(split from FW thread) Abortion Debate

[jmdrake]

This is what you said:



I said bullcrap to the bolded comment. It was pretty clear what I was addressing. If I am understanding your argument correctly, you think people should be able to pester people at abortion clinics. I disagree, and stated my reasons. It's rude and potentially harmful to the woman and baby. It's fine to disagree with the law of abortion, but it is another think to stand at a clinic and yell at innocent women. And yes, they are innocent, whether you agree or not, because that's what the law says. Period. My problem with this discussion is focusing on the individual women. If you want fewer abortions, there are better ways to accomplish that. Stupid ideas, like protests at clinics and trying to "ban" abortion will always fail. Chile banned abortion and look at the disaster that is. And yet a large portion of the right wants to do just that.

And abortion doctors do practice in fear. Right wing talking heads have openly called for their murder. Protests at clinics just stokes the fire.

The first amendment does give people the right to pester others going to the abortion clinic just like it gives people the the right to pester recruits signing up to go and kill in Afghanistan and it gives people the right to pester people headed to a funeral of someone killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is no constitutional right not to be pestered. And if you believe that there is then you simply no nothing about the constitution. It also doesn't matter whether the women are innocent or not. Just because you are not guilty of a crime does NOT give you the right to take away someone else's first amendment rights! Maybe you are against all protests. Maybe you think Ron Paul supporters you all be put in jail for protesting at the RNC and the DNC. Maybe you think both sides of the healthcare debate should be put in jail for protesting. After all, all these people are bound to "pester" somebody who hasn't broken any laws. But your ideas against protests are BULLCRAP because this is America and in America you have a right to protest and yes even to PESTER someone else even if that person is "innocent"! Also its just plain stupid of you to try to claim that only the right engages in protests. There are leftwing, rightwing, eastwing, westwing, you name it wing protests all over the world all the time. But stupid people complain when it's the "other side" doing the protesting. Enlightened people seek to protect the right of all to pester and protest to their hearts content. As for the "abortion violence", a lot more women have been killed by abortion doctors than doctors have been killed by abortion protesters. And last year and anti abortion protester was murdered. Using your backward logic pro choice groups should now be banned from protesting.

If the conversation was about the right of the KKK to protest I'd take the same position even though they are my mortal enemy. That's because I actually believe in freedom. It's not just a word a throw around like a cheap platitude when it suits me.

Also if you really care about women as you claim then you should look at the other side of the story. One report in Medical Science Monitor suggests that 64 percent of women who have abortions feel pressured to do so. I'm sure many of those women would love to hear the other side of the abortion debate since they really weren't making a private "choice" to kill their kid in the first place. But you want here the left talk about violence being used to pressure women into having abortions.

 

[klamath]

This is what you said:



I said bullcrap to the bolded comment. It was pretty clear what I was addressing. If I am understanding your argument correctly, you think people should be able to pester people at abortion clinics. I disagree, and stated my reasons. It's rude and potentially harmful to the woman and baby. It's fine to disagree with the law of abortion, but it is another think to stand at a clinic and yell at innocent women. And yes, they are innocent, whether you agree or not, because that's what the law says. Period. My problem with this discussion is focusing on the individual women. If you want fewer abortions, there are better ways to accomplish that. Stupid ideas, like protests at clinics and trying to "ban" abortion will always fail. Chile banned abortion and look at the disaster that is. And yet a large portion of the right wants to do just that.

And abortion doctors do practice in fear. Right wing talking heads have openly called for their murder. Protests at clinics just stokes the fire.

Is it wrong for war protesters to protest in front of troops? Same argument would apply that you should not have the right to make soldiers feel bad before they go to war. The US government said we were at war, so shut the F up. That is the law.

 

[charrob]

How about we give both rights that they both deserve?

If humans could be consistent across the board, I would agree. It's the inconsistency that bothers me.

 

[idirtify]

Science proves that a fetus isn't merely a "clump of cells" or a "glop of sperm". You get more out of singing to your plants also than from singing to cancer or singing to sperm. The gigantic "non-sequitur" is your lame attempt at comparing babies to cancer. Also there's no evidence of plants recognizing their owner's voice. Lastly, a dog will never grow up to be human. The only difference between a fetus and a baby is a few centimeters of human tissue.

