The pro-life common sense clincher

[fix]

A foetus. Or an embryo.

And that is not a human?

 

[Christopher68]

What is a baby before he/she is born if not a child?

We can ‘wordsmith’ things all we want on the forum. I suspect you are preaching to the choir here in most instances. The issue is that at least half of the rest of the population does not agree with you.

 

[Doc_Keele]

And that is not a human?

It depends on what you mean by “a human”.

We are again going round in circles. I think we all understand what the crucial issues are.
If you truly want to be able to persuade people, as opposed to brow-beating them, it may help to acknowledge the basis of the pro-choice position.

 

[fix]

We can ‘wordsmith’ things all we want on the forum. I suspect you are preaching to the choir here in most instances. The issue is that at least half of the rest of the population does not agree with you.

But, it is not wordsmithing at all. Words have meanings. Some do not want to call a person a person because that helps dehumanize them.

 

[fix]

It depends on what you mean by “a human”.

We are again going round in circles. I think we all understand what the crucial issues are.
If you truly want to be able to persuade people, as opposed to brow-beating them, it may help to acknowledge the basis of the pro-choice position.

Well, what are you claiming is the basis for the pro abortion position? BTW, it is not brow-beating to point out the bluntness of holding such an erroneous postion.

 

[Doc_Keele]

Fix
1 )the basis has been covered to exhaustion, I’m not going to repost what I’ve already posted probably a dozen times
2) I wasn’t accusing anyone of browbeating in this forum, but I think it would be the only option for the “Pro-Life” campaigners given the tactics I’ve seen here

 

[fix]

Basically, it may be a life or it is a life but it does not matter.

 

[Doc_Keele]

…and who is mean to have said that?
this “forum tennis” as well as being pointless is time consuming and I have got things to do, surprising as it may seem

 

[fix]

However, when I use the term “common sense,” I’m not using it in that context. I’m using it in the sense that a thing is evidently true, and everybody should be able to see it as true (unless they have been fooled into thinking it is not true).

That is the central point. We are all very capable of deluding ourselves for various reasons.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Worthy5

*The law makes classifications to promote multiple policies simultaneously. The Court made the classification------the early fetus is not a born baby. *

No, the distinction was known by everyone long before Roe v Wade.

You didn’t answer my question. Let me rephrase it.

Why should the police power of the state be used to protect a born baby but not a baby in the womb?

Do you say the child in the womb is not a child because it is called a fetus at the early stage of its development? Have you ever heard a pregnant woman say she was having a fetus? Or do you always hear her say she is having a baby?

 

[CatofAlexandria]

That’s fine, but the quote that you pull out is another conclusory statement. It takes a lot of reasoning to get there, and then once you’re there you can still find a compelling reason for regulating under strict scrutiny. Highly fact-intensive. Not so clear.

Of course I was hoping in that hypothetical that you would not just defer to Blackmun’s opinion in Roe. When the Supreme Court grants certiorari on an issue it’s decided before, it usually wants to hear something more than it’s own conclusions, but also why those conclusions should be adopted in normative terms. None of the Justices you listed are currently presiding, and reasonable people can differ, can’t they? “Because the Court said so” is only a good answer if you’re arguing before a lower court.

I realize that this is just a discussion, but discussions just work better when more reasons are given, and I’m trying to facilitate a more robust debate. I also agree with you that reasonable people can disagree on these issues (see some of my posts above critiquing the most common pro-life argument as merely conclusory), but the reasonableness of the positions and nature of the disagreement can be better understood through robust discourse.

Philosophers, theologians, judges, and lawyers are (in many ways) like annoying four year olds: they will keep asking you “why” “why” “why” and “so what?” ad infinitum.

 

[Worthy5]

=Charlemagne II

No, the distinction was known by everyone long before Roe v Wade.

Come on Charlemagne, your not really saying anything here. The distinction between a fetus and a born child is important for this discussion because it became a legal distinction by the Supreme Court—you know the institution with the authority to do so.

You didn’t answer my question. Let me rephrase it.

Why should the police power of the state be used to protect a born baby but not a baby in the womb?

