What if the legal reasoning for Roe is flawed?

[Bodi]

It has nothing to do with self awareness.

All born humans are persons whether they are self aware or not.

Self awareness is not the reason that abortion is legal nor is it the argument.

The US does not recognize an unborn as a person.

The Constitution mentions persons several times and in every case the word person applies to a born human. Person is not used in the Constitution to reference an unborn and since a fetus is not considered a person abortion before viability is legal.

States also have an interest in an unborn and since the Supreme Court had to weigh the right to privacy of the woman to have an abortion and the states interest in the "potential life " of the fetus they decided the state could take a " compelling interest" after viability because at that stage the fetus had reached the point it could survive outside the woman's womb even if might need medical equipment to survive.

You are either purposely or ignorantly not following the point. Never mind.

 

[Scrabaholic]

Fetal PAIN. Not consciousness.

If it can't feel pain, do you really think it is conscious?

 

[Scrabaholic]

Did he say all blacks? No. Were their white slaves? No. Were blacks slaves? Yes.

Good... no we can stick to the point of his objection.

The inference was all blacks.

Originally Posted by mac View Post
Some are counted, the rest are not. At one point, blacks were counted as 3/5 of a person. You really want to base your argument on the census?

He did not say some blacks or slaves. He said blacks.

Care to address the rest of my response?

 

[matchlight]

It has nothing to do with self awareness.

All born humans are persons whether they are self aware or not.

Self awareness is not the reason that abortion is legal nor is it the argument.

The US does not recognize an unborn as a person.

The Constitution mentions persons several times and in every case the word person applies to a born human. Person is not used in the Constitution to reference an unborn and since a fetus is not considered a person abortion before viability is legal.

States also have an interest in an unborn and since the Supreme Court had to weigh the right to privacy of the woman to have an abortion and the states interest in the "potential life " of the fetus they decided the state could take a " compelling interest" after viability because at that stage the fetus had reached the point it could survive outside the woman's womb even if might need medical equipment to survive.

Why isn't the state's interest in protecting life compelling until after viability? Wasn't Justice Kennedy just making it up as he went along in Casey? Maybe he figured that since that's exactly what Justice Blackmun had done in Roe, there was precedent for making more arbitrary, lawless dictates. I guess taking the attitude of "screw the Constitution--we say this is how it is, and you'll like it, or else" comes more naturally, once you've done it before.

"Compelling interest" is the language of strict scrutiny, the standard under which laws restricting fundamental rights are reviewed. But I don't see how ordinary strict scrutiny analysis can possibly apply after Casey. How can a state have a compelling interest in protecting the health of both the woman and the fetus that may become a child? What happens when those interests conflict with each other, and with the woman's right to privacy?

When you think about those questions, it starts to become clear why not once in Casey would the Court claim abortion was a fundamental right. Knowing abortion doesn't even come within a mile of meeting the Court's own longtime standards for fundamental rights, the Roe Court just flat skipped the step of evaluating it by those standards and blithely decreed that it was one. That diktat had been an embarrassment during the two decades before Casey, and the fact it called for strict scrutiny of abortion laws presented the very sticky problems in Casey that I just noted. Ergo, the Court in Casey backed far away from Roe's claim that abortion is a fundamental right, and it hasn't claimed it is since.

 

[Bodi]

If it can't feel pain, do you really think it is conscious?

Obviously no and that is why I posted that...

 

[Bodi]

The inference was all blacks.



He did not say some blacks or slaves. He said blacks.

Care to address the rest of my response?

His point was obviously about blacks that were slaves counting as 3/5 a vote. Move on...

What is the rest of your response? Basing the argument on a census?

 

[Bodi]

Okay, Bod. I'm not trying to give you any grief. I'm not dismissing the validity.

I'm saying that I don't personally agree with the premise of the personhood flaw.

A human life - in a pre-birth state isn't labeled scientifically as a person. Science doesn't want to get into that argument. So I'm removing science from the argument altogether.

I'm also pointing out that pro-life isn't making an argument that qualifies as a "personhood" argument either. Most pro-life believe we are the creation of a higher being who plays a role in each and every conception for the purpose of implanting a supernatural being in a biological vessel. The combination of the implanted supernatural being and the biological vessel is supposedly created to play out a divine plan. I personally don't subscribe to this belief.

Pro-choice argument can be made entirely without ever saying the words "Abortion" or "Fetus", or "Embryo" or "Zygote".

