The Roe Countdown

[Meadmaker]

Wrong way to put the question, IMO:

What I'm asking is: who has the right to defend any right the Unborn might have against the will of the pregnant person?
Before you can talk about Rights, you should talk about Standing.

Interesting question.


In the case of living, breathing, humans, living on the outside of another human, I think we all have standing to defend other human life.

If I decide that something meets a meaningful definition of "human life", once again I think we all have standing. So, the big question is then what constitutes "human life". In my opinion, that happens when a human organism becomes sentient, but I can't tell you exactly when that is, and I don't think anyone else can, either.

And so, in making the decision on when the legal protection for that organism begins, we can entrust that decision to a legislature, or to a judge. I'm inclined toward the legislature.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Interesting question.


In the case of living, breathing, humans, living on the outside of another human, I think we all have standing to defend other human life.

If I decide that something meets a meaningful definition of "human life", once again I think we all have standing. So, the big question is then what constitutes "human life". In my opinion, that happens when a human organism becomes sentient, but I can't tell you exactly when that is, and I don't think anyone else can, either.

And so, in making the decision on when the legal protection for that organism begins, we can entrust that decision to a legislature, or to a judge. I'm inclined toward the legislature.

you would also need a decision on allowing investigators to put all potentially pregnant women on a watchlist, and to track their periods and times of physical intimacy - how else could you protect the organism?
Do you trust the Courts or legislature or Law enforcement to do that kind of intrusive surveilance?

 

[Meadmaker]

you would also need a decision on allowing investigators to put all potentially pregnant women on a watchlist, and to track their periods and times of physical intimacy - how else could you protect the organism?
Do you trust the Courts or legislature or Law enforcement to do that kind of intrusive surveilance?

It's hard to take such questions seriously, but I'll try.

If we determine that something is a crime, we are not obligated to take extreme measures to prevent that crime, nor even to detect that the crime is happening. There are many, many, crimes that you or I might be committing at this very minute, but there are no cops breaking down our doors just to make sure, nor does anyone want that to happen.

 

[mumblethrax]

Sure, there are some people who are OK with infanticide.

Rejection of a right-to-life/personhood for late-term fetuses/infants does not entail approval of infanticide. It just means you can't argue against infanticide on those grounds. I mean, there are plenty of thoughtful people who reject the right-to-life for anyone, but they don't then automatically endorse murder.

There are relevant practical differences between a fetus and an infant, most notably where they live. Once a baby has been born, there are better options available that discharge any obligation the parents might have to the baby.

But they're a small enough minority as to be irrelevant to the debate, unless someone wants to argue their position. For the rest of us, it does become society's business at some point.

In general, we ignore rationality at our peril. Most people, including most Supreme Courts justices, have seriously incoherent ideas about what personhood is or ought to be.

But since we're talking about feticide, rather than infanticide, we can't ignore the people who reject the idea the a fetus has a right to life, or that its right to life trumps a woman's medical autonomy. Because that's not a small minority, it's somewhere around 30% of Americans. 70% of people don't think lawmakers should be involved at all. "The rest of us" don't actually think society needs to get involved at some point. That's a perception created by our bad, dumb, and strident minority politics.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It's hard to take such questions seriously, but I'll try.

If we determine that something is a crime, we are not obligated to take extreme measures to prevent that crime, nor even to detect that the crime is happening. There are many, many, crimes that you or I might be committing at this very minute, but there are no cops breaking down our doors just to make sure, nor does anyone want that to happen.

Hence the Bounty system.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You'd think that the loud and angry backlash against the right for overturning Roe would benefit Democrats in upcoming elections, but you have to remember that the party leadership are reflexively hostile to any kind of popular, grassroots expression of political thought.

The party leadership are, first and foremost, out of touch elites who treat the unruly rabble in the streets as something to be mitigated, not utilized.

How else can you explain their deafening silence in the face of so much popular outrage directed almost entirely at their political adversaries?

 

[bruto]

I am not so confident that some rights will be upheld, especially if the privacy basis of Roe is struck down, and if, as predicted, Griswold is the next to go. I know that some opponents of certain forms of contraception such as IUD's are gunning for Griswold, with what they think is a reasonable anti-abortion agenda, but I think they are wildly and drastically misguided in a way that threatens our very concept of what it means to be a human being.

