How do you make abortion the law of the land?

[MercyA]

11 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

That’s a slippery slope argument that different faith traditions and ethicists have different conclusions about. I’m not in a position to say, nor do I am wish to say, how individuals should define that for themselves. I, for example, do not wish to live my life 100% dependent upon others and my end of life documents reflect that. I don’t want you, however lovely a person you may be, making that call for me. 

Equally important, to me, is the fact that maternal mortality does not affect us all equally either. Pregnancy is not a benign condition however natural it may be.

Yes. Individuals should not decide for other individuals when their lives should end--which is why I am pro-life.

If the mother's life is in danger, every effort should be made to preserve her life while not intending the death of her child. If the child's life is lost during or as a result of lifesaving efforts for the mother, that is tragic but not the same as intentionally taking his or her life.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Sneezyone said:

Your question also presumes personhood at fertilization. That is not a given.

Right. Which is where at some point, this question comes down to values. And I absolutely respect both of those takes, as long as they don't involve hypocrisy. (Being "pro-life" when the life is a fetus but not "pro-already born life" is ridiculous. But that's not Mercy, I know.) 

[MercyA]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

But it's not merely intimately difficult. It's more than that. It's more along the lines of "should you be forced to donate an organ if a relative will die if you don't?" Because the costs to you, after all, are lower than to the other person. But it's still a more serious imposition than just taking care of someone. 

If we could remove a fetus from a woman and incubate it until it was full term, I would probably have a different take on whether abortion is OK or not. 

A human being is not an organ, and her right to life should not depend on her environment--even if that environment is inside another human being.

Advancements in science to allow fetuses to be removed from their mother and sustained outside the womb throughout their prenatal development would be wonderful. 

[Sneezyone]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Right. At the end of the day, the drain on the mother's resources is the reason I'm personally OK with abortion in the early stages of the pregnancy.

Now, personally -- and I do NOT dictate my values to other people here -- I do have significant discomfort with abortions later on. I don't think making an effort to regulate this away does what one wants it, though. At the end of the day, no one even KNOWS a woman is pregnant as early as she does. (I was almost certain I was pregnant with DD4 before I missed my period.) So mandating what she does with something inside her body is likely to backfire badly. So if you make this illegal, back alley abortions will happen, because you can't stop people with an invisible condition from seeking them out. 

If one does care about reducing abortions, and at the end of the day, I do, there are other things you can do. Education, birth control, etc. 

But agin, this stance is certainly informed by the value of not considering an embryo fully human. I can understand why someone who believes than embryo IS fully human would come to a different conclusion. 

For me, in addition to not believing a fertilized egg is fully human, it is significant that the impact of pregnancy and parenthood is not born equally. I really appreciate pro-life groups that have stepped up to support women who want to parent. One of my family members has benefitted from that support. It provides the extra means necessary for her to exercise her choice—parenting. At the same time, I recognize that the support is, in fact, VERY temporary. There are lots of years between toddlerhood and adulthood when this mother is likely to be on her own and demonized for being so situated. So, yeah, it’s complicated.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, MercyA said:

A human being is not an organ, and her right to life should not depend on her environment--even if that environment is inside another human being.

Advancements in science to allow fetuses to be removed from their mother and sustained outside the womb throughout their prenatal development would be wonderful. 

No, but that's not the point. The kind of resources a mother needs to donate to a fetus are akin to an organ. It's not merely caregiving. 

The point is that a fetus IS fully dependent on its environment. I'm sure many pregnant women would keep their fetuses alive if it didn't involve a pregnancy. But pregnancy is no joke. 

[Sneezyone]

4 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Yes. Individuals should not decide for other individuals when their lives should end--which is why I am pro-life.

If the mother's life is in danger, every effort should be made to preserve her life while not intending the death of her child. If the child's life is lost during or as a result of lifesaving efforts for the mother, that is tragic but not the same as intentionally taking his or her life.

Yah, sorry, we agree on much but not this.

[MercyA]

On 10/12/2020 at 4:27 PM, Sneezyone said:

Your question also presumes personhood at fertilization. That is not a given.

Basing personhood on age, development, environment, or dependence is arbitrary and dangerous. I believe we should always err on the side of protecting human life.

That said, it would be delight me beyond measure if personhood could be recognized from the time a human's heart begins to beat. 

Edited October 14, 2020 by MercyA

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, MercyA said:

If the mother's life is in danger, every effort should be made to preserve her life while not intending the death of her child. If the child's life is lost during or as a result of lifesaving efforts for the mother, that is tragic but not the same as intentionally taking his or her life.

But again, you're assuming that everyone agrees that a fetus has the rights of a full human being 🙂 . Which is an assumption I respect and understand, but do not entirely share. And it's not really one you can convince people of one way or another, because it's a value. 

