Roe V. Wade to be Overturned - Page 30 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15227493
Honestly, haven't been reading this thread, in the same way that when I walk by someone holding some anti-abortion placard I completely and contemptuously avoid them.
It really is crystal clear to me why it isn't even necessary to engage with individuals who are anti-abortion.
If it is not instantly obvious to somebody why a woman should have safe access to this procedure, then there is something terribly broken within that person. They believe their opinion is the most important thing in the world, and such a stance is disheartening, especially when that belief threatens the legitimacy and safety of a woman's life. If only these people could see how ashamed they ought to be of themselves.
#15227496
Pants-of-dog wrote:So instead of trying to refute my point, you are just accusing me of being self-centred.

In this context, it would be more correct to say “a country is developed if it has a minimum stock of resources and spends them in a way acceptable to medical professionals and other stakeholders in the abortion issue”.


This sounds like an interesting definition. So for example Denmark isn't a developed country in your view? After all, its abortion laws are more restrictive than the Roe v Wade standard.

Furthermore, what does on-demand abortion have to do with medical professionals? Abortion done for the sake of the mother's healthcare is not illegal and wasn't even before Roe v Wade.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Because it is your argument.

Please provide a quote from your link clearly showing that parents have an obligation to provide blood and tissue.


My argument is that a fetus' personhood is relevant to deciding the issue of abortion. You are the one who said it's not.

Pants-of-dog wrote:I have already explained this at least three times.


And I've shown why that's not true all those times. I even went as far as to show that it's the other way around if anything.

Pants-of-dog wrote:No. You misunderstood.

When someone says that you are not addressing their argument, it s stupid to tell someone else that they do not know their own argument.

I am going to ignore this from now on since it is merely a strawman that has already been explicitly addressed three or four times now.


It's not stupid to say somebody supports something he doesn't understand or even knows about. For instance, I can tell you did not read Roe v Wade yet you still defend the ruling. Why?

Pants-of-dog wrote:I already did.

But if you want it again, it is R vs. Morgentaler 1984.


No, I want you to cite the relevant parts of the ruling. Just as I did with Roe v Wade.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Were they?

Please provide a survey of voters from 1880 showing a significant percentage of registered voters were in support of making abortion illegal.


I don't have to, either. Even 5% of the electorate is "many" in a swing election.

I'd love to know, though: Do you think the electorate, exclusively male, was strongly against it? At best, I suspect most were indifferent.

Pants-of-dog wrote:No, it is your argument and therefore you can support it.

Please quote the text from RvW that explicitly states the exact reasons of the AMA for opposing abortion in 1880.


Roe v Wade wrote:6. The position of the American Medical Association. The anti-abortion mood prevalent in this country in the late 19th century was shared by the medical profession. Indeed, the attitude of the profession may have played a significant role in the enactment of stringent criminal abortion legislation during that period.

49
An AMA Committee on Criminal Abortion was appointed in May 1857. It presented its report, 12 Trans. of the Am.Med.Assn. 73-78 (1859), to the Twelfth Annual Meeting. That report observed that the Committee had been appointed to investigate criminal abortion 'with a view to its general suppression.' It deplored abortion and its frequency and it listed three causes of 'this general demoralization':

50
'The first of these causes is a wide-spread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime-a belief, even among mothers themselves, that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.

51
'The second of the agents alluded to is the fact that the profession themselves are frequently supposed careless of foetal life. . . .

52
'The third reason of the frightful extent of this crime is found in the grave defects of our laws, both common and statute, as regards the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being. These errors, which are sufficient in most instances to prevent conviction, are based, and only based, upon mistaken and exploded medical dogmas. With strange inconsistency, the law fully acknowledges the foetus in utero and its inherent rights, for civil purposes; while personally and as criminally affected, it fails to recognize it, and to its life as yet denies all protection.' Id., at 75-76.

53
The Committee then offered, and the Association adopted, resolutions protesting 'against such unwarrantable destruction of human life,' calling upon state legislatures to revise their abortion laws, and requesting the cooperation of state medical societies 'in pressing the subject.' Id., at 28, 78.

54
In 1871 a long and vivid report was submitted by the Committee on Criminal Abortion. It ended with the observation, 'We had to deal with human life. In a matter of less importance we could entertain no compromise. An honest judge on the bench would call things by their proper names. We could do no less.' 22 Trans. of the Am.Med.Assn. 258 (1871). It proffered resolutions, adopted by the Association, id., at 38-39, recommending, among other things, that it 'be unlawful and unprofessional for any physician to induce abortion or premature labor, without the concurrent opinion of at least one respectable consulting physician, and then always with a view to the safety of the child-if that be possible,' and calling 'the attention of the clergy of all denominations to the perverted views of morality entertained by a large class of females-aye, and men also, on this important question.'


