Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

[Bowser]

Tiassa, concidering that corporations are "persons" in the US who was charged with murder over the collaps of liman brothers?

Funny. Thank you.

 

[seagypsy]

Yes, of course I think a human foetus is human.. If it was a horse foetus, I would believe it was a horse foetus and so forth.

Thank you for finally clarifying that. I do understand the English language. I also understand that stating that you didn't say something, or withholding a claim, does not infact mean you hold the opposite of that claim to be true. For instance, just because a person has not officially state that they are gay, does not necessarily mean that they are not. So I guess I was asking you to come out of the closet so to speak. I'm sorry that logic escaped you. I simply did not want to be accused of assuming you saw a human fetus as a human simply because you emphatically stated that you never said a human fetus is NOT human.

So are all humans entitled to human rights? In your opinion? or are some humans less human and less deserving than others?

The UN's position on Human Rights It seems the terms human and person are synonymous in their usage.




Do not open the spoiler without your flame retardant underwear on

Spoiler

The notion of citing an example in the context of what I was saying escaped you somewhat?

Should we use smaller words for you?

No just accurate ones, thank you.

No, please, you have to let us know these things and we can make allowances for you.

I have let it be known that I require people to be honest in their representations. That is all that was required here.

So you do not understand the concept of "personhood" in the context of this debate... Okay then..

I understand it fine. But Neverfly was not asking you to define personhood, he asked you specifically about 'HUMAN'. He stated his understanding of what you said in his own words and asked you to confirm his interpretation as accurate or not. You confirmed that his interpretation WAS accurate. His interpretation did not use the word personhood. Is that hard for YOU to understand?

Personhood in the legal confines of this debate and how I applied it, because I obviously incorrectly assumed that people would understand how it was applied in a debate such as this, means that the foetus is not given legal rights over the mother rights. Ie, it is not a person with rights yet.

accept that you didn't confirm your definition of personhood, you confirmed your definition of human. Apparently not the same thing.

Denying it "personhood" in the context of this debate and how I clearly and obviously applied it is when the unborn foetus' rights will not supersede the mother's rights to her body and health, especially where her health is concerned. In short, if the mother's health is in danger, I do not believe the foetus should have more rights than the mother, as such, I do believe that women should be given the right to choose and in cases where her health is at risk, she should not be denied an abortion because I believe that the foetus does not have any legal rights until it exits the womb - ie it does not have more legal rights than the mother or more rights over her body to the point where she is denied any rights over her own body. Once it exits the womb, it has full legal rights and protection. I believe that while in the womb, the mother's rights supersede the foetus' rights.

Do you understand now? Do I need to use smaller words? Draw pictures perhaps?

And let me be clear, seagypsy, civilised manner does not involve swearing at people as you have been and abusing them in the vulgar manner that you have been. Nor is it civilised to attack people's personal problems or apparently, as you claim you have done in this thread, post responses to PM's as you have done, nor is it civilised to falsely accuse people and slander people as being serial killers, etc. Nor is it civilised to say that pregnant women should not listen to their doctors advice in the 3rd trimester if their doctor tells them that it is medically necessary for them to terminate to save their lives.

But perhaps my definition of civilised is different to yours..

I will only respond to parts of your post that are relavant to the thread and not your emotional attacks against me. I wasn't doing it earlier in the thread but I am doing it now. I want the discussion to move forward. Rather than focus on flaming.

 

[Bowser]

I will only respond to parts of your post that are relavant to the thread and not your emotional attacks against me. I wasn't doing it earlier in the thread but I am doing it now. I want the discussion to move forward. Rather than focus on flaming.

I agree.

Bells, what is your position on abortion in general. So far I gather you are in favor when the mother's life is in jeopardy, that the unborn is not a person as long as it exists in the womb. Does this apply in any other circumstance? I mean, if a mother discovered that her unborn had the "gay gene," would abortion be justified?

 

[Bells]

Thank you for finally clarifying that. I do understand the English language. I also understand that stating that you didn't say something, or withholding a claim, does not infact mean you hold the opposite of that claim to be true. For instance, just because a person has not officially state that they are gay, does not necessarily mean that they are not. So I guess I was asking you to come out of the closet so to speak. I'm sorry that logic escaped you. I simply did not want to be accused of assuming you saw a human fetus as a human simply because you emphatically stated that you never said a human fetus is NOT human.

I have to ask, have you read the OP or even the title of this thread, seagypsy?

