PERSONHOOD IN NORTH DAKOTA

http://www.personhoodusa.com, http://www.personhoodnorthdakota.com, http://www.policynd.org ^ | 2-17-2009 | PERSONHOOD USA

[MountainFlower]

Thanks a bunch!!

[mvpel]

(And it d*mned well better be in that case, since the ND measure defines the embryo in an ectopic pregnancy, who has no chance of survival and will kill his or her mother to be entitled to human rights.)

So it becomes a justifiable homicide by law, rather than a medical procedure, not much different legally than an intended victim shooting a violent attacker.

This legislation also brings up an interesting issue with respect to the Thirteenth Amendment:

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime where of the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Does the unborn child effectively enslave his or her mother, or impose involuntary servitude upon her, if she is not permitted to withdraw her consent to act as a human life-support machine? Pro-life advocates should put some thought into this issue, since it seems a likely avenue of reasoning for abortion advocates.

[Philo-Junius]

That’s a silly argument; parents are always bound by law to support their children. Withdrawing support in a manner which results in the death of the child is negligent homicide.

[The_Reader_David]

Yes, that is the point (though removing the embryo in an ectopic pregnancy is both a medical procedure and justifiable homicide).

The “Abortion is murder” cry is a nice sound-bite, and while morally far more atuned with natural and divine law than anything the pro-aborts ever utter, is still morally shallow: abortion is homicide; willful homicide is murder; homicide to save another life is generally not murder, but classed as one or another type of justifiable homicide.

[Philo-Junius]

Furthermore, tubalectomies and other procedures which result in the death of the fetus in the case of ectopic pregnancies are merely the current inability to transplant the placenta from one point to another. We can easily imagine surgical technique advancing to the point where killing the fetus is not necessary in such unfortunate cases.

Present poverty of practical means is not a valid point in an argument over principle.

[mvpel]

The “Abortion is murder” cry is a nice sound-bite, and while morally far more atuned with natural and divine law than anything the pro-aborts ever utter, is still morally shallow: abortion is homicide; willful homicide is murder; homicide to save another life is generally not murder, but classed as one or another type of justifiable homicide.

This is why, as I understand it, at the time of Roe v. Wade there was not a single state anywhere in the US which prohibited abortions in the case of immediate threat to the life of the mother.