The mention of "quickening" (a pregnant woman feeling the movement of the fetus in the womb) is relevant because common law already banned abortion after the fetus had become quick, although it was hard to enforce in practice. The prevailing belief at the time is that human life began once the fetus had become quick, based on some Aristotelian writings on the matter. This idea was also shared by the Church and other Christian denominations. That is, termination of a pregnancy before a fetus became quick (which happens at around the 4th month) wasn't even considered to be an abortion, because the woman wasn't considered to be pregnant until the fetus had quickened. Many women would basically have an abortion thinking about restoring their menstrual period, unaware of what was going on in the background:

Peterson wrote:Abortion at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century

For most of Western history, aborting an early pregnancy was considered a private matter controlled by women and was not a crime.

At the turn of the nineteenth century most people in Western Europe and the United States did not believe human life was present until a pregnant woman felt the first fetal movements, a phenomenon referred to as quickening.

Before quickening, women thought about pregnancy in terms of a lack of something (menstruation) rather than the presence of something (a fetus). In an effort to restore their monthly periods, they took herbal abortifacients such as savin, pennyroyal, and ergot, which they often found in their own gardens.

They did not consider such practices abortion. In fact, the word abortion was confined to miscarriages that occurred after quickening. Medical doctors had trouble even verifying a pregnancy until the woman reported that quickening had occurred.

Religious authorities such as the Roman Catholic Church also supported the idea that the soul was not present until a later stage of pregnancy. Although not official church doctrine, this belief was based on St. Augustine's fifth-century interpretation of Aristotle, that the soul enters the body only after the body is fully formed—some 40 days after conception for males and 80 days for females.

...


Roe v Wade indeed mentions this in the ruling as well, which you'd know had you read it:

Roe v Wade wrote:40
3. The common law. It is undisputed that at common law, abortion performed before 'quickening'-the first recognizable movement of the fetus in utero, appearing usually from the 16th to the 18th week of pregnancy20-was not an indictable offense.21 The absence of a common-law crime for pre-quickening abortion appears to have developed from a confluence of earlier philosophical, theological, and civil and canon law concepts of when life begins. These disciplines variously approached the question in terms of the point at which the embryo or fetus became 'formed' or recognizably human, or in terms of when a 'person' came into being, that is, infused with a 'soul' or 'animated.' A loose concensus evolved in early English law that these events occurred at some point between conception and live birth.22 This was 'mediate animation.' Although Christian theology and the canon law came to fix the point of animation at 40 days for a male and 80 days for a female, a view that persisted until the 19th century, there was otherwise little agreement about the precise time of formation or animation. There was agreement, however, that prior to this point the fetus was to be regarded as part of the mother, and its destruction, therefore, was not homicide. Due to continued uncertainty about the precise time when animation occurred, to the lack of any empirical basis for the 40-80-day view, and perhaps to Aquinas' definition of movement as one of the two first principles of life, Bracton focused upon quickening as the critical point. The significance of quickening was echoed by later common-law scholars and found its way into the received common law in this country.

41
Whether abortion of a quick fetus was a felony at common law, or even a lesser crime, is still disputed. Bracton, writing early in the 13th century, thought it homicide.23 But the later and predominant view, following the great common-law scholars, has been that it was, at most, a lesser offense. In a frequently cited passage, Coke took the position that abortion of a woman 'quick with childe' is 'a great misprision, and no murder.'24 Blackstone followed, saying that while abortion after quickening had once been considered manslaughter (though not murder), 'modern law' took a less severe view.25 A recent review of the common-law precedents argues, however, that those precedents contradict Coke and that even post-quickening abortion was never established as a common-law crime.26 This is of some importance because while most American courts ruled, in holding or dictum, that abortion of an unquickened fetus was not criminal under their received common law,27 others followed Coke in stating that abortion of a quick fetus was a 'misprision,' a term they translated to mean 'misdemeanor.'28 That their reliance on Coke on this aspect of the law was uncritical and, apparently in all the reported cases, dictum (due probably to the paucity of common-law prosecutions for post-quickening abortion), makes it now appear doubtful that abortion was ever firmly established as a common-law crime even with respect to the destruction of a quick fetus.


The AMA basically pushed against this idea, arguing pregnancy begins a lot sooner.

Pants-of-dog wrote:There you go.

Please quote the medical bioethics showing that abortions are condemned by the Hippocratic Oath, Take specific care to provide quotes from medical associations that are from jurisdictions that allow abortion and yet still use the Hippocratic oath and that clarify the apparent contradiction.


Why don't you do that?

Furthermore, why does it matter? Medical associations do not write laws. If it was up to what doctors say, many things that are legal would be illegalized for medical - starting with alcohol, tobacco and several other drugs. Drug use during pregnancy would also be illegal, limiting the bodily autonomy of the same women you claim to care so much about. Vaccination would be compulsory, with far harsher penalties than we've seen during this pandemic. Many OTC medicines would likely require prescription.