Tiassa stated this in his OP:

Very well; if they want "personhood" at conception, these are the minimum demands before that outcome is even negotiable.

After all, it is also well-known that I am a voracious advocate of equal protection. If a blastocyst is a person, it has human rights. And if the excuse for not enforcing those rights is that it is too complicated or expensive, the lie of the "personhood" argument is exposed. Time for the pokies, indeed.

So ... these are the minimum terms for getting my outlook to the table in order to negotiate "personhood". And when I say minimum, let there be no question: There will be no watering down of a rapist's culpability. There will be no dilution of the public trust's responsibility. We can pile onto the rapist and public trust as much as one thinks is necessary, but we will not diminish these minimal obligations.

I find the whole "personhood" assertion unethical and distasteful. But if I am to compromise on these points at all, yes, I have a list of demands.

Do you understand how and what "personhood" means and is applied in this debate?

Do you understand that when someone says, in this debate, that a foetus should not get "personhood" while in utero, they are not saying that the foetus is not human?

Do you understand that when we discuss the mother's "human" status in the confines of this debate and how the conservative and religious right are attempting to deny all abortion and contraception, that we mean that they view the mother as no longer being human at all but a mere incubator?

No just accurate ones, thank you.

Oh, I was accurate.

I have let it be known that I require people to be honest in their representations. That is all that was required here.

And because you do not understand the terminology and legal definitions within the confines of this debate, everyone else is to blame but you?

In short, seagypsy, people have been very honest with their representations. Just because you did not understand what they were talking about is not their fault.

I understand it fine. But Neverfly was not asking you to define personhood, he asked you specifically about 'HUMAN'. He stated his understanding of what you said in his own words and asked you to confirm his interpretation as accurate or not. You confirmed that his interpretation WAS accurate. His interpretation did not use the word personhood. Is that hard for YOU to understand?

Did you even read my response to Neverfly and the context to which I responded?

In a thread discussing granting personhood at conception, you think I am to blame if you and Neverfly cannot understand what that means?

Really?

I confirmed his point about the foetus not counting up until birth in Australia was accurate. In other words, I advised him that in Australia at least, the mother's health will always be paramount and my language was very clear about that.

You do realise that it has been Neverfly and you who it appears brought up the concept of "human" and then started to accuse people that they didn't view a human foetus as human because we were applying the legal definition of "personhood" as per the OP and the thread title, yes?

Just because you don't understand what certain things mean and how personhood applied in this debate does not mean that I and others have been dishonest in this debate.

accept that you didn't confirm your definition of personhood, you confirmed your definition of human. Apparently not the same thing.

I used the definition of "personhood" as designated in the OP and it is a legal terminology in the context of this debate.

What is so hard for you to understand about that?

And no, it is not the same thing seagypsy. A human embryo and a human foetus is human by definition since it is not of any other species because we are discussing abortion pertaining to human beings (homo sapiens).

While it appears you seem to believe that "personhood" or denying "personhood" from the point of conception is denying that it is a human blastocyst, embryo or foetus, that is not what this discussion is about.

This discussion is not about whether it is human from conception, seagypsy. It is about whether it should be given "personhood" (ie rights above and beyond the mother's rights) from the point of conception.

The OP and title were very clear.

I will only respond to parts of your post that are relavant to the thread and not your emotional attacks against me. I wasn't doing it earlier in the thread but I am doing it now. I want the discussion to move forward. Rather than focus on flaming.

My comments about your behaviour are not emotional seagypsy. I was merely pointing out fact and the fact of your behaviour in this thread.

 

[seagypsy]

I have to ask, have you read the OP or even the title of this thread, seagypsy?

yes

And the napalm flies...

Spoiler

Tiassa stated this in his OP:



Do you understand how and what "personhood" means and is applied in this debate?

Do you understand that when someone says, in this debate, that a foetus should not get "personhood" while in utero, they are not saying that the foetus is not human?

Do you understand that when we discuss the mother's "human" status in the confines of this debate and how the conservative and religious right are attempting to deny all abortion and contraception, that we mean that they view the mother as no longer being human at all but a mere incubator?


Oh, I was accurate.


And because you do not understand the terminology and legal definitions within the confines of this debate, everyone else is to blame but you?

In short, seagypsy, people have been very honest with their representations. Just because you did not understand what they were talking about is not their fault.


Did you even read my response to Neverfly and the context to which I responded?

In a thread discussing granting personhood at conception, you think I am to blame if you and Neverfly cannot understand what that means?

Really?

