Douglass Bartley
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No responses to the case I laid out a few pages ago?
Who disagrees with Paul that life beings at conception?
- Thread starter andrewgreve
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Might I say your dad can't have it all. If there is more good than bad I would take that. To take more bad than good. Well that is just down right idiotic I will have to say.. Ron Paul is the only candidate that can offer more good than bad to any one person. I have never seen a sane person take more bad than good when it comes to choices.
Again this is all subjective. Your criteria now is "pain." Pain is very subjective. How do you know that plants cannot "feel" "pain"? If you watch an elapsed-motion film of plants, you will see that they move around quite a bit. Some trees in the rainforest actually "walk" (very slowly of course). How do you know that a plant has no soul or consciousness?
I believe life begins at conception.
I am not sure when that life becomes human and not just a cluster of cells.
I believe woman have a right to control thier own body.
I believe they are many ways to avoid becoming pregnant.
I believe woman will still get abortions, legal or not, safe or not.
I believe it is a local government, church and personal issue, not a federal issue.
This issue will NEVER be solved and agreed upon by everyone.
I am not sure when that life becomes human and not just a cluster of cells.
I believe woman have a right to control thier own body.
I believe they are many ways to avoid becoming pregnant.
I believe woman will still get abortions, legal or not, safe or not.
I believe it is a local government, church and personal issue, not a federal issue.
This issue will NEVER be solved and agreed upon by everyone.
Estanislao
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I think Paul's stance comes from more a legal standpoint.
I think it's also important to distinguish between life and soul.
Obviously, life is created. (a tumor could be considered life) the question is, is it a separate soul, or when does an actual soul inhabit it.
When you look at it this way, it becomes a subjective religious issue in which there is NO way to determine this. We do NOT know the mind or function of God, and this cannot be seriously addressed by anyone.
Therefore, the Constitution saves the day, let the states decide.
Row vs Wade is a federal mandate and basically unConstitutional for this reason and therefore should be overturned.
That does not mean abortions will be illegal.
I think we've been under so much government control, we've forgotten what it means to be free thinking individuals. And to function without government oversight.
I think it's also important to distinguish between life and soul.
Obviously, life is created. (a tumor could be considered life) the question is, is it a separate soul, or when does an actual soul inhabit it.
When you look at it this way, it becomes a subjective religious issue in which there is NO way to determine this. We do NOT know the mind or function of God, and this cannot be seriously addressed by anyone.
Therefore, the Constitution saves the day, let the states decide.
Row vs Wade is a federal mandate and basically unConstitutional for this reason and therefore should be overturned.
That does not mean abortions will be illegal.
I think we've been under so much government control, we've forgotten what it means to be free thinking individuals. And to function without government oversight.
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I agree with all of the above, that it is impossible to determine when life is imbued with soul and that the Constitution is silent on this point. My personal belief is that since it is impossible to tell where on the spectrum from conception to birth this becomes a person, the safest way to ensure you aren't committing murder is to assume that a meaningful life begins at conception, since this is a crystal clear demarcation point. I would vote for state/local laws against any abortion.
I also think that the whole debate about women's "rights" on this issue tends to ignore any discussion of concurrent "obligations/responsibilities" to do no harm.
libertarianguy
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test
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Okay,
Here's a thought: If life does not begin at conception, when does it begin? Personally, I have never heard of a human being who did not begin life as a fetus. If "life" begins later than conception, there must be some such cases, no? IOW, if, say, "life" begins in the second trimester, then there must be human beings whose life began at that time, and not before. Or the third, or whatever. If human life does not begin in the form of a fetus, there must be human beings who never were fetuses. Maybe we should ask the stork.
The bottom line for me in the present instance is that Dr. Paul is correct: the feddle gummit has no authority to rule in these matters, at least not without a Constitutional amendment (which I think would be a very bad idea). Is there a national law defining murder and penalties therefor? Addressing such matters was not the purpose of the Founders. Only in an empire are such matters decided from the Center (and yes, the European Union is an empire). So, leave it with state and local communities to deal with, like other matters that have to do with relations between individuals and social harmony.
And no, the appeal to the "right to privacy" doesn't hold water -- unless you will agree that I can kill you without committing a crime, so long as I get you to come into my home first.
