The pro-life common sense clincher

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Doc_Keele said:
Either it’s arbitrary or it’s not - you don’t have to qualify it by adding “from the standpoint of the child”.
In the UK, a healthy child cannot be aborted up to birth. Abortion limits are generally decided by viability, which is not arbitrary.
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I think that the U.S. has the most liberal abortion laws of any nation. It took three attempts to pass a law banning partial birth abortion, and in the end, it only banned one procedure.

In Kansas the state law actually prohibits abortion after viability, except where continuance of the pregnancy would cause “irreparable harm to a major bodily function,” of the pregnant women.

Yet Kansas continued to be a late term abortion capital for the nation. That law did not stop even one late term abortion. Courts ruled that mental health constituted a major bodily function, and irreparable harm was left entirely to the determination of two abortionists. In practice, anyone can get an abortion here for any reason, up till birth.

Yes, born vs unborn is arbitrary, although defining what constitutes “born” might leave some leeway, i.e., if the cord is not yet cut, can we consider the child unborn? Presumably he is unborn during delivery. The question is not moot, since the whole debate about partial birth abortion was the legality of killing a child delivered (deliberately) feet first before the head had fully emerged.
 
arbitrary (adj)
based on random choice or personal whims

the distinction between born and unborn has a rational basis
therefore it is not arbitrary

unless you want to redefine “arbitrary”?
 
Doc_Keele said:
arbitrary (adj)
based on random choice or personal whims

the distinction between born and unborn has a rational basis
therefore it is not arbitrary

unless you want to redefine “arbitrary”?
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You are right. There is a real distinction between born and unborn. The distinction is not arbitrary.

The only question I have is whether that distinction ought to be sufficient to allow us to kill an unborn human being up to the point of birth. Because that’s what Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton allowed. And that’s what we have in my state, despite state laws alleging to limit abortion.
 
JimG said:
Yet Kansas continued to be a late term abortion capital for the nation. That law did not stop even one late term abortion. Courts ruled that mental health constituted a major bodily function, and irreparable harm was left entirely to the determination of two abortionists. In practice, anyone can get an abortion here for any reason, up till birth.
.
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…Wait, we’re WHAT?! Are you serious? That makes me feel seriously ill.
 
I think the vast majority of people would have problems with abortions in the last month, or indeed in the last three months.
 
Doc_Keele said:
I think the vast majority of people would have problems with abortions in the last month, or indeed in the last three months.
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I agree, and state legislatures used to regulate this. But under the regime of Roe and Doe, that is no longer possible. Indeed, when the partial birth abortion debate was going on in congress, such a law was bitterly opposed by pro-abortion groups not willing to allow a prohibition on any abortion even while the child was in the process of birth.
 
Learning about how a late term abortion is done is what convinced me in high school to be 100% pro life.

I’m the curious kinda with ample access to the internet. So I Googled, I found, I felt disgusted. The baby is…it’s nearly ready to be born…you can just pop the kid out and raise it or give it to someone who will love it!

And what of laws about failed abortions? I remembe a story from Florida a year or so back about a women who went in for a late term abortion, and the baby was mistakenly born alive. So what did they do? Throw it in the garbage
 
I guess the late birth abortion argument comes about by the deontological approach, if you value autonomy above all other values. Other philosophical approaches might come up with different answers.
 
Doc_Keele said:
I guess the late birth abortion argument comes about by the deontological approach, if you value autonomy above all other values. Other philosophical approaches might come up with different answers.
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Yes; when personal autonomy reigns supreme, it can put other in danger–the unborn child, the inconvenient elderly and disabled. And Professor Singer has suggested that newborns ought not to be given full legal protection until the parents have had a few months to evaluate them.
 
Charlemagne_II said:
Has anyone ever found an approach to explaining the pro-life position that would leave the pro-choice advocates without a leg to stand on? I mean a *really convincing case *that can stop all discussion dead in its tracks because the pro-choicers have no answer?
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Quite honestly, there’s no such thing. People will beleive what they want to beleive. I have a pro-choice friend who took a IPP pamphlet, outlineing their recommendation that all nations require childeren be taught that sex is pleasurable and good, and she twisted it around into something that it wasn’t. She did so by trying to insist that “you don’t know for sure what they’re saying there” and “I think what they really meant was…”.

I’m sorry, these IPP documents aren’t designed to be interpeted like the bible. The meaning is sitting there on the surface, and it’s evil. For people like this, I think the only thing that can turn them around is constant prayer, or “learning the hard way”. I hope it isn’t the latter for my friend.
 
Thats just…ridiculous. Call me an isolated country bumpkin, but the fact that people, women, can honeslty think this way is had to comprehend.