I confirmed his point about the foetus not counting up until birth in Australia was accurate. In other words, I advised him that in Australia at least, the mother's health will always be paramount and my language was very clear about that.

You do realise that it has been Neverfly and you who it appears brought up the concept of "human" and then started to accuse people that they didn't view a human foetus as human because we were applying the legal definition of "personhood" as per the OP and the thread title, yes?

Just because you don't understand what certain things mean and how personhood applied in this debate does not mean that I and others have been dishonest in this debate.


I used the definition of "personhood" as designated in the OP and it is a legal terminology in the context of this debate.

What is so hard for you to understand about that?

And no, it is not the same thing seagypsy. A human embryo and a human foetus is human by definition since it is not of any other species because we are discussing abortion pertaining to human beings (homo sapiens).

While it appears you seem to believe that "personhood" or denying "personhood" from the point of conception is denying that it is a human blastocyst, embryo or foetus, that is not what this discussion is about.

This discussion is not about whether it is human from conception, seagypsy. It is about whether it should be given "personhood" (ie rights above and beyond the mother's rights) from the point of conception.

The OP and title were very clear.


My comments about your behaviour are not emotional seagypsy. I was merely pointing out fact and the fact of your behaviour in this thread.

Neither your behavior nor mine is relevant to the OP. Can you get back on topic please?

 

[Bells]

Thank you for finally clarifying that. I do understand the English language. I also understand that stating that you didn't say something, or withholding a claim, does not infact mean you hold the opposite of that claim to be true. For instance, just because a person has not officially state that they are gay, does not necessarily mean that they are not. So I guess I was asking you to come out of the closet so to speak. I'm sorry that logic escaped you. I simply did not want to be accused of assuming you saw a human fetus as a human simply because you emphatically stated that you never said a human fetus is NOT human.

So are all humans entitled to human rights? In your opinion? or are some humans less human and less deserving than others?

The UN's position on Human Rights It seems the terms human and person are synonymous in their usage.




Do not open the spoiler without your flame retardant underwear on

Now to respond to your edit..

Again, did you fail to read and comprehend the title of this thread and the OP and how "personhood" was being legally applied or the context it was being applied in in this thread?

Do I think humans are entitled to rights? Certainly. Do I think a fertilised egg, embryo or foetus are entitled to rights? I do not think their rights should supersede the rights of the mother at all. I believe that while it exists within the body of another, the mother's rights are paramount.

Or did you not get that when I said that above either?

---

Bells, what is your position on abortion in general. So far I gather you are in favor when the mother's life is in jeopardy, that the unborn is not a person as long as it exists in the womb. Does this apply in any other circumstance? I mean, if a mother discovered that her unborn had the "gay gene," would abortion be justified?

I fully believe in the mother's rights to choose.

I also believe that no one should impede or reject a woman's say or rights over her own body.

Do I believe in eugenics or what you seem to believe that people can test for a 'gay gene'? Do I agree that a woman should abort because she believes her child is gay? No. But I do respect her right to choose as it is her body.

I do not believe that an unborn's legal rights should be above and beyond that of the mother's to the point where the mother is denied any rights or say whatsoever over her own body.

 

[Bells]

yes

And the napalm flies...

Spoiler

Neither your behavior nor mine is relevant to the OP. Can you get back on topic please?

Seagypsy, the level of intellectual dishonesty you have displayed in this thread has not been seen on this forum for a long while.

I responded to your questions and while it is clear you do not actually understand this thread's topic or the OP or the legal definitions used in it, that is no one's fault but your own.

The topic of this discussion was clearly set out in the OP and in the title. If you cannot understand it, do not abuse people and accuse people of things without any proof whatsoever because you just don't understand.

And that is all I am going to say to you on this matter.

 

[Bowser]

Yes, let's get back to the topic. My hope was that we could establish everyone's opinion on abortion in general, which might give us some insight into how we view the unborn.

 

[Bowser]

Later!

 

[seagypsy]

Tiassa, concidering that corporations are "persons" in the US who was charged with murder over the collaps of liman brothers?

Not intending to challenge your claim, but I saw this said before maybe another thread or this one I can't remember. I was assuming the person who said it was being sarcastic. But is it true? Are corporations actually granted legal personhood in the USA? How does that work?

 

[Bells]

Not intending to challenge your claim, but I saw this said before maybe another thread or this one I can't remember. I was assuming the person who said it was being sarcastic. But is it true? Are corporations actually granted legal personhood in the USA? How does that work?

