|
Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
Tags | abortion laws , political predictions , prediction thread , Roe v. Wade |
View Poll Results: When will Roe v Wade be overturned |
Before 31 December 2020 | 20 | 18.35% | |
Before 31 December 2022 | 27 | 24.77% | |
Before 31 December 2024 | 9 | 8.26% | |
SCOTUS will not pick a case up | 16 | 14.68% | |
SCOTUS will pick it up and decline to overturn | 37 | 33.94% | |
Voters: 109. You may not vote on this poll |
14th May 2022, 09:37 PM | #1721 |
Illuminator
Join Date: Jan 2007
Posts: 4,328
|
|
__________________
'A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggardly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave; a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing, superservicable, finical rogue;... the son and heir of a mongral bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition."' -The Bard |
|
15th May 2022, 05:24 PM | #1722 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
|
15th May 2022, 06:48 PM | #1723 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
You EXPLICITLY raised the issue of financial security in support of the fetus. Did you forget?
Yes, financial support is significantly different from bodily function support. But the situation of pregnancy is different from the situation of parenthood. There is no situation exactly analogous to pregnancy. For example:
Quote:
|
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
15th May 2022, 08:11 PM | #1724 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 16,613
|
I was referring to the mother's financial security, the possibility, for example, that she might not be able to maintain her career or complete her education if she was required to bear a child. As noted above, parenthood after birth is not compulsory. "Safe haven" laws allow you to abandon an infant at a fire house or hospital, and an older child can be turned over to the state and put up for adoption. But an abortion ban would require a woman to endure and complete pregnancy and childbirth against her will and at risk to her life and health. There are no other circumstances where we impose such an extreme physical obligation on anyone.
|
15th May 2022, 08:20 PM | #1725 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
Well of course there isn't, because there is no comparable circumstance. In the case of pregnancy, the life of one organism that has human DNA is completely and totally dependent on another organism that has human DNA. The life of one of those organisms is completely dependent on the other one in a parasitic fashion. No one can take responsibility or ensure the survival of that organism except the host.
There's noting comparable in human experience. So, yes, it is a unique imposition, but it is for a unique circumstance. Therefore the uniqueness isn't really applicable as a determining factor for whether or not to make the imposition. We can't say, "In all those other cases where one human organism is uniquely dependent on a specific second human organism, we allow the second organism to decide the fate of the first." There are no other cases, so there is no other case to which it can be compared. |
15th May 2022, 08:27 PM | #1726 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,111
|
Yes, I realize what you were saying, but I just feel I have to keep pounding on this point, that quite apart from the moral issue of whether it is right or wrong, this stuff carries a really big, and really important existential payload. We give up certain rights for the common good, and that's as it must be, but we need to be conscious when we're doing it, especially if it's someone else's rights we're doing it to, and to understand the full price.
Right now people are mouthing the words "freedom" and "small government," but the snollygosters whose slogans they slurp up don't actually want that. They want freedom to live as they prefer, and a government that's compact, cruel and cheap. |
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
|
15th May 2022, 08:44 PM | #1727 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,111
|
|
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
|
15th May 2022, 09:05 PM | #1728 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
But is there any alternative?
The law has to say that the host organism either has control and determination over the life of the internal organism, or the internal organism has a right to life, so that the life cannot be legally extinguished. That doesn't have to stay constant over the life of the internal organism, but at every instant, either it may be extinguished, or it may not. If you say that it has a right to life, it's rigged in one direction. If you say it doesn't, it's rigged in the other direction. |
15th May 2022, 09:22 PM | #1729 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Sep 2016
Posts: 6,415
|
Not to mention the abysmal state of our adoption and foster care systems.
Another reminder that after they pass through the birth canal, good luck. And also an industry dominated by quasi-religious organizations. It is absolutely a responsible decision to conclude that if the resources and circumstances just don't exist to raise the child to a healthy adult in all respects, not to do so. The world as it actually exists produces such scenarios quite steadily. I find that far more laudable than the "quiverful" nonsense. God wants your wife to pop one out like a yearly harvest, amen. |
15th May 2022, 09:27 PM | #1730 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,111
|
|
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
|
16th May 2022, 06:14 AM | #1731 |
Graduate Poster
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,943
|
Bodily autonomy has to be considered a basal right: that is, it is fundamental, it is a right that all other rights are built upon and all other rights we might have do not make sense without it. Every other right is secondary. We need to ask how anyone can claim to be supporting freedom while simultaneously deciding that this right does not fully apply to half of the population.
|
__________________
-- August Pamplona |
|
16th May 2022, 06:43 AM | #1732 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 22,789
|
|
16th May 2022, 06:57 AM | #1733 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
Which applies equally to raising a child too.
