Why wasn't abortion made illegal when the Republicans had all the power?

[Nohome]

Thanks…we are familiar with the arguments of people who don’t accept that human life begins at conception. It is a non-scientific argument…utilitarian or not.

What is the scientific argument? It seems to me that science really doesn’t care when life begins. Science sees life as a circle, not a line. The egg and sperm are very much “alive” before conception. To science, conception is merely a moment in time in the life cycle of humans.

I could be wrong, have you seen any scientific publications about when life begins? Note, I’m not talking about a scientist that has written about his personal philosophy on the matter, I’d like to see where science has published, as an accepted convention, that life begins at conception.

Nohome

 

[ribozyme]

It’s kind of sad - they get emotional when they talk of somebody going without health insurance - but think nothing of somebody ribbing a baby apart limb from limb.

You have to remember that most liberals are concerned with women’s rights. Bleeding heart liberals on the Daily Kos care about access to health care for everyone (an egalitarian concern), not the putative rights of an inchoate fetus.

But Robert’s dream of a pro-life majority is not congruent with reality. Under eight years from an inept President, it has spawned a fervent hatred of the Republican agenda. Just look at the rise of the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org (and I am quite proud of the former.)

 

[rlg94086]

What is the scientific argument? It seems to me that science really doesn’t care when life begins. Science sees life as a circle, not a line. The egg and sperm are very much “alive” before conception. To science, conception is merely a moment in time in the life cycle of humans.

I could be wrong, have you seen any scientific publications about when life begins? Note, I’m not talking about a scientist that has written about his personal philosophy on the matter, I’d like to see where science has published, as an accepted convention, that life begins at conception.

Nohome

Sorry. I should have been clearer. Specifically, what I meant is that stating that the feeling of pain is what determines the beginning/existence of life isn’t scientific IMO. Otherwise, you could drug someone up to feel no pain and declare that they are therefore no longer a live human because they feel no pain.

As far as science and the origin of life, of course it’s clear. Apparently, you aren’t very well-versed in science. Science is clear about when life begins. What they don’t determine is when personhood begins (i.e. when a human fetus becomes a human person). Some people decide that it happens when the baby leaves the womb, others believe that it is when certain development happens in the fetus, etc.

 

[rlg94086]

You have to remember that most liberals are concerned with women’s rights. Bleeding heart liberals on the Daily Kos care about access to health care for everyone (an egalitarian concern), not the putative rights of an inchoate fetus.

But Robert’s dream of a pro-life majority is not congruent with reality. Under eight years from an inept President, it has spawned a fervent hatred of the Republican agenda. Just look at the rise of the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org (and I am quite proud of the former.)

That’s interesting…I guess you disagree with this Democrat:
amazon.com/Democrats-Life-Pro-Life-Politics-Silenced/dp/0892216379

Day demonstrates how the Democratic Party has been hijacked by the extremely liberal members of the party and special interest groups such as NARAL. She illustrates that only 25% of people in America support the party’s agenda of “abortion on demand,” and that this superliberal approach to abortion has driven away voters because of this issue. This book is also important for Republicans to read, giving a powerful new perspective and potential ally in Congress. Many pro-life measures in Congress could not have been passed if it hadn’t been for pro-life Democrats, simply because the Republicans did not have enough votes. The Democratic Party’s suppression of its pro-life members is a serious issue for all pro-life people, Democrat or Republican.

I heard her in an inverview, where she claimed that Democrats are majority pro-life. I’m not sure I believe her, but her argument is apparently not congruent with your perspective on “reality.”

Or how about these Democrats (the author above is part of this group)…
democratsforlife.org/

PRO-LIFE DEMOCRAT OFFERS AMENDMENT TO MAKE RU-486 ILLEGAL
Twenty-six Democrats joined Representative Ray Salva to add the abortion drug mifepristone (also known as RU-486) to a list of Schedule I Controlled Substances – those with a “high potential for abuse and have no accepted medical use or are unsafe.”
DFLA praises Representative Salva for his leadership and for recognizing that abortion is harmful to women and their unborn children.
"What other drug could be more harmful (than one that takes) a life?” said Salva, “It is germane. RU-486 is a drug that takes a human life.”
Salva’s amendment passed by a vote of 113-36. The House is expected to continue consideration of the bill next week.
Missouri House adds abortion drug to restrictive list
Bill gets amendment to ban chemical abortions
Last Updated ( Mar 06, 2008 at 11:43 AM )

You shouldn’t keep your head buried in ultraliberal blogs…it skews your view of reality.