Corporate personhood means that a corporation can sue and be sued in the same way that an individual (ie natural person), for example, can sue and be sued.

 

[seagypsy]

Corporate personhood means that a corporation can sue and be sued in the same way that an individual (ie natural person), for example, can sue and be sued.

I have never really looked into big business law. I think in LLC if you sue them, you are suing the owner not the business itself. But I'm not sure on that. My business accounting professor only barely touched on those issues. My business accounting professor always said businesses were legally referred to as entities and "just like a person they can sue or be sued." But he never told us, and our text never stated, that they were legally labeled as personhoods. That is just weird to me.

 

[Asguard]

Not to mention companies avoiding advertising restrictions by claiming they are free speech under the first amendment because companies are persons an therefore entitled to the bill of rights

Still no one has ever been charged with murder over the collapse of a company as the opening post states would happen. This just shows how ridiculas the premis of this whole thread is

It's just troll bait from start to finish and just shows how hypocritical Tiassa and FR have been
As I said before, under his own rules as dictated by his wife every time Tiassa comments against seagypsy he should be pointing out that seagypsy is right and Tiassa wrong simply because he has a dick and she doesn't

As for Tiassa ever time he makes these threads his whole argument can be refuted by his own comment.

if you don't want the responsibility of a child then don't have sex or get snipped

 

[Bowser]

Political contributions were a big motivator. But I digress...

 

[seagypsy]

Not to mention companies avoiding advertising restrictions by claiming they are free speech under the first amendment because companies are persons an therefore entitled to the bill of rights

Still no one has ever been charged with murder over the collapse of a company as the opening post states would happen. This just shows how ridiculas the premis of this whole thread is

I agree that no one would ever likely try to file murder charges if a corporation is destroyed intentionally. Or file kidnapping charges in light of a hostile corporate take over. I think the people view things as they will regardless of how the law is worded and manipulated to cater to those who lobby for those laws. But in terms of real personhood vs legal personhood, I can see where people would have conflicting interpretations of what the laws actually mean and how they were intended. I think zealous lawyers can and often do take a law or wordage of a law and find a way to extract any possible interpretation out of it in order to get a satisfactory outcome for their client, or to promote their own personal political agenda.

I don't think person-hood should be extended to a fetus at conception, rather I think legal person-hood should be taken away from corporations and anything else that is not a living human entity. But I do think person-hood should apply to any human that is capable of living independently of another human body. And in most cases of pregnancies of otherwise normal healthy progression, a fetus of about 26-28 weeks, depending on who you ask in the field, stands a good chance of long term survival if delivered vaginally or by c-section.

Premature Birth Survival

Strictly speaking, most doctors define the age of viability as being about 24 weeks of gestation. In many hospitals, 24 weeks is the cutoff point for when doctors will use intensive medical intervention to attempt to save the life of a baby born prematurely. A baby born at 24 weeks would generally require a lot of intervention, potentially including mechanical ventilation and other invasive treatments followed by a lengthy stay in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).

In the hands of experienced specialists, though, babies born slightly earlier may have a chance at survival. Babies born at 23 weeks may survive with these specialists in a state-of-the-art NICU, but the odds of survival are much lower. The earliest baby to have ever survived premature birth was born at 21 weeks and 6 days, and this was reported in the news as having been a "miracle."

Odds of survival increase as the pregnancy progresses, and even an extra week in the womb can make a difference. In general, premature babies born closer to 37 weeks will be much better off than those born before 28 weeks.

Just like in ACTA/SOPA/PIPA.. I forget which is which but they all seemed basically the same to me, regarding copyright laws and piracy. The act was worded in a vague way that could give other countries who sign it the impression that they can go anywhere they want and arrest the citizens of another country simply because those citizens violated laws of their country. For instance if China and America both signed, then America could go and arrest China's citizens for violating laws unique to the US and China could come here and arrest one of us for speaking out against the Chinese government. I have nothing against people and entities wanting to protect their intellectual property rights but I believe the acts proposed were worded way too vaguely and could put us all in danger of subjection to foreign laws.

 

[lightgigantic]

I did want to point out that instead of policy makers, you're essentially leaving it to lawyers.

granting "personhood" status to unborn children is not within the parameters of lawyers - they simply stand to have a field day if such an amendment is granted (which of course results in a failed policy)

At least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced foetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves.

South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy.

(Pilkington)​

While abortion access advocates were skeptical from the outset, believing these fetal homicide laws were a back-door to LACP, it is lawyers who are proving the point.

