If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with rights?

[dolphinocean]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Rocks, diamonds, etc are inanimate objects. They, by themselves, have no intrinsic value in terms of the fundamental right to life. They have no conscious will whatsoever to even assert anything at all. Therefore their worth is not of their own assertion, which they can't, but is subject to human's subjective appraisal.


Your appeal to sophistication as justification is plain silly. So, if you're less sophisticated than your neighbor, are you then good to be killed? Babies are likewise less sophisticated than average adults, so how is that a justification for infanticide. It won't wash with sane mind.


I don't know how you find killing a mosquito or a leach comparable to killing a human baby born or otherwise. But, that's a mental defect commonly found in pro-abortion mentality that is very hard for logical person to fathom let alone trying to unwind it.


The founding father didn't mention the word human in the Constitution because the word person is used in place of it. Another plural form "people" was also used. In another founding document the word "men" is also used in placed of human beings. It doesn't mean anything to which you tried to twist it to mean what you want for your agenda.


The whole Constitution was ONLY about the politics of those who govern and those who are governed. Nothing more. It is not a metaphysical or philosophical document about the term "person" or "personhood". Neither was it an exegesis or a discussion on when a thing became a person. Your attempt to insinuate that is just absurd.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Legitimate hospitals don't do abortion just because you claimed your life is threatened and demand for it. . .

In hospital the team of doctors would run some blood works and send you for some diagnostic tests after taking your medical history and giving you a full examination. Then based on their findings they will treat you according to the appropriate plan of treatment.

. . . there is hardly any case that requires abortion to the solution. In most cases, the patient could be treated conventionally with medication and monitored to near term. Both the mother's life and the unborn child's life can be saved by either induced life birth or if necessary a C-section.

Since you claimed that women who have legal late-term abortions have them in hospitals then I take it that you will not use the "women's life in danger" as your argument point when you debate pro-life or anti-abortion folks when they suggest closing down all abortion clinics?

Abortion was legal even before 1973, and some states with quite liberal abortion laws. Legal abortion was done in both doctor's offices and hospitals. The doctors were obgyns with privileges at a hospital where they also handled pregnancy complications and deliveries. Hospitals were the location of 80% of abortions.

After Roe v Wade, hospitals and obgyns worried about the stigma anti-choicers put on providers did not want to provide abortion, but committed pro-choice doctors set up low-cost abortion clinics. Residency obgyn training might not even include abortion for an emergency (e.g., incomplete miscarriage). In 1996, clinics did 90% of abortions: pro-choice obgyns referred patients there rather than perform one in their office-clinics or a hospital save in cases where complications made hospitalization needed.

But the medical community changed, and residency training came to include abortion especially at university hospitals and pro-choice obgyns, often female, with privileges at hospitals, came to integrate abortion in their obgyn practice. Few doctors provided abortions in their office-clinics any more, but provided them at hospitals - even medical (RU486) abortions. University hospitals were an initial focus because many private hospitals were/are Catholic.

From before 1973, some women were having hospital abortions for both medical/therapeutic and elective reasons. The woman simply had to have such an obgyn as described above and have the means to pay for an expensive hospital abortion. The obgyn notifies the hospital, makes the arrangements, and performs the abortion there.

Women with higher means often choose this approach for elective abortions because they can avoid the vulgar protesters outside clinics and have the procedure performed by their own obgyn instead of an unknown doctor. Many legitimate hospitals do have abortions performed in them. They just aren't Catholic hospitals.

You seem to assume that a conscious pregnant woman would willingly walk into a hospital ER and tell a bunch of strange doctors, whose credentials and capacities are unknown to her, that she wants a late-term abortion, and that the unknown doctors then treat her like an unconscious biological entity according to their own decision-making.

If an unconscious woman in late pregnancy is brought into an ER with serious complications, doctors only treat her on their own decision if it is believed she will die without immediate treatment. Otherwise, they will seek to contact her next of kin for necessary consent for treatment to avoid the possibility of a malpractice suit in the even something negative happens to the woman as a result. But if the patient is conscious, they are required by law to consult with her. Normally, a pregnant woman already has a doctor, with whom the hospital will consult.

But when a woman has serious pregnancy complications in late pregnancy, she is unlikely to rush to a hospital without consulting her own obgyn. If she contacts him/her, she will see him/her first, if it is not a dire emergency, or he/she will have her go to the hospital where he/she has admitting privileges and meet her there. He/she handles her case as he/she would do if she were in labor and going to give birth, though he/she may call in a specialist if the hospital has one. Her own pro-choice obgyn will tell her the truth about her condition and make recommendations.

