Abortion should have nothing to do with criminal law

[Francoist]

Regardless of the logistical difficulties, the fact is that the murder of unborn children (demonstrably unique, living individuals of the species Homo Sapiens according to modern science), by virtue of being murder, and especially murder of an innocent and a child, is against Natural Law and Divine Law. Therefore there is no basis for claiming that civil law can allow or excuse it.

Currently in the USA the government is extremely negligent for having created the illusion that this activity can be tolerated by the state. However, something that contradicts Natural Law cannot be legal because the act of “legalizing” it would not rise to the description of Law. In effect, the notion of a “legal abortion” is as fantastical as the notion of Pegasus.

Therefore, if the lawful government of the USA will ever return to just governance and promulgate actual Law rather than elaborate fictions, abortion will have to be prosecuted by the authorities as premeditated murder and murder for hire. This prosecution will have to be “retroactive” inasmuch as none of the abortions that have been committed since Roe v Wade have in actual fact been legal.

 

[manualman]

…
This is all to say that there is something unique about fetal life: it’s dependence on another life in a very unique way (perhaps multiple ways - biologically and, could we say spiritually?). That to me makes the idea that abortion and homicide are the same. They are different, and they need to be treated accordingly.

My compliments on your thick skin and level head. Lack of those are why I could never be a lawyer. (perhaps among other missing ingredients!)

I do hope you continue to think through what it really is about fetal human beings that makes you want to classify them as less human than you or I. Do OTHER sorts of dependency reduce a person’s humanity? Is a poor man on welfare worth less than Bill Gates? Why not? I think that you’ll find that emotion and marketing have a lot more to do with the common cultural sense in America that the unborn aren’t QUITE like us than the undisputable facts do. After all, it wasn’t THAT long ago that this same culture was dead certain that black men weren’t QUITE as human and worthy as the rest of us either…

 

[Frank_Drebin]

So does poverty. Who will you arrest?

So does an unchecked flu.

Please. Stop insulting people’s intelligence and baiting them silly discussions.

Everyone with a pulse can see the parallels between murder and abortion. if you want to argue the differences so be it. Throwing up a ridiculous comparison that no adult is going to take seriously is a topic ender.

1. You start off by arguing that there are far better ways to deter abortion than criminal penalties (typically people who make this case have no issue aborting babies themselves anyway, so the argument is disingenuous. In almost every case, a person who wants abortion legal but rare means they could care less how many babies are callously offed.)
2. Some points out that we do the same thing for murdering adults, and you responded with the solution of arresting people who miss Mass. So you in fact DON’T want to decriminalize abortion, but to criminalize all mortal sins, apparently. Your train of though is already off the tracks.
3. You then justify not decriminalizing abortion (changing your postion for a third time in as many posts) by arguing that poverty kills people, herefore it should be a criminal act.

So to summarize:

• you are yet another in a series of posters who disagrees with Church teachings, and attempts to show their intelligence by poking ludicrous holes in every post made to counter their previous argument. In the end, since you disagree with the Church, you are by defintion wrong, as any of us are when we disagree with the Church.

I’d say close the topic and move on, rather than waste time in a boring, tiresome debate that has been had thousands of times before by people far smarter than either of us.

 

[Frank_Drebin]

Depends. If the Woman is doing it for a convience, I would give jail time to the Doctor and the Women

If its a Scared and pressured Woman, Rehabilitatve measures (not prison), and double jail time for the doctors because they exploited her fear and killed her child. For the doctor who exploited the scared girl and offered no alternatives but willingly did abortion, double lifetime, parole after 80 years.

A doctor that performs abortions would get, if I was judge, lifetime in jail with no parole.

If a boyfriend pressures the girl into it for the sake of His convience, I would give the boyfriend lifetime in prison, with parole after 30 years. For the girlfriend, Rehabilitative measures.

Planned Parenthood CEO- lifetime in prison, no parole

Abortion funding politicians, including Obama- lifetime in prison, parole after 40 years.

That would take the fight out of the pro abortion crowd

That seems well though out and humane. I doubt the pro-abortion folks will every go it, as such.

 

[Frank_Drebin]

First, I apologize for taking so long to respond to this thread, and hope I’m not necro-ing.

You’re probably right, at least with regard to why people hate lawyers (I don’t consider myself all that smart - just very lucky to have had great teachers in my life). But, as an aside, I think you’re also correct with regard to “keeping things simple.” I admit that I sometimes might lose the forest for the trees. But the world, in the words of an Economist blogger, is “maddeningly complex.” I think that it’s important to be at least aware of the extraordinary difficulty that goes into making sound decisions for society.

But of course, it’s important not to lose sight of the bigger issues.

That’s one interpretation. I do agree with you that it can seem that way. My point is admittedly that fetal life is “different” from “regular” life, at least with regard to the manner in which we can protect it.

I see your logic.

Maybe.

I was actually reading the news and this article came up. I was, of course, appalled at the doctor’s conduct (assuming what is alleged is true), and I think he should be punished.

Of course, the next question is, “Why?” And that’s where I sort of find myself unsure. On the one hand, yes, I’m appalled that he took the lives of a number of infants I consider living beings (and that the law does, as well, given the stage of their development). But on the other, I can’t help but think that a large portion of my personal moral outrage at his (again, alleged) conduct is the fact that he mistreated and abused young mothers in a singularly abhorrent way.