The problem with certain market-based solutions is that they take time, and during that time there will be many sacrificial lambs. I tried to make this point earlier in the thread:

Nor would one want me in charge if personhood was the rule; Equal Protection is a vital foundation of our society, and I would sacrifice as many lambs, send as many people to prison, wreck as many lives, as I must in order to make the point. Meanwhile, I would be remiss in my duty, as such, if I did not. Did a woman experience menstrual irregularity? We must investigate, in order to make sure a "person" has not died, and if we have evidence suggesting such a death, we must ensure that the defenseless "person" did not die by homicide.​

That isn't a matter of spite. Rather, it's how important Equal Protection is to our society. And here's the thing about the appearance of spite: This is why I think the concept of "personhood" at conception doesn't work. Can it be made to work? Perhaps, but at the same time, I'm not inclined to find out. The better ways, in my opinion, to reduce the number of abortions in society, are education and access to prevention tools. Yet, as we see in our political culture, these approaches, too, are objectionable.

In truth, I have a hard time separating abortion from issues of sexual conduct.

Have you ever seen a burn line in fighting wildfires? It's a risky maneuver; in the middle of a tinder-dry region, the theory is that by burning out enough area in the path of the wildfire that the blaze cannot cross. And while we can certainly declare our faith in fire crews, even they know that a controlled burn can erupt into something much worse in a heartbeat.

I raise this issue because it seems that leaping past sex education and contraceptive access to LACP, which is a politically viable set of assertions in our society, is metaphorically akin to putting out a fire by setting other things on fire, and the statistical result of ignorance and lack of access is like throwing gasoline on the fire to put it out.

Additionally, abortion is not the only aspect of self-governance that a woman loses under LACP. Sure, it's easy enough to point to smoking, drinking, or piles of cocaine, but it also pertains to work, traveling in a car, or even walking on a sidewalk. It pertains to a woman's exposure to anything that might endanger the organism growing inside her. In the name of Equal Protection, the organism inside the woman becomes superior, and while that might seem an emotional rhetorical appeal, the functional implications are tremendous.

I would also note that while our society sees much argument about the life of the mother, there is little talk of what actually drives the most part of late-term abortions. Yesterday, I excerpted a legal brief from Supreme Court hearings focused on late-term D&X (a.k.a. "partial birth abortion"). And as I noted, it's a soul-scarring read.

Nobody with a shred of human decency is going to drag an anti-abortion advocate into a hospital to watch a baby slowly and painfully dying of a disorder identified in utero, and say, "This child's suffering is all on you." But I also don't think enough people are considering the fact that their policy preference, LACP, would create such a situation.

The question of implications gauges the intent of LACP, and so far it really does seem to be about the War of the Sexes more than it is the children.

End hunger. Get the hundred-thousand-plus children in the United States who need stable homes into stable, loving homes. Our society spends so much argument on the rights of the unborn, even if that means the right of the unborn to be born into suffering. This doesn't make sense.

It's true, I reject LACP because its implications are unacceptable to my outlook. But if it ever becomes the law of the land, I would certainly hope we have some idea what we're getting ourselves into. And, yes, in truth, I think that, as a society, we will be blindsided by the implications of LACP if we don't give it some serious thought beforehand.

Remember that under the Fourteenth Amendment, women were not considered people insofar as fifty-two years passed before the Nineteenth. And even as the marketplace tried to give women the vote in the states, those laws, even when passed in the states, were repeatedly quashed.

Some would suggest that slavery was on its way out, anyway, suggesting that the Civil War and Thirteenth Amendment were unnecessary. Some would suggest that civil rights for people with dark skin was on its way, and thus Supreme Court decisions in Brown and Loving were unnecessary. The unspoken price, though, is the number of people who would suffer during the interim.

If we leave the implications of LACP to the learning curve of generations, how many times will we screw up? How many people will suffer?

That's why it's important to have this discussion on the front side.

Of course, I don't foresee LACP becoming the law of the land anytime soon, so perhaps the only real purpose of asking people to think about the implications is to make sure they understand what they're advocating.

And I find it interesting that when the personhood issue pushed to the fore in 2010, the response on the liberal and Democratic Party side of the aisle was to focus on hormonal birth control, in vitro fertilization, and other such medical aspects at risk. Perhaps the leading voices, be it members of Congress or the media commentariat, &c., thought it would be too complicated a discussion to undertake consideration of the broader implications. Judging by the discussion so far in this thread, they would have been right. To the other, it's also possible it just didn't occur to them; when one deals in superficiality, deeper implications often remain unnoticed.