Meanwhile, though I regard deliberate abortion as not significantly different from murder, I don't favor making it illegal -- if only because unenforceable laws degrade respect for the rule of law as a whole. There must be some other way of dealing with the situation.
It's interesting to note that although abortion proponents (I abhor the calculated, dishonest euphemisms "pro-choice" and "pro-life") generally present the issue as a simple conflict of the genders (i.e. dictatorial men oppressing innocent, abused women), there are in fact many women who are anti-abortion (including, I assume, Mrs. Paul) -- in fact, the anti-abortion movement is in great part led by women. Maybe we could put all the women in America in a big room and not let them out until the issue has been decided? (I'd guess mops and buckets would be in order.)
For me, the fact that apparently a large portion (perhaps a majority) of American women seem to be unwilling (or maybe unable) to handle their sexuality -- i.e. their ability to create new human life -- responsibly, brings larger issues into question.
What is the difference between an adult and a child? One word: Responsibility. In the past, women have been treated as not-fully-responsible beings, like children in some sense, thus not allowed to be fully free in their behavior -- for their own good, to protect them against just such problems as unwanted pregnancy. Women have chafed at these limitations, and in recent times have gotten them removed. Yet they still seem unwilling to acknowledge the responsbilities that necessarily come with the freedom they insist is their right.
There can't be very many people nowadays who are unaware of what exactly causes pregnancy. The simple, certain way to avoid unwanted pregnancy is not to do what causes it. If, however, as some seem to insist, women are simply not in control of their sexuality, then perhaps, like children, their freedom to act should be constrained for their own good?
Note that if a man (see earlier post about Scott whoever) causes the death of a fetus, he can and often will be charged with murder. So in effect we have two sets of laws, one for women, and one for men. This is the original paradigm that has led to the present situation, where all kinds of "groups" have been given special exceptions from the laws that others must obey. Either all citizens are equally subject to the same laws, or not. If not, you have Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more [or less] equal than others." If in fact we are going to have separate laws for women, then women's "citizenship" status should also be separately defined, in every detail. They cannot be both equal and not-equal at once, not if we want to have a workable social order.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams
I submit that a republican form of government cannot work unless all those who are full citizens therein are fully responsible -- precisely because in a republic there is no higher authority than the citizen. That's where the buck must stop, because there's nowhere further it can go. If some "citizens" claim special exemption from full responsibility, other citizens must bear greater burdens. Once you start down that road, it is only a matter of time before the republican experiment collapses.
From the fact that this issue is still such an undecided mess, I can only conclude that the 19th Amendment was a huge mistake, that women were and are not ready for full citizenship. Now there's an issue that will bring everyone together.
Here's a thought: If life does not begin at conception, when does it begin? Personally, I have never heard of a human being who did not begin life as a fetus. If "life" begins later than conception, there must be some such cases, no? IOW, if, say, "life" begins in the second trimester, then there must be human beings whose life began at that time, and not before. Or the third, or whatever. If human life does not begin in the form of a fetus, there must be human beings who never were fetuses. Maybe we should ask the stork.
The bottom line for me in the present instance is that Dr. Paul is correct: the feddle gummit has no authority to rule in these matters, at least not without a Constitutional amendment (which I think would be a very bad idea). Is there a national law defining murder and penalties therefor? Addressing such matters was not the purpose of the Founders. Only in an empire are such matters decided from the Center (and yes, the European Union is an empire). So, leave it with state and local communities to deal with, like other matters that have to do with relations between individuals and social harmony.
And no, the appeal to the "right to privacy" doesn't hold water -- unless you will agree that I can kill you without committing a crime, so long as I get you to come into my home first.
Meanwhile, though I regard deliberate abortion as not significantly different from murder, I don't favor making it illegal -- if only because unenforceable laws degrade respect for the rule of law as a whole. There must be some other way of dealing with the situation.
It's interesting to note that although abortion proponents (I abhor the calculated, dishonest euphemisms "pro-choice" and "pro-life") generally present the issue as a simple conflict of the genders (i.e. dictatorial men oppressing innocent, abused women), there are in fact many women who are anti-abortion (including, I assume, Mrs. Paul) -- in fact, the anti-abortion movement is in great part led by women. Maybe we could put all the women in America in a big room and not let them out until the issue has been decided? (I'd guess mops and buckets would be in order.)