Quote:
Quote:
But again, there are no other situations which match pregnancy. It is unique. The fact that laws surrounding it may be unique as well isn't disqualifying. |
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
16th May 2022, 07:02 AM | #1734 |
Maledictorian
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 22,552
|
The "heartbeat" as mentioned in the various heartbeat bills is not a heartbeat - it's not evidence of a working vascular system.
But even if it was, we don't consider a heartbeat sufficient evidence of life in a grown human - thinking that it is in a pile of cells is incoherent. Some people might have been tricked into thinking that by forcing women into pregnancy, they are protecting "THE CHILDREN!", but most are just playing power -politics. |
__________________
“Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.” |
|
16th May 2022, 08:15 AM | #1735 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 16,613
|
|
16th May 2022, 08:34 AM | #1736 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
|
16th May 2022, 08:37 AM | #1737 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
|
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
16th May 2022, 08:46 AM | #1738 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
The right to life is even more fundamental than the right to bodily autonomy. It is not secondary to that, it precedes that. So that doesn't answer the abortion question, because we still have to decide where a human gains the right to life.
Quote:
There is no getting around this hard question of when the right to life begins, and nobody makes any headway in either convincing others or even understanding others by assuming that answers you disagree with were arrived at in bad faith. The consequences of the answer to this question do not lie equally at the feet of both sexes, because biology is not symmetric, but there's nothing inherently sexist about choosing one answer over another. Sex-selective abortion even demonstrates how abortion rights can become anti-female. |
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
16th May 2022, 08:58 AM | #1739 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 16,613
|
|
16th May 2022, 09:32 AM | #1740 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
|
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
16th May 2022, 10:19 AM | #1741 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
|
16th May 2022, 11:03 AM | #1742 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 16,613
|
Aw, c'mon. Desertion under fire is hardly comparable to seeking CO status or refusing to serve. I think most people would agree that once you're in the truck, you're in for the ride. And if you read your history, you might find that Slovik was exceptionally stupid. Other WWII deserters got jail time. The closest, however imperfect, comparison would be the distinction between abortion and infanticide. |
16th May 2022, 11:18 AM | #1743 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: US of A
Posts: 16,613
|
A useful history of abortion law in the U.S. At the time the Constitution was adopted, it was legal, common and dangerous.
Quote:
|
16th May 2022, 11:28 AM | #1744 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
|
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
16th May 2022, 02:20 PM | #1745 |
Papa Funkosophy
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 34,263
|
Quite the opposite. Those who believe that life begins at conception arrive at that decision because of faith. Specifically, Catholicism, although that belief was later co-opted by evangelicalism when segregation was no longer working as a politically uniting principle.
The problem is, not all religions agree about when life begins in the womb. Should use law be based on one or two religion's beliefs over others. Seems like doing so is specifically forbidden by the Constitution. eta: Really. Could you, then, be forced to donate one of your two working kidneys to save the life of someone who has no functional kidneys? If their right to life is more fundamental than your right to bodily autonomy, it should be a bit of a no brainer, right? (I believe that was one of the arguments made about bodily autonomy and right to life in one of the previous abortion decisions.) |
__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
|
16th May 2022, 02:41 PM | #1746 |
Agave Wine Connoisseur
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Just past ' Resume Speed ' .
Posts: 19,277
|
|
__________________
Maybe later.... |
|
16th May 2022, 04:50 PM | #1747 |
Papa Funkosophy
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 34,263
|
Only because we find it abhorrent to apply it to any other human problem. See my kidney example above. Or, imagine forced blood donation. Or, even, forced cadaver donation.
Those things are unthinkable acts to force people into because we, as a society, value bodily autonomy over the right to life, except when it comes to uteruses. |
__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
|
16th May 2022, 05:14 PM | #1748 |
Papa Funkosophy
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 34,263
|
|
__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
|
16th May 2022, 05:54 PM | #1749 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
I’m not interested in a semantic debate about what “rights” even mean. It is enough to note that if this is your definition, then “constitutional rights” are a fiction to begin with and there’s no point in arguing about them at all. This is not a productive approach.
|
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
17th May 2022, 12:26 AM | #1750 |
Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 11,360
|
The Roe Countdown
I used to have very conservative views about abortion. I thought that a human life was created at conception and all human life has rights to life.