But if people are going to advocate LACP, it would probably be a good thing to consider the wider implications; indeed, I cannot see why they wouldn't want to, unless this really is about political aesthetics instead of genuine concern for humanity.
____________________

Notes:

Pilkington, Ed. "Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges". The Guardian. June 24, 2011. Guardian.co.uk. November 5, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

as I said, the learning curve is navigated by generations, not policy makers. Opportunist (for good or bad) lawyers can certainly use their prowess in the court room to assert a certain social agenda, but if the needs of society are not addressed, it will not really do much (socially speaking) except increase bile secretions. IOW if you have a society that is compelled to a certain consequence (such as wholesale unwanted progeny) then that won't go away simply by making it illegal. Prohibition of alcohol is a good example of what I mean (did some people get arrested for alcohol consumption and distribution? yes. Did it ultimately achieve much? no). Usually if there is some sort of nefarious/dubious activity that society is inclined to (such as drug use, prostitution, gambling etc ... or even murder as in the case of warfare or even euthanasia if you want to start getting controversial) the act is regulated and the subject of various health campaigns (as opposed to giving them a complete green light for anyone anywhere anytime).

IOW to simply point the inherent complications of establishing unborn children as people by a group of ambitious lawyers in a particular society doesn't suddenly render the premise false - it simply renders the premise as complicated (geez - if legal precepts were turfed out simply because they were complicated in certain situations law would be taught alongside woodwork classes at college). Just look at how complex black civil rights is in america, 150 years after the civil war .... You can point out how interpretation of the law (surrounding black civil rights) has lead to the sometimes unfounded persecution or deprivation of liberty by people of all colours, yet the narrative for establishing the precept by society has lead to a coloured american president being voted in (and still there are irregularities, contradictions, etc)

 

[seagypsy]

But I do think person-hood should apply to any human that is capable of living independently of another human body.

hmmm. just realized even this has a problem. It does not recognize these people as persons.

So apparently ability to survive independently of another person should not be required to be considered a legal person-hood. How does one draw a line, word the law, without infringing on anyone's rights?

If Independent physical reality is what is required to usurp rights over anotherIf independent physical reality is what is required to count as a legal person-hood....., what do we do in a case of conjoined twins where one twin consists of nothing more than a head and all its normal innards, an arm and one lung. The other twin has all its own vital organs. The one with it's own full set of vital organs decides at the age of 18 that they no longer want their parasitic twin interfering with their dating options. Does that twin have the right to demand the death of the other? After all, it is making demands of what it wants of its own body. Is the fully equipped twin obligated to continue supporting the parasitic twin or are they legally entitled to demand a procedure that would improve its own quality of life, but will absolutely result in the death of lesser equipped twin. It simply no longer wants to physically support its 18 year old twin who has a fully functioning brain and is as intelligent and capable mentally as the one with the full set of organs. They are both registered voters, Anyone have any answers? Good ones? When righting laws, all possibilities MUST be considered.

 

[lightgigantic]

I did want to point out that instead of policy makers, you're essentially leaving it to lawyers.

granting "personhood" status to unborn children is not within the parameters of lawyers - they simply stand to have a field day if such an amendment is granted (which of course results in a failed policy)

At least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced foetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves.

South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy.

(Pilkington)​

While abortion access advocates were skeptical from the outset, believing these fetal homicide laws were a back-door to LACP, it is lawyers who are proving the point.

The problem with certain market-based solutions is that they take time, and during that time there will be many sacrificial lambs. I tried to make this point earlier in the thread:

Nor would one want me in charge if personhood was the rule; Equal Protection is a vital foundation of our society, and I would sacrifice as many lambs, send as many people to prison, wreck as many lives, as I must in order to make the point. Meanwhile, I would be remiss in my duty, as such, if I did not. Did a woman experience menstrual irregularity? We must investigate, in order to make sure a "person" has not died, and if we have evidence suggesting such a death, we must ensure that the defenseless "person" did not die by homicide.​

That isn't a matter of spite. Rather, it's how important Equal Protection is to our society. And here's the thing about the appearance of spite: This is why I think the concept of "personhood" at conception doesn't work. Can it be made to work? Perhaps, but at the same time, I'm not inclined to find out. The better ways, in my opinion, to reduce the number of abortions in society, are education and access to prevention tools. Yet, as we see in our political culture, these approaches, too, are objectionable.