 

[MelanieAnne]

You have to remember that most liberals are concerned with women’s rights. Bleeding heart liberals on the Daily Kos care about access to health care for everyone (an egalitarian concern), not the putative rights of an inchoate fetus.

But Robert’s dream of a pro-life majority is not congruent with reality. Under eight years from an inept President, it has spawned a fervent hatred of the Republican agenda. Just look at the rise of the Daily Kos and MoveOn.org (and I am quite proud of the former.)

Actually Daily Kos and MoveOn.org were fairly fervent in their views before the current administration, but their hatred of Bush, starting with the fact that he was even elected, has given a sharper focus to their hatred.

I don’t happen to share their socialist dreams as such dreams are incompatible with true human freedom, among other things. However the availability of health care is not incompatible with the human rights of babies to live. Nor are the rights of the unborn incompatible with women’s rights or “choice”. It’s the timing of the choice that is key.

 

[Nohome]

As far as science and the origin of life, of course it’s clear. Apparently, you aren’t very well-versed in science. Science is clear about when life begins. What they don’t determine is when personhood begins (i.e. when a human fetus becomes a human person). Some people decide that it happens when the baby leaves the womb, others believe that it is when certain development happens in the fetus, etc.

Science is silent about when life begins. I dare you to provide a reference that states otherwise. As to personhood, this appears to be the common scientific position.

Dr. Charles Gardner, an embryologist and specialist in cell biology, wrote, “The biological argument that a human being is created at fertilization . . . comes as a surprise to most embryologists . . . for it contradicts all that they have learned in the past few decades.

christianethicstoday.com/Issue/040/The%20Stem%20Cell%20Research%20and%20Cloning%20Controversy%20By%20John%20M.%20Swomley_040__.htm

I’m an engineer, so I can’t say I’m well versed in science, but I suspect Dr. Gardner is. I’ve found endless lists of scientists that echo his position. Are there some out there that don’t?

Nohome

 

[Valke2]

I am reminded of those “good Germans” who read the Nazi propaganda (like Der Sturmer), saw the boxcars loaded with starving and brutalized Jews roll by every day, could smell the smoke from the crematoria when the wind was right – and had “no idea what was happening.”

Thank God for WWII and the holocaust. I don’t know what anti-choice people would do without it.

A candidate can be pro-choice and choose on a personal level to be against abortion. There’s a difference between believing abortion is wrong and believing it should be legislated out of existence.

 

[rlg94086]

Science is silent about when life begins. I dare you to provide a reference that states otherwise. As to personhood, this appears to be the common scientific position.

christianethicstoday.com/Issue/040/The%20Stem%20Cell%20Research%20and%20Cloning%20Controversy%20By%20John%20M.%20Swomley_040__.htm

I’m an engineer, so I can’t say I’m well versed in science, but I suspect Dr. Gardner is. I’ve found endless lists of scientists that echo his position. Are there some out there that don’t?

Nohome

So you are retracting your earlier post?

Nohome:

I could be wrong, have you seen any scientific publications about when life begins?

There are a lot of scientific theories about whether the living organism becomes a human being, but I think the arguments that the zygote is not living are pretty silly. A dead cell versus a living cell is pretty easy to determine.

Scientists do not agree on when the living organism becomes a human being - they do acknowledge that as a philosophical question. But, again, I would challenge Ribozyme’s inference that until pain is felt, you aren’t alive.

 

[rlg94086]

Thank God for WWII and the holocaust. I don’t know what anti-choice people would do without it.

A candidate can be pro-choice and choose on a personal level to be against abortion. There’s a difference between believing abortion is wrong and believing it should be legislated out of existence.

Absolutely! A person can believe anything they want! Of course, it’s extremely poor logic if you are against abortion “personally” because you believe it is the taking of a human life. What other killing are people personally opposed to but don’t believe should be “legislated out of existence?”

The only consistent, logical pro-choice arguments I have heard concern when personhood begins. Once you believe the being is a human person, then creating legislation prohibiting the killing of that person makes sense. Allowing people to choose to kill that person, even though you are personnally opposed to it is ridiculous.

 

[scott1228]

Yes, but one is the natural consequence of the other, especially if you consider “wrong” to mean “immoral.”

Most people consider smoking to be unhealthy, and they are right. But most people don’t consider it to be much of a problem until they look at the consequences. You and I pay for the treatment for that smoker that develops lung cancer, and so now they are more willing to look at legislation that curbs it.

I believe the time is right for people to come to the same realization regarding abortion. It is immmoral, no doubt about it. But if you look at the demographics of our country, and the fact that we have become a people addicted to entitlements, you will realize that abortion is a policy that we can simply no longer afford.

We need those young taxpayers!!