Her doctor and any specialist called in will probably weigh the appropriateness of abortion, induced labor, and c-section. The woman in late pregnancy is very unlikely to want an abortion, but the doctor may find that the fetus is non-viable, e.g., a fetal anomaly or having a serious defect, or she may have had an incomplete miscarriage. Her own pro-choice obgyn will be honest about that, too. Late-term pregnancy is not banned in some states and is allowed in some for fetuses with fatal defects, etc. The woman and her own pro-choice doctor will decide what is best for the woman, and the woman will then legally consent to what she legally consents to.

Your notion that a bunch of unknown doctors in a hospital have the right to cause permanent loss of major health functions to a woman just to save a fetus with a fatal defect without consulting her and get away without a major malpractice lawsuit is crazy. Because, if she has the means, she can chose to be taken by air to a state where she could get a legal abortion at a hospital in that case. Doctors could lose their medical licenses if they did not consult her.

I repeat, late-term abortions have always been performed in hospitals rather than abortion clinics because they are more dangerous.

I don't ever use the "women's life in danger" argument in relation to the argument for or against abortion clinics because it simply isn't necessary.

FYI, on the history of hospital abortions and the rise of abortion clinics and later the obgyn who integrates abortion into his/her obgyn practice, I consulted: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/magazine/18abortion-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 as well as some other sites.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Your words are so re-assuring.

I'm sure kermit gosnell chose his specialization not becuse of money but because he was morally committed to women's right to choose in the face of all the people attacking it.

But, wait a minute... I thought kermit gosnell was morally committed to a very long life in a state penitentiary, no?

Gosnell was a criminal. But so are many former doctors who have lost their licenses due to malpractice in many different areas of medicine. One criminal does not make an entire area of medical practice illegitimate. If it did, medicine would no longer be practiced at all in the US, because doctors in almost every area of medicine have been found guilty of malpractice.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Yes, the same thing can happen in childbirth. But, didn't you and your pro-abortion folks always touted to us that abortion is very safe and much safer than childbirth? And wasn't the debate here about the need to abortion when the mother's life is at risk?

So, my question to you is why would a pregnant woman with life-threatening medical condition choose to go to an abortion clinic to have her unborn child specifically killed when the abortion clinic is not even well equipped to save her life in case of true medical emergency as in the case of Tonya Raeyes who was not even sick?

But, we know abortion rhetoric is just a bunch of lies.

First, as I showed above, life-threatening late pregnancy complications are handled in hospitals. But there are different kinds of threats to the woman's life. One kind is ectopic pregnancy, which can be diagnosed very, very early in pregnancy. A competent abortion clinic will not administer a medical/chemical abortion before finding out whether the pregnancy is ectopic, because it would be dangerous to do so.

But there are special medical/chemical and surgical methods to abort a typical tubal ectopic pregnancy. Their benefit is the tube can remain intact. Removal of the part of the tube containing the ectopic embryo, such as a Catholic hospital would do, mutilates the woman and significantly reduces her fertility chances for future, non-ectopic pregnancies.

Some abortion clinics are well equipped do such abortions more efficiently, at much lower cost, and with the skill that only comes with training and experience. At a hospital, there may be no one with better training and experience, because this sort of problem is a problem handled by people particularly qualified and experienced in abortion of ectopic pregnancies.

The only issue in such cases would be a needed capacity to move the woman to a hospital in a rare emergency case, as hospitals have facilities for more complex surgery. But the incidence of such emergencies are so rare that they could not reasonably be used as an excuse to have ectopic pregnancy abortions done only at hospitals, especially as hospitals often have no one properly trained for this area of medicine.

I'm not too familiar with Reaves case, but it is my understanding that she had a second-trimester abortion at one of the rare PP clinics who do not restrict themselves to first-term abortions, hemorraged during the abortion, and was taken to Chicago Memorial Hospital. I have been trying to learn more from the autopsy report. However, since I don't trust any anti-abortion people to report honestly, I have to find a source other than an anti-abortion site. It's one of those boy who cried wolf problems - those sites might have it right, but their legion of prior statements that have been proven to be lies means that they can't be believed even if they are telling the truth now.

Meanwhile, however, the death rate from abortion complications is far, far lower than the death rate from childbirth complications, and hence, if a woman wants and is denied an abortion and then dies in childbirth, whoever denied her the abortion is her killer, just because the known risks for childbirth are greater. And not even one case of malpractice in the abortion area of medicine can change that, because there are just as many cases of malpractice in the childbirth area of medicine.

