear he doesn’t plan to support the legislation.

Huh.  So the legislative process can function to address such oversights/errors/misunderstandings in proposed laws.  That's a good thing.

51 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

By unresolvable, I simply mean we are never going to come to any kind of consensus on this issue.

There was never a "consensus" under Roe.

51 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

Given this lack of agreement, I prefer to err on the side of individual rights over state control. 

Does your concept of "individual rights" include the rights of the unborn child?

Given the admitted tension between the right of an unborn child to live versus most elective abortion circumstances (matters of convenience, preference, financial, etc.), I prefer to err on the side of protecting the life of the child.

51 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

But I should have taken my own advice. No one is going to change their mind here, and it’s pointless to argue about it. I’m hopeful that at some future date, there will be enough of a backlash against the draconian no-exceptions laws being passed today that we will eventually see reasonable compromise. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

I do.  We now have 50 legislatures that can work out varying compromises.  Some will be better than others.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[Nofear]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I don't follow your argument here. One can argue that having an abortion ought to be a legal right without getting into the nuances of whether exercising that right in a particular circumstance is moral or not.

...

Those are two different questions.

I quite agree that moral and legal are not the same. It nevertheless stands that some legal compulsions are based on moral principles. It's partly up to society at large to define when and where the moral/legal boundary exists and doesn't exist, should exist or should not exist. One of the things that makes the abortion debate particularly tricky is that there is no real consensus on what is moral. With the exception of some of the more radical individuals, I don't see that most arguing that aborting a voluntarily engaged in pregnancy is moral (or even a best amoral), just that the morality of maintaining the integrity of a woman's ability to decide the course of her own body is greater than the amorality/immorality of terminating an elective pregnancy.

Even if there was some degree of moral consensus in society about the weighting of those two ethical choices, then there would still be the legal question of whether or not the ethics should be compelled by law (as we do with some ethics). Since we/society really hasn't decided the ethical question (not concretely anyway), the legal question becomes secondary. And given that, I am quite comfortable letting the domain of to what extent abortion should remain legal/illegal reside with the states and not with a federally imposed mandate.

Which brings up why there are where many who are upset about overturning Roe v. Wade. Those that sided with the federal mandate of abortion's legality are upset that the decision is being pushed to the states. They are upset that their position has entered into public discourse again where they had been content it was already "decided" (though at a societal level, it was not). The exact same discontent would have happened if there was a judicial, federally mandated prohibition on abortion. The advocates of the right to abortion would have celebrated the decision going to the states and the pro-life camps would have been just as dismayed. Add in the balance of minority rights vs majority rights and the abortion debate is a right ol' mess.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

That proves my point. By your reasoning, the rape survivor's choice is more important than the fetus's alleged "right to life." That is conceding that the fetus's "right to life" is not paramount and that at least some things pertaining to the wellbeing of the mother are more important.

I am not a legal expert, but I am pretty sure there are "exceptions" to just about any rule of law - even the most paramount right to life.  An exception does not suggest that the right to liberty should trump the right to life in all scenarios, but in extreme circumstances it may be justifiable.   Where the choice to participate in the act of creating life was stolen and violated from the woman, I see it as a justifiable reason for her to be restored to liberty in having a choice in the matter.  Where others consent willingly, they own the moral and legal responsibility for the natural consequences of their actions.  Where one is coerced illegibly, I simply don't see how the same responsibility could be justified.  But yes, it is a real moral dilemma. 

Edited May 9, 2022 by pogi

[smac97]

48 minutes ago, Analytics said:

That seems like a pretty arbitrary place to draw the line. Why shouldn't we have the moral obligation to save the life of another if we have the power to do so?

Moral obligations can, and often do, vary from legal obligations.

48 minutes ago, Analytics said:

But even if you draw the line there, an embryo does have a terminal condition

It does?  What is that condition?

48 minutes ago, Analytics said:

and can't survive without the help of another any more than the person with failed kidneys.

What do you mean by "the help of another?"

48 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Maybe an embryo has the "right to life" in some abstract way, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has the right to reside in another human's body for nine months.

Even under Roe your assertion fails.

Thanks,

-Smac