 

[Nohome]

So you are retracting your earlier post?

 

[Al_Masetti]

It’s up to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade … and pro-life judges are in a minority. So, two new pro-life judges would have to be appointed to the Supreme Court. The current President (George Bush) appointed two, but more are needed.

The President has proposed other conservative judges who are strict constitutionalists (and who would probably be pro-life), but the Senate has refused to confirm them. These judges would be for the lower Federal courts … but often, it is from the lower courts that the Supreme Court judges are selected. Right now there are a lot of vacancies; the pro-choice Senate is just refusing to consider President Bush’s nominees, unless they are liberal pro-choice judges.

So, if you want pro-life judges on the Supreme Court, you will need a pro-life President and a pro-life Senate.

confirmthem.com/

Keep in mind that even if Roe v. Wade is overturned, it will mean that the decision reverts to the individual States.

Some States have already passed laws restricting abortion, contingent on Roe v. Wade being overturned.

Getting a Constitutional Amendment passed would require filibuster-proof majorities (60% pro-life) in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives of Congress AND a pro-life President. Then if they approved a pro-life Constitutional Amendment, the Amendment would have to be approved by the individual states. So you would need pro-life majorities in most of the individual states.

Suggested reading: Men in Black by Mark Levin and The Supremacists by Eleanor Schlafly.

 

[scott1228]

The last two judges that were appointed are not only strict constructionists, but Catholic.

The most import thing we can do is support politicians at all levels who are pro-life, pray, and bring this issue back to the fore-front.

We stood by and let them marginilize this issue. Now is the time to act.

Scott

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

He asked “when the Rep’s had control of the House, Sen, Presidency and the Supreme Court, why wasn’t a law passed banning abortion?”

… and it’s got me thinking.
Why DIDN’T a law get passed making abortion illegal.

IMHO, that’d be taking away the golden carrot. Before the current president was elected, all my Republican friends told me I HAD to vote for him because of the abortion issue. I told my dad that just watch and see the dancing and the excuses that get made if a republican was elected. Well no sooner than when he got elected I saw in the Crisis magazine exactly what I predicted - talk about ‘changing hearts before changing laws’. Well guess what argument was made when he was up for re-election? Well you gotta vote for him because of abortion, etc. etc. etc. I know MANY people who do not vote democrat because of abortion. Take that issue off the plate and who’s going to get into the White House?

Just my honest opinion.

As a side-note, could you imagine if the ex-mayor of NYC got elected? A pro-abortion republican?!?! The democrats would have won by a land-slide!

 

[Ender]

I could be wrong, have you seen any scientific publications about when life begins? Note, I’m not talking about a scientist that has written about his personal philosophy on the matter, I’d like to see where science has published, as an accepted convention, that life begins at conception.

Note that the textbooks cited consider this fact so basic it is found on virtually the first page of all of them. There is no scientific debate over the question of when human life begins.

        "Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as *fertilization* (conception).

This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. *Essentials of Human Embryology. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]

“The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.”
[Sadler, T.W. *Langman’s Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. *Patten’s Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]

At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). *Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

Ender

 

[Nohome]

Note that the textbooks cited consider this fact so basic it is found on virtually the first page of all of them. There is no scientific debate over the question of when human life begins.

        "Human development begins after the union of male and female gametes or germ cells during a process known as *fertilization* (conception).

This fertilized ovum, known as a zygote, is a large diploid cell that is the beginning, or primordium, of a human being."
[Moore, Keith L. *Essentials of Human Embryology

. Toronto: B.C. Decker Inc, 1988, p.2]

“The development of a human begins with fertilization, a process by which the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.”
[Sadler, T.W. *Langman’s Medical Embryology. 7th edition. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins 1995, p. 3]

The time of fertilization represents the starting point in the life history, or ontogeny, of the individual."
[Carlson, Bruce M. *Patten’s Foundations of Embryology. 6th edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996, p. 3]

At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). *Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]

Ender

Please reread my challenge. None of these textbooks reference an accepted convention. You know as well as I do, that textbooks are not scientific lierature (though good ones do reference literature).

In general, science sees no begining to life, just a transformation. The egg and sperm were both very much alive before conception.

Of course the bigger question, one that is much more philisophilcal, is if the zygote is an individual. Talk to an embryologist, and they will tell you that two zygotes can combine into one viable zygote. So it is pretty difficult to call them an individual. Conversely, one can split into two. Clearly, it is too early in development to call them individuals.

Nohome

 

[Holly3278]

The reason is because the Democrats fought it tooth and nail and also because we do not yet have enough pro-life supreme court judges. We did make incredible progress though with the federal ban on partial-birth abortions and South Dakota and other states banning abortion in plans for Roe vs Wade to be overturned.