And more importantly, why don't you show the AMA during the 19th century agreed with those modern views? What makes you believe they did not take the Hippocratic Oath seriously?

Pants-of-dog wrote:I am not concerned with your motives.

Please provide the evidence requested.


Will you provide case law showing the unborn have more rights than the born? You can use pre-1973 trials in states where abortion was banned.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Yes, that has been made clear several times.

This is irrelevant because you made a claim about 1880.


No, it's not irrelevant. I pointed out Roe v Wade explained the strictly medical case for the bans in 1880 had ceased to be valid in 1950. I even cited the ruling. Maybe you could take your issue with the justices who ruled in that case, I'm merely citing them to explain their reasoning.

But you would know this had you read the ruling, or at least my citation from it. So why do you support a court ruling you have never read and you are not interested in reading?
#15227516
@Pants-of-dog
Please provide a survey of voters from 1880 showing a significant percentage of registered voters were in support of making abortion illegal.


More than a little childish POD. Do try to argue in good faith. This is a tactic you frequently use. "Please provide a document from Pontius Pilate........"

But just to end your disingenuous bullshit I will provide a quote: I will dismiss your request for a poll because a poll has nothing to do with law. They were not done then as you well know. The first accurate and scientific polling in the US was not done until 1936. But that does not matter because, as I said, the law is not made by opinion poll. Here is how it is done and here is what the leading legal mind of the early US said:


James Wilson was, arguably, the second most active person at the original constitutional convention. He was appointed to the SCOTUS by George Washington. He authored the first law book dealing with US law. He was the first professor of US law at the University of Pennsylvania. He taught the first course in the new constitution to George Washington and his cabinet. And, as I said, was one of the original six justices on the Supreme Court. There are no better references for the legal thought about abortion in the founders or people of the time. He said to his students:

"With consistency, beautiful, and undeviating, human life, from its commencement to its close, is protected by the common law. In the contemplations of law, life begins when the infant is first able to stir in the womb by the law that life is protected"


And just to offer an insight into you and @wat0n 's other canard, John Witherspoon, signer of the Declaration of Independence, The Articles of Confederation and 6th President of Princeton College...Supporter of the new Constitution wrote:

"Some nations have given parents the power of life and death over their children. But here in America, we have denied the power of life and death to parents."


Now I know it is POD's habit, rather than to be happy to have been educated on a subject, and admit it, is to make some evasive denial of the importance of what I just posted. But the fact is, you two, we know exactly what the founders thought about abortion.

Both of you, in your insistence to engage in off-topic discussions about a subject that is too important for your nonsense, nevertheless should keep these two things in mind:

The SCOTUS did make abortion illegal in the US. They said it was an issue for states as it is not an enumerated power of the federal government to exercise one way or the other. In fact, their decision clearly shows that they support the right of states to make abortion legal despite their personal feelings on the matter. And, as they are all at least nominally constitutional scholars, one can presume that they knew exactly what the founders believed on the subject. But you absolutely have to remember that the SCOTUS did not weigh into the things you insist on debating. They did not rule a fetus a child at any point. They simply overturned RvW on the grounds that the central government did not have a constitutional dog in the fight.

And if the SCOTUS were to want to look to the beliefs of the founders they could clearly show that their intent, should they have seen the need to codify these beliefs into the new constitution, would have been that they (the founders) would have banned abortion entirely. In early America the law followed British common law which made abortion after "quickening" (4th to 6th month) a misdemeanor. By 1900 every state had made abortion illegal.

So hopefully this will end your nonsense about this an put your two excellent minds to the task of figuring out what the law ought to be and how to make it happen.
Last edited by Drlee on 15 May 2022 03:16, edited 1 time in total.
#15227519
Abortion should be between a pregnant woman and her doctor.

That said, if Pro-Lifers/birthers want to make abortion a thing of the past(or at least reduce abortions), then they need do something about it. They need to provide a pregnant woman with a bunch of options, to help them to get to the birthing stage and raise the child that is born. Make abortions the least favourable option.

- Free births (no charging $4,000 to $15,000)
- Free daycare/babysitting
- Government child support (have the government go after the male who impregnated them, so the woman is not involved in that process)
- Subsidies to help them provide good home for the children
- Free education

... I can't think of any more at this time, but I hope you get it.

Outlawing abortion does NOT work except to cause women MORE problems when they choose to abort, by making them do it dangerously or illegally, or having to travel a great distance to get it done.
#15227524
@Drlee I am not sure about what the law should be regarding on-demand abortion.

Honestly, I'd just have a referendum about it, just like states do referenda for all sorts of topics. Probably, that would be the most democratic way to do it, since I don't think I have the answer (or maybe there is no answer and the concept of "person" itself isn't amenable to being defined and operationalized properly. This idea has interesting ideological and ethical implications).

