A Conception's Right To Life

[Lagboltz]

PaleRider, you have not addressed this question:

Black's Law Dictionary defines "person" as "human being" but does not define "human being". I pointed out in post #498 that if "person" in the context of law always means "human being in any context", that brings about many ludicrous interpretations of the constitution, such as a dead person has the right to vote (a zygote does not because it is underage). Also congressional representation is based on a census of "persons", so the census should count bodies in a cemetery and pregnant women.

Do you want to accept those interpretations of the constitution?

 

[palerider]

Single digits, eh, PaleRider. Can you cite us an example of such a poll? That we can verify on the Internet?

When it comes to science, you obviously don't care what the true science behind your opinions might be, or you would not dismiss AAAS's silence on this issue so quickly. What you have provided here is merely boilerplate knowledge accompanied with hard line anti-abortion interpretations and opinions.

I don't dismiss it. As I stated earlier, it is a very long held legal principle that silence implies consent. If they believed that unborns were something other than human beings and had the science to back them up, they have a responsiblility to make it known. There has been ample time and ample research done that if they had information sufficient to support a statement that unborns were something other than living human beings, even in the earliest stages, why haven't they published?

What I have provided is material from credible sources that support my postion. To date, you have not provided anything with which to support yours. Attacking the materials I have provided with nothing more than your opinion hardly amounts to a rebuttal or a refutation.


http://townhall.com/news/religion/2009/01/05/survey_majority_favors_abortion_limits

 

[palerider]

PaleRider, you have not addressed this question:

Black's Law Dictionary defines "person" as "human being" but does not define "human being". I pointed out in post #498 that if "person" in the context of law always means "human being in any context", that brings about many ludicrous interpretations of the constitution, such as a dead person has the right to vote (a zygote does not because it is underage). Also congressional representation is based on a census of "persons", so the census should count bodies in a cemetery and pregnant women.

Do you want to accept those interpretations of the constitution?

I have already addressed that. Human being is not a legal term and therefore wouldn't be addressed iin a legal dictionary. Perhaps you fail to understand the nature of the right to live and how it relates to our legal system. The Constitution protects our right to live by demanding that one recieve due process before that right to live may be denied. Clearly, the government is not denying the dead their right to live as their deaths are not the result of the government denying them due process. I suppose if the dead show up, they will first have to show how the government denied them due process before they can begin to take any legal action.

Let me know when that happens and how it works out for them. Depending on what the courts say, your argument may gain some credibility. Till then, your lips are moving, but nothing is coming out.

 

[top gun]

palerider;84234]Appeal to popularity and no more. You can't prove your claim so you point to the crowd which also can't prove their claim. As I have pointed out over and over, it is logical fallacy with you every time you try to justify your postion.

No what I do is look at the situation in its ENTIRETY. I look at who all is affected. I look at the need. I look at the public perception and I also look at the development of the pregnancy.

Then like the United States Supreme Court and it's long standing precedent make the decision that a woman should have control over her body and her own choice of reproduction.

All this hocas pocas about what you want fails to recognize the actual reality of the situation.

Roe is the standing decision with a 36+ year precedent.

Until that changes it's my opinion you are on the loosing end of the stick. I do not expect that to change. You've been proselytizing to us all about it changing any day now for almost 3 long years. It's not changing and will be even more set in stone after the Obama administration.

Even Clinic Creepers can have an opinion. I'm just saying you're totally wasting your time. Do what you want... it's your wasted time.

There are documented stages of development and decliine from birth to death. There are, however, no documented metamorphosis stages in which a human being becomes a human being having been something else.

By the way, there is no such thing as a fertilized egg. That is an outdated term only used by the uneducated, or by ageists who are deliberately trying to dehumanize a human being via language.

But all stages after viability don't require one particular person to have to donate their body possibly against her will.

And a fertilized egg by any name or definition you want makes no difference to me. At that stage it's TOTALLY up to the woman to carry or not. Actually it's always up to the woman unless you can explain to me how you would stop a woman from aborting at anytime if that's what she wants to do?

And out roll the ad hominem attacks. No one has suggested that a woman whose life is in genuine danger doesn't have the right to terminate a pregnancy. You have no argument so you resort to hand wringing emotionalism.