I'm not a religious person. At the end of the day, some part of me thinks the world is a brutal place, and that I will never be able to answer exactly why some things are considered acceptable and others are not. I've been flirting with being a vegetarian for years now, because I can't, at the end of the day, answer why it's necessary for me to kill animals to provide myself with sustenance. But I also don't feel able to judge other people for this decision. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, MercyA said:

I find anything else arbitrarily based on age, development, environment, and dependence.

I actually think fetuses are in a unique position, in that they are dependent on ONE specific person and it is impossible to transfer that responsibility in any way. That, and they do not have fully developed brains. Those both wind up swaying me. (Should they sway you? Probably not. I'm merely sharing where I came to after years of thought.) 

[MercyA]

8 minutes ago, Sneezyone said:

For me, in addition to not believing a fertilized egg is fully human, it is significant that the impact of pregnancy and parenthood is not born equally. I really appreciate pro-life groups that have stepped up to support women who want to parent. One of my family members has benefitted from that support. It provides the extra means necessary for her to exercise her choice—parenting. At the same time, I recognize that the support is, in fact, VERY temporary. There are lots of years between toddlerhood and adulthood when this mother is likely to be on her own and demonized for being so situated. So, yeah, it’s complicated.

I am all for support for mothers and families. I have known many pro-lifers who are incredibly generous. I am also aware that there are those whose commitment ends with a vote for a dubious candidate. 😞 

[MercyA]

7 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I actually think fetuses are in a unique position, in that they are dependent on ONE specific person and it is impossible to transfer that responsibility in any way. That, and they do not have fully developed brains. Those both wind up swaying me. (Should they sway you? Probably not. I'm merely sharing where I came to after years of thought.) 

But neither do newborns, right? Or some disabled children or adults? 

I am leary of declaring a certain amount of intellectual development a prerequisite for being allowed to live.

[MercyA]

17 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

No, but that's not the point. The kind of resources a mother needs to donate to a fetus are akin to an organ. It's not merely caregiving. 

The point is that a fetus IS fully dependent on its environment. I'm sure many pregnant women would keep their fetuses alive if it didn't involve a pregnancy. But pregnancy is no joke. 

True, pregnancy is no joke. It is more involved than caregiving. I know. I have been there. But we are talking about the taking the life of a human being, which is equally serious. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, MercyA said:

But neither do newborns, right? Or some disabled children or adults? 

I am leary of declaring a certain amount of intellectual development a prerequisite for being allowed to live.

Yeah, I can see being leery of that 🙂 . And for me there are tons of gray areas here. I know there aren't for you, but for me, a zygote formed right after conception is a very different proposition than a normal 28-week old fetus. I get uncomfortable with abortion somewhere between those points, but I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly where. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, MercyA said:

True, pregnancy is no joke. It is more involved than caregiving. I know. I have been there. But we are talking about the taking the life of a human being, which is equally serious. 

Well, but some of us don't think embryos are human beings 🙂 . And I've spend enough time thinking about what I do feel about this to be quite sure of my mind on that one. (You probably know me well enough from here to know that I overthink things if anything!) 

I think the reason the organ analogy is made because it is absolutely possible to have a situation where a person will die without an organ donation, and we do not force people to donate their organs, anyway. Why don't we? For the sake of "preservation of life," it would be more moral to do so. 

But again, I really don't expect us to convince each other on this one, because we've started at different premises, and we've arrived at unsurprisingly different conclusions 😉 . And I don't think either one of us came to our opinions thoughtlessly. 

At this point in my life, I'm mostly interested in holding people accountable according to THEIR professed values. And I even fail at that most of the time, because people are no good at looking in the mirror. 

But I don't think that's true for you. I have tremendous respect for the decisions you've had to make during this pandemic, which were clearly difficult and involved going against serious social pressure. 

So, I respect the fact that you live according to your values, even when that's hard. But at the end of the day, we won't be on the same side of this question, because our starting premises don't match. (And as a mathematician, I'm very used to having to think about what's an axiom and what's a theorem 😉.) 

[Guest]

I had such thoughtful reply typed up and the web-monsters ate it. Grrr.

 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Quill said:

I had such thoughtful reply typed up and the web-monsters ate it. Grrr.

 

ARGH! I hate it when web-monsters eat things 😞. Sorry about that. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

ARGH! I hate it when web-monsters eat things 😞. Sorry about that. 

If I were superstitious, I would theorize that God did not appreciate my post and so he zapped it out of cyber-space. 😏 

[Janeway]

23 hours ago, Garga said:

Without debating abortion, when Biden said he’d make abortions the “law of the land”, what does that mean?  A constitutional amendment?  

And then, how is it done?  Is that something he can actually do? Or is that one of the pie-in-the-sky promises that politicians make that are very unlikely to actually come to fruition?

Again, I don’t want this to be about debating abortion, but I don’t know enough about laws to know what that phrase even means or how whatever it means would be done.