Alternatively, amend the Constitution and come up with a explicit definition of "person". Whatever happens regarding on-demand abortion will follow.

But the former seems easier. Maybe that's exactly what will happen if Roe v Wade is indeed overturned (it hasn't, for now).
#15227530
I propose that modern people come out and call for what they really want and what they really are doing. That is, infanticide. And why not? The result of a degenerate generation sacrificing their tomorrow for their hedonistic today is exactly the same. People are terribly inconvenient by getting in the way of personal adventures and pleasures, especially children because they are so helpless and needy all the time.
#15227531
wat0n wrote:@Drlee I am not sure about what the law should be regarding on-demand abortion.

Honestly, I'd just have a referendum about it, just like states do referenda for all sorts of topics. Probably, that would be the most democratic way to do it, since I don't think I have the answer (or maybe there is no answer and the concept of "person" itself isn't amenable to being defined and operationalized properly. This idea has interesting ideological and ethical implications).

Alternatively, amend the Constitution and come up with a explicit definition of "person". Whatever happens regarding on-demand abortion will follow.

But the former seems easier. Maybe that's exactly what will happen if Roe v Wade is indeed overturned (it hasn't, for now).


You are correct about the solution. In states that have referendum laws, there may be some move to legalize abortion (where it is illegal or unacceptably controlled).

Amending the US Constitution is, in my opinion, an impossible task. Here is why I think that:

First either two thirds of states independently must recommend the amendment. That is 33 states. That is about the number that have or have proposed to have restrictive abortion laws. So that is out. The second method is that both houses of congress propose the amendment by a 2/3 majority. That is almost certainly out as it would require 66 senators to agree. But, just for the moment, suppose that they did agree to put it to the states to decide. Then it would require 38 of the states to ratify the amendment. Keep in mind we could not even ratify the Equal Rights Amendment which failed in the states. So I just don't see that happening in the next few decades.

So our idea of using referendum where allowed or political pressure on the state legislatures to NOT adopt onerous laws is the only practical way to go. And I would go further to say, that in a great many states, getting those states to allow limited early term abortion on demand would be a great victory and probably unlikely. But this is still the best bet. Only bet really.

One more thing. Remember that the SCOTUS has not ruled yet whether a fetus is alive or not. Roe did by specifically allowing states to ban late term abortions. But down Roe goes very soon. Do not rule out the possibility that the court, emboldened by the positive feedback they will almost certainly get from the majority of states, may well follow the founders and many medical authorities and rule that fetuses are alive and protected at some point. They will have history and legal precedent on their side.

@annatar1914

Your opinion is shared by a very significant number of people in the US. In a majority of states, the majority of people whose votes actually count.
#15227541
Drlee wrote:You are correct about the solution. In states that have referendum laws, there may be some move to legalize abortion (where it is illegal or unacceptably controlled).

Amending the US Constitution is, in my opinion, an impossible task. Here is why I think that:

First either two thirds of states independently must recommend the amendment. That is 33 states. That is about the number that have or have proposed to have restrictive abortion laws. So that is out. The second method is that both houses of congress propose the amendment by a 2/3 majority. That is almost certainly out as it would require 66 senators to agree. But, just for the moment, suppose that they did agree to put it to the states to decide. Then it would require 38 of the states to ratify the amendment. Keep in mind we could not even ratify the Equal Rights Amendment which failed in the states. So I just don't see that happening in the next few decades.

So our idea of using referendum where allowed or political pressure on the state legislatures to NOT adopt onerous laws is the only practical way to go. And I would go further to say, that in a great many states, getting those states to allow limited early term abortion on demand would be a great victory and probably unlikely. But this is still the best bet. Only bet really.

One more thing. Remember that the SCOTUS has not ruled yet whether a fetus is alive or not. Roe did by specifically allowing states to ban late term abortions. But down Roe goes very soon. Do not rule out the possibility that the court, emboldened by the positive feedback they will almost certainly get from the majority of states, may well follow the founders and many medical authorities and rule that fetuses are alive and protected at some point. They will have history and legal precedent on their side.


Roe did rule fetuses are not persons under the Constitution, because although the Constitution does not actually define "person" the prevailing interpretation implies they are not. Whatever protections fetuses seemingly get, are only contingent on actual birth - an unborn can inherit but only if it's born, not while in the womb (this is important!). Had the interpretation been different, even in Roe v Wade the SCOTUS admits states would have a clear interest in protecting them (it's the same interest that allows them to ban murder). In my opinion, after thinking about it for a while, if fetuses were persons then it would stand to reason that murdering a pregnant woman would actually mean double murder, yet no state has ever put that in statute as far as I know. So Roe v Wade is obviously right here, in terms of the legal interpretation (I have no opinion on the ethics and actually the SCOTUS didn't either).