TL; DR: a right to life is not a thing in the actual world we live in. What I eventually realized was that we have so many exceptions to this “right” that it becomes meaningless. The concept of a “right to life,” itself is essentially meaningless. We don’t guarantee that people who are dying of curable diseases have a right to life. If we did guarantee such a thing, then the law would say that insurance companies must pay for any treatment that has a chance of keeping that person alive. We obviously don’t do that. Even in the most progressive utopian vision of medical care, we couldn’t do that because it’s cost prohibitive. Don’t have health insurance at all and you aren’t rich? You are screwed. People die every day because there isn’t enough blood in blood banks. A right to life would imply that it should be a legal requirement to donate blood so that never happens. Organ donation at death would be mandatory. Everyone would have to register on bone marrow registries and donate when necessary. Your kid needs a kidney? You must donate one. These kinds of medical decisions would not be choices. Outside of medicine, you can kill someone simply for trespassing in your home in many states, even if they aren’t posing a deadly threat to you. Some states put people to death for their crimes. People could still be put to death for treason (yes, I know it hasn’t happened in a while but technically it’s still possible). We kill foreigners in military operations. We don’t even guarantee that everyone has the necessary elements to stay alive! Food, shelter, clean water are all subject to, essentially, chance. We don’t guarantee a right to life for a lot of reasons but they all boil down to something like this: your rights end where mine begin. You can’t force me to give you blood or kidneys or even money to keep you alive. I have a right to say no. Nations have a right to protect themselves against invasion; people have a right to protect their property. Why should pregnancy be any different? What’s so special about it? Ultimately, it really isn’t. If human life is not so special outside the womb, why is it suddenly super special inside the womb? Some may say “the unborn are innocent!” Yeah? So is that poor uninsured kid that got cancer and can’t afford treatment. Or that middle-aged man who needs a heart transplant he will never get. What does “innocent” even mean, anyway, when we are talking about a fetus who doesn’t even have a fully developed brain yet? I have a lot of personal moral issues with abortion, but I will never have to get one. I’d be willing to bet that the women who get them and the doctors who perform them have a lot of moral issues with it too. I‘ve come to a point where I can say that it’s truly none of my business and I should just trust that the actual parties involved have wrestled with their issues and come to the right decision for them. |
__________________
Hello. |
|
17th May 2022, 12:38 AM | #1751 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
The law.
The constitution says that the rights to life, liberty, and property cannot be denied except by due process of law. The "right to bodily autonomy" isn't in there, at least by name. Some people think that there are other things that ought to be considered rights, and we can debate those and whether or not it would be a good idea for society to attempt to secure those rights for all citizens, but that's a moral issue. Judges are supposed to work within a legal framework, not on their own opinions of how things ought to be. So, I think that's what Zig was getting at. We can think about a "right to bodily autonomy", and that's fine as a concept, but it didn't make the list of things that got written down in the text of the constitution. So, the right to life is more fundamental. It made the list. Unfortunately, the people who wrote that stuff down didn't say exactly who had a right to life. They didn't say when it begins. So, that's something that has to be decided in our legal framework, by judges and/or legislators. |
17th May 2022, 12:41 AM | #1752 |
Maledictorian
Join Date: Aug 2016
Posts: 22,552
|
Nominated, and thank you.
|
__________________
“Don’t blame me. I voted for Kodos.” |
|
17th May 2022, 01:09 AM | #1753 |
Moderator
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 11,360
|
The Constitution only talks about when the government can take your life, liberty or property. The Constitution is a limit on the power of the government. The ninth amendment specifically says that the people have rights that are not enumerated in the C and that the people retain those rights. I’m combination with the 14th amendment, just about any “fundamental right” you can think of is covered. Government actions have to survive strict scrutiny when they infringe on fundamental rights. Specifically, the 14th amendment only means that the government can’t kill you without due process. It does not mean that the government has to protect your life in any situation conceivable. |
__________________
Hello. |
|
17th May 2022, 01:10 AM | #1754 |
Guest
Join Date: Apr 2004
Posts: 29,033
|
The kidney example is somewhat comparable.
