Politics: A new beginning

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Not Me
I see you missed Ty's explanation. It is because the fetus needs a PARTICULAR person to survive. Which of course means that when medical technology advances to the point where a fetus can be transplanted from one womb to another, abortion will be illegal since the fetus will then be like a baby and not need a PARTICULAR person to survive.

Sure, and I would wager that when medical technology advances to that point, we will see pre-term adoptions, and a massive effort to undertake them.

I would have no problem whatsoever banning abortion in all cases, except possibly rape and diagnosed genetic disease, if the mother-to-be has the realistic alternative of saying to some woman desiring to be a mother, "here, you take it." And, given the demand for white babies through adoption, that will solve the problem for all those 25 year old middle class white women.

So, call me back when medical technology gets to that point.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Not Me
However, it is an awful standard to base a human beings right to live upon, wouldn't you say? I mean it is one thing to use it to base someone's right to expression on, but to base whether they get to live or don't get to live on such a nebulous standard seems pretty wacky to me.

Poor Not Me. Unable to deal with a world in which critical decisions are, indeed, very difficult. And unwilling to acknowledge with most of the rest of us, on both sides of the aisle, that these are issues and decisions that must be struggled over and where, for many of us, some level of judgment and decision must be left outside of the government's hands, even in cases where we ourselves may have strong views.

This discussion yet again pushes me more toward the pro-choice, and makes me more wary of investing the state with the decision, even though I find the idea that a three month old fetus would be aborted by someone fully capable of caring for him or her attrocious, and even though I find tragic the idea that some child may be aborted because it is "imperfect" overwhelmingly tragic.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by ltl/fb
If society will bear the vast majority of what I'm sure would be the astronomical cost of such a procedure,

Society is quite happy to bear the cost of ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation) for the 24 week old fetuses whose mother's want them to live. Not to mention all the other premies that get kept alive at astronomical cost in the NICU.

Originally posted by ltl/fb
and can guarantee that there will be people willing to take any and all fetuses, then sure, we can outlaw abortion.

Or maybe advances to the point that incubators, pods if you will, can be used.

Originally posted by ltl/fb
I'm sure that the anti-abortion people will be willing to live with the scores of fetus deaths that occur when this procedure is being developed.

Umm, like all medical research, it is developed and tested in animals. However, think about what you are saying. These are the babies that were going to be ABORTED. See those babies were facing certain death if they weren't transplanted.

Originally posted by ltl/fb
But since this is so obviously totally and completely theoretical, you can have your point.

ECMO was just a theory 30 years ago. Everyone thought back then that it was completely theoretical that you could oxygenate a baby without using its lungs. Today it is a reality that we as a society spend quite a bit of money on to use to save 24 week old babies whose mothers want them. If their mother's don't want them, it is much cheaper. We just dispose of them in the red bags.

I am sure that Thomas Drew would have some sort of social utility argument to justify that, but you will have to ask Ty about it 'cuz he can explain it better.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Not Me
Well if that is your reasoning, then what about the case where the father wants the mom to have an abortion or to give the baby up for adoption and she won't and a court orders him to pay child support? He didn't want the kid. He voted for abortion or adoption. Why should he have to work to pay child support for a kid he didn't want? Isn't that temporary involuntary servitude imposed on the father?

Yes, and I think I may even have expressed my opinion on this somewhere on these boards. But I'm too lazy, not just intellectually lazy, to look it up.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sgtclub
If I understand what you are saying correctly, it seems that there is some magical point on the continuum where the balance of rights changes and we call this point "viability," but it really does not have a direct correlation with whether or not the fetus could survive outside the mother. Right? Because if it did, wouldn't it have to be different for each fetus? Presumably there are some that could survive after week 11, and others not until week 16, but for social convenience we have picked the average.

No magical points.

This is not easy.

Frankly, I believe the RvW test results in permitting abortions much too late, and construes the state's interest too narrowly. But RvW, I think, gets it right in the idea that there is a continuum of conflicting interests that must be balanced.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I guess I'm asking you to accept ownership of the consequences of the GOP's platform. It's all well and good to overturn RvW because it's bad law, but to get there you said abortion is a matter on which the constitution is silent and thus it is inappropriate for federal judicial regulation. Now that the GOP Congress has made it clear that fetus personhood is a matter it thinks appropriate for federal legislative regulation, where do you stand on the constitutional issue?

I have to defer this to part two, below, because I can't see this new Act passing constitutional muster any more than I see RvW doing so, so it becomes a moot point in this discussion.

Keep in mind that the fetus holocaust does not support an answer either way, making the "NARAL=KKK" argument a non-sequitur.

Not quite a non-sequitar, as I was raising it (and I think I said this) not as a point specifically in support of the states-rights discussion, but simply as a related but tangential thought I had been noodling on. And, I can understand why you would want to dismiss it. It's not comfortable.