 

[GEIxBattleRifle]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

1. So, if you're less sophisticated than your neighbor, are you then good to be killed? Babies are likewise less sophisticated than average adults, so how is that a justification for infanticide. It won't wash with sane mind.


2. I don't know how you find killing a mosquito or a leach comparable to killing a human baby born or otherwise. But, that's a mental defect commonly found in pro-abortion mentality that is very hard for logical person to fathom let alone trying to unwind it.


3. The founding father didn't mention the word human in the Constitution because the word person is used in place of it. Another plural form "people" was also used.

4. In another founding document the word "men" is also used in placed of human beings. It doesn't mean anything to which you tried to twist it to mean what you want for your agenda.


5. The whole Constitution was ONLY about the politics of those who govern and those who are governed. Nothing more. It is not a metaphysical or philosophical document about the term "person" or "personhood". Neither was it an exegesis or a discussion on when a thing became a person. Your attempt to insinuate that is just absurd.

1. LOL note how I said less sophisticated than your average ordinary animal? Even if I was less sophisticated than my neighbor, I would still fall in the category of me being more mentally sophisticated than a ordinary animal like most humans would fall under as well.

2. Such removal is equivalent to medically removing any other type of unwanted assaulting animal, such as a guinea worm. It is sheer prejudice to think that the human-ness of an unwanted animal assailant makes a difference.

Not to mention a cancer is another type of human-celled assailant and almost no-one tries to prevent it from being medically removed. There is also something called a “hydatidiform mole”, which is one of the ways defective DNA and/or Murphy’s Law can cause a conception to go wrong.

It might even be noted that an unborn human is very similar to a cancer or a hydatidiform mole in certain respects: All three are human-celled growths, the woman’s body has no control over the growth of any of them, and all three commit the assaults of taking resources from the woman’s body, and dumping toxic biowaste products into her body.

3. WRONG once again. The founding fathers didn't use the word human at all because they accepted that there can plenty of other non human entities like god who would qualify for rights as well.

4. YEAH, they meant specifically just men. That's why women didn't have rights at all. So they had to be included in the definition of the person to have rights. And they still fight to this day to get equal treatment and equal pay etc

5. As I said, the constitution only applies to persons and that definition is not universally agreed upon.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

The word "Union" is also in the Constitution. Then it must imply that a human person comes into existence at the moment when the union of a sperm and an egg took place, right?

With regards to the 14th amendment you have to know the historical context behind it before you start twisting it out of shape.

The 14th amendment with regards to citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws was adopted in 1868 in response to slavery issues after the civil war. At that time children born to slaves were not granted citizenship to the United States. The 14th amendment ratified that and granted citizenship and thus equal protection upon birth or through naturalization. So, it had nothing to do with your pro-abortion "personhood" concept of "person".

The term "person" used in the Constitution is merely a linguistic expression that serves as a pronominal function in place of the word "human" or "human being" and nothing more. The context in the 14th amendment was about the slaves and not unborn children or their "person" or "personhood".

Here's the pertinent part of Section I of the 14th Amendment:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."​

The above can be written as follows and still maintain the exact same meaning:

"All human beings born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."​

Consider that most aborted unborn babies are of normal and healthy development, your point regarding the neonate born with anencephaly is just pointless.

A corporation is not a human being, so why would you even talk about the right to life for a corporation? The point regarding corporation being recognized as a legal person was just to show you that the designation of "person" is just arbitrary since it has no inherent value apart from the human being.

Therefore, being a human being is what actually has inherent value due to its correspondence to the actual physical and biological existence of such being whereas the term "person" is just an empty shell borrowed from ancient root to function as a pronominal role as a social or legal construct in the way we choose to communicate in a social and legal setting. There is nothing more to it than what you people tried to carve out of thin air to justify for abortion.

And like I said, being a human being the unborns are covered by the Constitution and Federal and State laws as you and I and everybody else in this nation are covered. No amendment is necessary.

Sorry, I'm sick of trying to tell anti-abortion people that personhood and even status as a human being, as opposed to a mere embryo, implies characteristics that a mere embryo does not have.

This has been settled by the Supreme Court, and your posts do not exhibit anywhere near the level of careful, detailed, objective reasoning intelligence evidenced by Supreme Court opinions and decisions.

Where I live, your way of thinking is not remotely acceptable because it is shallow and you use it merely to insult people of good will with great intelligence and respect for the law and legal reasoning and careful interpretation of legal documents. It is if you thought you were qualified to be the Chief Justice. If you were, you would now be a federal judge with years of experience on the bench and peer-reviewed legal publications in respected law journals to your name. But we all know you aren't.