For those considering that overturning Griswold is a reasonable thing to do, and that it is consistent or reasonable to outlaw devices such as the IUD which prevent implantation of a zygote, you should realize that this actually negates a woman's ownership of her own body in a way that exceeds even that of a ban on abortion.

Even if you believe (wrongly I think) that a zygote is a human being from the moment of conception, and even if you believe (wrongly I think) that to abort such a thing is murder, the outlawing of any form of birth control is substantively, importantly different. Birth control is done before the formation of the zygote. The outlawing of any form of birth control is a literal declaration that a woman may not do anything to her body that impedes her receptivity to pregnancy at any time.

This is not a gray area. It is not a debatable moral dilemma. This is, directly and literally, a declaration that, regardless of whether a fetus is involved, regardless even of when and whether a sexual act is ever performed, a woman's reproductive system is state property.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Kevin Sorbo tweeted
"If men can’t comment on abortion because they don’t have a uterus, why does the left comment on gun control?"

 

[autumn1971]

Conservative pundits clutching their pearls over hostile protests assembling outside the homes of the SCOTUS justices overturning Roe.

In other news, someone throw a molotov cocktail into an anti-abortion office during the night.

Graffiti on the attacked office read "If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”

https://madison.com/news/local/madison-anti-abortion-headquarters-hit-by-molotov-cocktail-vandalism-graffiti/article_526660ea-776d-50ca-9baa-4b4a9337dca7.html

At this point in the history of the US, I fully support this.

 

[autumn1971]

What about going back to the old days of the 80's when in some states oral sex was a felony punishable by up to 20 years? I mean sure the ones who mostly will be targeted by that are the gays but the laws often outlawed oral sex in all cases not just in the context of homosexual sex and they are certainly gunning for those decisions.

We are going to see all anti-sodomy laws in states run by the godstapo scum enforced again.
Also all birth control, including condoms.
We have fifty years of Republican trash saying “nobody wants to outlaw abortion” and they are lying every time.

I also predict that HIPPA soon comes under fire, as Roe was decided based on principles of privacy.

And all laws forbidding sex toys can be strictly enforced at the state level.

**** every republican politician and their supporters.
With a porcupine.
Sideways.

 

[Resume]

Kevin Sorbo tweeted
"If men can’t comment on abortion because they don’t have a uterus, why does the left comment on gun control?"

Once again (as if it were necessary) KSorbs demonstrates how ******* stupid he is.

 

[autumn1971]

Kevin Sorbo tweeted
"If men can’t comment on abortion because they don’t have a uterus, why does the left comment on gun control?"

Ask the French aristocracy.
Or the Romanovs.

Oh, you can’t, they were rightfully eliminated by leftists with guns.

 

[shemp]

Conservative pundits clutching their pearls over hostile protests assembling outside the homes of the SCOTUS justices overturning Roe.

In other news, someone throw a molotov cocktail into an anti-abortion office during the night.

Graffiti on the attacked office read "If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either.”

https://madison.com/news/local/madison-anti-abortion-headquarters-hit-by-molotov-cocktail-vandalism-graffiti/article_526660ea-776d-50ca-9baa-4b4a9337dca7.html

At this point in the history of the US, I fully support this.

Civil War II has already begun anyway. "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

 

[shemp]

We are going to see all anti-sodomy laws in states run by the godstapo scum enforced again.
Also all birth control, including condoms.
We have fifty years of Republican trash saying “nobody wants to outlaw abortion” and they are lying every time.

I also predict that HIPPA soon comes under fire, as Roe was decided based on principles of privacy.

And all laws forbidding sex toys can be strictly enforced at the state level.

**** every republican politician and their supporters.
With a porcupine.
Sideways.

Please don't be cruel to porcupines.

 

[cosmicaug]

It's hard to take such questions seriously, but I'll try.

If we determine that something is a crime, we are not obligated to take extreme measures to prevent that crime, nor even to detect that the crime is happening. There are many, many, crimes that you or I might be committing at this very minute, but there are no cops breaking down our doors just to make sure, nor does anyone want that to happen.