I think the act would be constitutional to the extent it applies only to attacks on exclusive federal jurisdictions and enclaves, like federal reservations (military bases, federal parks and the like). However, even then it would be largely redundant of existing state law in many cases because of 18 U.S.C. § 13, the Assimilative Crimes Act. This "across state lines" bullshit is rediculous, unless I shoot a pregnant woman in Arizona while standing in Nevada, in which case I've already committed a crime in two states, either one of which could prosecute.

Agreed and agreed. So, this attempt doesn't represent any new ground really. As I stated earlier, originally, various people are going to keep trying to get their way federally. It won't work here, it shouldn't have worked in RvW, and when this becomes clear, it will then enter that stage I predicted, of lowered national passions, and a possibility of compromise.

The GOP is flogging the Laci Peterson case to the detriment of its principles. I'm not surprised, but you should be.

Why? Because I'm not aware of the predilictions of some of my cellmates? Not hardly.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
Though I've never been a huge advocate for consistency for its own sake, I have, ever since I first heard the idea, been a firm advocate of the idea of "paper abortions" for men.

I myself go for the idea of "retroactive abortions". 18 years in which to prove yourself, or out.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Not Me
[expensive medical stuff]

I don't think we want to get into the whole discussion of what medical stuff is just too fucking expensive. People love all that shit, but hate that their medical costs are going up. Guess what, buckos, it's not all about jury awards.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Not Me
I know that is your theory, that a just-conceived embryo really isn't sufficiently like a person to warrant protection. However, what I have yet to hear explained is how you arrived at that theory. Why is an embryo not sufficiently like a person to warrant protection. What is it that makes a being sufficiently like a person to warrant protection?.

You know, maybe I've been scrolling too much, but I've yet to hear an articulation of why a fetus is deserving of protection. I look at a baby and say it's human. I look at a dog, and I say it's a dog. I look at a fetus, and I say, no, not "human" but "fetus" or "blob" or "sac" or "cell mass" or something. Is it simply that it's an entity of some sort?

Because if your point is "we must protect it like a human" then it seems to me that you bear the burden of extending those protections to something that clearly is not yet human, particularly in those early days--where your slope is most slippery.

And if your point is "the constitution doesn't prohibit us from protecting it" then why is any personally invasive requirement, from the drugs you take, to the food you eat, to the number of craps you make, off limits? And if the answer is, it's not, then I think I'm going to Rome to take an on-time train to Berlin. Maybe I'll get off in Moscow, or just hop the orient express to Pyongyang.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
I myself go for the idea of "retroactive abortions". 18 years in which to prove yourself, or out.

Theoretitcally appealing, but, shit, you can tell your kid that at 18 anyway and accomplish the same thing. "You're not my son."

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I have, ever since I first heard the idea, been a firm advocate of the idea of "paper abortions" for men.

Just so you know, I invented that concept.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I didn't.

If viability isn't your line, what is your line?

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Lovely. Insult an entire religion. You are one offensive little sock.

I take it you're new here.

And I laugh at the suggestion that American Catholics as a group have taken the church's teaching on abortion, birth control, and pre-marital sex seriously in the last 20 years.

I'd introduce you to my Catholic grandmother who had a hysterectomy done at a Catholic hospital after she was done having children supposedly for health reasons, but she has passed. She could tell you exactly what kind of health problems a Catholic woman needed to be afflicted with to get her uterus removed at a Catholic hospital and this was in the 50's.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Poor Not Me. Unable to deal with a world in which critical decisions are, indeed, very difficult. And unwilling to acknowledge with most of the rest of us, on both sides of the aisle, that these are issues and decisions that must be struggled over and where, for many of us, some level of judgment and decision must be left outside of the government's hands, even in cases where we ourselves may have strong views.

This discussion yet again pushes me more toward the pro-choice, and makes me more wary of investing the state with the decision, even though I find the idea that a three month old fetus would be aborted by someone fully capable of caring for him or her attrocious, and even though I find tragic the idea that some child may be aborted because it is "imperfect" overwhelmingly tragic.

I think you are right that this is a difficult issue and one on which I have never been able to reach a decision. So I just ask questions like why do we, in this case, error on the side of "death*" rather than life, while in all other cases we chose life?

*for lack of a better word.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Bad_Rich_Chic
I have, ever since I first heard the idea, been a firm advocate of the idea of "paper abortions" for men.

Great idea! There should be NO CONSEQUENCES WHATSOEVER to having sex!!!! Your genius is shining through yet again!!!!

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I think you are right that this is a difficult issue and one on which I have never been able to reach a decision. So I just ask questions like why do we, in this case, error on the side of "death*" rather than life, while in all other cases we chose life?

*for lack of a better word.

Perhaps we should reconsider all those other cases.

But it's a lot easier when you're dealing with potentialities rather than actualities. Why else do both the people with the $5 chocolate bar and the $5 coffee mug strongly prefer to keep what they started with than to trade?