Person is only relevant to the designated meaning created by our government, which applies it to our judicial system in order to uniformly interpret and execute laws.

If the unborn was Constitutionally a person. Women's value would degrade to the value of an amoeba....or a biological instrument used by men to obtain an orgasm without masturbating.

That's it for me.

Understood. I am only debating against those that might put forth the personhood argument in that case.

 

[Lursa]

I am not arguing that the fetus should be considered a person. I am arguing a devils advocate position and showing the lack of logic in the pro-choice position. Science and medicine do not refer to them as people because that is a legal argument. They refer to them as their biological standing just as they refer to infants as infants, males as males, females as females, etc.

It's completely logical. It is the position that as a society, we should not decide a life-changing, perhaps life-ending, choice for someone else...someone else who is the only one that knows what is best for her. That is why choice leaves that decision up to each individual woman.

And completely logical that society invest in (by not diminishing or damaging) women, contributing members of that society, and their rights rather than inventing rights for the unborn....something that might never even survive to be part of that society (with an additional possibility that they will be severely defective as well.) To risk the actual contfibuting member of society...her life and her ability to contribute...for something completely unknown that may never do so? Not logical except on a personal level. One which *choice* provides.

 

[Lursa]

Or just taking his comment out of context. :lol:

No, it was inaccurate both in meaning and the way it was enacted historically.

it was clear that either he was not aware of the reality of the dictate or he was using it dishonestly in the hopes no one else knew the facts.

 

[minnie616]

Why isn't the state's interest in protecting life compelling until after viability?....

Because at that point the fetus is developed enough it " presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb."

From Roe section X:

With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion [410 U.S. 113, 164] during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.

 

[Bodi]

It's completely logical. It is the position that as a society, we should not decide a life-changing, perhaps life-ending, choice for someone else...someone else who is the only one that knows what is best for her. That is why choice leaves that decision up to each individual woman.

That is not logical if what is best for society is that the woman not terminate...

And completely logical that society invest in (by not diminishing or damaging) women, contributing members of that society, and their rights rather than inventing rights for the unborn....something

All rights are invented... that doesn't even make any sense let alone begin to approach logic.

that might never even survive to be part of that society (with an additional possibility that they will be severely defective as well.)

Irrelevant...

To risk the actual contfibuting member of society...her life and her ability to contribute...for something completely unknown that may never do so? Not logical except on a personal level. One which *choice* provides.

How is she being risked? In asking that... everything we do every day is a risk.

 

[Lursa]

I pointed out a flaw in the argument of personhood. That is all. If you don't care about that then just say so but please do not attempt to dismiss the validity of it.

Connecting personhood to "self-awareness" means something to you. It is a criteria that you are carefully refining and deciding to use to support personhood while rejecting the usage of personhood in a legal sense...because you think it enables you to use biology to support your position.

Cool.

That doesnt mean anyone else has to accept it. It means nothing to me or my personal arguments based on ethics.

We still kill other animals with self-awareness...I dont buy it for the unborn myself...but you are welcome to.

 

[Bodi]

No, it was inaccurate both in meaning and the way it was enacted historically.

it was clear that either he was not aware of the reality of the dictate or he was using it dishonestly in the hopes no one else knew the facts.

I said context. You are assuming that he does not know his history and that assumption is leading you to mistake his meaning... stop trying so hard.

 

[Bodi]

Connecting personhood to "self-awareness" means something to you. It is a criteria that you are carefully refining and deciding to use to support personhood while rejecting the usage of personhood in a legal sense...because you think it enables you to use biology to support your position.

Cool.

That doesnt mean anyone else has to accept it. It means nothing to me or my personal arguments based on ethics.

We still kill other animals with self-awareness...I dont buy it for the unborn myself...but you are welcome to.

You don't have to accept anything but that does not negate the accuracy of my argument...

 

[Lursa]

That is not logical if what is best for society is that the woman not terminate...

And yet, we have never ever seen anyone post any harm that abortion has done to society. We can however, point out benefits.

All rights are invented... that doesn't even make any sense let alone begin to approach logic.

Correct, and I have pointed out in many posts why it's logical to accord them to the born. I put it right here in this response and you claim it is 'illogical,' LOLOL

You dont accord rights to something that may never be part of society if they grossly infringe on the already contributing member of soceity. That is indeed illogical and observably harmful...to the woman and to society. As has repeatedly been pointed out...but dismissed. Such is the way people often view women and their righs in our society, sadly. As for the unborn...I unabashedly do not care how they are treated...they are not 'harmed.' They know nothing and can be terminated without feeling anything. And as far as I know, their loss does not harm society.