In China, it is the law of the land. People are forced in to abortions all the time. In this country, there are cases, and they are not rare, of forced abortions. This would be in the case of someone who is committed for mental health reasons, they might be given an abortion without consent. Or a person under 18 yrs old. I even worked at a hospital years ago where they would tell medicaid patients that they could not do a pregnancy test but they could "induce a period."  So abortions were routinely done on those patients without actual consent. When I was pregnant with one of my children, I was told that I needed to have an abortion, or I would destroy my career. And with my youngest, I was informed abortion was my "right" so I needed to have one.

Edited October 12, 2020 by Janeway

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Janeway said:

In China, it is the law of the land. People are forced in to abortions all the time. In this country, there are cases, and they are not rare, of forced abortions. This would be in the case of someone who is committed for mental health reasons, they might be given an abortion without consent. Or a person under 18 yrs old. I even worked at a hospital years ago where they would tell medicaid patients that they could not do a pregnancy test but they could "induce a period."  So abortions were routinely done on those patients without actual consent. When I was pregnant with one of my children, I was told that I needed to have an abortion, or I would destroy my career. And with my youngest, I was informed abortion was my "right" so I needed to have one.

China is not the US. Whatever Biden was saying, it wasn’t, “We’re going to force abortions on people.” Come on. 

I guess by “induce a period,” you mean a chemical abortion, not a surgical abortion. I don’t think it’s super helpful to conflate terms. 

[MercyA]

 

31 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Well, but some of us don't think embryos are human beings 🙂 . And I've spend enough time thinking about what I do feel about this to be quite sure of my mind on that one. (You probably know me well enough from here to know that I overthink things if anything!) 

I think the reason the organ analogy is made because it is absolutely possible to have a situation where a person will die without an organ donation, and we do not force people to donate their organs, anyway. Why don't we? For the sake of "preservation of life," it would be more moral to do so. 

But again, I really don't expect us to convince each other on this one, because we've started at different premises, and we've arrived at unsurprisingly different conclusions 😉 . And I don't think either one of us came to our opinions thoughtlessly. 

At this point in my life, I'm mostly interested in holding people accountable according to THEIR professed values. And I even fail at that most of the time, because people are no good at looking in the mirror. 

But I don't think that's true for you. I have tremendous respect for the decisions you've had to make during this pandemic, which were clearly difficult and involved going against serious social pressure. 

So, I respect the fact that you live according to your values, even when that's hard. But at the end of the day, we won't be on the same side of this question, because our starting premises don't match. (And as a mathematician, I'm very used to having to think about what's an axiom and what's a theorem 😉.) 

I have no doubt that you've thought long and hard about this, and I hope you know how much I appreciate your voice on the forum. 🙂

Re: organ donation: There is a difference between requiring an action to save a life and forbidding the action of taking a life. I would like to see abortion law in the same category of other laws that already forbid the taking of human life. For example, we don't say, "Well, taking someone's life with a firearm should be illegal, therefore organ donation should be mandatory." They are two different issues.

You mentioned in a previous thread how you're interested in holding people accountable to their own values, and I think that's brilliant and very needed. In fact, I even mentioned it to my husband, because we are both so dismayed by the inconsistency we see around us. And, of course, we should always, always be looking in the mirror as well.

Edited October 12, 2020 by MercyA

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, MercyA said:

I have no doubt that you've thought long and hard about this, and I hope you know how much I appreciate your voice on the forum. 🙂

Same to you, on both counts 🙂. 

 

Just now, MercyA said:

Re: organ donation: There is a difference between requiring an action to save a life and forbidding the action of taking a life. I would like to see abortion law in the same category of other laws that already forbid the taking of human life. For example, we don't say, "Well, taking someone's life with a firearm should be illegal, therefore organ donation should be mandatory." They are two different issues.

Yes, it's definitely not a perfect analogy 🙂 . I'm definitely sharing where I came to grappling with this issue as opposed to providing airtight arguments. 

 

Just now, MercyA said:

You mentioned in a previous thread how you're interested in holding people accountable to their own values, and I think that's brilliant and very needed. In fact, I even mentioned it to my husband, because we are both so dismayed by the inconsistency we see around us. And, of course, we should always, always be looking in the mirror as well.

Oh, thank you. I'm really glad that was a useful way of thinking for someone else, because I spend a lot of time talking to people about it, and people are rarely willing to even engage 😉. Living up to one's values is hard, and looking in the mirror is sometimes unfortunately unpleasant... 

OK, I'm afraid I ought to sign off, because I have one of my killer headaches today, and I should probably try to get some work done 😞 . 

[MercyA]

21 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

OK, I'm afraid I ought to sign off, because I have one of my killer headaches today, and I should probably try to get some work done 😞 . 

I'm so sorry about your headache, and hope you feel much better soon. I, too, should attempt to get some work done. 🙂 Thanks again for the discussion! 