Now, even though fetuses are not persons, the SCOTUS also recognized there is a state interest in preserving the lives of prospective persons and a tension between that interest and the right to individual liberty/privacy/bodily autonomy and it just set a cutoff to decide when the former trumps the latter. What is more arguable is the cutoff itself, although from what I can tell you actually agree with Roe v Wade here since it ruled the cutoff is viability and hence states can choose to ban abortion after viability if they so choose.

I agree a Constitutional amendment is not feasible, certainly not for acting on abortion, but having a legal definition of "person" would solve this indeterminacy problem although it would potentially open a whole new can of worms (for instance, if the definition of "person" effectively included fetuses, what rights and obligations would they have?). You could even say the civil war was exactly about this too (Can a person be also someone else's property? There's an obvious tension between both statuses here), so it has consequences that go well beyond abortion. Since these consequences are far-reaching I don't think the SCOTUS will choose to innovate in this regard if it decides to overturn Roe v Wade, instead, I think it will just say the cutoff where state interest in preserving prospective the lives of prospective persons overrides the right to individual liberty/privacy/bodily autonomy. Maybe it will indeed go back to deciding it's when the fetus is quick and just copy most European countries in this regard but with a different language (allowing states to ban abortion after the 16th week if they so desire). Furthermore, there will also be no innovation regarding abortions done to protect the mother from loss of life or limb, since that was already allowed since forever pretty much.

State referenda on what to do about abortion past this cutoff point seems the most likely outcome. Several states may vote to ban it and others may vote to allow it. Since 75-80% of all Americans do want to keep abortion in some way (only 20-25% would ban it altogether) I suspect on-demand abortion would end up being more restricted but still legal in most of the US. And I also think many of the people who want on-demand abortion no matter what would end up accepting the democratic legitimacy of bans if this was decided by a referendum instead of using the traditional channels for democratic representation (state legislatures), and would probably blame the voters of those states. Likewise, people who are radically against abortion would also accept the results of a vote keeping it legal. There may be a population exchange between states involving both groups, the American system of government permits (arguably, encourages) this.
#15227557
@wat0n

I don't know why there is so much fuss generated by elective abortion. CDC figures show that in 2019 the abortion rate was 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, so only around 1% of women choose it. The rate at which fetuses are naturally aborted - miscarriages - is much higher. 43% of parous women report having experienced one or more first-trimester spontaneous miscarriages, rising to 81% among women with 11 or more living children. One in every 17 parous women has three or more miscarriages.
#15227559
1 in 4 women will have an abortion by the age of 45 in the USA.

That’s not going to change. What making abortion more difficult to access will do is just make it much more dangerous for some of those women to terminate their unwanted pregnancies - and some of them will die.

Still, as long as the misogynists and pro lifers can clap themselves on the back for being so Christian, what are they going to care?

Especially the ones who can afford to send their wives, sisters and daughters to another state to get theirs done safely. Or take themselves, of course.

Shameful.

@wat0n

I’m no supporter of referenda on such important matters. Such decisions should never be made that way. The rights of minorities tend to be trampled on.
#15227579
I do not disagree with anything your wrote @snapdragon except your remark about referendum. As someone who lives in a state that embraces them they have almost always been used to protect the rights of the poor and working class against those of the wealthy. In recent years they have given us:

Universal health care for the poor and one of the highest minimum wages in the country, just to name two.

@wat0n I see you have embraced what I have been going on about. I think when we argue late term abortion and the idea of person hood we are getting stuck in the weeds. Right now only one state permits late term abortions on demand and it is likely that this will never change. The "health of the mother" exception will likely stand in most states and the burden of proof tightened in many. We will probably lose the rape and incest exceptions in some.

You can see from your own journey in this thread that it is devilishly hard to see this as solely a political issue. Except for those like snapdragon who believe that a baby is a parasite until you can hear it cry, and there are a very tiny number of them, this question is one that defies a doctrinaire approach and is filled with emotion for all involved.

As it stands right now 26 states are almost certain to ban abortion except in very narrowly defined circumstances. Others will make it more difficult even when sort of allowed.

I wish I could offer women some hope about their right to terminate a pregnancy but I can't. In fact, I would advise women to embrace the patriarchy and try to cut themselves the best deal they can under the circumstances. We old white men are in the ascendant and will likely be calling the shots for a long time to come.

Yesterday there was a march for women's rights near my home. The Republicans and pro life people were at least equal in number to the pro abortion people and I am in a more liberal part of the state. But that neither surprises me or bothers me. What does bother me is how few people there were at all.

I think this issue is not the hot-button one that so many folks thought it would be. There is a sort of national fatigue about this issue and has been since 1973. One of the pro life lady demonstrators on the corner yesterday was holding up a baby doll. The pro-life people have very wisely cast the issue this way. In the minds of so many Americans banning abortion is not a woman's rights issue as much as a convenience issue. Large numbers of Americans sort of want it to be legal but it is not turning out large crowds of hair-on-fire woman's rights advocates.