So if you sing to something and you don’t get much out of it, the thing doesn’t have rights; but if you sing to something and you get more out of it, the thing DOES have rights? So if the thing recognizes your singing voice, it DOES have rights; but not if it doesn’t? It seems your determining factors are changing with each post and getting more and more bizarre.

If you want to credibly claim my comparison is a non-sequitur, why don’t you explain how?

 

[stone]

we need to move on

beyond abortion.
This topic has been the cause of soooo much wasted time and hypocrisy for conservatives it is ridiculous.
Leave it to the states and lets move onto some other important topic.

 

[klamath]

beyond abortion.
This topic has been the cause of soooo much wasted time and hypocrisy for conservatives it is ridiculous.
Leave it to the states and lets move onto some other important topic.

And hypocrisy from the liberals.

 

[idirtify]

beyond abortion.
This topic has been the cause of soooo much wasted time and hypocrisy for conservatives it is ridiculous.
Leave it to the states and lets move onto some other important topic.

How do you know this isn’t an argument for "the states”? I mean it doesn’t really matter which governments try to prohibit abortion. The argument will remain.

 

[tasteless]

Of course you are.

I didn't know conclusions had question marks on the end of them.

Of course they are contingent on location, when “where you happen to be” is INSIDE another.

See the point I raise further down.

“Human being”? Call it whatever you want, but “personhood” (implying “with rights”) happens when you have an individually separate body.

So do conjoined twins count as one person? What about a baby shortly after delivery, while it is still attached to the mother via the umbilical cord? Does one have rights and not the other? Can the mother dump acid on it prior to the umbilical cord being cut? Alternatively, can the doctor dump acid on the mother?

That’s your best point so far, but it only consists of hair splitting. Let me propose an example which may shed light on your answer (as I said, there’s no good analogy): If someone were to hold you down without your consent and shove their arm in your rectum, wouldn’t you agree that the arm loses all rights it previously had? IOW your rights immediately trump the arm’s rights. And if you could, you would be rightfully justified in dissolving that arm in acid while it remains inside you – but technically/maybe not any other part of the offender’s body. Would not you agree? Now that might be splitting hairs too, but it’s no worse than yours. AND your next paragraph, when you ask about an inserted penis, confirms my point. If that penis has been inserted without consent (no matter the gender of the victim), the victim certainly has the right to remove it in any way – including destruction (if it were physically possible).

The arm never had rights to begin with, it is only part of the person commiting the crime, not a person in and of itself. Even if it were the arm doing the fisting, I would not be in the wrong if I punched the dude in the face (assuming I could do so from that position), despite his face not violating me.

Furthermore, if a person were to do that, I would not be wrong even if I punched them in the face while his arm was outside of my rectum. In fact, I could still prosecute them for a time later, not just for the time they were violating my personal space. Should there be a statute of limitations on abortion? Does this mean a woman can "abort" the baby after delivering it?

huh?

You said that unique individual doesn't work in the case of twins. Genetic dissimilarity is only one way to prove uniqueness, but since the word unique is causing trouble for you, use the word discrete instead.

Two twins are discrete from each other and both have rights. A mother and her child are also discrete from each other and have rights.

 

[jmdrake]

So if you sing to something and you don’t get much out of it, the thing doesn’t have rights; but if you sing to something and you get more out of it, the thing DOES have rights? So if the thing recognizes your singing voice, it DOES have rights; but not if it doesn’t? It seems your determining factors are changing with each post and getting more and more bizarre.

If you want to credibly claim my comparison is a non-sequitur, why don’t you explain how?

The determining factor under the law is whether something has "rights" is simply "what the government says today". There was a time when slaves were declared "property" with "no rights". So I'm not even sure what your point is, or if you even know what your point is.

As for my point it is that science and the medical profession recognizes the fetus as an individual And for that matter so does the law. As someone else pointed out, killing a pregnant woman can get you a double homicide conviction in some states. You should only have a homicide conviction for killing a person. If you kill a man the government doesn't get to lump in billions of sperm as multiple counts.