It has already been answered, once again Justice Blackmun:

"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. "

Do you say the child in the womb is not a child because it is called a fetus at the early stage of its development? Have you ever heard a pregnant woman say she was having a fetus? Or do you always hear her say she is having a baby?

You can use any language you want Charlemagne-----but the Court made the distinction.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Worthy5

"This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. "

This is not an answer to my question. Why are you evading the question? Copying the court’s decision is not an answer.

Let me try again:

Why is the police power of the state to be used to protect the life of a born baby, but not the life of an unborn baby?

If the state has an obligation to defend the lives of the innocents from unlawful harm, it has that obligation from start to finish of the innocent person’s life. The start is in the womb. The end is on the deathbed.

It is an arbitrary and capricious decision to mark and treat the first few months of life as “disposable humanity.” What article of the Constitution allows this. Please don’t say the right to privacy.

The right to privacy does not mean that a man be indicted for murder if he kills his wife in the privacy of his bedroom.

 

[Worthy5]

Charlemagne II;6325885]

This is not an answer to my question. Why are you evading the question? Copying the court’s decision is not an answer.

Sure it is, the Court made the decision, it was not this poster’s decision to make. Why are you going after the messinger.

Let me try again:

Why is the police power of the state to be used to protect the life of a born baby, but not the life of an unborn baby?

See above.

If the state has an obligation to defend the lives of the innocents from unlawful harm, it has that obligation from start to finish of the innocent person’s life. The start is in the womb. The end is on the deathbed.

Perhaps, but the state can select different means to achieve this goal. The Court decided that the police power could not be used in the early going.

It is an arbitrary and capricious decision to mark and treat the first few months of life as “disposable humanity.” What article of the Constitution allows this. Please don’t say the right to privacy

.

Not certain that is what the Court is saying, it was saying that the duty belongs to the women to protect that life in the early going.

The right to privacy does not mean that a man be indicted for murder if he kills his wife in the privacy of his bedroom.

Is that what we are talking about here?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Worthy5

“Why is the police power of the state to be used to protect the life of a born baby, but not the life of an unborn baby?”

Sorry I’m not making myself clear. I’m asking for your answer, not the Court’s.

The Court gave a silly reason that the right to kill a child in the womb was protected by the right to privacy. Do you agree? If so, do you also agree that a man can kill his wife in the bedroom and not be indicted because the act was committed in private?

If you agree with that, we are back to the question of common sense … aren’t we?

 

[Worthy5]

Charlemagne II;
Sorry I’m not making myself clear. I’m asking for your answer, not the Court’s

.

The title of this thread is a " pro-life common sense clincher". The Court reasoning show why that is not possible—despite reasonable people can disagree with the Court’s approach.

The Court gave a silly reason that the right to kill a child in the womb was protected by the right to privacy.

Your opinion.

Do you agree?

Does it matter?

If so, do you also agree that a man can kill his wife in the bedroom and not be indicted because the act was committed in private?

Your mischaracterizing what the Court is saying, a right of privacy is not about spatial privacy but rather an area in the human condition where government is not to be in order to promote individual decision making (as opposed to govt decision making) and limiting govt power-----for such power left uncheck actually can threaten individual rights and a sense of personal autonomy that marks a free society.

If you agree with that, we are back to the question of common sense … aren’t we

You really need a working definition of " common sense". By the way what happen to Charlemagne I.

 

[Lethe]

What are people’s views of that bit of the Bible that says that someone should be punished more for the killing of a woman with child than if just the child miscarries? I cannot remember the chap/verse, I’m sure you guys know it better than me… It is the one that continues to ‘an eye for an eye’ which sort of implies the woman is more fully human/of more worth than her unborn child, or do you just interpret it as both woman and child are dead, so it is worse?!

 

[Spirithound]

Please don’t kill the messenger.

Sorry Christopher, my post came nowhere near being an ad hominem. Still waiting for your response.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Worthy5

By the way what happen to Charlemagne I.

Charlemagne I died many centuries ago. A couple of centuries after his death one of the later emperors opened up his tomb and found him seated on a throne with the Gospels open in his lap.

I hope to be found that way in my grave on the final day of judgment.

 

[Worthy5]

=Charlemagne

I hope to be found that way in my grave on the final day of judgment. :thumbsup

So does this poster my friend. God Bless