In truth, I have a hard time separating abortion from issues of sexual conduct.

Have you ever seen a burn line in fighting wildfires? It's a risky maneuver; in the middle of a tinder-dry region, the theory is that by burning out enough area in the path of the wildfire that the blaze cannot cross. And while we can certainly declare our faith in fire crews, even they know that a controlled burn can erupt into something much worse in a heartbeat.

I raise this issue because it seems that leaping past sex education and contraceptive access to LACP, which is a politically viable set of assertions in our society, is metaphorically akin to putting out a fire by setting other things on fire, and the statistical result of ignorance and lack of access is like throwing gasoline on the fire to put it out.

Additionally, abortion is not the only aspect of self-governance that a woman loses under LACP. Sure, it's easy enough to point to smoking, drinking, or piles of cocaine, but it also pertains to work, traveling in a car, or even walking on a sidewalk. It pertains to a woman's exposure to anything that might endanger the organism growing inside her. In the name of Equal Protection, the organism inside the woman becomes superior, and while that might seem an emotional rhetorical appeal, the functional implications are tremendous.

I would also note that while our society sees much argument about the life of the mother, there is little talk of what actually drives the most part of late-term abortions. Yesterday, I excerpted a legal brief from Supreme Court hearings focused on late-term D&X (a.k.a. "partial birth abortion"). And as I noted, it's a soul-scarring read.

Nobody with a shred of human decency is going to drag an anti-abortion advocate into a hospital to watch a baby slowly and painfully dying of a disorder identified in utero, and say, "This child's suffering is all on you." But I also don't think enough people are considering the fact that their policy preference, LACP, would create such a situation.

The question of implications gauges the intent of LACP, and so far it really does seem to be about the War of the Sexes more than it is the children.

End hunger. Get the hundred-thousand-plus children in the United States who need stable homes into stable, loving homes. Our society spends so much argument on the rights of the unborn, even if that means the right of the unborn to be born into suffering. This doesn't make sense.

It's true, I reject LACP because its implications are unacceptable to my outlook. But if it ever becomes the law of the land, I would certainly hope we have some idea what we're getting ourselves into. And, yes, in truth, I think that, as a society, we will be blindsided by the implications of LACP if we don't give it some serious thought beforehand.

Remember that under the Fourteenth Amendment, women were not considered people insofar as fifty-two years passed before the Nineteenth. And even as the marketplace tried to give women the vote in the states, those laws, even when passed in the states, were repeatedly quashed.

Some would suggest that slavery was on its way out, anyway, suggesting that the Civil War and Thirteenth Amendment were unnecessary. Some would suggest that civil rights for people with dark skin was on its way, and thus Supreme Court decisions in Brown and Loving were unnecessary. The unspoken price, though, is the number of people who would suffer during the interim.

If we leave the implications of LACP to the learning curve of generations, how many times will we screw up? How many people will suffer?

That's why it's important to have this discussion on the front side.

Of course, I don't foresee LACP becoming the law of the land anytime soon, so perhaps the only real purpose of asking people to think about the implications is to make sure they understand what they're advocating.

And I find it interesting that when the personhood issue pushed to the fore in 2010, the response on the liberal and Democratic Party side of the aisle was to focus on hormonal birth control, in vitro fertilization, and other such medical aspects at risk. Perhaps the leading voices, be it members of Congress or the media commentariat, &c., thought it would be too complicated a discussion to undertake consideration of the broader implications. Judging by the discussion so far in this thread, they would have been right. To the other, it's also possible it just didn't occur to them; when one deals in superficiality, deeper implications often remain unnoticed.

But if people are going to advocate LACP, it would probably be a good thing to consider the wider implications; indeed, I cannot see why they wouldn't want to, unless this really is about political aesthetics instead of genuine concern for humanity.
____________________

Notes:

Pilkington, Ed. "Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges". The Guardian. June 24, 2011. Guardian.co.uk. November 5, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

as I said, the learning curve is navigated by generations, not policy makers. Opportunist (for good or bad) lawyers can certainly use their prowess in the court room to assert a certain social agenda, but if the needs of society are not addressed, it will not really do much (socially speaking) except increase bile secretions. IOW if you have a society that is compelled to a certain consequence (such as wholesale unwanted progeny) then that won't go away simply by making it illegal. Prohibition of alcohol is a good example of what I mean (did some people get arrested for alcohol consumption and distribution? yes. Did it ultimately achieve much? no). Usually if there is some sort of nefarious/dubious activity that society is inclined to (such as drug use, prostitution, gambling etc ... or even murder as in the case of warfare or even euthanasia if you want to start getting controversial) the act is regulated and the subject of various health campaigns (as opposed to giving them a complete green light for anyone anywhere anytime).