Recognizing the human voice is a sign that we are talking about an individual and not some "appendage" or some "cancer". Human rights should be given to human individuals. Dogs, cats and other entities that might recognize the human voice are individuals, but are not human. Sperm, tumors and such may be "human" in the since that they have "human DNA", but those are not examples of individuals because they lack cognitive ability. Understand now?

 

[jmdrake]

If humans could be consistent across the board, I would agree. It's the inconsistency that bothers me.

Well so far I haven't seen proof from you or anyone else of the claim that whale intelligence >= human intelligence. The "they understand us but we don't understand them" argument applies to cats, dogs, horses and a lot of other animals that aren't generally classified as "intelligent". Also you were bothered by Ron Paul's non interventionist stance in the gulf because you somehow thought it was interventionist. Ron Paul isn't rushing for big government to run in and stop killings in places like Sudan and Uganda so why do you think he should go for a big government solution for the sake of the whales?

 

[Gray Seal]

The first amendment does give people the right to pester others going to the abortion clinic just like it gives people the the right to pester recruits signing up to go and kill in Afghanistan and it gives people the right to pester people headed to a funeral of someone killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. There is no constitutional right not to be pestered. And if you believe that there is then you simply no nothing about the constitution. It also doesn't matter whether the women are innocent or not. Just because you are not guilty of a crime does NOT give you the right to take away someone else's first amendment rights!

In Frisby v. Schultz the Supreme Court decided that it is not OK to harass. Freedom of speech is protected but the location of it is limited. Specifically, it is not OK to use speech to pester. If you have political speech to utter, it is protected but to use it as an excuse to pester is not protected.

Though the Supreme Court did not come out and define the right to privacy to include the right not to be pestered the Supreme Court by inference suggest such a standard with this decision. The decision does say local standards may be put in place to protect privacy.

 

[ChaosControl]

Well so far I haven't seen proof from you or anyone else of the claim that whale intelligence >= human intelligence. The "they understand us but we don't understand them" argument applies to cats, dogs, horses and a lot of other animals that aren't generally classified as "intelligent". Also you were bothered by Ron Paul's non interventionist stance in the gulf because you somehow thought it was interventionist. Ron Paul isn't rushing for big government to run in and stop killings in places like Sudan and Uganda so why do you think he should go for a big government solution for the sake of the whales?

What about "big government" stopping killing of people in America?
Maybe we cannot do much to protect people or animals around the entire globe, but we can do something to protect them here. Life is important, whether it is human or animal life. The environment as well. We should do what we can to protect it. Human, Whale, Dolphin, Cat, Dog, whatever one may be.

I think the best we can do for the world as a whole is lead by a good example.

 

[stone]

leave it to a referendum in each state

and lets discuss something worthwhile.

How do you know this isn’t an argument for "the states”? I mean it doesn’t really matter which governments try to prohibit abortion. The argument will remain.

 

[klamath]

In Frisby v. Schultz the Supreme Court decided that it is not OK to harass. Freedom of speech is protected but the location of it is limited. Specifically, it is not OK to use speech to pester. If you have political speech to utter, it is protected but to use it as an excuse to pester is not protected.

Though the Supreme Court did not come out and define the right to privacy to include the right not to be pestered the Supreme Court by inference suggest such a standard with this decision. The decision does say local standards may be put in place to protect privacy.

Wow, the SC ruled against the Bill of Rights, unheard of

 

[Krugerrand]

In Frisby v. Schultz the Supreme Court decided that it is not OK to harass. Freedom of speech is protected but the location of it is limited. Specifically, it is not OK to use speech to pester. If you have political speech to utter, it is protected but to use it as an excuse to pester is not protected.

Though the Supreme Court did not come out and define the right to privacy to include the right not to be pestered the Supreme Court by inference suggest such a standard with this decision. The decision does say local standards may be put in place to protect privacy.

Those labor unions sure have their connections, don't they.