One clue: the corpse of a member of Homo s. sapiens is a human corpse, but it is not legally a person. Whether or not you want to call it a dead human being, I don't know, but to me, that "being" is not added to the adjectival indication of just any old species or any old biological entity. Because the embryo is not even capable of sustaining its own life via breathing and taking in nutrient without using some woman's body, let alone exhibiting or having exhibited in the past even a moment of genuine human consciousness, I'm never going to add it to the words "human embryo."

 

[GEIxBattleRifle]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

the fundamental right in the case of right to life is a God given unalienable Rights, or natural right if you will, by our mere existence through creation as a human being. This fundamental right to life is foremost and intrinsic to our very own existence as a human being.

By intrinsic it means innate, inherent, essential or belonging naturally. Therefore, all living things demonstrate this basic instinct of survivorship to preserve life. It's a fight or fright reaction. Animal asserts that right when they are cornered against the wall and will fight to the dead without fear for their very own lives. They also assert that right when their space such as their natural habitat wherein their food source and shelters are intruded upon and thus their survivorship was being threatened. They don't sit around in the face of danger and wait for someone to give them their right to fight back extrinsically.


Likewise, human beings are endowed with such fundamental right of survival which we called right to life. If some intruders broke into our home, we would instinctively assert our right to life for ourselves and our loved ones by fighting back and killing the intruders on the spot if need be without waiting for some authority to grant us that right. But, such fundamental right was already recognized by our founding fathers and acknowledge by the levels of our government when we collectively allow them to protect that right through the Constitution and the Federal and State laws such as the criminal laws against murder, rape and robbery.

Cont...

The notion of “right to life” is a human construct it does not exist in Nature, as any observer can easily find plenty of life-forms failing to notice any such thing as a “right to life” when they kill and eat other life-forms.

On the other hand Nature does offer an origin for the notion of a right to life. It is observed that when two members of the same species fight each other say for a piece of food, or territory or mates, very often this fight is not carried out “to the death”. One will usually concede to the other and that other allows the loser to leave the scene alive.

There is Evolutionary value in that because it quite simply and directly reduces the overall death rate of members of that species, and thereby enhances the long-term survival of that species. Note, however, that when two members of different species fight for territory (because they directly compete for the same resources in that territory), this fight will almost always be fatal for one of them. An observer can see in this paragraph an origin for “prejudice”.

Humans, by inventing the notion of a right to life, have simply formalized that Natural prejudice of each species for itself over other species. It is a very useful formalization, because it helps humans to get along with each other. Humans have invented so many ways of making it easy to kill other things, including each other, that by simply accepting a formalized prejudice, we can better cooperate to do wonderful things, instead of constantly worrying about whether or not one is about to be literally stabbed in the back.

Carefully note that Nature does not recognize humanity’s formalized prejudice for itself its claim of a right to life. Floods and hurricanes and earthquakes (and so on) routinely kill thousands of humans every year. The notion of a right to life is a convenient tool that humans find useful and nothing more than that.

Next, because “right to life” is what it is, formalized prejudice, it also can be “taken too far” a little prejudice might be a good thing, but too much prejudice is a bad thing (too much of any good thing is always a bad thing).

One result of humans taking right-to-life-for-themselves too far is the current global population explosion. The word “biomass” is now relevant. In general, the total amount of biomass on Planet Earth is relatively constant. Logically, this means that the more biomass that becomes dedicated as human bodies (and as certain other life-forms needed to feed human bodies), the less biomass there can be for all the remaining life-forms on the planet. As a result, many life-forms have already become extinct, and many others are threatened with extinction, because prejudiced humans grabbed –and are still grabbing– more and more of the world’s limited biomass for themselves and their food sources (and for other things like wooden buildings).


Logically, to the extent that humans think that other life-forms should have some degree of “right to life” that is the extent to which humanity’s formalized prejudice for itself needs to be restricted. But, in turn that implies that not all humans should automatically have a full right to life or perhaps not have any right to life. Any volunteers? You wanna go first dolphinocean?

Besides a few suicides, of course not. Well then, there is the legal system, which can specifically remove “right to life” from certain humans, most frequently whenever someone is given a death penalty. In the USA and various other nations, that legal system has also found reason to deny right-to-life to unborn humans. Sure, there are many who oppose that denial. But to base that denial on the mere claim that humans automatically have a right to life, that denial is logically flawed, based on bad data.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

I was talking about the Constitution. Who cares what the run away supreme court said. All it matter is the Constitution. The supreme court is not above the Constitution.