Not at all. I said if the woman was forced to have a child against her will even without any high risk involved and in childbirth she were to die and the child would live... the child and the state murdered her. It's just a fact.

Grab yourself a thesarus from the period. You will find that conception and creation are interchangable terms. And once again, the word born is only used in reference to the priviliges and rights of citizenship.

You can keep saying that all day but it doesn't change a single thing. Back then they also said... I created a beautiful cherry pie today. Has nothing to do with conception. In the context of the Constitution it's easy to read that the framers were saying God creates all men equal. Has nothing to do with a sexual act and pregnancy.

There is no disputing that the newly concieved individual is in fact, a living human being. If there were a dispute, surely you could provide some credible information to support that claim. In practice, your argument breaks down entirely. What exactly is a "complete" person. Do amputees cease being humans because of their loss? Do those born without limbs, or eyes, or any other part never become human because they aren't "complete". Of course not. Do those who require life support stop being human as a result? Of course not. Do those who require life support after birth not become humans until such time as they can come off of life support?

Once past viability (can reasonably live on their own without parasiting off another) is the key. Someone who's born and then looses abilities was obviously already and continues to be viable.

And the life support question is in perfect support of my position. It is also the law that next of kin (not the government) have the right to terminate life support. We all remember the Terry Shiavo case. The issues we're talking about here aren't and never were about being human... the issue is at what points does human not mean a viable person.

 

[samsara15]

Using the very statitistics you quote, only 11 per cent favor totally banning abortions. In any case, legal abortion is the law of the land, as Top Gun has pointed out, in spite of many years of vigorous anti-abortion proselytizing.

Your 'scientific case' you claim to have presented is only your own opinions and boilerplate, common knowledge, so there is no presentation to refute. Nothing in, nothing out.

 

[palerider]

No what I do is look at the situation in its ENTIRETY. I look at who all is affected. I look at the need. I look at the public perception and I also look at the development of the pregnancy.

Then like the United States Supreme Court and it's long standing precedent make the decision that a woman should have control over her body and her own choice of reproduction.

And like the supreme court, you come to an incorrect and invalid assumption. The supreme court never said that a woman has the right to kill a child or any other human being. They said that she has the right to terminate a potential human life.

Can you prove that unborns are potential human lives? All you need to do is that and you win.

All this hocas pocas about what you want fails to recognize the actual reality of the situation.

It is you who is attempting to deny the facts. That suggests that it is you who is avoiding reality.

Roe is the standing decision with a 36+ year precedent.

so what?

Until that changes it's my opinion you are on the loosing end of the stick. I do not expect that to change. You've been proselytizing to us all about it changing any day now for almost 3 long years. It's not changing and will be even more set in stone after the Obama administration.

The fact that you are blind to the changes does not mean that they aren't happening. Not so very long ago, pro choicers would have laughed at the idea that late term abortion would be banned. The supreme court upheld the ban. States are instituting laws all the time that are forcing changes. Your ignorance of them is your problem, not mine.

Even Clinic Creepers can have an opinion. I'm just saying you're totally wasting your time. Do what you want... it's your wasted time.

Sorry, but I have the facts on my side and in the end, the facts always win out. If you knew your history, you would know that.

But all stages after viability don't require one particular person to have to donate their body possibly against her will.

Completely irrelavent to the fact that an unborn is a living human being. Refer to the conjoined twins discussion.

And a fertilized egg by any name or definition you want makes no difference to me. At that stage it's TOTALLY up to the woman to carry or not. Actually it's always up to the woman unless you can explain to me how you would stop a woman from aborting at anytime if that's what she wants to do?[/COLOR]

Of course not because your argument isn't based on fact. Your argument is an attempt to deny fact. Laws banning abortion as with laws prohibiting any action can not stop the action, all they can do is provide a means by which we can punish those who do it anyway. That is how all laws work.

Not at all. I said if the woman was forced to have a child against her will even without any high risk involved and in childbirth she were to die and the child would live... the child and the state murdered her. It's just a fact.

Murder is one human being killing another with intent. sorry guy, the facts just don't support your emotioalism.

