• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Food For Thought On Abortion

I was expecting some kind of well-reasoned commentary, based on the title.


Glad to see my expectations of this site remain far too optimistic.
 
correct-----that's why it was not labeled as a thought........
It's not? A collection word strung together in logical formation isn't a :thought"
 
correct-----that's why it was not labeled as a thought........

I think he meant that you didn't express your own thoughts but borrowed thoughts from a short-sighted meme maker.
 
It has long been established that the born are not as esteemed as the unborn, easily proved by looking up stats for child poverty rate and numbers lacking adequate health care and education.
 
Well there is nothing stopping folks from trying to make this thread a thoughtful and reasonable discussion about the pending SCOTUS decision expected in June sometime. So let's get started.

Legally an abortion is neither a killing nor a murder because a zygote, a blastocyst and an embryo are too underdeveloped to be viable. Only foetuses may be viable towards the end of a gestation period. Secondly from zygote to a fœtus just before birth, there is no legal personality granted to the developing human and therefore no right to life. Therefore a late-term but unborn fœtus may be killed but it cannot be murdered, legally speaking. Whether you agree with these positions or not, they are the facts at this time.

So the abortion of a zygote, blastocyst or an embryo are not criminal acts any more than an operation for removing a cyst or a tumour or an inflamed and septic appendix are criminal acts. An abortion is either a pharmaceutical or medical procedure, nothing more.

Abortions preformed on foetuses after a certain point in the gestation process are killings but are not murders as foetuses lack legal personality and thus have no right to life. However they do have the potential to become persons and thus some courts have made decisions that their unlawful killing can be held as criminal acts. An example is that some courts have recognised that the killing of a pregnant mother with a fœtus within her can be an aggravating factor in the mother's homicide, thus giving some pseudo-personality to the fœtus as a co-victim of the crime. So here we are in murky waters.

This sets up the ground for an analysis of the draft decision penned by Justice Alito and recently leaked to the public. That will come next.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
 
Well there is nothing stopping folks from trying to make this thread a thoughtful and reasonable discussion about the pending SCOTUS decision expected in June sometime. So let's get started.

Legally an abortion is neither a killing nor a murder because a zygote, a blastocyst and an embryo are too underdeveloped to be viable.
But it IS human----and it is being killed !!
 
Originalism is at least a factor in the Alito draft ruling. He argues that nowhere in the constitution is abortion written and thus it is not a right of pregnant women. But originalism has a problem. In the late 18th Century women were legal chattel and were denied many rights which men of property over the age of 21 years enjoyed. So if one takes an originalist's interpretation of the constitution with respect to women's rights then women are second-class citizens who can be legally abused and who can be denied rights which men enjoy. Thus originalism will deny women the right to own property, the right to vote, the right to run for elected office and the right to work as ls gal professional such as jurists.

Alito thereafter argued because there was no overtly expressed right to abortion explicitly stated in the US constitution that SCOTUS decisions in 1972 and 1992 created a right where no right had existed before in the constitution or in the Bill of Rights. Keep in mind that in the late 17th Century America was a country which had no guaranteed future and only the growth of its population could guarantee its continued existence in the face of British French and Spanish imperial aspirations. Only by growing and arming its population could the USA fend off these threats and expand its dominion in the face of these dangerous rivals. Thus abortion was deemed both a religious and a secular sin and therefore it is no mystery why it was not included in the constitution explicitly. So abortion would endanger the country and the country was more important than women's rights and women's health or even their lives. Many women died in child birth in the late 18th Century. So again originalism is condemning women to a shorter, more hardship-prone and brutalised life because it served the interests of men in power both in the 18th Century and now.

More to come tomorrow.

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
 
But it IS human----and it is being killed !!
tshade:

That is not the biological or the legal reality. People may disagree with these positions but they are both biological and legal facts at this time.

Perhaps it would be better to consider the unborn "becoming human" rather than "being human".

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
 
tshade:

That is not the biological or the legal reality. People may disagree with these positions but they are both biological and legal facts at this time.

Perhaps it would be better to consider the unborn "becoming human" rather than "being human".

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
??? DNA & chrom. are human----what are you talking about?? Just science ol' buddy....
 
tshade:

That is not the biological or the legal reality. People may disagree with these positions but they are both biological and legal facts at this time.

Perhaps it would be better to consider the unborn "becoming human" rather than "being human".

Cheers and be well.
Evilroddy.
As usual, you present a well thought out argument on a subject that typically manages to incite people to extreme emotionalism. It's a topic which in my heyday I've discussed to great lengths, but unfortunately I no longer have the patience for digging down into all the nuances -- especially since your argument is a two-prong one -- biological and legal. Nevertheless, I'd like to add my two cents on the subject relative to your last point highlighted in bold here. (One final word on your perspective presented in this thread -- I would love to see you challenged in a formal debate. What a debate that would be!)

One of the fundamental points that must be agreed to in a discussion of any important matter is the definition of terms used. This meaning of the term "human" is one such point that can be debated. What does it mean to be human?

If you say it is a physical form consisting of body parts then you run into the dilemma of what do you call a quadra amputee? Only partially human? That can't be right.

Or if it's a matter of mental then what about a person who is in a vegetative state of mind. Less than human?

I'm interested in your take on these rudimentary points. Forgive me if my simplistic approach to your obvious complex presentation dealing with the subject is insulting to your intelligence. It probably won't stretch your thinking on the subject as much as yours has mine.
 
So no fritter recipe then…..🤷
giphy.gif
 
Back
Top Bottom