Edited October 12, 2020 by MercyA

[Guest]

I’m going to try again, but I think the wind has fallen from my sails; reposting is such a deflating experience. 

I identify as pro-choice, but on a scale of 1-10, I am not strongly pro-choice. I’m maybe about a 6. In the past, I was strongly pro-life, even to the “marching” level at one point. 

So. My meta-belief at one point was that God intentionally designed every human life, therefore, it was wrong to take that life at any time, for any reason, in any manner. (I will say this: I was consistent, at least, because I also believe(d) capital punishment to be wrong, and assassinating Bin Laden was taking a life,  and etc.) 

Where this belief started to collapse for me: I watched a documentary about parasitic twinning. The pregnant mom was advised to terminate the malformed “baby,” who was just a torso with leg-like limbs, so the developed baby could most likely survive. This would obviously be a heartbreaking decision to have to make but I - with experiential knowledge of what it is to lose a wanted baby - would without a doubt terminate the malformed non-baby so there would be some hope of saving the other, viable baby. (Also, in the documentary, some parasitic twins cannot be rectified; the malformed “baby” is too extremely intertwined with the developed baby.) 

So. Does God design situations like this? I eventually concluded that no; this was an accident of biology. I have a strong pragmatic streak, so it makes more sense to me to terminate in certain situations. After the parasitic twinning, I began to see other situations where I expect I would choose abortion, because it is the “better” choice for society and/or individuals. I continued to see situations that did not support the idea that God explicitly designed every human life (i.e., babies addicted to heroin, babies born to child brides, babies born of abuse and molestation, etc.). 

Part of me does wish there could be no abortions, or only for the most dire situations, but by making it illegal (or heavily restricted), I don’t think it helps us get there. Logistically, I have never understood how it would work if a woman could only get an abortion if she gets a waiver from a doctor or a judge. That does feel very icky to me from a privacy standpoint, and legal proceedings would only drag it out until it’s a much bigger deal. It seems wiser to me to make it as easy as possible to abort early.* In many cases, it would not even need to be surgical and those of us who have had early miscarriages know; this is sad, but it’s not awful. 

*Or, better still, make birth control as easy and free/low cost as possible, so fewer pregnancies ever happen. But often the same people or organizations that oppose abortion also oppose birth control, publicly-funded birth control, or provision of birth control to minors. 

Okay. Hitting submit. 

[Pam in CT]

re safe, legal and rare

2 hours ago, Quill said:

I’m going to try again, but I think the wind has fallen from my sails; reposting is such a deflating experience. 

I identify as pro-choice, but on a scale of 1-10, I am not strongly pro-choice. I’m maybe about a 6. In the past, I was strongly pro-life, even to the “marching” level at one point. 

So. My meta-belief at one point was that God intentionally designed every human life, therefore, it was wrong to take that life at any time, for any reason, in any manner. (I will say this: I was consistent, at least, because I also believe(d) capital punishment to be wrong, and assassinating Bin Laden was taking a life,  and etc.) 

Where this belief started to collapse for me: I watched a documentary about parasitic twinning. The pregnant mom was advised to terminate the malformed “baby,” who was just a torso with leg-like limbs, so the developed baby could most likely survive. This would obviously be a heartbreaking decision to have to make but I - with experiential knowledge of what it is to lose a wanted baby - would without a doubt terminate the malformed non-baby so there would be some hope of saving the other, viable baby. (Also, in the documentary, some parasitic twins cannot be rectified; the malformed “baby” is too extremely intertwined with the developed baby.) 

So. Does God design situations like this? I eventually concluded that no; this was an accident of biology. I have a strong pragmatic streak, so it makes more sense to me to terminate in certain situations. After the parasitic twinning, I began to see other situations where I expect I would choose abortion, because it is the “better” choice for society and/or individuals. I continued to see situations that did not support the idea that God explicitly designed every human life (i.e., babies addicted to heroin, babies born to child brides, babies born of abuse and molestation, etc.). 

Part of me does wish there could be no abortions, or only for the most dire situations, but by making it illegal (or heavily restricted), I don’t think it helps us get there. Logistically, I have never understood how it would work if a woman could only get an abortion if she gets a waiver from a doctor or a judge. That does feel very icky to me from a privacy standpoint, and legal proceedings would only drag it out until it’s a much bigger deal. It seems wiser to me to make it as easy as possible to abort early.* In many cases, it would not even need to be surgical and those of us who have had early miscarriages know; this is sad, but it’s not awful. 

*Or, better still, make birth control as easy and free/low cost as possible, so fewer pregnancies ever happen. But often the same people or organizations that oppose abortion also oppose birth control, publicly-funded birth control, or provision of birth control to minors. 

Okay. Hitting submit. 

Thanks for this. My own wrestling has been different, but equally long and twisting, and I think I end up somewhere in the same general area. Uncomfortable, with considerable reservations, but ultimately convinced of the necessity that women hold the right to make the choice. 

