Posted on 06/18/2011 11:27:57 AM PDT by Lou Budvis
Unfortunately for your argument, case law is often about using exceptions to clarify the rule. There was a recent case at Arizona’s largest Catholic hospital in which the Ethics Committes after careful monitoring and review determined an abortion was medically necessary. The Bishop terminated the hospital’s affiation with the Church and excommunicated the members of the Ethics Committee. The ACLU was brought into the case. A large group of Catholic women/nuns is arguing that this was the correct decision. Here are two links which were found at Google “Catholic hospital abortion”. There are many more.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/22/us-catholic-bishop-hospital-abortion
I am past childbearing age, and am so glad I was never faced with this kind of decision.
Going back to the Constitution and our founding fathers original intent is a bit complicated. The situation we live in today is far different from what it was then when communications was slow and difficult, and the states were very concerned with maintaining the freedom and right to act independently. While it is still important for states to be able to react to local conditions, it does not make sense in other areas. For example, what would it be like to only have local laws governing the Interstate Highway System, the airlines industry, and other commerce that is intimately connected with many states?
Another issue is unfunded mandates. I did not know until recently that Congress passed a law requiring all hospital emergency rooms to care for anyone, or something like that, even if they could not pay. If that is true, and there was no money set aside, then the mandatory insurance payment in Obamacare might make sense in fairness to the states. Does anyone have more information on this specific issue?
“You wonder why...” Well, it just happens to be my sweethearts birthday, so I was a little occupied. Now, see my Comment #43
Your prayers are deeply appreciated.
I understand your point but legislating on the basis of the exceptions is a slippery, dangerous practice. In general, prolife organizations do not object to these exceptions when there is truly the need.
Less than one percent of all abortions are performed to save the mother’s life.
I started crying, I could not help myself. I cried for the loss of life and the trauma that was thrust upon these young women.
I cried trying to understand how we got here.
She thought I was ready to stand in judgment, but this was not the case.
Why do some folks love life more than others?
It seems, in my experience, that liberals are bothered by even their own children.
I have witnessed so many liberals, that are completely disconnected from their own children, that their actions and positions they take are PURE SELFISHNESS.
And it seems as if this is to be a virtue?
We are so screwed as a country that I can only take care of myself and my family.
And yet you and I still are allowed near.
Can you explain that?
Using absurdity to illustrate a point upsets those most akin to the absurdity. Do I think Eric Rudolph has his admirers here on FR? Certainly. Have they openly stated this? Not that I’m aware.
But obviously I touched a nerve with you.
You’re one of those who can’t accept anyone that isn’t in lockstep with your definition of prolife, aren’t you?
Are you one of those who think that anyone who isn’t as radical as you is Pro Abortion?
I’ll bet you are!
If you don’t actively physically stop women from having abortions, aren’t you pro abort?
If you are accepting PP activities in your community, aren’t you pro abort?
Where does this silliness end?
There are millions of people who don’t advocate or support abortion but people like you kick them in the face and treat them like crap because they don’t share your convictions to the same degree.
How can you make pro life a mainstream idea if you insist on only accepting the most radical aspects of it?
In 1973, prior to Roe going through the subPreme court, it was legal in all fifty states to terminate a pregnancy in order to save a woman's life. I use 'terminate' because ending a pregnancy need not slaughter an alive unborn other human being. And yes, that's what the alive unborn are, your fellow human beings. Now let's look at the reality as it is framed through our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
The concept of self-defense is a well established right in America. If someone is threatening your life, it is well within your Constitutional rights, and your moral right, to terminate the threat, and that is argued over by simpletons like you every week in courts all across America. In some places, the court takes the liberal approach of weighing how much effort someone exerts in self defense ... can have victims using more force to defend than the perps use in committing their crimianl behavior now, can we? And that's what you approach to this issue of protecting the right to life of the alive unborn sounds like, a liberal arguing for degrees of defense.
