The pro-life common sense clincher

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Worthy5

Is this on topic?

It is very much on topic. You are the one who raised limited government as an issue. :rolleyes:
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Well, ultimately is it is a value judgment or moreover a sense that more harm comes from the expansive use of govt police power in this circumstance than not.*

Harm to whom? What about the harm done to the 50 million murdered babies? What about the harm done to many of those 50 million mothers who will forever regret the decision to kill their own child?
 
=Charlemagne II;6376473]Here is an excerpt from Justice Byron White’s dissenting vote on Roe v Wade. Very much in the way of common sense.
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*The Court, for the most part, sustains this position: during the period prior to the time the fetus becomes viable, the Constitution of the United States values the convenience, whim, or caprice of the putative mother more than the life or potential life of the fetus; the Constitution, therefore, guarantees the right to an abortion as against any state law or policy seeking to protect the fetus from an abortion not prompted by more compelling reasons of the mother.
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With all due respect, I dissent. I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court’s judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers [410 U.S. 222] and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally dissentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.
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The Court apparently values the convenience of the pregnant mother more than the continued existence and development of the life or potential life that she carries. Whether or not I might agree with that marshaling of values, I can in no event join the Court’s judgment because I find no constitutional warrant for imposing such an order of priorities on the people and legislatures of the States. In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the Court’s exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.*
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Yes, a good argument by Justice White. But he was in the minority. The Court saw its role to limit govt power in this case-----if the Court does not check the will of the majority who will?
 
Worthy5

The Court saw its role to limit govt power in this case-----if the Court does not check the will of the majority who will?

Think about what you just said.

Then who will check the will of the majority on the Supreme Court? 👍
 
=exoflare;6376411]Okay. I haven’t really kept up with the whole thread so I wasn’t sure if that was brought up.
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What I still don’t understand, then, is this - In a discussion of whether or not abortion should be outlawed, rather than whether or not it is currently outlawed, how does a judge’s being in the minority pose any sort of a “problem” with his argument? That would only make sense IF you presuppose that Supreme Court majority decisions are never wrong (which is why I posted that fallacy). Otherwise there would be no reason to immediately dismiss the argument without even looking at simply because they were in the minority.
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And you have the point----it is an issue reasonable people can disagree. Thus, the Court has nine voting members.
 
Worthy5
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Come on Charles, you keep diverting off the main point of Roe.*

And your persistent invocation of Roe v Wade keeps diverting from the topic of this thread … common sense. 🤷
 
Worthy5

*Well, that is the seminal case for the Pro-choice position. *

It is the case made by the majority on the Supreme Court, who lacked the common sense of the minority. 😉
 
Worthy5

I did, so did the Founding Fathers. Go amend the Constitution.

This is not an argument but a reference to authority.

The Courts prior to the Civil War took a pro-choice view of slavery. If you didn’t believe in owning slaves, you didn’t have to own one. But if you did believe in owning slaves, you could own as many as you liked.

During the Civil War Lincoln declared all slaves free. No longer was anyone allowed to choose whether to own a slave.

Are you saying the Fathers were right to allow slavery? On what grounds? That blacks are not human, or are not fully human, or are to be counted as only 2/3 or 3/4 human? Or that slave owners have a privacy right that allows them to choose to own slaves, and even to have children with them, and whip their slaves and kill them?

This is the very same sloppy logic applied in Roe v Wade.
 
Charlemagne II;6376623]
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This is not an argument but a reference to authority.
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The Courts prior to the Civil War took a pro-choice view of slavery. If you didn’t believe in owning slaves, you didn’t have to own one. But if you did believe in owning slaves, you could own as many as you liked.
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During the Civil War Lincoln declared all slaves free. No longer was anyone allowed to choose whether to own a slave.
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Are you saying the Fathers were right to allow slavery? On what grounds? That blacks are not human, or are not fully human, or are to be counted as only 2/3 or 3/4 human? Or that slave owners have a privacy right that allows them to choose to own slaves, and even to have children with them, and whip their slaves and kill them?
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This is the very same sloppy logic applied in Roe v Wade.
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No Charles, the point is that amending the Constitution is the mechanism to check the power of the Supreme Court. 🙂 God Bless
 
Worthy5

No Charles, the point is that amending the Constitution is the mechanism to check the power of the Supreme Court.

It is one mechanism. *Stare decisis *is another. The Court could overrule itself. Even Blackmun wondered, after he resigned from the Court, if that might happen to Roe v Wade.
 
Charlemagne II;6376658]Worthy5
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No Charles, the point is that amending the Constitution is the mechanism to check the power of the Supreme Court.
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It is one mechanism. *Stare decisis *is another. The Court could overrule itself. Even Blackmun wondered, after he resigned from the Court, if that might happen to Roe v Wade.
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Thanks Charles, glad to see you agreeing on how the Court conducts its role. 🙂
 
Worthy5

Thanks Charles, glad to see you agreeing on how the Court conducts its role.

Now you’ve got me really worried. We finally agree on something! :eek:
 
Worthy5 said:
And you have the point----it is an issue reasonable people can disagree. Thus, the Court has nine voting members.
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You still didn’t answer the question. Why do you think that being in the minority or majority opinion has any bearing on the actual validity of one’s argument?
 
=exoflare;6377051]You still didn’t answer the question. Why do you think that being in the minority or majority opinion has any bearing on the actual validity of one’s argument.
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No, you did not understand the answer. There is no right answer—or legal right answer. Whether one is pro-life or pro-choice depends on the weight one places on the policy of limited govt and the belief in which restricting state action in the area of abortion best promotes this policy, despite the corresponding trade-off of not affording the early fetus the same type of protection (not necessarily no protection) afforded to a born person. God Bless
 
exoflare;6377141]So then how exactly was Rehnquist’s being in the minority a “problem”, as you put it?
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Because the minority is not the Court. The opinion starts out, " Mr. Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court". You can disagree with it, but the Court has the authority to say what the Constitution means. Or at least outside of the amendment process. God Bless
 
Worthy5 said:
the Court has the authority to say what the Constitution means. Or at least outside of the amendment process.
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You’re just ending up back where you started then. Even though you claim that the whole point of this discussion is to argue what the law SHOULD be, all you manage to do is to keep arguing the red herring topic of what the current law IS which nobody was disputing in the first place.
 
Doc_Keele said:
So it’s a matter of faith in other words?
No rational arguments are necessary?
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Doc, It is more of an observation. I think you have experienced it yourself. Convinced pro-lifers and abortion on demand advocates (you already know where I stand :D) are not likely to budge no matter what is said. Rational arguments are presented for those who haven’t made up their minds.

As an aside, we are all rational creatures. That means that we do what we want and then use reasoning to rationalize our actions 👍.
 
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