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New York, 9:03 PM
Mon Nov 30
60 posts in the last 24 hours
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06:26 PM
02:26 PM
11/25/09
The term fetus is merely used to describe a stage of a human being's development and is a reference to location more than anything else. It is the equivalent of 'toddler' or 'kindergartener'. If a woman gives birth to a baby in the afternoon it is not the case that in the morning it was some mysterious other being known as a fetus. No major physical transformation has occurred, the baby has simply left the womb.
To declare that a child is not a child simply because it is at a stage of development where either we can't see it without a UV or it doesn't look much like the children we see running around in the park is the height of fatuity.
11/25/09
11/25/09
11/25/09
Why does the woman get to unilaterally choose?
Say you have sex, you use precautions, but they fail and the woman "falls" pregnant. If she doesn't want it, but the man does, too bad... she has an abortion. The father's wishes do not count...and I agreee, you shouldn't force a woman to have a baby she doesn't want.... But if she does want the baby and the man doesn't, she not only can keep it, but she can make the unwilling father pay for the child.....where is the "choice " there?
11/25/09
The law can deal only with the limitations of physical reality. Paternity of the fully separate, breathing human being cannot be determined until there is such a person around. The legal relationship between these two people is NOT connected to the other biological parent. Therefore, child support is due to a person who had no input into continuation of someone else's pregnancy either, even if they were the person who eventually resulted from it.
Such is why no state holds a man financially responsible for the pregnancy of a woman who is not his wife. The issue is regarded as HER medical condition which carries risks only to her and carries financial demands no matter which path she chooses. There's a financial cost and health risk to termination. There's a much greater financial cost and much greater health risk in continuing the pregnancy. Those costs and risks are the woman's alone, since it's happening only to her. (Men married to the pregnant woman are still assumed to paternity, therefore most states have some financial obligation to him in that case.)
This is AS equal a treatment the law can assign for a condition occurring solely in the body of only one of the partners and who has no legal partnership with the other.
After birth, there's a NEW person with new obligations. BOTH parents owe this new person support and companionship. There is no inequality in this situation at law either, though there is a case to be made for inequal application of the law.
Where inequality exists is in the relationship to the new, third person. In all states, it is easier for the woman to terminate that legal relationship than it is for a man proven to have paternity. If you want to take your inequal protection issue to any platform, it's THERE that you want to look.
The law can change that, but it cannot change biology for you to make it all conveniently equal.
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
Choice is the point, and the point is choice: a woman whose wanted pregnancy is forcibly taken from her is the victim of a crime, as surely as a woman whose unwanted pregnancy is forced on her is.
Agency, intention and choice, now and forever, are the basic reproductive freedoms and protections women require -- which would include financial support for women who are pregnant and whose abortions aren't really a choice at all when fear of being unable to support themselves and/or a child are the deciding factors
11/24/09
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#tips
11/25/09
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11/25/09
[Edited to add]Sorry, looking more closely I realize that you never specifically advocated a murder charge; I was confusing this with a different thread. I would call this assault with depraved indifference, by the way.
11/25/09
i think it should be a crime to cause a miscarriage
#tips
11/24/09
11/24/09
11/24/09
This defendant was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He is 25.
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11/24/09
Isn't that like telling your angry cop boyfriend something he...uh...doesn't want to hear? Like, why take the chance?
Let that shit marinate for a minute.
*joking
11/24/09
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11/24/09
Instead, I am going to focus on the phrase, she "fell pregnant." Those Brits really do know how to speak English with panache.
11/24/09
Somehow they allude to the pregnancy without even implying she had sex. How do they do it?
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11/24/09
In general I think depicting the 'pro life' position as being anti choice misses the far more fundamental point at issue, which is the question of whether a foetus has moral entitlements. It's only once you accept the premise that it does not that questions of autonomy really come into play. If, on the other hand, you side with those who think a foetus does have rights, then being pro life is as much about limiting women's options as is sticking up for the rights of new borns.
As concerns these kinds of cases in particular however, to reduce the matter to being merely about the freedom to choose is to run the risk of actually perpetuating the offence against the mother, negating the life of her unborn baby as though it were a mere preference, rather than her child.
Men who commit this kind of crime do more than attempt to take away their partner's liberty. They attempt ( successfully, in two the examples above) to take away her baby.
11/24/09
11/24/09
To clarify my point, as you seem to have missed it, women are capable of being intimately bonded with their unborn child during pregnancy. The crime against those women who have had abortions induced against their will is not merely that they have been deprived of options. They have been deprived of their son or daughter forever. To deny them justice for that offence is to perpetuate it.
11/24/09
To clarify my point, which you've beyond all doubt missed, no one is suggesting that they be denied justice for the crime committed against them, which was assault with depraved indifference. You are suggesting that justice demands that their attacker be charged with a crime against their fetus, which is what a murder charge would be. You are totally overlooking the woman as a victim in favor of her fetus, and doing it in the most condescending, paternalistic way possible.
Thanks, by the way, for explaining to me how women feel about pregnancy. I was definitely in need of your insight on the matter.
11/24/09
#tips
11/24/09
#tips
11/24/09
But again, your assumptions about my position are incorrect. I'm not overlooking that the woman is a victim. I am indicating that I believe her to be a victim of multiple crimes, each of which ought to be acknowledged. I also said absolutely nothing about crimes against the fetus, though that merits discussion as well.
And yes, attempting to silence people who disagree with you by calling them woman haters is the tactic of a bully.
11/24/09
#tips
11/24/09
You can obviously have a philosophical argument about whether that is inconsistent with the laws regarding abortion, but in reality and practice, it's well-settled law that the two types of laws can/do co-exist.
11/24/09
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11/24/09
When I was in high school, the righteous daughter of the righteous Conservative minister got an abortion. Her father -- the pro-life hypocrite/minister -- drove her from Georgia to Florida so that it wouldn't be in the state records.