It's hard to take this response seriously, but I'll try.

We are being told that ending a life from conception to birth is the murder of a baby. Surely this is at a different level than someone jaywalking? Surely it merits a different level of response? Surely, that this is so is the position of those who claim to hold this view?

How is any non sterile woman of child-bearing age not to be treated as a murderer in potentia if these are truly one's sincerely held beliefs (whether they actually are, is another matter; but that's what is often claimed to be the case).

 

[Ziggurat]

Rejection of a right-to-life/personhood for late-term fetuses/infants does not entail approval of infanticide.

I'm well aware of that. But it still requires a transition, from society not caring to society caring. Pushing that transition to some point earlier than delivery isn't a fundamental change. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and there is no clear answer for where that should be. Someone who wants it drawn earlier than you do isn't engaged in anything fundamentally different than you are. You're both deciding that society gets a say in things at some point.

There are relevant practical differences between a fetus and an infant, most notably where they live. Once a baby has been born, there are better options available that discharge any obligation the parents might have to the baby.

If a woman is 9 months pregnant, performing an abortion is not really less invasive or safer for the mother than just inducing labor. So there are better options available even before birth that discharge any obligation the parents might have.

The practical distinction you're trying to make is not nearly so clear cut as you seem to think.

 

[cosmicaug]

But since we're talking about feticide, rather than infanticide, we can't ignore the people who reject the idea the a fetus has a right to life, or that its right to life trumps a woman's medical autonomy. Because that's not a small minority, it's somewhere around 30% of Americans. 70% of people don't think lawmakers should be involved at all. "The rest of us" don't actually think society needs to get involved at some point. That's a perception created by our bad, dumb, and strident minority politics.

Nitpick. While fetal personhood seems to be the term we have decided to use (I have used it too), based on the sorts of laws that are being proposed lately what we are really talking about is zygotic pershonhood.

 

[cosmicaug]

Kevin Sorbo tweeted
"If men can’t comment on abortion because they don’t have a uterus, why does the left comment on gun control?"

Peanut is not very bright.

 

[Meadmaker]

It's hard to take this response seriously, but I'll try.

We are being told that ending a life from conception to birth is the murder of a baby. Surely this is at a different level than someone jaywalking? Surely it merits a different level of response? Surely, that this is so is the position of those who claim to hold this view?

How is any non sterile woman of child-bearing age not to be treated as a murderer in potentia if these are truly one's sincerely held beliefs (whether they actually are, is another matter; but that's what is often claimed to be the case).

Are you capable of murder? (I mean, just physically, not some sort of character issue.) Of course you are. So are we all. We could all be murderers.

And yet, no one follows us around to make sure we are not murdering.

If we make abortion illegal, we don't have to follow anyone around just to make sure they aren't aborting anything.


I see this sort of thing in other contexts as well. You can't forbid (whatever), because the only way we can make absolutely certain that no one is doing is (insert ridiculous description of preventive measures.) It's never true, but people bring it up a lot.

 

[cosmicaug]

Are you capable of murder? (I mean, just physically, not some sort of character issue.) Of course you are. So are we all. We could all be murderers.

And yet, no one follows us around to make sure we are not murdering.

If we make abortion illegal, we don't have to follow anyone around just to make sure they aren't aborting anything.


I see this sort of thing in other contexts as well. You can't forbid (whatever), because the only way we can make absolutely certain that no one is doing is (insert ridiculous description of preventive measures.) It's never true, but people bring it up a lot.

Difference is, "murder" here is something that can look exactly like no murder. A "murder" here is taking a combination of drugs and going about their life as normal. The difference here is that something that looks like "murder" happens about 1/3 of the time with pregnancies (miscarriage) and for which we have a history of (rare) prosecutions both in this country and in others.

Whereas murder in the normal sense doesn't just happen unnoticed. Yes, anyone may be "capable" of murder but murder is actually a rare event and when it happens it tends not to happen unnoticed (there will be a victim who will be missing, a body will need to be disposed of, witnesses may see it, etc.).