Facts of the Case:
Sandra Schultz and Robert Braun both strongly opposed abortion and gathered like-minded citizens together to picket in front of the home of a local doctor who performed abortions. In response, the city of Brookfield, Wisconsin passed a law against all picketing in front of residential homes except for labor disputes. Following the advice of the town attorney, the city amended the law to ban labor picketing as well. The stated purpose of the law was "the protection and preservation of the home." When enacted, Schultz and Braun stopped picketing and filed suit in federal district court, claiming that the law violated the First Amendment. The court declared it would issue a permanent injunction against the law unless it was narrowed in scope. The United States Court of Appeals of the Seventh Circuit affirmed that the law violated the First Amendment.

Question:
Does a city ordinance prohibiting picketing in front of residential homes violate the First Amendment?

Conclusion:
No. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor delivered the opinion for a 6-3 court. The Court held that since the street constituted a traditional public forum, the ban must satisfy strict standards in order to remain. Since the ban is "content neutral," "leaves open ample alternative channels of communication," and serves a "significant government interest," the Court ruled that it passed the strict standards and could remain. The city government had a legitimate purpose in protecting the homes of its residents, and did so without favoring one idea over another or eliminating the ability to communicate an idea.

Decisions
Decision: 6 votes for Frisby, 3 vote(s) against
http://www.oyez.org/cases/1980-1989/1987/1987_87_168

EDIT ADD: Let's not forget that the Supreme Court is not always correct. Kelo v. City of New London says your property is yours unless the government wants you to sell it to somebody else.

 

[idirtify]

I didn't know conclusions had question marks on the end of them.



See the point I raise further down.



So do conjoined twins count as one person? What about a baby shortly after delivery, while it is still attached to the mother via the umbilical cord? Does one have rights and not the other? Can the mother dump acid on it prior to the umbilical cord being cut? Alternatively, can the doctor dump acid on the mother?



The arm never had rights to begin with, it is only part of the person commiting the crime, not a person in and of itself. Even if it were the arm doing the fisting, I would not be in the wrong if I punched the dude in the face (assuming I could do so from that position), despite his face not violating me.

Furthermore, if a person were to do that, I would not be wrong even if I punched them in the face while his arm was outside of my rectum. In fact, I could still prosecute them for a time later, not just for the time they were violating my personal space. Should there be a statute of limitations on abortion? Does this mean a woman can "abort" the baby after delivering it?



You said that unique individual doesn't work in the case of twins. Genetic dissimilarity is only one way to prove uniqueness, but since the word unique is causing trouble for you, use the word discrete instead.

Two twins are discrete from each other and both have rights. A mother and her child are also discrete from each other and have rights.

Just cut the cord. Commonly done / problem solved. I don’t think you’ll find any contention there.

It seems you are answering your own questions. Not only do you agree that the arm has no rights, you embellish to the degree that the person attached to it doesn’t. So you are more committed to the “no-rights” position than I am.

And regarding your confusing comments about twins, you are either answering your own questions or completely confused about the most fundamental element of a consistent position (principle).

 

[idirtify]

The determining factor under the law is whether something has "rights" is simply "what the government says today". snip

What a perfect double-circle! What the law currently says or does or “will get you” is not relevant to a discussion about what law SHOULD BE. No, I don’t understand why you are merely making up and picking-and-choosing definitions.

 

[idirtify]

and lets discuss something worthwhile.

I know you are new here, but let me inform you that you are free to exit this discussion whenever you want. You are also free to start or participate in any other discussion – of which there are many.

 

[Krugerrand]

I know you are new here, but let me inform you that you are free to exit this discussion whenever you want. You are also free to start or participate in any other discussion – of which there are many.

agreed. If one wants the conversation to go away, the most effective way is to more actively participate in other threads which pushes dislike threads down.

 

[tasteless]

Just cut the cord. Commonly done / problem solved. I don’t think you’ll find any contention there.

It seems you are answering your own questions. Not only do you agree that the arm has no rights, you embellish to the degree that the person attached to it doesn’t. So you are more committed to the “no-rights” position than I am.

And regarding your confusing comments about twins, you are either answering your own questions or completely confused about the most fundamental element of a consistent position (principle).

It seems you're sidestepping my questions and putting words in my mouth. Where do I say the person attached to the arm has no rights? Or do you believe that you can only defend yourself from whatever body part is assaulting you rather than from the person who it belongs to?