I end up in a different but similarly circuitous way to a conviction, with considerable reservations, that we have a right to self defense.

Both entail loss of life. (Whether that life is deemed fully human, or whether "humanhood" kicks in at some later point than conception or implantation, is a nuance I recognize as being of profound importance to some. It is not a nuance that is critical to how I work my own way through the issue. Killing in self-defense unambiguously entails loss of human life, and yet I --with considerable reservations -- still accept the need for it to be legal.)  (And also how that defensible right can be taken to extremes I find indefensible, like the "shoot first, ask questions later.")

 

While the question "is this a human life" is the moral starting point for many people wrestling (and is, certainly, a reasonable starting point), it is not the ONLY reasonable starting point.  @Not_a_Number starts to approach one such alternative-starting place with the observation that a ban on abortion = a government mandate to gestate, which amounts to a state-enforced "taking" of a woman's uterus for the duration of the pregnancy... and there is no other equivalent "taking" of a human body part currently allowable under the law.

(If I need a bone marrow transplant lest I otherwise die, I cannot legally COMPEL a matched donor to provide it; I cannot even legally compel close family to be tested to see if they could be donors and thereby save my life.  Even if a life is at urgent stake, the government cannot COMPEL even as trivial a "taking" as a liter of blood, let alone 9 months' compelled use of a body part.)  We have a long historical thread over on the Politics board that gets into some of the other entry points for wrestling, for anyone interested.

 

All of which is different from @Garga 's original OP, which was about the process for effecting change in the "law of the land."

That "law of the land" phrase is used to reference Roe and other SCOTUS decisions, but it (obviously) isn't quite literally true. There is no actual, textual law. SCOTUS decisions stand ... until new legislation (ie, an actual LAW) is passed, or until a different SCOTUS case bubbles up where the prior decision is overturned.

Either could happen with abortion. 

SCOTUS could effect a change: If one of the many extreme-abortion- restrictions test cases makes its way to SCOTUS, a newly constituted court could overturn Roe. (That is the express objective of the Federalist Society, by its own declaration has carefully vetted nominees on the subject before making candidate recommendations to the POTUS.)  If that were to happen, the issue would revert to the states.

Or Congress could effect a change: Congress could pass legislation codifying an affirmative right to abortion.  (Unlike, for example, dissolving the Electoral College, or establishing term limits for SCOTUS justices rather than lifetime tenure -- both of which are specified in the current text of the Constitution -- such legislation would NOT require a Constitutional amendment.  (It would, certainly, be challenged; and how that would go would depend on what the legislation looked like.

 

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Pam in CT
omitted words

[kbutton]

4 hours ago, MercyA said:

An aunt had two abortions. Out of my pro-life activist friends, three that I know of were involved with abortions--two had abortions themselves and one paid for an abortion. 

I personally know of similar situations--a friend confessing that she'd had an abortion, a co-worker talking about taking a friend for one, hearing from a foster mom that was struggling with infertility while a foster child of hers terminated her pregnancy voluntarily. In addition, I remember a person who was trying to open or had just recently opened a crisis pregnancy center flat out said that many a church-going family is pro-life until it's their daughter who is pregnant. 

3 hours ago, MercyA said:

If the mother's life is in danger, every effort should be made to preserve her life while not intending the death of her child. If the child's life is lost during or as a result of lifesaving efforts for the mother, that is tragic but not the same as intentionally taking his or her life.

I am not capable of knowing all the situations in which a woman's life is in serious danger from a pregnancy, and so I cannot say I would agree with this being mandatory (after all, we don't continue ectopic pregnancies). But the words you say here are ones I agree with if we're talking about a woman who wishes to continue a pregnancy in a life-threatening situation. I strongly believe that we need to allow the woman to receive treatment. 

I also can't get past enforcing laws if abortion is made illegal and what that means--I've watched too much Call the Midwife to think that prosecuting women is going to be a great idea, I guess. 

Other than that, I tend to agree with you on abortion issues, MercyA. 

I appreciate the discussion--I always learn things listening in.

[MercyA]

 

2 hours ago, Quill said:

I’m going to try again, but I think the wind has fallen from my sails; reposting is such a

So. My meta-belief at one point was that God intentionally designed every human life, therefore, it was wrong to take that life at any time, for any reason, in any manner. (I will say this: I was consistent, at least, because I also believe(d) capital punishment to be wrong, and assassinating Bin Laden was taking a life,  and etc.) 

Where this belief started to collapse for me: I watched a documentary about parasitic twinning. The pregnant mom was advised to terminate the malformed “baby,” who was just a torso with leg-like limbs, so the developed baby could most likely survive. This would obviously be a heartbreaking decision to have to make but I - with experiential knowledge of what it is to lose a wanted baby - would without a doubt terminate the malformed non-baby so there would be some hope of saving the other, viable baby. (Also, in the documentary, some parasitic twins cannot be rectified; the malformed “baby” is too extremely intertwined with the developed baby.) 