The Constitution designates the Supreme Court as the supreme or ultimate definitive interpreter of what the Constitution says. So until you
are on that court as a justice, you do not get to be part of the ultimate definitive interpretation of what that document says.

 

[GEIxBattleRifle]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

A person IS a Human being.

And I already proved to you it isn't.

You can deny that simple fact if you want to. But that doesn't deny it being a fact.

 

[GEIxBattleRifle]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

The Constitution designates the Supreme Court as the supreme or ultimate definitive interpreter of what the Constitution says. So until you
are on that court as a justice, you do not get to be part of the ultimate definitive interpretation of what that document says.

Don't make appeals to authority it hurts.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Yes you do have the right to overthrow the government and set up a new one. It says so right in the constitution. that's why we have rights to a militia and to bear arms

No, it doesn't. You are thinking of the Declaration of Independence.

 

[Removable Mind]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

No, it doesn't. You are thinking of the Declaration of Independence.

So true, Choice...

From the Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

As the story goes; when a government violates the people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is the right...some say the DUTY, to change or abolish their government.

All I can say about that is to anybody thinking that's possible: Good luck!

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Again evidence, and proof that this is all true. Plus I can not speak for other pro-life people and to lump me as typical anything is unjust in itself, guilty until proven innocent? wow what a reverse of what the constitution we are fighting for and arguing about

1) Gender Gap In 2012 Election Aided Obama Win

According to CNN's exit polls, 55 percent of women voted for Obama, while only 44 percent voted for Mitt Romney. Men preferred Romney by a margin of 52 to 45 percent, and women made up about 54 percent of the electorate. In total, the gender gap on Tuesday added up to 18 percent -- a significantly wider margin than the 12-point gender gap in the 2008 election.

Women's strong support in the swing states gave Obama a significant advantage over Romney, despite his losses among men and independents. While Obama lost by 10 percentage points among independents in Ohio, he won by 12 points among women in the state. In New Hampshire, women voted for Obama over Romney by a margin of 58 to 42 percent, while men preferred Romney by a narrow 4-point gap. Pennsylvania showed a 16-point gender gap that tipped the scale toward Obama.

2) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/11/06/mcauliffe-wins-virginia-governor-race

Democrat Terry McAuliffe win over Republican Ken Cuccinelli came mainly from strong support among women -- unmarried women in particular -- as well as a sense that the Republican was too conservative. . . .

Cuccinelli’s strongly conservative views on issues like abortion hurt him with female voters. Women backed McAuliffe by a nine percentage-point margin. In 2009, women preferred Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell (who is also pro-life, but less conservative) by eight points.

Unmarried women went for McAuliffe by a wide 67-25 percent margin.

3) Republican Women Flee from

4)A Letter to the GOP From An Active Female College Republican: Why I’m Leaving You | Fem2pt0

5)Women See GOP Drifting Further From Them - NationalJournal.com

This is just a small sample.

And FYI, anybody who tells me they would vote for anti-abortion legislation, especially at the federal level, is the political enemy of the right of a woman to choose whether or not to continue her own pregnancy.

Thus, you have declared yourself the enemy of one of the political and moral values I consider the most important in the universe, values of deep philosophical significance, for which I am willing to lay down my life as more important than myself, though I am not any longer pregnable.

This is a war, you see. And for that value to survive for women in the US, I cannot afford to trust any person who serves the enemy. You are to me what a German Nazi soldier or a Japanese imperial army soldier was to a US soldier in WWII - that side cannot be allowed to win.

What did you expect?

 

[Steve Ja]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

1) Gender Gap In 2012 Election Aided Obama Win



2) Exit polls: McAuliffe wins in Virginia with strong support among women | Fox News



3) Republican Women Flee from

4)A Letter to the GOP From An Active Female College Republican: Why I’m Leaving You | Fem2pt0

5)Women See GOP Drifting Further From Them - NationalJournal.com

This is just a small sample.

And FYI, anybody who tells me they would vote for anti-abortion legislation, especially at the federal level, is the political enemy of the right of a woman to choose whether or not to continue her own pregnancy.

Thus, you have declared yourself the enemy of one of the political and moral values I consider the most important in the universe, values of deep philosophical significance, for which I am willing to lay down my life as more important than myself, though I am not any longer pregnable.

This is a war, you see. And for that value to survive for women in the US, I cannot afford to trust any person who serves the enemy. You are to me what a German Nazi soldier or a Japanese imperial army soldier was to a US soldier in WWII - that side cannot be allowed to win.

What did you expect?

fine it's a war.

 

[choiceone]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Part I

You are dodging my argument regarding "person" and "personhood" altogether.