 

[johnnykins]

Absolutely! A person can believe anything they want! Of course, it’s extremely poor logic if you are against abortion “personally” because you believe it is the taking of a human life. What other killing are people personally opposed to but don’t believe should be “legislated out of existence?”

Well, there’s self defense, just wars. Plus there are different levels of homicide - murder of various degrees, manslaughter, negligent homicide and justifiable homicide (which would include, but need not be limited to self-defense). So there is ample precedent for other types

The only consistent, logical pro-choice arguments I have heard concern when personhood begins. Once you believe the being is a human person, then creating legislation prohibiting the killing of that person makes sense. Allowing people to choose to kill that person, even though you are personnally opposed to it is ridiculous.

I don’t think the issue is “allowing” other people to kill another - it’s an issue of what, if any, criminal penalties are appropriate for such action. For example, do you really think a 17 year old who opts for an abortion should face the death penalty? What about the boyfriend/parent other person who takes her to the abortionist? The doctor or other abortionist? The question is are there circumstances peculiar to abortion that mitigates or eliminates the need for criminal sanctions given the state of society and/or the individual and/or the nature of the act? The moral issue may be clear, but the appropriate civil response is, IMHO, less than clear.

I remember the times before Roe came out - and the driving force at that time was NOT choice - it was the concerns over the “back alley” abortions and the deaths and health issues for the mother while the baby was just as dead. Time has moved on and I submit that society is even less supportive of criminal sanctions for abortions. I submit that the best response is for the government to say it’s clearly problematical and let us work to change society so women won’t be choosing abortions - rather than just drive it underground - or to other nations. Executing girls, doctors, parents, young men, or sending them to the slammer for years is NOT the answer to this problem. WE have made too much criminal - our jail population is a scandal - un-American and created by demagogues playing to simplicity and our basest instincts. I do not think a woman has a right to an abortion - I do not think the state should criminalize abortion. Hey, I don’t think the state can criminalize abortion - it does not have the support and will to do so even if it wanted to.either.

 

[rlg94086]

In general, science sees no begining to life, just a transformation. The egg and sperm were both very much alive before conception.

Ah…now I see the distinction you are making. My apologies. It’s all clear to me now.

So, according to science, life never begins. (or it did…at the dawn of time…we’ve just been transforming ever since.)

I guess, in that case, we should be able to kill anyone at any age at anytime. I mean, they have only transformed, so their life never really began. :juggle:

 

[rlg94086]

Well, there’s self defense, just wars. Plus there are different levels of homicide - murder of various degrees, manslaughter, negligent homicide and justifiable homicide (which would include, but need not be limited to self-defense). So there is ample precedent for other types

I don’t think the issue is “allowing” other people to kill another - it’s an issue of what, if any, criminal penalties are appropriate for such action. For example, do you really think a 17 year old who opts for an abortion should face the death penalty? What about the boyfriend/parent other person who takes her to the abortionist? The doctor or other abortionist? The question is are there circumstances peculiar to abortion that mitigates or eliminates the need for criminal sanctions given the state of society and/or the individual and/or the nature of the act? The moral issue may be clear, but the appropriate civil response is, IMHO, less than clear.

I remember the times before Roe came out - and the driving force at that time was NOT choice - it was the concerns over the “back alley” abortions and the deaths and health issues for the mother while the baby was just as dead. Time has moved on and I submit that society is even less supportive of criminal sanctions for abortions. I submit that the best response is for the government to say it’s clearly problematical and let us work to change society so women won’t be choosing abortions - rather than just drive it underground - or to other nations. Executing girls, doctors, parents, young men, or sending them to the slammer for years is NOT the answer to this problem. WE have made too much criminal - our jail population is a scandal - un-American and created by demagogues playing to simplicity and our basest instincts. I do not think a woman has a right to an abortion - I do not think the state should criminalize abortion. Hey, I don’t think the state can criminalize abortion - it does not have the support and will to do so even if it wanted to.either.

Interesting arguments johnnykins. I’m not sure what the punishments for someone who broke an abortion law would be - I doubt that it would be capital punishment. But, since you apparently accept that it is morally wrong and the taking of a life, why do you argue that it should be legal?

In the other cases you mentioned, war and self-defense, the person killed has actually done something and/or the action (i.e. war) was based on an action by someone else that brought about the killing. What did an unborn child do that they deserve to die? I don’t see the equivalency.

EDIT ADD: BTW…I applaud other efforts (and don’t care which party proposes them) that discourage abortions, but we can do those at the same time that abortion is also made illegal.