So. Does God design situations like this? I eventually concluded that no; this was an accident of biology. I have a strong pragmatic streak, so it makes more sense to me to terminate in certain situations. After the parasitic twinning, I began to see other situations where I expect I would choose abortion, because it is the “better” choice for society and/or individuals. I continued to see situations that did not support the idea that God explicitly designed every human life (i.e., babies addicted to heroin, babies born to child brides, babies born of abuse and molestation, etc.). 

Part of me does wish there could be no abortions, or only for the most dire situations, but by making it illegal (or heavily restricted), I don’t think it helps us get there. Logistically, I have never understood how it would work if a woman could only get an abortion if she gets a waiver from a doctor or a judge. That does feel very icky to me from a privacy standpoint, and legal proceedings would only drag it out until it’s a much bigger deal. It seems wiser to me to make it as easy as possible to abort early.* In many cases, it would not even need to be surgical and those of us who have had early miscarriages know; this is sad, but it’s not awful. 

*Or, better still, make birth control as easy and free/low cost as possible, so fewer pregnancies ever happen. But often the same people or organizations that oppose abortion also oppose birth control, publicly-funded birth control, or provision of birth control to minors. 

Okay. Hitting submit. 

Thank you for sharing your views again after they were zapped; I know that is laborious! I admire your consistency in your previous pro-life views.

Here are my views: Children are born into difficult situations. Malformations and disabilities occur. Crimes are committed. These are facts. None of these facts justify robbing another human being of his or her life.

Re: the "parasitic" twin: I would again say that all life saving measures should be taken to save all lives possible. If a life is lost in the process, that is tragic. Is a being with no head, no brain, and no possibility of developing either with time a human being? I don't know. I do know rare examples like this should not be used to justify the approximately 875,000 abortions that are committed in the U.S. every year. 

Re: early abortions: the method of killing a human being, in my view, has little to do with its morality. It may be more humane to kill a toddler with an injection than with a knife, but they are equally morally wrong. The child's life is ended either way.

I have miscarried. There is a difference between a natural death and a deliberately inflicted one.

Edited October 13, 2020 by MercyA

[Pen]

 

1 hour ago, Pam in CT said:

That "law of the land" phrase is used to reference Roe and other SCOTUS decisions, but it (obviously) isn't quite literally true. There is no actual, textual law.

 

You do not consider Case Law in the United States to be “actual” law? 

 

 

[Not_a_Number]

11 minutes ago, MercyA said:

I have miscarried. There is a difference between a natural death and a deliberately inflicted one.

For me, personally, the idea of a miscarriage is only useful in that I would NOT feel about it as I would about the loss of a child. Although, to be fair, I do not feel about abstract loss of life the way I do about loss of life in my own family, so perhaps that's not a useful comparison. (That's what values are for, really -- one's emotional reactions are tribal and inconsistent. Values are there to hold us accountable.) 

[MercyA]

On 10/12/2020 at 7:35 PM, Pam in CT said:

While the question "is this a human life" is the moral starting point for many people wrestling (and is, certainly, a reasonable starting point), it is not the ONLY reasonable starting point.  @Not_a_Number starts to approach one such alternative-starting place with the observation that a ban on abortion = a government mandate to gestate, which amounts to a state-enforced "taking" of a woman's uterus for the duration of the pregnancy... and there is no other equivalent "taking" of a human body part currently allowable under the law.

Viewing this issue primarily as an issue of one person's bodily autonomy very often results in the downplaying or outright ignoring of the fact that there is another person in the equation. 

The government is not forcing anyone to have sex without birth control; that indeed would be forcing them into gestation. The vast majority of pregnancies result from consensual relationships. In the case of pregnancy resulting from abuse or rape, victims should be given every support--and restitution if possible--but taking the life of the child only creates another victim.

Edited October 14, 2020 by MercyA

[Guest]

@MercyA thank you for your reply. 

I agree with you that rare situations should not be used to justify the many less-necessary/less-extreme abortions performed but I also know that when the “rare” thing happens to you (not you, personally), it happens 100%. My baby died in labor, when I and she was perfectly healthy. That’s rare! But once it happened to me, it didn’t matter how rare or common it was. 

I just can’t bring myself to a place where those rarer situations just don’t get a solution because it was too rare to bother with the details of how the law applies. (That sounds flippant and I don’t mean for it to be; I know you, Mercy, are a very kind-hearted person and I don’t view you as someone dismissive of rarer misfortunes.) But I don’t see, logistically, how we could legally allow abortion for certain circumstances and not others that don’t meet some standard of direness to a judge or doctor given the power to grant or deny an abortion. Then that puts women back at the mercy of someone giving a darn about their personal devastating problem, and time is of the essence. No point wasting it waiting for a hearing. 