What will your position be when sceince can remove an embryo from one uterus and place that child in an artifical womb so that life can continue to build its space ship for survival in the air world? ... People like you will rush to 'case law' and seek any tiny exception to justify continuing to kill these struggling children. I would bet on it despite your stealthy parsing.
The ethics committee was wrong.
gleeaikin wrote:
Going back to the Constitution and our founding fathers original intent is a bit complicated. The situation we live in today is far different from what it was then when communications was slow and difficult, and the states were very concerned with maintaining the freedom and right to act independently. While it is still important for states to be able to react to local conditions, it does not make sense in other areas. For example, what would it be like to only have local laws governing the Interstate Highway System, the airlines industry, and other commerce that is intimately connected with many states?
OK. Let me say a few things about this. First, while some "constitutionalists" use the Interstate Highway system as an example of extraconstitutional action by the Congress, I will defend the Interstate Highways (most of them at least) as constitutionally sound.
I've travelled all over these United States, and I've been traveling on the Interstate highways all my life. I was born in 1963, and many of our family vactions when I was growing up were trips with our family travel trailer across this great country. I literally "grew up on the Interstate Highways." I continued traveling on Interstate Highways throughout my adult life, with several cross country trips and numerous regional journeys. In all my travels on Interstate Highways, I've always noted the presence of large trucks of mail with "United States Post Office" markings on them. Congress is authorized to build "post roads" which are used by the post offices for routing mail from one post office to another. Historically (back way beyond the time of the American Revolution), post roads were open public roads and carried other traffic in addition to just mail carriers moving mail from one post office to another. I would estimate that at least 95% (and possibly even all) of the Interstate highway system is used to move mail, and the founders would have had no problem with calling them "post roads."
The second source of Constitutional authority for the Interstate Highways is defense related. The military also uses those highways, and they would be very important to the defense of this country. They could be covered as "needful Buildings" in that respect. There were "federal roads" built from the very start of this country, some pre-dating the United States constitution, which were used by the army to move troops from one fort or garrison to another. There is no question that our founders intended for the Congress to have the power to finance and build roads like that.
As for airlines, most airlines have at least one flight that takes off from one state and lands in another. While "Interstate commerce" is abused and distorted by the courts and the congress to insert themselves into many local transactions where they have no busines, nor any real authority by the orginal intent of the authors of the constitution, it's pretty clear that most airlines are engaged in what our founders would have considered true "interstate commerce" and there is some legitimate authority for the Congress to act in areas of actual "interstate commerce." There is also no problem with a state like Hawaii enacting a state law which parallels the federal laws and regulations for airlines operating entirely within their state.
Your examples are not examples of how today is "far different from what it was then when communications was slow and difficult, and the states were very concerned with maintaining the freedom and right to act independently."
Your example of unfunded mandates on private entities (hospitals) is another example of Congress overreaching and operating well beyond and outside of the enumerated powers of Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. This shouldn't be an excuse for further extra-constitutional action to fix the problem which Congress created itself, it should be an example of an extra-constitutional mandate that needs to be repealed.
The other beauty of the United States constitution is that if you find something that truly is not handled within the existing structure as originally intended (perhaps with support from the Federalist papers or other writings of the authors of the Constitution), there is always Article 5 which outlines a way to make additions or changes to the Constitution. This should not be taken without careful consideration, and the requirements to complete an amendment are high (2/3rds of both houses of Congress plus the acceptance of 3/4ths of the states), but for truly important issues which were not foreseen or covered in the original document, there is a process to handle those and grant the required authority to the Congress. That would work much better than activist Congresses ignoring the limitations and activist judges twisting the words of the original document to "create" new meaning.
I oppose abortion because it is an injustice. It is murder.
It is irrational and unjust to be in favor of killing an innocent baby because someone else committed a crime.
No one who is that irrational and unjust deserves to be President.
If it a matter of a woman receiving life-saving medical care that has the side-effect of harming or killing her baby, that’s one thing.
No one has the right to kill the woman, or to kill the baby.
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