Your attempt at straw man with the "quickening" argument as an evasive tactics also fell flat against you. For starter you are presenting falsehood. For the main part, you failed to understand that your argument actually proved Roe v Wade ruling to be in error.


Abortion was NOT legal in early period British common law. According to the 1803 English Statutory Law, abortion after quickening is a capital offense that carried the punishment of death penalty. Abortion before quickening was also a crime but it was considered as less serious.


The reason there were two tier system in the early British law against abortion was because in those days the knowledge of human embryology was at its infancy and the medical technology of our modern time, such as ultrasound, is non-existent.


In 1837 the British law abandoned the quickening factor altogether once they realized that "quickening" wasn't the stage where life began but conception was. And in 1869 the British Parliament passed the "Offenses against the Persons Act" recognizing abortion as a felony crime from conception onward. Here the term "Persons" specifically referred to the human unborns.


You also made a false claim that "voluntary induced abortion was legal in all 13 colonies and continued to be legal there when they became states."


The fact is that abortion was illegal in all 13 colonies at the adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The abortion ban became widespread in America by mid-1800s. By 1900, other than to save the mother's life, abortion was illegal everywhere in the U.S.


BBC - Ethics - Abortion: Historical attitudes to abortion

History of Abortion in America


Abortion Was Illegal in All 13 American Colonies in 1776 | LifeNews.com

I certainly did not make any false claim.

English common law as an expression in relation to US history refers to the English system of law that was in place in England and the American colonies before and at the time of the American Revolution in 1776.

It has been shown again and again by actual English court case documents and legal writings that, in English common law, voluntary induced abortion was legal up to what was called "quickening." A reliable reference to this was referred to in the Roe v Wade majority opinion itself.

That Roe v Wade opinion noted that, in general, most scholars claimed that abortion was illegal after "quickening." Some claimed that, after quickening, abortion was a misdemeanor. There was one thinker in England who thought it to be homicide, but a later legal scholar who saw at as, at worst, less than homicide.

In the review in the Roe v Wade majority opinion, it is pointed out that, first, sources generally agree that abortion after quickening was a misdemeanor in the American colonies, but second, there was a recent review that suggested it was not even a misdemeanor after quickening.

Part of the difficulty in clarity seems to stem from the possibility that different colonies treated abortion after quickening differently, as a misdemeanor, a very serious misdemeanor, or not a crime at all. The fact that it was not a crime before quickening in any of the colonies/original 13 states is not in dispute among historical scholars of law, as the Roe v Wade majority opinion indicated and supported with references.

You have misunderstood your first listed link, the only reliable objective source. It has a paragraph on English common law and another paragraph on the English 1803 Lord Ellensborough's Act in English Statute Law. The common law paragraph states clearly that abortion was not a crime at all if done prior to quickening. But in relation to the US, the 1803 law is not part of early common law because it was passed after the US came into existence and so was not part of the common law inheritance in the US.

As for your other sources, the second link provides no documentation for the claim that abortion was a misdemeanor prior to quickening and a felony afterward. On reading the link further, I found that this was just some anti-choice propaganda paper. There is almost no documentation to guarantee objective historical accuracy with regard to most points.

The same thing is true for the third source from a pro-life news source, where there is no documentation. You have merely believed what you read, without applying critical thinking.

It is true that Lord Ellenborough's Act of 1803 was a very strict anti-abortion law with severe penalties. Even though this was now a foreign law from an American viewpoint, in fact, English legal thinking still had influence on American legal thinking, and the influence of this law on some American legal thinkers is one reasons Connecticut conceived and passed an anti-abortion statute in 1821, though the Connecticut law was less strict and carried less severe penalties.

It is also true that your second two links, from anti-choice sites, are merely propagating objectively false claims as if they are true, and this is one more reason why no one can take anti-choice people seriously. If you want to have your views taken serious, you have to be much more careful about using reliable sources of information.

 

[Scrabaholic]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Once again FALSE. For proof just imagine a flying saucer landing in front of you and an extraterrestrial nonhuman alien entity emerging and politely asking you for directions to say the Alpha Centauri star system. You probably won' have the answer to that question, but would the alien qualify as a person? If so, why? Because whatever generic characteristics that particular nonhuman possesses, that lets you identify it as a person and not as an unusual type of animal, unborn humans don’t have those characteristics. Measurably animal-level are the minds they do have!

No it would not qualify as a persons as it is not human.

 

[Lursa]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Gosnell was a criminal. But so are many former doctors who have lost their licenses due to malpractice in many different areas of medicine. One criminal does not make an entire area of medical practice illegitimate. If it did, medicine would no longer be practiced at all in the US, because doctors in almost every area of medicine have been found guilty of malpractice.