The reason I said there was nothing comparable had nothing to do with "bodily autonomy" or finding anything abhorrent. It was a matter of being in a position where one organism's life depended on another in such a way that the second organism was the only possible person who could keep the first organism alive. A kidney donor might be kind of comparable. I don't know much about kidney transplants. It is possible that a kidney was required, and it only could come from a close relative. If that's the case, then could the close relative be required by law to provide the kidney. In order to maintain the life of one organism, i.e. the recipient of the transplant, the body of a specific individual, some close relative, and perhaps the only close relative, might be required to do something which was an extreme burden on that second organism. (i.e. the close relative donor.) At this point, a lot of people might be interested in examining that from a moral issue. I, personally, am not.* I'm interested in the legal aspect. If the legislature passed a law that required a person to donate a kidney if necessary to save another person's life, should the Supreme Court overturn that law? On what Constitutional grounds? It's late. I'll have to think about it. I think the answer, at the moment, is that the risk to the donor is still sufficiently high, with today's technology, that such a requirement would be an infringement on the donor's right to life, and thus the required donation would be an infringement on the donor's constitutional right. If it were just blood, instead of a kidney, I can't think of any reason to overturn a law like that. I'll have to think about it some more and see if I think of a reason. *I know what my answer would be, but I don't think it's relevant to a court case. |
17th May 2022, 03:54 AM | #1755 |
Papa Funkosophy
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 34,263
|
|
__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
|
17th May 2022, 05:33 AM | #1756 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2003
Posts: 56,422
|
Has to? No. Even as an adult, there is apparently no legal obligation for the police to protect you, and you can't sue them for failing to do so.
Nevertheless, the law still prohibits killing people after birth. The government can protect your life, even if it doesn't have an obligation to do so. So we still have the question of how early this protection can extend, ie, when can it start. Overturning Roe throws that question to the legislature, instead of having the court decide. |
__________________
"As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose -- that it may violate property instead of protecting it -- then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious." - Bastiat, The Law |
|
17th May 2022, 05:38 AM | #1757 |
Papa Funkosophy
Join Date: May 2002
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 34,263
|
|
__________________
"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
|
17th May 2022, 06:27 AM | #1758 |
No Punting
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Not In Follansbee
Posts: 5,781
|
The whole 9th amendment principle. The idea that the constitution could affirmatively comprehensively state all rights necessary to human existence is at best unserious and at worst a pretext for evil.
A court could very well rule in favor of forced organ donation. This court especially. They would do so with apologetic language and disclaimers that while they personally think it is bad they are confined by legal analysis to rule that way and it totally has nothing to do with corporate medical interests pushing all of this based on some business model needing cheap organs. ...and people will buy it. The NYT will print tons of op-eds about how it isn't as bad as it sounds. Legal scholars with elite credentials will basically rationalize it rather than question it's legitimacy. The Democrats will scream about the 2016 election. Then in their next breath that court would obliterate the warrant requirement by finding an exception to the text of that part of the constitution because it would lead to a result they don't like, and none of the people above would ever just point out the massive hypocrisy here and how it shows the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of a captured court. |
17th May 2022, 07:03 AM | #1759 |
Orthogonal Vector
Join Date: Jul 2006
Posts: 53,184
|
|
__________________
Sufficiently advanced Woo is indistinguishable from Parody "There shall be no *poofing* in science" Paul C. Anagnostopoulos Force ***** on reasons back" Ben Franklin |
|
17th May 2022, 07:17 AM | #1760 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,111
|
One might have thought that the Constitutional guarantee of being secure in your person against unnecessary search and seizure might include the harvesting of your organs, but one might also have thought that it was a reasonable ground for other issues of privacy, which the court appears ready to abandon. So I suppose it might depend on what is deemed "necessary," and to whom it is necessary. Since "due process of law" mitigates the right to life, liberty and property, and capital punishment is, presumably, included here, it seems at least theoretically possible that some consideration of necessity and due process could justify just about anything. The government is already (potentially) claiming parts of women's lives and bodies, and if some have their way it will include what a non-pregnant woman can do with her uterus, and what a man may wear on his penis, so why stop there? Kidneys? Sure. How about a lung? How about a whole life? It's all subsumed under those clauses, and there's room for debate, right?
|
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière) A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi) |
|
Thread Tools | |
|
|