IOW to simply point the inherent complications of establishing unborn children as people by a group of ambitious lawyers in a particular society doesn't suddenly render the premise false - it simply renders the premise as complicated (geez - if legal precepts were turfed out simply because they were complicated in certain situations law would be taught alongside woodwork classes at college). Just look at how complex black civil rights is in america, 150 years after the civil war .... You can point out how interpretation of the law (surrounding black civil rights) has lead to the sometimes unfounded persecution or deprivation of liberty by people of all colours, yet the narrative for establishing the precept by society has lead to a coloured american president being voted in (and still there are irregularities, contradictions, etc)

 

[Bells]

I have never really looked into big business law. I think in LLC if you sue them, you are suing the owner not the business itself. But I'm not sure on that. My business accounting professor only barely touched on those issues. My business accounting professor always said businesses were legally referred to as entities and "just like a person they can sue or be sued." But he never told us, and our text never stated, that they were legally labeled as personhoods. That is just weird to me.

I think one of the best examples to describe corporate personhood would be to look at the lawsuits against big tobacco companies and corporations where individuals sued the tobacco companies and not the owners of these companies. If that makes it easier?

And it is a legal concept more than anything.

Just like foetal personhood is a legal concept within the context of this thread.

I don't think person-hood should be extended to a fetus at conception, rather I think legal person-hood should be taken away from corporations and anything else that is not a living human entity. But I do think person-hood should apply to any human that is capable of living independently of another human body. And in most cases of pregnancies of otherwise normal healthy progression, a fetus of about 26-28 weeks, depending on who you ask in the field, stands a good chance of long term survival if delivered vaginally or by c-section.

Which enters a slippery slope of its own.

While I understand you do not believe that women should abort in the third trimester, but if you look at something like a woman being diagnosed with cancer or who may have developed a heart condition or other medical condition which would make a c-section or inducing her or making her go through that delivery be a death sentence for her. While it is easy to say 'she can just deliver it' in one way or the other, that is not always possible depending on the woman's condition at that point in time. And sometimes yes, the doctor will correctly recommend that she should abort and in some parts of the US, the law may require that a second opinion be sought in such a circumstance before a late term abortion can be given.

Pregnancy is a gamble, from start to end and nothing is certain. You can never be 100% certain of the outcome.

So granting 'personhood' from 27 weeks, for example, or if you are going to look at viability as the point where personhood applies, what this will do is possibly deny women their rights to an actual choice. Lets say a woman has an accident or develops a severe heart condition in the 3rd trimester, which makes giving birth or a c-section not viable due to the risk to her health. If the foetus has "personhood", she could be denied the right to her own life.

I understand the desire to want to protect 'the baby'.

But that is not always possible and denying women the right to choose their own lives is to deny the mother personhood over the personhood of someone that is not even born yet but has the potential to be born, if that makes sense?

I'll put it this way.

Lets say a woman is involved in an accident in the last term of her pregnancy, lets say 28 weeks. The doctors advise her partner that they can only save one - they can stop her bleeding out and save her, but the foetus will die. Or they can let her die and not stop the bleeding and instead, just cut out the foetus. Do you think it would be fair to disregard her life completely because the 28 week old foetus she is carrying is now legally deemed a person and has been granted more rights over her body and legally granted more rights to survive? Who should they save? The viable foetus or the mother?

I made that choice for myself when everything went wrong when I was giving birth. I would never ever make that decision for another woman or person.

Or to put it bluntly. Do you think a politician should decide if you should die in labor (for example) so that your child could survive? Or would you like to have a say in the matter? Should that choice be taken out of your hands entirely and placed in the hands of politicians, who believe that life begins at birth and so create laws based around their personal religious beliefs, to protect your unborn? And that is what the "personhood" debate comes down to in the context of this thread.

 

[Bells]

Political contributions were a big motivator. But I digress...

Oh it isn't a digression at all. In fact, I think it is one of the main problems in this whole debate.

Right to life corporations making massive political donations is one example...

If you look at the language of the Republican Party in the US in the last 20 years, it has moved more and more to the right and become more and more evangelical. And big donations from evangelical groups or corporations owned by evangelical churches probably played a large role in that.