You can keep saying that all day but it doesn't change a single thing. Back then they also said... I created a beautiful cherry pie today. Has nothing to do with conception. In the context of the Constitution it's easy to read that the framers were saying God creates all men equal. Has nothing to do with a sexual act and pregnancy.

Sorry, but they said that they made a pie. Again, the facts simply don't support you. They freely admitted that we come into being with certain rights, not that we were born with certiain rights.

Once past viability (can reasonably live on their own without parasiting off another) is the key. Someone who's born and then looses abilities was obviously already and continues to be viable.

Again, in practice your argument fails. Conjoined twins in which they share a vital organ prove your argument wrong.

And the life support question is in perfect support of my position. It is also the law that next of kin (not the government) have the right to terminate life support. We all remember the Terry Shiavo case. The issues we're talking about here aren't and never were about being human... the issue is at what points does human not mean a viable person.

The fact that you try to compare a perfectly healthy individual to one who is so sick or injured that no reasonable hope of recovery exists brings the weakness of your argument into high relief. There is a decided difference between letting someone who has no reasonable chance of recovery die and deliberately killing a healty individual.

By the way, it was brave of your you tube video to picture every American who still supports abortion on demand. Which one is you?

 

[palerider]

Using the very statitistics you quote, only 11 per cent favor totally banning abortions. In any case, legal abortion is the law of the land, as Top Gun has pointed out, in spite of many years of vigorous anti-abortion proselytizing.

I am not in the camp that favors totally banning abortion so the number means nothing to me. I don't agree with them either.

And legalized abortion is not the law of the land. It is a court decision. There is a difference between law and court decisions.

Your 'scientific case' you claim to have presented is only your own opinions and boilerplate, common knowledge, so there is no presentation to refute. Nothing in, nothing out.

I still see that you can provide nothing at all from credible sources to support your own positon. Perhaps you can provide some credible material that suggests that the information found in med school textbooks is boilerplate. Can you support any part of your argument with anything credible? Your uneducated, uncorroborated, unsupported opinion just doesn't carry enough weight to be taken seriously when you try to discount a fully supported argument. You are just another pro choicer who can't rationally support any part of your positon.

 

[Lagboltz]

I have already addressed that. Human being is not a legal term and therefore wouldn't be addressed iin a legal dictionary.

You have not addressed the important question, and you still have not addressed it in this post.

Perhaps you fail to understand the nature of the right to live and how it relates to our legal system. The Constitution protects our right to live by demanding that one recieve due process before that right to live may be denied. Clearly, the government is not denying the dead their right to live as their deaths are not the result of the government denying them due process. I suppose if the dead show up, they will first have to show how the government denied them due process before they can begin to take any legal action.

You are still addressing your own argument. I am creating a totally different argument using your same premises.

Let me know when that happens and how it works out for them. Depending on what the courts say, your argument may gain some credibility. Till then, your lips are moving, but nothing is coming out.

Back to my extension of your argument, that the census should count bodies in a cemetery and pregnant women twice: what do you think the courts would say if that were brought to court. Surely they would throw it out of court. Do you also think so? and why would you think so?

Since my premises of the definition for human being is the same as yours, this is the important question for you, if you ever brought your own argument to court.

 

[samsara15]

Do you recall being a zygote? Do you remember the moment of fertilization? Can you cite anyone who does? Do you even have any memories of being a fetus?

Lots of people claim to recall past lives, but I can't recall a single memory before about age four. Howver, a newborn does have facial expressions, soon learns to recognize faces and to smile, and have a recognizeable personality.

 

[samsara15]

What if..

we could extract the embryo (or zygote, a day or two afer conception, when it has attached itself to the wall of the uterus) from its unwilling Mother...and then insert it into an artificial womb? Then there would be no need for any abortion. It's technologically imaginable, if not yet feasible.

 

[Pandora]

What if..

we could extract the embryo (or zygote, a day or two afer conception, when it has attached itself to the wall of the uterus) from its unwilling Mother...and then insert it into an artificial womb? Then there would be no need for any abortion. It's technologically imaginable, if not yet feasible.

that would be great if they could do it

 

[samsara15]

I think we could do it, if we put enough energy and scientific effort into it. But it might take a few years to develop the technology.

