This is the toughest issue out there... and it's an important enough issue that I find the extent to which far right wing political leaders exploit this issue to manipulate their followers to be absolutely disgraceful...
When does life begin? That's obviously the fundamental question... and the scientific evidence seems to be contradictory and most of the information out there seems to be politically motivated...
I don't believe that life begins at conception... I do realize that once the egg is fertilized, it will grow into a human... I just think that line of thought is dangerous, because it could be extended to include the sperm and the egg before fertilization... after all, sperm that is "wasted" in recreational pursuits rather than in procreational pursuits had the potential to become a human as well... but I don't think we should prosecute men who deliberately ejaculate (this topic is so sensitive that I'm trying to be all proper and sh*t) and therefore waste genetic material that could have produced a child...
I remember an anti-abortion advertisement from my childhood that I found to be very effective... it said simply that "abortion stops a beating heart"... this always made sense to me... and it always seemed wrong to me... after all, a great measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members, and who could be weaker than an unborn child? So, the question becomes in my mind- "When does the heart begin beating?"
According to the one website I could find that seems to be based strictly on science rather than propaganda, the heart begins to beat at 5 weeks after conception:
http://www.wpclinic.org/parenting/fetal-development/first-trimester/
As such, I am totally comfortable with outlawing abortion after the 5 week point, assuming that there's some scientific agreement about this time frame... to me, once the heart begins beating, abortion is wrong... that's my opinion...
Does this mean that I favor overturning Roe v. Wade? I don't know... I haven't even read the ruling... I will say, though, that I would definitely support some measures to try to make abortion less prevalent...
For example, why not have a waiting period? The mother to be must register with the clinic, at which time the clinic presents her with alternatives like adoption and educates her about the specifics of the procedure itself... then, after registration, the mother to be must wait 24 hours after registering before actually having the procedure... considering the stakes, and trying to weigh the mother's rights versus the unborn baby's rights, I don't think the waiting period along with the educational proposals are too much to ask...
I don't know... again, this is an enormously tough issue to me... what do y'all think?
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First things first, read the case. http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113
It's not long and I think it's useful to know exactly what Roe v. Wade says and established as law. The main issue of the decision (in my opinion) is when does the interest begin to shift from protecting a woman’s privacy rights to a “new person’s” rights. In order to answer this question, we have to decide when does life begin(this speaks directly to your point Peter)?
The court says the following concerning the balancing act between a woman’s privacy and the unborn's right to life:
...Although the results are divided, most of these courts have agreed that the right of privacy, however based, is broad enough to cover the abortion decision; that the right, nonetheless, is not absolute and is subject to some limitations; and that at some point the state interests as to protection of health, medical standards, and prenatal life, become dominant. We agree with this approach. -Justice Blackmun Roe v Wade(this speaks directly to your point Peter)
At what point do we decide that a woman is carrying a person with rights protected by our Constitution. The court argues that this occurs at the point of viability (“…the fetus becomes "viable," that is, potentially able to live outside the mother's womb, albeit with artificial aid. - Justice Blackmun Roe v Wade).I have to agree with you Peter that a beating heart is a difficult thing to argue against. The court does make a compelling argument about how our founding fathers defined a person(One could argue that in all their genius, they were proven to be ignorant assholes when it came to “deciding” what/who a person was):
The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "person." The first, in defining "citizens," speaks of "persons born or naturalized in the United States." The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. "Person" is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, Art. I, 2, cl. 2, and 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, 2, cl. 3; 53 in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, 2, cl. 2, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only postnatally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application. 54 [410 U.S. 113, 158] - Justice Blackmun Roe v Wade
I won’t try to make this argument, but am curious as to how my strict constructionist brothers and sister would deal with this argument. What I will do is try is to argue about the larger implications of outlawing abortion after 5 weeks. This was touched on in Roe v. Wade:
In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive. 63 That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained…In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense. - Justice Blackmun Roe v Wade
Will you now run the risk of a negligent homicide charge if you get into a car accident with a woman 5 weeks pregnant? Will a woman face jail time if she engages in behavior detrimental to the 5 week old fetus? Will Child Protective Services be able to take your child after it’s born if it is found that you are unfit during the 5th week? What if you didn’t know you were pregnant at 5 weeks? Is ignorance a defense(I don’t think so.)? Will we have to update our child endangerment laws to now focus on our bedrooms in order to protect the 5 week old “person” from potentially harmful STDs? Ok, I’m beating a dead horse. How much protection should we provide our weakest citizens? I would hope that those that fight tooth and nail to make abortions illegal, put as much effort into caring for these children when they are born . Statistics to note are:
*532,000 children in the U.S. foster care system (In 2005, 1.21 million abortions were performed. This appears to be trending downward, but still a gross #)
* Approximately 126,000 children available for adoption• According to a National Adoption Attitudes Survey commissioned by the Dave Thomas Foundation noted that nearly 40% of American adults, or 81.5 million people, have considered adopting a child. If just one in 500 of the adults adopted, every waiting child in foster care would have a permanent family.
* There are about 120,000 children for adoption in the USA at any given time.
http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/trends.htm)
Is this an appropriate time to discuss how the government should provide health care for children ? Should the government make it illegal to not have health care for your child (And if so, would a woman 5 weeks pregnant be required to have health insurance for herself and the baby. I’m sure insurance companies would love that.)? I’m not trying to be an asshole about abortion because I think that we should strive to limit abortions as much as possible. It does no good to fight to have a child live and then abandon it and leave it to a life of abuse in foster care. That’s all I got, I’ll holla!
i got nothing on jbh - that's some serious research and thought. i've slept an approximate 7 hours in the last week, so I will just add this to the mix:
what happens if a rape victim gets pregnant? should she be forced to carry the baby to term?
the issue has a lot of gray areas, and I will agree with you Pete that it has becoming increasingly used as a political rather than a moral motive.
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