But you aren’t taking the time to actually think about any of this stuff. Hell, you didn’t even take the time to read a forum post, and apparently thought that simply discussing the complexities of the situation was somehow offensive.
While I don’t oppose early stage abortions, I’ve bothered to think about it to the extent that I can understand different opinions.
I don’t understand people who think abortion is an simple black and white issue. Nor is it strictly, a women issue, virtually always there is a man involved in the process. Society has in place literally thousands of laws that restrict your ability to do what want you with your body. The use of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, hell even soft drinks in NYC. You can’t take unapproved medicine, go to an unlicense doctor, commit suicide, or engage in numerous extreme sports.
Fundamental at some point, a fetus becomes a baby. Now when and where this happens is a subject of intense debate. At least in my mind is a very fuzz line, which changes as technology advances.
But at minimum, if someone attacks a women and can be charged with a crime for killing her unborn child, than it seems obvious that society has an interest that unborn child’s welfare.
The problem is the notion of “an embryo is a person” is defined inconsistently, so that the only real interpretation of the pro-life movement is one of misogyny, where people in power (usually men) are exerting control over women’s bodies.
Like, if the Republican platform was one of “personhood starts at conception,” I would expect that to mean that terminating a fetus is murder. But I’d also expect it to mean that, among other things, the fetus is given a social security number, allowed to be claimed on the mother’s taxes as a dependent, and otherwise granted the same protections as any other citizen. It’s absurd, but that’s at least a consistent argument and conclusion from a baseline belief about things.
But no one in the GOP is putting forward that proposal because in every matter except this one, we’ve decided that personhood starts at birth. And as you say, that’s been a pretty mainstream view for most of history. To me, the whole “personhood begins at conception” line of argument is pointless and in bad faith. And so the pretty easy conclusion to make is that it’s not actually about the sanctity of the fetus’s life but about something else.
If the GOP actually cared about reducing the number of abortions that happen, there are tons of ways to make that happen. They’re only interested in the one that lets them exert control over women’s bodies, though. So strange!
See, this is a legitimate argument. Hammering on that aspect of personhood, and the implications of those beliefs, is the correct way to come to actual consensus.
Now, for your particular complaints here, I’m not sure they necessarily hold up to scrutiny. Personhood defines certain considerations and rights, but I’m not sure the ones you list there fall into that realm. For instance, not all people get social security. One could argue that a fetus is a person, but not a citizen, since they have not yet engaged in any of the mechanisms by which one becomes a citizen.
Regardless, your argument here is the right path, because it doesn’t require that you attribute malevolence to the person you disagree with. You can point out those inconsistencies, and still have a civil discussion, and it doesn’t require you to assume motivations on their part.
Except that those laws exist to advance the anti-abortion cause by assigning personhood to a fetus.
I don’t think that’s true.
I think that a mother who lost her child to violence just prior to birth would suffer just as much loss as one who lost her child immediately after birth.
I feel like if someone actually did something like stabbed a pregnant woman in the stomach, with the goal of killing the unborn child, they have engaged in just as heinous a crime as someone who killed a child right after birth.
I don’t believe that’s true. I believe most of these laws were pushed by women’s rights organizations, which are generally liberal and pro-choice.
All my kids had to do to get SSNs was be born. Ipso facto, life begins at birth.
On the other hand, in my day, my mom had to take my teenaged butt down to the gubmint office and get one issued. So life used to begin at teenhood-ish?
People who are not citizens of the United States do not collect social security, and yet they are still people and you cannot murder them.
I’m getting the impression you really aren’t interested in discussing why abortion is a contentious issue? :)
I think we’re all on the same page here, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t consider and discuss why people have the opinions they have. I don’t think anyone here denies that the abortion debate is almost always a cudgel to wield against women’s rights. It’s a bunch of Republicans currying favor with fucked-up old white men holding forth in front of their congregations. 99% of the time it’s a morally bankrupt argument made in bad faith on behalf of bad faith.
But there is a moral element to the debate, and you don’t have to be a religious nut to be opposed to abortion. You don’t even have to want to legislate against it or defund Planned Parenthood. You can be a perfectly good and moral person and think that an abortion ends someone’s life, even if a woman has every right to make that decision.
-Tom
No, those laws weren’t passed because there were a glut of murderers getting away with only being convicted of one murder when they killed a pregnant woman. They were specifically written to establish personhood for the purpose of criminalizing abortion. The authors were moving the Overton window on the debate.
Google has a lot of ink written about these laws. One example from an anti-abortion stance:
…and…
It is a matter of fact that fetal murder laws were advanced by opponents of legal abortion.
And yet, those people were born. So my conclusion still stands.
At this point it seems it might not be so obvious, but this is all firmly tongue-in-cheek.
Oh boy, abortion debates! The trolley-like problems shall be absolutely riviting!
Do you believe that in the case i described, that the person should punished less severely if they stabbed the fetus immediately prior to birth, vs. Immediately after?
I like how nobody wants to admit that if the roles were reversed, Democrats would be doing the same thing (pushing to seat a Justice before the clock ran out on their President/Senate control).
Look, ACB is not some whackadoodle QAnon believer who was trying cases in night court in Topeka two weeks ago (see Federal Judges, McConnell-Trump appointments), she is a well-qualified candidate with plenty of experience whom we just happen to dislike for the same reason the GOP likes her, she’s unabashedly Conservative. She’s Scalia all over again (hell she even clerked for the guy, which is part of her Conservative appeal). Attacking her on her qualifications is a losing battle, attacking her on her Conservative values is a losing battle, hell attacking her personally in any way simply energizes Conservatives to show up at the polls for Trump.
She’s going to be confirmed and seated, there isn’t a damn thing Democrats can do about it. However that doesn’t mean Democratic senators should just stay home and not attend the hearings. What it means is that Democratic senators should use the publicity of the hearings to attack the hypocrisy of the GOP doing exactly what they said was bad for America in 2016. Show up with recordings of Graham, McConnell and others saying what they said about letting the people decide in an election year. Have posters and banners printed. Direct questions at McConnell, Graham and others instead of at ACB. Sure, it becomes a circus, but it’s already a circus, so we may as well get as much free air time out of it as we can. Independents and people on the fence (granted, there are not many left) do not like it when politicians say one thing and do exactly the opposite, so expose the hypocrisy and then let the GOP condemn themselves.
…and…
Wouldn’t it mean that they had also stabbed the woman?
I do not understand the relevance of your strawman. That was not at all what I was asserting in responding to Strollen. My point is that if you rely on fetal homicide laws as your justification for regulating abortion you are doing exactly what the anti-abortion folks who wrote those laws want you to do. From the wikepedia entry on the Unborn Victims of Violence Act.
I think if you look at the historic approach that Dems have taken to their Senatorial duties and appointments to the Court, you would have to conclude that they would not have done to Obama and Garland what Republicans did, had they been presented with a similar opportunity, and that they would have reluctantly concluded that it was too close to an election to offer a nominee now.
As I have pointed out before, Thomas & Roberts & Alito are all on the court with the blessing of Democrats. Scalia was as well. Kennedy was as well.
Trump appointed her to the bench for the first time barely three years ago.
It’s not a strawman. It’s an intellectual exercise, that forces us to think about underlying issues.
So what is your answer? It’s not some sort of trick.