I seem to recall a story about how in Texas, it’s no longer automatically muder to kill a child under one month old, because the mthe can claim to be suffereing from Post Padum
 
Doc Keele

Right, the link you provide proves my point…

Good grief! :rolleyes:

I am reduced to one-liners!!!:eek:
 
=JimG;6305542]The Constitution doesn’t need to be amended. Roe v Wade just needs to be overturned, since it finds a right to abortion in the Constitution which is not there.
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Come on JimG, where in the Bible is the word trinity? That is how the Constitution is written in broad language. The Court has the authority to interpret it. The Court may reverse Roe but not likely.
Following Roe and Doe, many states passed laws to regulate abortion, but they were struck down by the courts. The Court allowed almost no leeway for States to prohibit abortion for any reason, even up to birth. No, Roe & Casey pretty much usurped the legislative and regulatory function when it comes to abortion, removing most of the power from the states.
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Well, note your cases and statues you are talking about----but that really is beyond the scope here. Yes, you can believe the Court went to far but that is the way it is------Anytime a court interprets a statute it is making law in that case-----that is what courts do.
And a newborn’s life is a continuum from it’s prenatal life, as a teenager’s life is a continuum from a newborn’s. If a human being can be killed simply because of his or her stage of development, none of us is safe. The abortion limit could be raised to age 1, or 10, or 12.
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Spare the parade of horribles.
The basic issue is that abortion is not in the constitution. If the Constitution as written means nothing except what men choose to put there, then it might as well be blank pages.
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Well, that is the problem with written language—it often is vague and no document can account for every circumstance in the human condition. And the “men” that interpreted that document where a part of the institution of the Supreme Court of the U.S. The Court has the authority to definitively say what the Constitution means.
Future generations will look back at this era as we look at the era of slavery, shaking their heads at how we could have allowed it to happen, killing off a fourth or a third of each generation with little protest.
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Yes, by all means protest and amend the Constitution if possible—but as of now the Court has the authority on the matter.
 
Worthy5

*Well, that is the problem with written language—it often is vague and no document can account for every circumstance in the human condition. And the “men” that interpreted that document where a part of the institution of the Supreme Court of the U.S. The Court has the authority to definitively say what the Constitution means. *

Your argument doesn’t go far enough in this sense. The Court has the authority to interpret the Constitution. It also has the authority to reverse previous Court interpretations as erroneous. Moreover, the people have some measure of authority here. Through the electoral process, Presidents can be voted into office who will appoint Justices of a different persuasion. When a sufficient number of those have been sworn in, the mistakes of previous courts can be rectified. And so ultimately it is the people, not the Courts, who decide what is Constitutional. That is how the Constitution came into being … by the authority of the people. That is how it will stay in existence, if it does.

There is nothing in the Constitution that touches on abortion. The notion that a right to sexual privacy protects a woman’s right to kill her own child is absurd on the face of it. Might as well say that a right to sexual privacy protects a woman’s right to stab her husband to death in his own bed. :eek:

Presumably, if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v Wade, you will still be saying:
"The Court has the authority to definitively say what the Constitution means."
 
In other words, the Constitution means what the Court says it means, regardless of what its authors intended. Perhaps a majority of the Court might agree. What that means in practice is that we have become nation not of laws but of men.

The Court might just as well conclude that the right of privacy allows us to terminate our elderly parents in the privacy of our own homes. Or perhaps that states might regulate the termination of the elderly so long as it does not unduly burden the right of their caregivers to terminate them. After all, the Constitution says nothing about that either.

I’ll repeat the words of Robert George, with emphasis added:

"The legal problem with Roe v. Wade is simple: The Supreme Court’s decision to invalidate state laws prohibiting or restricting abortion lacks any basis in the text, logic, structure, or original understanding of the Constitution of the United States.

In other words, they just made up what they wanted. That’s not constitutional interpretation. That’s legislating personal whim.
 
=Charlemagne II
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Your argument doesn’t go far enough in this sense. The Court has the authority to interpret the Constitution. It also has the authority to reverse previous Court interpretations as erroneous. Moreover, the people have some measure of authority here. Through the electoral process, Presidents can be voted into office who will appoint Justices of a different persuasion. When a sufficient number of those have been sworn in, the mistakes of previous courts can be rectified. And so ultimately it is the people, not the Courts, who decide what is Constitutional. That is how the Constitution came into being … by the authority of the people. That is how it will stay in existence, if it does.
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Well thanks Charlemagne for the brief explanation on who appointments the justices. :rolleyes:You added nothing to what was already said.

Of course, the people can amend the Constitution—that was stated, did you miss that. 🤷 But absent the amendment process—the Court has the authority. The Court can reverse Roe, but it is not likely due to the deference to precedent, at least with the current Court.
There is nothing in the Constitution that touches on abortion. The notion that a right to sexual privacy protects a woman’s right to kill her own child is absurd on the face of it.
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We have been through this right? As Justice Holmes states " this is a constitution we are expounding…" You do not have to like the decision, but the Court has the authority—you and I do not.
Might as well say that a right to sexual privacy protects a woman’s right to stab her husband to death in his own bed. :eek:
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Please is that what we are talking about here. 🤷
Presumably, if the Supreme Court reverses Roe v Wade, you will still be saying:
"The Court has the authority to definitively say what the Constitution means."
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Yes, this poster would and if you disagree on that, outside of the amendment process, then you must not believe in the separation of powers nor Article III of the Constitution:
" The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.":tsktsk:
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