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To: Sir Francis Dashwood
See #396... I welcome a libertarian perspective - - I am advancing a libertarian resolution...

I read your post #396, and it appears that you are proposing that the courts decide whether or not an abortion will be permitted on a case-by-case basis. Here are a few problems with that position:

(1) The government (via the court system) would be making life-and-death decisions for the "unborn" based on a woman's age or sexual behavior. Was she willing or not? Has she reached the age of legal consent or not? But, the "unborn" have no control over the age or sexual behavior of the mother.

(2) That system would give the incentive to women to lie and claim that they were raped. And that could lead to unfair punishment of the men involved.

(3) While the pregnant woman is awaiting the trial or hearing, the "unborn" is continuing to develop. Thus, an abortion of a pregnancy at (for example) just 5 weeks could be delayed until a later time when the "unborn" has developed into a much more viable human being.

Above are just a few of the complications that I would predict if the courts made the decision for each woman individually.

As a side note, I'd like to point out that a court making decisions based on a woman's sexual behavior is basing the system on "morals".

402 posted on 11/14/2002 3:08:29 AM PST by Tired of Taxes
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To: Tired of Taxes
(1) The government (via the court system) would be making life-and-death decisions for the "unborn" based on a woman's age or sexual behavior.

A jury would make a decision based upon evidence in the case of a crime committed. If Roe v. Wade says society cannot intervene in private reproductive choices, the public funding thereof violates Roe v. Wade. Many courts are already unlawfully deciding that blanket permission is granted for public involvement through public funding. (This also raises the issue, as I stated earlier, of judicial complicity in the destruction of evidence in a felony.)

Rape, incest, or molestation are not sexual behaviors. They are felonies. The age of consent in most states is 18. You did not consider the entirety of what I said. Straw man arguments.

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(2) That system would give the incentive to women to lie and claim that they were raped. And that could lead to unfair punishment of the men involved.

The "men" and the women should both be accountable. I am not making morality calls. I think it is time "men" start treating women with respect. I'm a man and I like women just as much as any other. But because some other guy is a whoremonger and hooks up with some skank, it is not my problem if he makes poor choices in his sexual partner(s). I care not to share responsibility for another man's penis, I have enough responsibility dealing with my own. The idea that hooking up with some untrustworthy slut (who can be jailed for false accusations) is somehow an incentive, is not addressing the issues I raised. Red herrings.

If a woman were to falsely accuse, this also is a felony and should be investigated. I don't think it is unfair to ask "men" to be accountable. I also don't think it is unfair to ask women to be accountable.

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(3) While the pregnant woman is awaiting the trial or hearing, the "unborn" is continuing to develop.

I did use the words immediate trial. I'm not willing to accept the lazy judiciary syndrome. These folks make a lot of money, you and I pay them taxes. What I am talking about is an immediate decision. These two and three hour lawyer lunches are costing me a lot of money.

The taking of a human life is a most serious matter and should be carefully considered, especially if it involves negligence and/or crimminality (i.e., rape, incest, statutory rape, parental neglect, or juvenile delinquency).

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Above are just a few of the complications that I would predict if the courts made the decision for each woman individually.

The courts are already involved. Being a woman is not an excuse for making poor choices, neither is being a man. When public money or crime is involved, this becomes a public matter. It is also a public matter when we talk about taking a human life.

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As a side note, I'd like to point out that a court making decisions based on a woman's sexual behavior is basing the system on "morals".

No, I am talking about both women and men, logic and the law. The ethereal emotional ideals, esotric hobgoblins, and man made morals...

"are the images which are originally and most properly called ideas and idols, and derived from the language of the Grecians, with whom the word eido signifieth to see. They are also called phantasms, which is in the same language, apparitions. And from these images it is that one of the faculties of man's nature is called the imagination. And from hence it is manifest that there neither is, nor can be, any image made of a thing invisible." (Hobbes)

Aristotle's pathos in Poetics, Plato's eternal forms, Hobbes' phantastical images, Kierkegaard's despair, and numerous other concepts are directly related to the topic of "morals" as an ethereal creation of man, a practice of idolatry or an esoteric quantity.

404 posted on 11/14/2002 4:55:20 AM PST by Sir Francis Dashwood
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