Make abortion illegal and there will be thousands more Gosnells. And the women will be dying too. (Not sure alot of pro-lifers care about that tho. A prevalent attitude is that it is 'just punishment')

 

[Lursa]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Sorry, I'm sick of trying to tell anti-abortion people that personhood and even status as a human being, as opposed to a mere embryo, implies characteristics that a mere embryo does not have.

This has been settled by the Supreme Court, and your posts do not exhibit anywhere near the level of careful, detailed, objective reasoning intelligence evidenced by Supreme Court opinions and decisions.

Where I live, your way of thinking is not remotely acceptable because it is shallow and you use it merely to insult people of good will with great intelligence and respect for the law and legal reasoning and careful interpretation of legal documents. It is if you thought you were qualified to be the Chief Justice. If you were, you would now be a federal judge with years of experience on the bench and peer-reviewed legal publications in respected law journals to your name. But we all know you aren't.

One clue: the corpse of a member of Homo s. sapiens is a human corpse, but it is not legally a person. Whether or not you want to call it a dead human being, I don't know, but to me, that "being" is not added to the adjectival indication of just any old species or any old biological entity. Because the embryo is not even capable of sustaining its own life via breathing and taking in nutrient without using some woman's body, let alone exhibiting or having exhibited in the past even a moment of genuine human consciousness, I'm never going to add it to the words "human embryo."

Entire post worth repeating.

Esp. for us lazier folks that find the same desperate explanations tiresome.

 

[Lursa]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

fine it's a war.

Well you are the one that, if you had a choice, would allow the govt to FORCE women to remain pregnant when they dont want to.

Scrape away the fluff of discussion and that is what it comes down to. Reducing women to 2nd class citizens who cannot choose their own destinies to fulfill their potential in life.

Have you ever once tried to imagine and put yourself in the place of a woman, who cant afford it and has to work 2 jobs, or go to school AND work, to support herself and her current kid, what it would be like to have someone DEMAND that you carry and have that kid? And keep trying to work the jobs and take care of the kid? AND pay medical expenses for another pregnancy and then kid?

 

[GEIxBattleRifle]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

No it would not qualify as a persons as it is not human.

Why wouldn't it?

Are you truly saying entities who are as intelligent as you don't qualify for rights? because they're just not human?

In near future, I should be careful if one day I could download my mind into some robotic body that I don't get declared a ''non person.''

 

[GEIxBattleRifle]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Make abortion illegal and there will be thousands more Gosnells. And the women will be dying too. (Not sure alot of pro-lifers care about that tho. A prevalent attitude is that it is 'just punishment')

I can't believe everyone is talking about Gosnells still.

It's nothing more but propaganda meant to lead us away from the only question that only needs to be answered now in the abortion debate.

 

[Steve Ja]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Well you are the one that, if you had a choice, would allow the govt to FORCE women to remain pregnant when they dont want to.

Scrape away the fluff of discussion and that is what it comes down to. Reducing women to 2nd class citizens who cannot choose their own destinies to fulfill their potential in life.

Have you ever once tried to imagine and put yourself in the place of a woman, who cant afford it and has to work 2 jobs, or go to school AND work, to support herself and her current kid, what it would be like to have someone DEMAND that you carry and have that kid? And keep trying to work the jobs and take care of the kid? AND pay medical expenses for another pregnancy and then kid?

I actually have gone through things like that in my head. I also have seen women do the very things you are talking about and have talked to women that have done those things. work while being pregnant, having a kid, being a single mother, barely making ends meet. Guess what the kids grew up to be outstanding citizens, teachers, military members, police officers etc etc. It's not all doom and gloom.
I also look at things this way. If you are going to commit an act you should be ready to face the consequences of those actions. If you are not, don't commit the act. Taking it out on another life that had absolutely nothing to do with it, really is not the answer. Sure having sex is not asking to get pregnant, but it's a possibility of the act, even if you use protection.
We all make mistakes in life, but why should we also not pay for those mistakes. Also having a kid does not mean your dreams are smashed. Lots of mothers, to include low income single mothers have gone back to school and finished their education and moved on to better lives for themselves and their children. Why can't everyone do it.
Maybe I have more confidence and hope in my fellow Americans, I dunno, but I believe in them and think they can make a positive difference, to include that child that is at the center of so much debate on whether she should be allowed to terminate the life before it is born.
Fully aware of what is currently legal and I do not attempt to force them not to do what is legally allowed. I'm an enforcer, not a forcer. You are correct though, if the opportunity did come up I would strike down abortion in most cases. You can say it's reducing a woman to a 2nd class citizen, taking away her rights, whatever words, or names you wanna call me. You are perfectly within your rights to say those things.
I view it this way though as well. I am putting a class on the unborn. The law doesn't protect them, because it doesn't view them as people. Reality is i do not know what else they can be. Folks have explained time and time again why they aren't people. Makes no sense to me. Almost like dehumanizing the unborn to justify the views and using the woman's constitutional rights to back it up.
Constitutional rights? Constitutional interpretation is a real drag sometimes. All depends who reads it on how it gets interpreted. 7 judges who actually have the power to legally interpret the Constitution read it to mean the reproduction rights are protected by the Constitution. They don't even need to prove they are right. They are right, because the law says they are.
all I can do is agree, or disagree at this point. On that particular decision I disagree. I love my country and i love my fellow Americans man woman child and unborn.
I look forward to future conversations with you.