So I am pretty sure that the die is cast. Roe is down and not to come up again for about 30 years or so. There will be an industry in travel for abortion. After all, except in the deep south abortion is just a few hundred miles away from most women.

For me though, and it may be too early to see, the message is that the patriarchy is not only alive and well, it is just fine with a great many women. They did not jump to their feet on this issue. The Me Too movement is fading after a few high-profile assholes took the bullet and we don't even mention the Equal Rights Amendment anymore. It appears that the majority of women are about equally divided between those who like men in charge, those who are too busy to act and those who simply do not give a shit one way or the other. I'm good with that. Leadership of our womenfolk comes easy to men of my age.
#15227580
wat0n wrote:This sounds like an interesting definition. So for example Denmark isn't a developed country in your view? After all, its abortion laws are more restrictive than the Roe v Wade standard.

Furthermore, what does on-demand abortion have to do with medical professionals? Abortion done for the sake of the mother's healthcare is not illegal and wasn't even before Roe v Wade.



My argument is that a fetus' personhood is relevant to deciding the issue of abortion. You are the one who said it's not.



And I've shown why that's not true all those times. I even went as far as to show that it's the other way around if anything.



It's not stupid to say somebody supports something he doesn't understand or even knows about. For instance, I can tell you did not read Roe v Wade yet you still defend the ruling. Why?



No, I want you to cite the relevant parts of the ruling. Just as I did with Roe v Wade.



I don't have to, either. Even 5% of the electorate is "many" in a swing election.

I'd love to know, though: Do you think the electorate, exclusively male, was strongly against it? At best, I suspect most were indifferent.





The mention of "quickening" (a pregnant woman feeling the movement of the fetus in the womb) is relevant because common law already banned abortion after the fetus had become quick, although it was hard to enforce in practice. The prevailing belief at the time is that human life began once the fetus had become quick, based on some Aristotelian writings on the matter. This idea was also shared by the Church and other Christian denominations. That is, termination of a pregnancy before a fetus became quick (which happens at around the 4th month) wasn't even considered to be an abortion, because the woman wasn't considered to be pregnant until the fetus had quickened. Many women would basically have an abortion thinking about restoring their menstrual period, unaware of what was going on in the background:



Roe v Wade indeed mentions this in the ruling as well, which you'd know had you read it:



The AMA basically pushed against this idea, arguing pregnancy begins a lot sooner.



Why don't you do that?

Furthermore, why does it matter? Medical associations do not write laws. If it was up to what doctors say, many things that are legal would be illegalized for medical - starting with alcohol, tobacco and several other drugs. Drug use during pregnancy would also be illegal, limiting the bodily autonomy of the same women you claim to care so much about. Vaccination would be compulsory, with far harsher penalties than we've seen during this pandemic. Many OTC medicines would likely require prescription.

And more importantly, why don't you show the AMA during the 19th century agreed with those modern views? What makes you believe they did not take the Hippocratic Oath seriously?



Will you provide case law showing the unborn have more rights than the born? You can use pre-1973 trials in states where abortion was banned.



No, it's not irrelevant. I pointed out Roe v Wade explained the strictly medical case for the bans in 1880 had ceased to be valid in 1950. I even cited the ruling. Maybe you could take your issue with the justices who ruled in that case, I'm merely citing them to explain their reasoning.

But you would know this had you read the ruling, or at least my citation from it. So why do you support a court ruling you have never read and you are not interested in reading?


1. Please provide a quote from your link clearly showing that parents have an obligation to provide blood and tissue.

2. Please provide a survey of voters from 1880 showing a significant percentage of registered voters were in support of making abortion illegal.

3. Please note that the stated intentions of the AMA do not, in any way, contradict the claim that the AMA and other doctors probably had other motives that were more pressing than the stated ones.

4. Please quote the medical bioethics showing that abortions are condemned by the Hippocratic Oath, Take specific care to provide quotes from medical associations that are from jurisdictions that allow abortion and yet still use the Hippocratic oath and that clarify the apparent contradiction.
#15227583
F we have referendums on abortion, we should also have referendums on whether or not immigrants should have rights, and whether or not men should lose their rights after attaining the age of 65.
#15227632
ingliz wrote:@wat0n

I don't know why there is so much fuss generated by elective abortion. CDC figures show that in 2019 the abortion rate was 11.4 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, so only around 1% of women choose it. The rate at which fetuses are naturally aborted - miscarriages - is much higher. 43% of parous women report having experienced one or more first-trimester spontaneous miscarriages, rising to 81% among women with 11 or more living children. One in every 17 parous women has three or more miscarriages.


There's a lot of fuss for two reasons. Firstly, that rate translates into ~630k abortions for 2019, not counting California, New Hampshire and Maryland. In raw terms, this is not a small figure. As a side note, interestingly enough ~93% take place during the first trimester so if the SCOTUS overturned Roe v Wade by allowing states to ban on-demand abortion from the 2nd trimester onwards, as is done in most of Europe, things would not change all that much in practice.

