Posted on 08/05/2002 5:30:51 PM PDT by jwalsh07
AMENDMENT 14
SECTION 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Just as stumped as I would be if someone insisted their right arm was their child and called it "Pete."
You didn't offer an argument so much as a semantic game, in which you labeled a human being at an early stage of development as an "appendage" by noting similarities between a developing child and an appendage. If that works for great philosohoical thought in your world, I am indeed stumped.
Hence, the status at law in the 18th century of blacks as less-than-human, and the relegation of Jews in Germany to non-personhood so they could be sliced, diced, baked, and roasted like cattle.
We get it. We fully understand where you are coming from.
??? Who made these rules? Are they original or can you cite a source? I haven't read the whole thread (I see it's grown a bit the past couple hours) but I'm sure that you are getting plenty of feedback.
I'm a bit confused about your terms for dependency. A fetus is dependent but not an individual because it is physically attached to the mother. However, a newborn is dependent but IS an individual because it is NOT physically attached to the mother.
OK. So your criteria is that physical attachment defines personhood. So what about conjoined twins, who must depend on each other via shared organs etc? Are they one individual, or two, or none, because they can't be defined by your terms as either one or two? You might find that a silly example, but I'm using your criteria, not mine.
Something occurred to me earlier today as I listened to the local morning show discuss the woman in PA who wants to have an abortion but her ex-boyfriend wants to raise the child. My five year old was in the back seat, and I suddenly realized how difficult it would be to explain to her what abortion is. When you talk to a child, how do you explain a fetus? "It's not a real person yet"? "Before it's a baby, some women choose not to let it become a baby and stop it before it happens"? ("But Mommy, when does it become a baby? How can you tell?") At what point does the "not a baby" become "a baby" in the eyes of a preschooler, and how do we explain it?
This Saturday we are going as a family to see my 20-week ultrasound (I'm pregnant with our third) - do we tell my daughter that the arms and legs and head and eyes and toes and heart and mouth and fingers that she plainly sees on the screen are NOT really a person until it is born and she can hold it? What would you tell your OWN child about the criteria you have placed on his or her unborn sibling?
Interesting notion. What are rights, and how are they ascribed or attained in your opinion?
There was a story on the news tonight about siamese twins joined at the head. Which twin is the "appendage" and which is the person? And if both are appendages, can both be killed without calling the killing murder?
I am very much against abortion after the 1st trimester. I think you should have yourself situated before then.
Well, it's a good start. One hopes if there is doubt on that first to second trimester border, you'd give the benefit to the unborn child in question.
They are driven by shallow, rationalist superstitions on what is human and what is not.
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Ok...you're not insane. Feel better? It's a baby and this subject is probably the only one in that I take a purely subjective moral position on. Do yourself a favor and go with a preggers lady on her first ultrasound visit at around 9-12 weeks and see for yourself. Unless it's dead en utero, it's a live baby in there blessed by our creator. Killing it is taking a life same as strangling dear ol granny. Bet you have issues with a "creator" too right? Is our creater a metaphysical appendage of our imagination or our soul?
:-} Good, you are exhibiting wisdom beyond your years.
Then, the mother could be considered simply an appendage of the child, such that at the point where it could survive outside the womb, the appendage surrounding it could be slaughtered? Using your logic, that would be equally true.
Baring medial intervention when the woman dies her fetus appendage always dies with her. When the woman's fetus appendage dies the woman seldom dies. How the fetus or the woman dies is not the issue. The argument is that the appendage is the property of the person it is attached to.
A child is not a wart to be excised.
We both know that an appendage can be anything from teeth to warts to cancer/tumor to limbs, brain etc. I made no discernment (quality distinction) of what is a beneficial appendage and what is negative appendage. I made no assertion that any appendage should or should not be removed nor did I put forth any reason for an appendage to be maintained or removed. What I did do was identify that a woman's fetus is her appendage/property and not the other way around.
And, as JWalsh pointed out in the beginning of this thread, the new imaging technology is going to make it impossible for that fallacy to be maintained.
You're kicking the stuffing out of your straw man.
We will one day look back on the supporters of abortion with the same sense of disgust that we look upon the communist butchers of the 20th century.
I made no comment about the abortion issue. My argument has been a private-property rights issue of the most fundamental nature.
The child is not an "appendage" of the woman.
A fetus is the appendage of a woman. When the woman dies her already born child will live on. When the woman dies her fetus appendage dies with her.
It is a unique living individual human being with the same exact right to life that every other human, including its mother, has.
A born child does have all the rights that an adult has. A person has rights. Society doesn't have rights nor does an appendage have rights, not even when that appendage is a fetus.
Zon: Thus the reason for the common-sense logic of saying "the woman's fetus", and not saying "the fetus's woman". ...Or "the woman's embryo" and not "the embryo's woman". 223
Word games are interesting, but less than useful.
Not word games. Just the opposite. I identified an observation that is a blatant obvious fact.
When you start with a flawed premise and then build upon it, the whole structure falls.
The premise holds valid. The fetus appendage is the woman's private property. I expected you to be your usual rational self. You disappointed me. No biggie.
Oh for gosh sake. You repeat this so often, I fear you truly believe it rather than employ it as a debating game. I might as well point out it isn't true.
Dying and dead women have had living "fetuses" delivered from them who have lived and gone on to lead real lives without need of some other "host" to be an "appendage" to. Not something donated organs can boast of.
Alan Keyes forumalated the morality of the abortion debate perfectly. The words change, but his formula remains the same. The moral formula offered by pro-abortionists is this: If you have a human being entirely within your power, he has no rights you must respect.
The word "property" gets tossed around. Dehumanizing terms are used (even absurd ones like "appendage" by you, or "parasite" by others). But the fact remains. These are human beings whose rights you do not want to respect. Therefore you frame arguments in the terms of their helplessness, and another's power over them.
That position has plenty of precedent in human history. It is hardly the beacon of freedom or the protector of rights.
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