 

[Steve Ja]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

No, it doesn't. You are thinking of the Declaration of Independence.

Yea I do confuse the two sometimes.

 

[dolphinocean]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Abortion was legal even before 1973, and some states with quite liberal abortion laws. Legal abortion was done in both doctor's offices and hospitals. The doctors were obgyns with privileges at a hospital where they also handled pregnancy complications and deliveries. Hospitals were the location of 80% of abortions.

<snip>

Yes, abortion was legal before 1973 but not very long before. This was the counter-culture generation of the hippies and druggies who paved the way to turning the tide towards legaliztion of abortion. The first to break the mould was in 1967 when abortion was legalized for the first time in the U.S. in Colorado and California, just six years before Roe v Wade. This is nothing as compared to almost 200 years of abortion ban since the Declaration of Independence.

History of Abortion in America


When did the first state legalize abortion?


In 1967 Colorado and California legalized abortion. By June, 1970, when the State of New York passed the first Abortion on Demand Law (24-week limit), it be-came the 16th state to allow abortion. Due to an extremely loose interpretation of "mental health," California also had defacto abortion-on-demand. Alaska and Hawaii had liberal laws. Laws in the other 12 states, which included Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina and Virginia, were very restrictive, typically allowing abortion only for pregnancies due to assault rape, incest and life of the mother as well as for severe fetal handicap.


No more laws passed after that?


Between the passage of New York’s law in 1970 and the Supreme Court’s decision of January ’73, no more state legislatures voluntarily passed permissive abortion laws. Florida did because of a court order. The other states debated the issue in their legislatures, and all 33 voted against permitting abortion for any reason except to save the mother’s life. In April of ’72, New York State repealed its most permissive law. Governor Nelson Rockefeller vetoed the repeal, and the law remained in force. In the November ’72 elections, however, so many pro-abortion legislators were swept out of office that the New York General Assembly had enough votes to override the governor’s veto. Plans were made to again repeal the law when that legislature reconvened in 1973. Before it could act, however, the Supreme Court handed down the Roe v. Wade decision and nothing was done.​

So, you see, the seven unelected judges in Roe v Wade unilaterally defy the will of the people, State laws and distorted the Constitution to legislate a pro-abortion "law" from the bench. The Constitution specifically empowers the Congress the duty of legislation and not the judicial branch. But, it didn't bother blackmum and his cronies a bit to go against the Constitution and the will of the people.


Regarding pregnant women with life threatening situation seeking emergency medical care in the hospital vs the abortion clinics, the fact is that in an emergency situation there is no time whatsoever to dilate the cervix with the laminaria tents which takes abou three days in which she isn't going to hang around in the ER or a motel room with her life at the edge waiting for the cervix to dilate.


The abortion procedure itself to extract the fetus and thus killing it only put women in further risk if they were already at risk due to life-threatening situation. No legitamate doctors are going to do that in an emergency situation.

 

[dolphinocean]

Re: If birth will result in death of the mother, how can you abort a fetus with right

Gosnell was a criminal. But so are many former doctors who have lost their licenses due to malpractice in many different areas of medicine. One criminal does not make an entire area of medical practice illegitimate. If it did, medicine would no longer be practiced at all in the US, because doctors in almost every area of medicine have been found guilty of malpractice.

Gosnell wan't the only one. There were more.

Yes, medical doctors can be guilty of malpractice in the course of healing and saving lives. Among the vast majority of good ones, they are the exception, not the rule.

However, in abortion, abortionists' profession is sole to kill human lives. Those who were caught behaving unethically and sometimes criminally are the rule and not the exception.