 

[MercyA]

@Quill, I know what you suffered, who you lost, and the toll it took. I am more sorry than I can say for that. 😞 

I would just say that in my view, human life is worth any complicated logistics it might take to protect it. That goes for abortion policy, the revamping of the police, the horrible state of health care in this country, and many other issues. 

Peace to you. ❤️

Edited October 13, 2020 by MercyA

[Pam in CT]

re case precedent vs legislative text

11 minutes ago, Pen said:

You do not consider Case Law in the United States to be “actual” law? 

 

I'm not sure if your question is about the language or the effect.

In effect, case precedent is legally binding (until a higher court overturns, or SCOTUS overturns).

The word "law" means legislation passed through the legislative branch, as in "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution..."

So the distinction I'm making is not over what is "actually" binding -- both are -- but rather where those binding words come from -- the judiciary branch or the legislative.

 

As a general, philosophical matter (not about abortion policy per se), I believe it's preferable for legislators to actually *make* public policy; and for the judiciary to serve as guardrails that keep public policy within Constitutional safeguards.  The more Congress cedes its responsibility to do the hard work, though, the more power defaults over to the other branches.  (Once upon a time that used to be a conservative position.)

[Not_a_Number]

12 minutes ago, Quill said:

Then that puts women back at the mercy of someone giving a darn about their personal devastating problem, and time is of the essence.

And I've read too many stories about situations where the not-very-flexible laws put women's lives at risk for basically no reason. 

[Guest]

Thank you for your patience, @MercyA, and thank you, @Pam in CT for being so intelligent, as always. I’m going to bed now and I think I am finished discussing this subject for now. Peace to you all. 

[Pam in CT]

re multiple lives in the equation

13 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Viewing this issue primarily as an issue of one person's body very often results in the downplaying or outright ignoring of the fact that there is another person in the equation. 

The government is not forcing anyone to have sex without birth control; that indeed would be forcing them into gestation. The vast majority of pregnancies result from consensual relationships. In the case of pregnancy resulting from abuse or rape, victims should be given every support--and restitution if possible--but taking the life of the child only creates another victim.

Indeed, by your reasoning (which I respect, BTW) there are three lives -- mother, father, baby.

That is why the nearest analogy I can get to is the right to self-defense, where there is also, unambiguously, more than one life whose rights are in the balance.

 

(I would never make an argument that these issues are straightforward or clearcut.  They are not. They are just as murky and difficult as a host of other issues that affect life -- self-defense, Stand Your Ground, capital punishment, police misconduct, end-of-life decisions, gun safety, more.

I share your perspective more often than not on most of these other issues; and I respect your ethical reasoning on abortion.  My own reasoning both starts in a different place, and ends in a *somewhat* different place. But less far than is communicable in interweb-sized soundbytes.)

[Danae]

3 hours ago, MercyA said:

 

I have no doubt that you've thought long and hard about this, and I hope you know how much I appreciate your voice on the forum. 🙂

Re: organ donation: There is a difference between requiring an action to save a life and forbidding the action of taking a life. I would like to see abortion law in the same category of other laws that already forbid the taking of human life. For example, we don't say, "Well, taking someone's life with a firearm should be illegal, therefore organ donation should be mandatory." They are two different issues.

You mentioned in a previous thread how you're interested in holding people accountable to their own values, and I think that's brilliant and very needed. In fact, I even mentioned it to my husband, because we are both so dismayed by the inconsistency we see around us. And, of course, we should always, always be looking in the mirror as well.

We do, however, say that if a person is in your house against your will you can kill them.  In some states without a duty to try to avoid doing so and without a requirement to prove that you were in actual danger. 
 

And when you believe that you are in danger and acting in self-defense even outside of your home there is no requirement that you do what you can to protect yourself without directly harming the person you believe to be a threat and only harm/kill them as a side effect.
 

Now I think those laws are often applied in hideous and immoral ways, but if the standard is consistency our laws definitely allow killing people in those situations.

 

[Sneezyone]

35 minutes ago, MercyA said:

Viewing this issue primarily as an issue of one person's body very often results in the downplaying or outright ignoring of the fact that there is another person in the equation. 

The government is not forcing anyone to have sex without birth control; that indeed would be forcing them into gestation. The vast majority of pregnancies result from consensual relationships. In the case of pregnancy resulting from abuse or rape, victims should be given every support--and restitution if possible--but taking the life of the child only creates another victim.

What is the restitution required, in your view, for the loss of bodily autonomy, physical and emotional scars, and forced gestation?

I know of one specific instance where a rape victim who carried to term ended up having an unwanted c-section. She was devastated to have a physical scar as a permanent reminder of her assault. I was there to witness her *extreme* distress. The doctors nearly had to fully sedate her. D’you suppose she would feel better or worse if she’d had no choice in the matter?