And secondly, and way more importantly, there's a fuss because of the disagreement about the personhood of fetuses - which is natural because of the philosophical foundations of the liberal democratic form of government.

As an orthodox Marxist-Leninist you probably don't care about the personhood angle, but for those who believe in natural law, in the idea that there are some rights that are self-evident, this is and should be a big deal. After all, the belief in natural law sounds nice and all, but it becomes a bit useless if we cannot agree on who has those self-evident rights.

In a way, the abortion debate is indeed an example of a concrete incompleteness, if not failure, of natural law as far as it's meant to be put into practice, and thereby undermines all systems of government that purport to be founded on natural law (e.g. like liberal democracy). The fact that we cannot decide on who's a person, and whether a fetus is a person or not, puts liberalism itself into question as a school of thought or collection of principles meant to guide how we should organize our societies. This a good argument for a positivist approach to law, and indeed I can personally see the merits in both.

Maybe this tension may not be all that relevant as far fetuses are concerned, but what will we do if we need to have this type of debate for other beings? The whole process of dealing with the slavery of Black people in the US should illustrate how damaging this type of disagreement can be for a system of government which purports to be based on the existence of rights whose existence is believed to be self-evident, which implies we all indeed agree those rights exist and who has them. And I say this as someone who believes that system of government is good, indeed, it's the best one we have in all.

Since I cannot decide on what to do regarding abortion, the only suggestion I can actually provide and which respects the principles of liberal democracy is to just vote on it. This is despite the fact that I also fully agree with ideas like:

snapdragon wrote:@wat0n

I’m no supporter of referenda on such important matters. Such decisions should never be made that way. The rights of minorities tend to be trampled on.


Pants-of-dog wrote:F we have referendums on abortion, we should also have referendums on whether or not immigrants should have rights, and whether or not men should lose their rights after attaining the age of 65.


...which are, of course, valid. The problem is that, since there's no agreement on the personhood of fetuses, there's no agreement on what rights are involved with regards to abortion, let alone how should these be balanced. So how else can we decide the issue? In my personal case, where I have no clear stance on the matter, just accepting the result of a vote isn't particularly crazy even though I agree with you both on the risks of letting majorities impose their will and possibly deny rights to minorities.

Since both of you have already made up your minds, I don't find it surprising you don't like the idea of a vote - why would you? - but people who are decidedly against abortion could also refuse to allow a referendum to take place and the debate would not close or lead to a solution those who take the most extreme positions can deal with, even if they don't like it. And therefore, the issue would remain.

Unlike @Drlee, I also find it entirely possible this route would legalize and legitimize abortion in the vast majority of states. A deeply Catholic society like Ireland, for example, took the referendum route in 2018 and the option to legalize abortion won with 2/3 of the vote and even the most ardent opponents to abortion have had to deal with it. I haven't seen state-level surveys about abortion, but at least nationally as I said 3/4 of the American electorate seems to support legalizing and regulating abortion in some way.

@Drlee by the way, I have always believed a referendum could indeed address all these ethical and philosophical issues where it's hard to arrive to a clear opinion one way or another. Sometimes I even agree with holding referenda to decide on those I do have a better formed opinion about just to shore up the legitimacy of whatever route is taken. Clearly, asking the electorate directly can do that, and of course the electorate can change its opinion at some point.

I don't think my attempt to discuss the issue in depth is wrong or useless, though, the process of a referendum could and hopefully will have a lot of that type of discussion along with the completely foreseeable cheap appeals to raw emotion you mentioned, and hopefully more people will stop and think about the implications of even holding this type of debate.

Furthermore, you are also right in saying that, leaving philosophical concerns aside, keeping the status quo set up by Roe v Wade is by far the easiest way to go for many regarding other matters such as financial concerns and whatnot.

Of course, a referendum can also fail to solve the abortion issue. Debate can perfectly turn into a shitshow, and just lead to more conflict, and maybe the US right now is unable to have a civil debate on the matter. But then, thankfully, here comes one of what I think is one of the best aspects of this country's system of government, which is that this type of issue can be defined at the state level if the Constitution doesn't, and if one does not like the result it's always possible to just move. A national referendum on the matter, where the results would be binding to all states as would happen if the US was an unitary state, would be more likely to turn into that type of shitshow since the vote is an all-or-nothing situation. The stakes are undoubtedly lower even if Roe v Wade is overturned.

And this isn't even getting into what can Congress do regarding abortion, and abortion bans in the states, under the Constitution. Maybe Congress would not act now, but one never knows about the future.