Irrelevant...

No, harming women to accord rights to something that may never be even survive to exercise it's rights is ridiculous.

How is she being risked? In asking that... everything we do every day is a risk.

Her life is at risk, her health is at risk. Her future is at risk....her right to the pursuit of happiness. If forced to remain pregnant, her own ability for self-determination is subordinated to that of the unborn, by the govt.

And if her ability for self-determination is compromised, so is her ability to contribute to society. Damage to her often equates to damage to her ability to finish school, pursue higher education, work, support a family, etc etc etc. All of which affect society. Her success in life also works in society's benefit....the more she can contribute, the better. The more she fails, the more society must make up for. Either there is less net benefit or society even has to pay in $ or crime or neglected kids or juvenile delinquency or child abuse or less educated members or enabling an entire cycle of people not reaching their potentials in society.

Everything we do is a risk....but the govt has no right to tell pregnant women what risks to take....they have committed no crime. We choose our own risks in life, unless we CHOOSE to give them over to someone or something else.

 

[Lursa]

I said context. You are assuming that he does not know his history and that assumption is leading you to mistake his meaning... stop trying so hard.

That is exactly what I am assuming, I said as much.

Pretty much I'm sure with at least one of my two assumptions

 

[Lursa]

You don't have to accept anything but that does not negate the accuracy of my argument...

It's not 'accurate.' It is one definition from one philosophy. You choose to accept that.

 

[Lursa]

That's nice.

It does not work in practice, in reality...if you are concerned about the rights of women...but otherwise, it's what works for you.

It works in reality because it is just simple logic... if the practice is changed then it will work in practice. The rights of the woman are not the only rights that some are concerned with.

How would it work in practice if changed? It would grossly infringe on the rights of women. It would teach this and future generations of women that the unborn are more important than they are.

And it would require laws that are unConstitutional. It does work in practice now. Forced pregnancy cant work in our society as it is now...it would require great and harmful changes.

We know that many people are not concerned with the rights of women and consider the unborn...a) to have rights, which they do not and b) believe that those rights should take precedence over women's rights (because *in practice* they would.)

A sad and poor message for today's women and those of the future.

 

[Removable Mind]

That is not logical if what is best for society is that the woman not terminate...

.

How did you come to the conclusion that a woman who remains pregnant is what is best for society? How can a society evaluate or measure the value of any given women remaining to be pregnant?

 

[Bodi]

As for the unborn...I unabashedly do not care how they are treated.

That sums your attempts at logic, morality and what is best quite nicely...

 

[Bodi]

How did you come to the conclusion that a woman who remains pregnant is what is best for society? How can a society evaluate or measure the value of any given women remaining to be pregnant?

I didn't say it was what was best I said that "if what is best for society"... big difference.

 

[Bodi]

How would it work in practice if changed? It would grossly infringe on the rights of women. It would teach this and future generations of women that the unborn are more important than they are.

And it would require laws that are unConstitutional. It does work in practice now. Forced pregnancy cant work in our society as it is now...it would require great and harmful changes.

We know that many people are not concerned with the rights of women and consider the unborn...a) to have rights, which they do not and b) believe that those rights should take precedence over women's rights (because *in practice* they would.)

A sad and poor message for today's women and those of the future.

What I hear is that many women are mad that they are women and that in order to correct that they support killing their developing child...

 

[Removable Mind]

I didn't say it was what was best I said that "if what is best for society"... big difference.

If what is best for society...according to whom?

 

[Bodi]

If what is best for society...according to whom?

I don't know... having babies they don't want? It was her argument.

 

[Lursa]

What I hear is that many women are mad that they are women and that in order to correct that they support killing their developing child...

I dont know many women that wish they were men. Not sure I know any. Meaning...they arent mad unless they are treated unfairly.

Has nothing to do with being mad they are women. If their rights are respected, there's no reason to be mad. Their decisions pertaining to their own unborn are personal and individual and depends on the value they place on that unborn. How on earth can anyone else place any value on someone else's unborn? That's just silly, then we're back to that self-indulgent 'personification' of the unborn...which is also an individual choice but not one that should be forced on others.