For me, the fact that apparently a large portion (perhaps a majority) of American women seem to be unwilling (or maybe unable) to handle their sexuality -- i.e. their ability to create new human life -- responsibly, brings larger issues into question.
What is the difference between an adult and a child? One word: Responsibility. In the past, women have been treated as not-fully-responsible beings, like children in some sense, thus not allowed to be fully free in their behavior -- for their own good, to protect them against just such problems as unwanted pregnancy. Women have chafed at these limitations, and in recent times have gotten them removed. Yet they still seem unwilling to acknowledge the responsbilities that necessarily come with the freedom they insist is their right.
There can't be very many people nowadays who are unaware of what exactly causes pregnancy. The simple, certain way to avoid unwanted pregnancy is not to do what causes it. If, however, as some seem to insist, women are simply not in control of their sexuality, then perhaps, like children, their freedom to act should be constrained for their own good?
Note that if a man (see earlier post about Scott whoever) causes the death of a fetus, he can and often will be charged with murder. So in effect we have two sets of laws, one for women, and one for men. This is the original paradigm that has led to the present situation, where all kinds of "groups" have been given special exceptions from the laws that others must obey. Either all citizens are equally subject to the same laws, or not. If not, you have Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more [or less] equal than others." If in fact we are going to have separate laws for women, then women's "citizenship" status should also be separately defined, in every detail. They cannot be both equal and not-equal at once, not if we want to have a workable social order.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." - John Adams
I submit that a republican form of government cannot work unless all those who are full citizens therein are fully responsible -- precisely because in a republic there is no higher authority than the citizen. That's where the buck must stop, because there's nowhere further it can go. If some "citizens" claim special exemption from full responsibility, other citizens must bear greater burdens. Once you start down that road, it is only a matter of time before the republican experiment collapses.
From the fact that this issue is still such an undecided mess, I can only conclude that the 19th Amendment was a huge mistake, that women were and are not ready for full citizenship. Now there's an issue that will bring everyone together.
crhoades
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From Wikipedia on the dissenting opinions:
Associate Justices Byron R. White and William H. Rehnquist wrote emphatic dissenting opinions in this case. Justice White wrote:
I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.[2]
White asserted that the Court "values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries." Despite White suggesting he "might agree" with the Court's values and priorities, he wrote that he saw "no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States." White criticized the Court for involving itself in this issue by creating "a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it." He would have left this issue, for the most part, "with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs."
Rehnquist elaborated upon several of White's points, by asserting that the Court's historical analysis was flawed:
To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion. While many States have amended or updated their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today.[1]
From this historical record, Rehnquist concluded that, "There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted." Therefore, in his view, "the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter."
Associate Justices Byron R. White and William H. Rehnquist wrote emphatic dissenting opinions in this case. Justice White wrote:
I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally disentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.[2]
White asserted that the Court "values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries." Despite White suggesting he "might agree" with the Court's values and priorities, he wrote that he saw "no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States." White criticized the Court for involving itself in this issue by creating "a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it." He would have left this issue, for the most part, "with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs."
Rehnquist elaborated upon several of White's points, by asserting that the Court's historical analysis was flawed:
To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment. As early as 1821, the first state law dealing directly with abortion was enacted by the Connecticut Legislature. By the time of the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, there were at least 36 laws enacted by state or territorial legislatures limiting abortion. While many States have amended or updated their laws, 21 of the laws on the books in 1868 remain in effect today.[1]
From this historical record, Rehnquist concluded that, "There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted." Therefore, in his view, "the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter."
Well, abortion definitely affects the 3,000 people killed everyday. And it's not just a social issue. Would we be importing so many immigrants if we hadn't killed 40 million citizens in the last 3 decades. Same-sex marriage and civil unions will increase government expenditures to subsidize homosexual relationships. That's more expense for everyone. It will also undermine the family as legal relationships are changed to accomodate the interests of homosexuals at the expense of traditional marriage rules.
Buzz
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How does that work exactly? It's one thing to condone the killing of something that you don't consider to be human life, but how can you condone the killing of something that you DO consider to be an innocent human life?