@Pants-of-dog as for your points, I think I answered all of those. I'll just reiterate that the AMA does not write the laws, and the existence of other motivations to ban abortion besides bioethical ones (such as the long-standing desire for doctors to have a monopoly on all medical matters, which we all know has always been there, is a key reason for the very existence of medical associations and thought unnecessary to mention) does not suddenly negate the bioethical arguments it provided at the time, even if I agree it undermines them it's up to the legislator to make the call if they are undermined enough to just be summarily disregarded due to the fact that it's self-serving in many ways.

I would also be interested in seeing you answer your own question #4. I'm not going to make your own argument for you here, but I would suspect the easiest way to address the contradiction is to redefine "abortion" similarly to how up to the 19th century terminating pregnancy before quickening occurred wasn't regarded as such since a woman would only be recognized to be pregnant once the fetus became quick, hence taking measures to restart the period (which we now know get rid of the fetus) wasn't seen as "abortion". Ironically this was undermined precisely by the development of contemporary medical science and not religion as some as prone to believe, it was religious doctrine which had to revise itself if anything.
#15227636
@wat0n

Please provide the evidence requested. Thanks.

Also, please explain how it is valid to have referendums about taking away the rights of others. Thanks,
#15227639
Pants-of-dog wrote:@wat0n

Please provide the evidence requested. Thanks.


I won't make your arguments for you.

Your claims, explicit or implied, you back them up.

Pants-of-dog wrote:Also, please explain how it is valid to have referendums about taking away the rights of others. Thanks,


What's your stance in the upcoming Chilean Constitutional referendum on September? Do you think it's valid to have a referendum for a new Constitution that will take away or weaken the rights of others?

Or if you don't like that example, how about the Irish referendum of 2018 on the 36th amendment to the Irish Constitution, in which the electorate decided to repeal the provision that the unborn has a right to life?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-si ... of_Ireland

Is the fetus an "other" that could have any rights to you?
#15227680
@Pants-of-dog IF we have referendums on abortion, we should also have referendums on whether or not immigrants should have rights, and whether or not men should lose their rights after attaining the age of 65.


We have done both of these. The conclusion was that immigrants have some rights. As to men over 65 (nice attempt to needle me asshole) we do that at every election. Our conclusion is that a) age discrimination is against the law and b) we have handed control of the government over to men over the age of 65. White men over 65 own the Senate and the Presidency and slipping that number to 60, the House of Representatives as well. So nothing in the US can happen without the permission of men over 65. You should feel encouraged by the @Pants-of-dog because, as a group, white men over 65 are mature.

Though POD we have noted that you do not like democracy and are naturally curious about what it is with which you would like to see it replaced.

I am surprised that you would dislike the referendum process as well. After all it is most often used by people seeking rights. In this case it would be used by women seeking the right to abort their pregnancy. But we note that you oppose this option and prefer to throw their fate to the heavily gerrymandered congressional districts instead. Let us know how that is working out so far.
#15227744
wat0n wrote:I won't make your arguments for you.

Your claims, explicit or implied, you back them up.


Exactly.

Please provide the evidence requested to support your arguments.

What's your stance in the upcoming Chilean Constitutional referendum on September? Do you think it's valid to have a referendum for a new Constitution that will take away or weaken the rights of others?


Your whataboutisms and red herrings are irrelevant.

Or if you don't like that example, how about the Irish referendum of 2018 on the 36th amendment to the Irish Constitution, in which the electorate decided to repeal the provision that the unborn has a right to life?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-si ... of_Ireland

Is the fetus an "other" that could have any rights to you?


Your whataboutisms and red herrings are irrelevant.
#15227758
@Pants-of-dog I already provided you with all the citations to back my arguments up (I'm waiting for you to do the same), and don't see any whataboutisms nor red herrings regarding using referendums to decide on the abortion issue.

Was the Irish Constitutional referendum to legalize abortion there a good way to do it or not? If using referenda is not good because that could lead to limiting people's rights, then how exactly are Constitutions and their amendments supposed to be passed and legitimized among voters?

By the way, I thought you believe there's no such thing as natural rights?
#15227802
wat0n wrote:@Pants-of-dog I already provided you with all the citations to back my arguments up (I'm waiting for you to do the same), and don't see any whataboutisms nor red herrings regarding using referendums to decide on the abortion issue.

Was the Irish Constitutional referendum to legalize abortion there a good way to do it or not? If using referenda is not good because that could lead to limiting people's rights, then how exactly are Constitutions and their amendments supposed to be passed and legitimized among voters?

By the way, I thought you believe there's no such thing as natural rights?


Again, you provided a link but did not quote from said link.

Provide the quoted text now.

As for your claim about the percentage of voters who wanted to make abortion illegal in 1880, that claim is dismissed as an argument from ignorance, since it is apparently impossible for you to know that with any certainty.

Finally, you have not supported your claim about abortion contradicting the Hippocratic oath at all.

This is my final request for support for this argument, or it will also be dismissed.

Finally, provide a moral argument for referendums about taking away the rights of others. Thanks.
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