 

[Dr.Who]

There is one correction: Palerider called it a "blatant lie", that I referred to "human" when I should have referred to "human being" as a person. It was a slip up on my part, but he overreacted in his assessment of my character.

I tend to look at the arguements and pass on the drama so I missed that.

I would amend that assessment. The thrust of the pro-choice need not be to change the definition. English words have multiple meanings in different contexts. The thrust should be to consider the context of usage.

I think I took that into account. The word human was always used to mean person. And the most important place where that happened was in the constitution.

Basically pro-lifers here do not want to distinguish any degree of humanness, whether the human being is a frozen or active zygote, a born person, or a dead person. They apply the word "human being" to all the different contexts of it's usage as an English word in both law and science. To do otherwise is dogmatic (and other more derogatory descriptors).

And they would be right. the word person has a range of meanings, esp. more recent, that makes it problematic. The word human is pretty clearly referring to our species or to qualities of our species. Clearly a human zygote is human and a dog zygote is a dog, etc. There is no controversy about either the words human or alive. It is the word person that is a problem.

I pointed out in post #498 that if "person" in the context of law always means "human being", that brings about many ludicrous interpretations of the constitution, such as a dead person has the right to vote (a zygote does not because it is underage). Also congressional representation is based on a census of "persons", so the census should count bodies in a cemetery and pregnant women.

A dead human is a human that is dead. He does not stop being human. And that is why we have courts so they can rule that obviously the law never meant to give dead humans the right to vote. I think it is understood that when a human dies they cease to have any rights of a person.

Palerider's response to this was, "I never said that dead humans are covered by the constitution. That is your fabrication." He did not care to recognize that I did indeed fabricate that as a reductio ad absurdum, to show cases where a universal non-contextual definition of human being leads to absurdities.

So it could. Though I have yet to see one in the constitution. They are smart enough to use the word person. Yet there is no reason to think that including a zygote as a human is overly universal. There is no quality that a zygote lacks that some other person does not also lack.

I think these are good reasons that the definitions should be clarified. Perhaps the law dictionaries will clarify the legal definition of person if or when the pro-lifers ever bring that to the courts.

Maybe it will. Do either of us have any illusions that the law will be decided on common sense rather than on the political climate at the time? Whichever way it goes the other side will continue to fight the result. unless we find a way to prevent unwanted pregnancies rather than to deal with them after they are already underway.

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Abortion increases yearly...especially the "repeaters". (1995 approx. 1.2Million - 2008 approx 1.6Million

The key to stopping so many abortions is birth control of course. The key to girls using birth control is their parents.

....And, Republicans are takin'-care of everyone-else.​

"As a show of good faith, Obama persuaded House Democrats to drop a $335 million Medicaid provision funding contraception programs that conservatives had protestedhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/27/AR2009012703129.html?hpid=topnews...."

That's right......"conservatives" aren't about to allow any drop in the rate-of-abortions-performed....and, take that issue from them!!!

 

[palerider]

Back to my extension of your argument, that the census should count bodies in a cemetery and pregnant women twice: what do you think the courts would say if that were brought to court. Surely they would throw it out of court. Do you also think so? and why would you think so?

I suggest that you check the laws regarding the census and the deceased, death certificates, removal from the census, citizenship status, etc. before you pose that question and subject yourself to further embarassment. You are correct that the courts would throw them out but you have neglected to consider the grounds, laws, and precedents upon which they may be thrown out.

You seem to have a very basic misunderstanding about the nature of our legal system. Let me explain briefly to you. A right can be denied to an indivual or a group of individuals if duely legislated law exists that explicitly enumerates which right is to be denied, from whom it is to be denied, and for what reason it is to be denied. For example, we have a right to bear arms but law has been duely legislated that denies that right to minors because they are not yet of the age of responsibility and describes when they will aquire the right. No such law exists denying unborn human beings their right to live for any reason at all and the right to live being the most fundamental of all rights, it is quesstionable that such law could pass a constitutionality test as dependence is not a valid reason to kill.

There are hosts of laws dealing with the dead.

And again, your attempt to analogize the dead to the living highlights the inherent weakness of your argument.