This is all to say that there is something unique about fetal life: it’s dependence on another life in a very unique way (perhaps multiple ways - biologically and, could we say spiritually?). That to me makes the idea that abortion and homicide are the same. They are different, and they need to be treated accordingly.

Life is much happier, and easier, and your chances of making to heaven will go up exponentially if you stop wasting time looking for holes in Church teachings that are irrefutable and spend your time doing something productive.

The Church is right. If we disagree, we are wrong. To argue why that isn;t so is to risk losing our soulm, and to waste everyone else’s times. Brains much bigger than yours have made lofty, pseudo intelligent arguments for millenia, and in the end, they are dead, and their bright ideas were all for naught. God’s trugh is eternal. Clever ideas that seem new or unique pop up once in awhile, and usually last a few years, until someone recycles them. Nothing you or I will ever think of ever will be uniqure or new.

 

[ahs]

I’m not sure what the OP’s opinion is, so I can’t say for sure.

But I don’t understand your post exactly: could you elaborate?

Sure. It’s my understanding that the OP agrees with humans being protected against homicide via criminal penalties. Yet it is also the OP’s position that abortion should NOT bear criminal penalty…and that it should be legal (see the very first post). My question to him/her carried the intended meaning that by “protection” [of law] I mean protection from homicide…a right to life, protected by law.

I understood your posts to basically be in line with the OP (though I may have been mistaken). So that is why I posed the same question to you:

“Do you believe that unborn babies don’t need the same protection as the mothers who carry them? If we exempt the unborn, who are most vulnerable, from legal protection, then why bother protecting the mothers, who are not as vulnerable, who carry them?”

But you answered “Basically, yes” to the first part…that you believe unborn babies don’t need that same protection. And “I’m not proposing we do” to the second part. Given my intended meaning (which I admit I did not clarify for you) this told me you don’t think that the right to life should be protected at any level…and this is not the same as the OP’s position.

I apologize for not being clear the first time. But now that I have clarified, would your answers remain the same?

 

[marymary1975]

Actually, marymary1975, you are quite wrong: involuntary manslaughter typically requires a mens rea of gross negligence, not “mere” negligence that we see as the basis for most tort law. That’s obviously what I was referring to in my post.

Unfortunately, many people have not encountered these types of subtleties that exist in law. With that in mind, I will take your shock and, I might say, somewhat off-putting post without offense: so yes, I will excuse you.

God bless!

You literally wrote: there are “all kinds” of homicide that we do not prosecute. That statement is completely incorrect. All kinds of homicides are prosecuted. The only one you can have an argument is self defense and even in that case self defense is just a privilege, a defense against the criminal charge. So even in case of self defense the Defendant gets prosecuted therefore that statement is completely wrong. Also tort law is a completely different area of law. You are using the word “prosecute” in your post. The word prosecute is not used in the context of torts. Whenever you speak about prosecution you are only speaking about criminal law so your wording doesn’t reflect that you are talking about torts.
Then you wrote: when some causes a car accident… that is a kind of homicide that we don’t punish. That is not true.either. If you cause a car accident and as a consequence of that accident someone dies, the estate of the death person has a cause of action again you for negligence, that would be the tort action. But independently of that tort cause of action you can be charged for involuntarily manslaughter so your statement that we don’t punish homicide cause by a car accident is not correct. Now it is true that involuntary manslaughter may be committed by reckless conduct and gross negligence (however it is NOT required, it may be but not required) but I don’t see any way how that relates to you post as your statement is “homicide by car accident is not prosecuted” and that statement has nothing to do with tort law and the concepts of criminal negligence and the tort of negligence are completely different.

 

[Stephanie_Pauls]

There are lots of differences. The reply was hyperbole to hyperole.

As to your example, murder itself is a term of criminal law. As to the reality, there is very little in common between a woman terminating her abortion and a murderer.

That’s part of the problem, the rhetoric.

There is no difference. The baby is an inocent life being murdered plain and simple.

 

[SamH]

So does an unchecked flu.

Please. Stop insulting people’s intelligence and baiting them silly discussions.

Why disarm the person completely?

 

[Stephanie_Pauls]

Looks like the OP has left.

 

[trevor1055]

I am replying to the original post. I did not read all of the subsequent posts, but I read some of them. Anyway, the gross dereliction of the Supreme Court originated with Griswold v. Connecticut. I suppose you all know about that. My fraternity brother, sad to say, decided that there exists a “penumbra of rights” that emanate beyond the Constitution. What he should have said is this – “We, as an unelected minority, have decided that the 9th and 10th Amendments to Constitution mean nothing. We love death. Have a great day!”

My first allegiance is to Christ and the Holy Roman Catholic Church, led by our Vicar of Christ, Pope Francis. Civil Authority cannot defeat us. Ever.

 

[Chizzywinks]

Guess I’m going to hell and if you had your way, prison first.

 

[antunesaa]

Your opinion that poverty is not the result of intentional acts is dubious. Even if you engage in some sort of double effect juggling.

And no, I am not claiming that abortion alleviates poverty (lthough there are studies that suggest that).

What I am claiming is that criminal laws are not the means to prevent abortion.

The fact is that abortion was a rare phenomenon while it was forbidden, much like cheating husband/wife was rare twenty years before. Criminalization would not eliminate abortion (as is obvious) but would certainly reduce it dramatically. Now, we could discuss the type of punishment for this kind of crime, but simple, linear logic shows that, in the root, it is deliberately ending a human life, and therefore a crime.