Legal Death, Legal Life, Personhood and Abortion

The real issue here, is a choice:A: Is it ok to remove (pick a stage of life) from a womb because it is not life? OrB: Is it ok to remove (pick a stage of life) from a womb, for medical reasons that can be fatal to either baby or mother.RAZD's definition would favor the first choice, and that is why I have a hard time with it.I favor the second choice.This message has been edited by riVeRraT, 02-04-2005 07:45 AM

What is time?

That was your first concise and forward moving post against his article. However I think you are not being completely accurate.In reality people have a host of beliefs including A and B toward abortion.It seemed to me RAZD was looking more for a practical legal solution based on common concepts (or consistent evaluations) of what it is to be a person. It did not so much have to do with moral okay (which would say people including you have to agree that it is okay morally), but in a legal/practical okay.You can have problems with this position, but I thought I should note that his argument was not that you had to find A morally acceptable at all.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

time? it's a dimension of the universe. in the quantum world there are things that can be viewed as happening in negative time.

Your (B) does not exclude your (A), as they can be set at different "(pick a stage of life)" points. Okay to remove zygote because it is not life, but not okay to use that for a fetus, for instance.What about the issues ofC: Is there a point at which life is sufficiently human that, after that point has been reached, that there should be compelling {medical\other} reasons for having an abortion?D: Is there a point at which human life is sufficiently developed that, even if there are compelling {medical\other} reasons for an abortion, that a premature C-section would be more appropriate, as it can possibly save both lives rather than just one {if that is desired}?Those points, when defined, need to be consistent with similar points defined for marking the end of life in terms of the standards used.I favor (C) and (D).and no, I won't restrict {compelling} to just medical reasons.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

You obviously don't know sarcasism.

This is why I should not contribute to this thread anymore. No, that was a repeat, inother words of my first reply, and where I also attacked the core of his essay.But you failed to read it, I guess.My counter of his essay has nothing to do with morals. It just came into the debate. Putting morals AND Christianity to the side, it was a bad comparison, and was how I originally responded.

So it has nothing to do with your essay?

I don't we can call a zygote human or not.I also don't think it is relative to the decsion to abort or not.
It's not a good reason, and doesn't make it any more legal.

Perhaps you don't understand what the meaning of concise is, especially when combined with forward moving.If you note from my early post to RAZD, I explained where it seemed you were having a problem (with his essay) and that it was a valid avenue of attack, even if not completely accurate to what he was specifically saying.You have done nothing to change that assessment, and indeed have supported my assessment. What you did do was trim off all of the unnecessary parts of your original post to make it more concise and devoid of language which does nothing to advance debate.Thus if anything, I was congratulating you on a successful rewrite, then explaining how and where it did not exactly address RAZD's position.If anything that last post of your shows why you should continue to contribute: you seem to be learning how to make your debate more productive. What we have been continually trying to tell you is that he was not making the comparison you think he was making, or at the very least not for the same reason you think he was doing so.Everytime we make this point, you then tell us what our end goal is and so why it is wrong... and that's when it converts to a moral argument. We can and should stick to the comparison until we have that resolved.To repeat, he was not making a direct comparison between a gestational being and a dead body to say the criteria of a dead body is fulfilled for a gestational being.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-05-2005 08:17 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Look, this paragraph makes no sense, and since it is the key to his thinking, if I debate it, it is not a strawman, right?"Until the fetus (notice he is talking about fetus here) has acheived the status of personhood"That statment implies that the fetus will achieve that status. If it were medically determined that it will not, then it is a different story.A person on life support, will never achieve that staus. Hence the difference, and the reason why you cannot compare.Then he goes on to say "the "appropriate surrogate" -- in this case the family -- can decide to terminate life support,"It's not life support, first off, it is his life. Big difference.
If the family decides to cut it off, it is well known that it will die, period.As oppsed to a person on REAL life support, there is a chance that they will continue to live, such as the first person who ever had the life support cut, and the law was written for, she continued to live (although a vegatble) for many years. This will never happen with a "gestational being". So you can't compare the 2.Not to mention the reason why the person is on life support to begin with. 2 totally different reasons.He also states "and if the patient naturally expires" Which is a bunch of poopy. There is nothing natural about taking a "gestational being" out of its natural enviroment. There is no if either.So since that is the heart of his essay, and way of thinking, the whole essay is inconclusive, and invalid.Thank you, have a nice day.

The rich countries aren't excluded, they are just lumped together in a "other=European" category, I think.I've had a hard time finding the stats that you want.

quote:

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If you remove a zygote from the womb, you are the cause for the sustained injury.

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Many zygotes never implant, or remove themselves from the womb.Do you think those zygotes committed suicide?Sometimes a woman's body rejects zygotes and fetuses and miscarries them. Do you think that we should hold the woman's immune system responsible for murdering those zygotes and fetuses?Or, do you suggest that we require women to search their menstrual fluids for those zygotes, those "babies", so we can implant them in some other woman so that every single zygote gets their chance at life, no matter what?This message has been edited by schrafinator, 02-05-2005 08:50 AM

Rat, what are the risks to a woman during and after carrying a pregnancy to term and giving birth?

The sky is blue, does that have anything to do with my essay? What's your point eh? ... I'm not sure I don't not understand no point you make ... couldn't you not clairfy that?What you think doesn't make it any more legal or illegal. Nor does it affect the moral and ethical views of other people. Views that a consistent system must recognize as equally valid.The fact is that we as a society do not (as far as I know) have any funerals for zygotes that fail to implant on the uterus wall, nor do we as a society (as a general rule certainly) have funerals for early term miscarriages. This general behavior would indicate that we {as a society as a whole} do not feel a human life was lost.This message has been edited by RAZD, 02-05-2005 09:07 AM

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}