Paulitician
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I don't agree with Paul or other conservatives on this issue much. I myself am pro-choice but morally I don't like abortion. I think "life begins at conception" is both a lousy philosophical and scientific argument. It's too oversimplified for me. Scientifically, life is there before conception (the sperm I mean). New life is not created until/after conception. And it's not like conception is a simplistic, single step process or something. Philosophically, I think the better question to ask is when does a human person, not life, begin to exist? At the start of conception, at the end of conception, or at entirely different time along the whole pregnancy process? However, I agree with Paul 100% on handling the issue: overturn Roe v. Wade... leave it up to the individual states to decide for themselves.
BarryDonegan
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i personally, have a really hard time understanding how having a doctor cut you open or insert a vaccuum and remove a baby fetus from your body is a natural right.
if a woman can terminate the pregnancy herself, without the assistance of someone else, through a natural biological process, then i could understand it far better. but when resources and external human force is required, this becomes a right of the actor, not of the recipient.
essentially, if you wanted to say a woman has the right to terminate her own pregancy, i can follow that, how a doctor has a right to go in and kill a fetus though, i dont get that part.
if a woman can terminate the pregnancy herself, without the assistance of someone else, through a natural biological process, then i could understand it far better. but when resources and external human force is required, this becomes a right of the actor, not of the recipient.
essentially, if you wanted to say a woman has the right to terminate her own pregancy, i can follow that, how a doctor has a right to go in and kill a fetus though, i dont get that part.
Richandler
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I don't believe life begins at conception. You can't scientifically classify at 3 month old fetus as human. However I understand the concept of abortion it is horrible. I do believe a woman as a right to chooose though. I'm for Ron Paul because he would rather leave it up to the state. And I definatly agree that the 3rd trimester is way to late for an abortion.
Scientifically?
You can't? How would you classify it then? If left to complete its term of gestation, will such a fetus be born as a sea urchin? As a matter of fact, scientifically the situation is crystal-clear: a fetus with a human genome is human. If it has a different set of genes, it is a member of the species defined by that set of genes.
What you really mean is you don't think a 3 month old fetus is human because it doesn't look like you, and is incapable of playing poker (or whatever other capability or behavior you define as "human"). Interestingly, just such criteria were used not so long ago to define black people as not-quite-human. Or, ironically enough, to so define women.
You can't? How would you classify it then? If left to complete its term of gestation, will such a fetus be born as a sea urchin? As a matter of fact, scientifically the situation is crystal-clear: a fetus with a human genome is human. If it has a different set of genes, it is a member of the species defined by that set of genes.
What you really mean is you don't think a 3 month old fetus is human because it doesn't look like you, and is incapable of playing poker (or whatever other capability or behavior you define as "human"). Interestingly, just such criteria were used not so long ago to define black people as not-quite-human. Or, ironically enough, to so define women.
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USPatriot36
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Its not a Federal Matter
I agree with Ron Paul's position that this should be a state matter. There is no need for the Federal Government to interfere in this matter (like many of matters).
In general his position helps him with Republicans and people who disagree with 'life begins at conception' can still support him since he isn't trying to ban it, just transfer jurisdiction to the state governments where it belongs.
I agree with Ron Paul's position that this should be a state matter. There is no need for the Federal Government to interfere in this matter (like many of matters).
In general his position helps him with Republicans and people who disagree with 'life begins at conception' can still support him since he isn't trying to ban it, just transfer jurisdiction to the state governments where it belongs.
LibertyEagle
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Exactly. I honestly don't understand what some here are upset about.
ghemminger
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Wow...what a discussion. I knew that there would be much debate on this topic.
I hate to condenm anyone or judge anyone but personally...
I just can't dissagree with DR. Paul. I am Catholic and believe in Life begins at Conception! and that all actions interfering with the natural transmission of "life" is inherently misdirected.
One thing that is never answered is that the constitution protects ALL individuals....how can the State decide 2 months vs 4 months, is the difference between and individual and a mass of cells.
Going backwards, when is the Constitutional cutoff in protection for someones life? Who are we to determine that to a voiceless individual.
I hate to condenm anyone or judge anyone but personally...
I just can't dissagree with DR. Paul. I am Catholic and believe in Life begins at Conception! and that all actions interfering with the natural transmission of "life" is inherently misdirected.
One thing that is never answered is that the constitution protects ALL individuals....how can the State decide 2 months vs 4 months, is the difference between and individual and a mass of cells.
Going backwards, when is the Constitutional cutoff in protection for someones life? Who are we to determine that to a voiceless individual.
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