Edited October 13, 2020 by Sneezyone

[MercyA]

12 minutes ago, Quill said:

Thank you for your patience, @MercyA, and thank you, @Pam in CT for being so intelligent, as always. I’m going to bed now and I think I am finished discussing this subject for now. Peace to you all. 

Me, too, all. Not my favorite subject by any means. 

Thanks for your thoughts, @Danae. Not ignoring you, but needing to be done for now.

I'm sorry, @Garga, that this thread did not stay in line with your intent, but I think we were not only civil but (I hope) friendly.

 

[MercyA]

Just now, Sneezyone said:

What is the restitution required, in your view, for the loss of bodily autonomy, physical and emotional scars, and forced gestation?

I know of one specific instance where a rape victim who carried to term and ended up having an unwanted c-section. She was devastated to have a physical scar as a permanent reminder of her assault. I was there to witness her extreme distress. D’you suppose she would feel better or worse if she’d had no choice in the matter?

Extensive.

I admire your friend for carrying to term and am very sorry to hear of her understandable distress.

Thank you for your thoughts, Sneezy. Signing off (see above post).

[Halftime Hope]

22 hours ago, Frances said:

I don’t know anyone personally who planned to abort a Down Syndrome child. I’m not saying I don’t believe you, it just hasn’t been my personal experience at all.

It might be instructive, if you're interested, for you to look into (research) the topic, since the idea seems unfamiliar to you.  (I'm very glad that's so!)

Because I have two close friends with DS children, I know a number of families -- mutual friends -- for whom this is very serious and breathtakingly painful, because they were encouraged to abort their DS child by the medical team that were their caregivers.  

There are countries which have no or almost no Down Syndrome children because abortion of DS children is the standard in that country. 

It's genocide (killing of a group of people sharing some commonality*) and families with DS members are very concerned for the welfare of their loved ones.  How does a person with DS face a culture in which they are looked at as an unfortunate relic from less enlightened times?

*American Heritage Dictionary = The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of  ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity.

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Halftime Hope

[Frances]

49 minutes ago, Halftime Hope said:

It might be instructive, if you're interested, for you to look into (research) the topic, since the idea seems unfamiliar to you.  (I'm very glad that's so!)

Because I have two close friends with DS children, I know a number of families -- mutual friends -- for whom this is very serious and breathtakingly painful, because they were encouraged to abort their DS child by the medical team that were their caregivers.  

There are countries which have no or almost no Down Syndrome children because abortion of DS children is the standard in that country. 

It's genocide (killing of a group of people sharing some commonality*) and families with DS members are very concerned for the welfare of their loved ones.  How does a person with DS face a culture in which they are looked at as an unfortunate relic from less enlightened times?

*American Heritage Dictionary = The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of  ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity.

 

I’m only personally unfamiliar with the practice, not generally unfamiliar. I’m not unaware that such pregnancies are often terminated. I was only sharing my personal experience with family and friends. I actually know three families with DS children, one a relative, one from my small hometown, and one from a community theatre group where my son performed for many years. Have you read the book, “Expecting Adam”? It takes place quite awhile ago, but I found it very moving when I read it.

[Pen]

2 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

re case precedent vs legislative text

I'm not sure if your question is about the language or the effect.

 

 

My question was about how you were using and understanding the term law.

 

For me, in the United States of America there is a mixed system of Common Law and Statutory Law — and both are important parts of the “Law.”

 

As I am sure you know, much of what is studied in “Law” school is Case Law from past Court Decisions in addition to Statutory Law. 

 

Quote

In effect, case precedent is legally binding (until a higher court overturns, or SCOTUS overturns).

 

As I expect you know, One could say much the same of Statutory Law:

In effect it is binding, until a new Statutory Law is passed which changes the former Statutory Law, or until a State high Court finds it to be against a State's Constitution or a Federal Court finds it to be against the Federal Constitution. 

 

All the states I have lived in afaik have had a set of Revised Statutes (or similar name) every couple of years or so.  And the Federal Register of the USA has new rules and proposed changes printed nearly every weekday.  Some become part of the United States Code, Some do not. 

 

Quote

The word "law" means legislation passed through the legislative branch, as in "To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution..."

So the distinction I'm making is not over what is "actually" binding -- both are -- but rather where those binding words come from -- the judiciary branch or the legislative.

 

Okay.

If I want to be clear I use a term like “Statutory Law.”

But I think understand now how you are using the term. 

 

ETA: definition number 2 below from a Black’s Law Dictionary more closely fits what I mean by the word “law” particularly as in the phrase <the law of the land>:

 

 

Edited October 13, 2020 by Pen
Added photo from Black’s Law Dictionary Seventh Edition

[Danae]

Side note:  Supreme Court decision that controls current abortion laws isn’t Roe v. Wade.  It was superseded in 1992 by Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Roe still gets all the attention because of the historic value, but to change the legal landscape of abortion today you’d need to overturn Casey.