If one of these “fetal rights” bills passes, granting the concept of personhood, with rights and protections, from the very moment of conception…
Does that mean that a pregnant woman can use the HOV lane if she’s the only one in the car? And if not, why not?
For that matter, if the woman doesn’t know that she’s pregnant yet, gets drunk, falls down a flight of stairs and miscarries, can she be charged with negligent homicide?
PAD
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Questions like these are exactly why Mississippi voters rejected the bill, though the citizenry are solidly pro-life. It is overreaching and muddies the issue. It is too vague and would leave too much up too interpretation by the courts, which is exactly what conservatives do not want.
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The vagueness and unforseen consequences remind me of how many who were for “equal rights” railed aganst the Equal Rights Amendment. Too broad. Too dangerous. Possibly too undermining of the cause in the long run.
If you want a lively chat about the ERA:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXPLirJRGDQ
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PAD
Awesome clip, PAD. Absolutely awesome! Thank you.
Agreed — that was a thing of beauty.
Jerome, the courts are not what I’d be worried about with such a law or amendment. The courts will ALWAYS be involved when there’s controversy as someone is going to file some sort of suit. And it’s the courts JOBS to interpret laws, or in this case, interpret how a new amendment would interact with and impact on existing law. Saying that an amendment will give too much room for the interpretation by courts is close to saying that you don’t want any amendments.
Where I’d be worried, and I think where conservative voters in Mississippi were worried, is the possibility of some overzealous prosecutor pulling some stunt the likes of which Mr. David was describing in the main entry above. Some jerk in Georgia was willing to use RICO to go after a comic book shop for the grave crime of accidentally giving a minor an adult comic on Free Comic Book Day. I’ve read that approximately one in three pregnancies end in miscarriage. I’d say the odds of some DA using such an amendment to make his political bones with lives of loads of innocent women seen as “collateral damage” are a lot higher than that one in three.
If abortion is murder, then miscarriage is manslaughter.
Since as many as 75% of conceptions miscarry… that’s a lot of manslaughter.
http://miscarriage.about.com/od/riskfactors/a/miscarriage-statistics.htm
I mean, not all embryos even implant. (Which is when pregnancy starts. Otherwise all women are pregnant for about two weeks out of the month, which is just silly.) Are they expecting women to check for microscopic embryos just in case?
Also, if a fertilized human egg is a baby, then a fertilized chicken egg is a chicken. Which means I can buy fertilized chicken eggs at the store and use them in chicken noodle soup, right?
I think it boils down to these people not knowing a thing about how the female reproductive system works, to be honest. Everything between the male orgasm and the presentation of the heir s irrelevant to them.
Miscarriage does not inherently denote a deliberate act.
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Involuntary Manslaughter.
Jerry: Involuntary manslaughter is still a deliberate act. The “involuntary” refers to the lack of an intent to bring about the consequences of the act (i.e. death), not whatever the defendant did to cause it. For instance, with a DWI homicide, the person voluntarily gets into a car and drives, but doesn’t voluntarily get into a fatal wreck.
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I know, but you and I both know that someone would take this theoretical scenario and claim that deliberate, voluntary actions (diet, drinking even lightly, certain physical activity if on restrictions, etc.) of the mother during the pregnancy are what led to the miscarriage.
As Jerome said, the best answer to that is “exactly the problem.”
Are twins the same person?
Only identical twins. 😉
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I thought it was a little nuts in the overreach and was pleasantly surprised to see the margin by which it went down. Unfortunately, I can’t say “went down in flames” as there’s already rumblings by its supporters of bringing it back and pushing it again in other ways.
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The Ohio votes are what really surprised me big time though. Issue 2 failed by a vote of 61 to 39 percent and the defeat of the bill came in part from some of the voters in the more conservative voting districts voting it down. I honestly figured it would be a squeaker.
I apologize for bringing up a painful topic, but doesn’t this create the idea that a miscarriage could be a possible murder investigation? For instance, happy couple Joseph and Joanna are deliriously happy to find out Joanna is expecting a baby. They do everything they can to ensure a happy pregnancy. Sadly, as in the case of many, there’s a problem with the fetus and Joanna loses the pregnancy. In a perfect world, the doctor comforts her, tends to her and offers her grief counseling.
In a world where the fetus is a person, Joanna could be reported the police for an investigation into the death of another person. Her conduct could be examined to a Spanish Inquisition-like inquiry. Did she take enough vitamins? Did she work out too much at the gym? Did she have ANY wine whatsoever during her pregnancy?
According to WebMD, studies show that about 10% to 20% of women who know they are pregnant have a miscarriage some time before 20 weeks of pregnancy.
Do we want these women treated like criminals?
Do we want these women treated like criminals?
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Considering the lengths some are going to to control the bodies of women, some people would probably be perfectly happen with that.
Again, miscarriages, in general, cannot necessarily be traced back to culpability on the part of the mother. Sometimes, perhaps, but in general, I don’t know if they do that when a woman miscarries. So no murder, no manslaughter, no nothing. Do you see anyone ever charged with murder when they can’t establish how the victim in question even died?
That’s the problem with such a bill, isn’t it? If a fertilized egg/fetus is a de facto person then (theoretically) any miscarriage would warrant investigation to determine whether or not the disappearance of said person was the result of a criminal act.
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I mean, if a mother’s three-year-old child suddenly disappeared and was presumed dead, the police would certainly be obligated to look into the matter. So how would the sudden disappearance of a three-week-old gestating fetus be any different from a legal standpoint?
Another issue brought up in the opposition to Personhood Amendments is in vitro fertilization. Since success in fertilization is hit or miss, most doctors go for several eggs at once to increase the chances one will take. Then they implant one or more of the successes. Under this sort of law, those using in vitro would have three choices: try it one egg at a time (more expensive, more painful, takes longer), risk becoming Octo-Moms (even more expensive in the long run), or put the leftovers up for adoption (and adoption isn’t the perfect solution for unwanted babies that many think it is).
It always amuses me how liberals can joke and be so nonchalant about abortion and the fetus, but will take the executions of monsters and the deaths of a terrorists with the utmost concern and seriousness.
It always shocks me how “conservatives” can be so nonchalant about executions of innocent people and the mentally incapable, but will disregard the health of a woman or a victim of rape with the utmost ease and seriousness.
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It’s a situation I find shocking, not amusing.
I’ve not seen an example of conservatives being nonchalant about the executions of innocent people. Typically, they use those situations as examples of tyranny in their argument for smaller government.
But they are very nonchalant about the death of civilians (even children) of enemy countries, regardless of the nature of their goverment.
Most terrorists today are civilians, true.
I’ve not seen an example of conservatives being nonchalant about the executions of innocent people.
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I don’t follow the news closely every day so I’m sure I must have just missed all those press releases from conservatives condemning the executions Jesse Tafero, Cameron Willingham or praising the releases of Anthony Graves, Herman Lindsey, etc.
Except no one here is joking about it.
But you’re not a troll.
Honest.
It’s called satire — almost a lost art nowadays but not as lost as the ability to recognize it.
Sasha…it took him four years to come up with the tepid, “How could you not realize I was just kidding” excuse. Four years. What you call satire, others, including myself, dismiss as a belated attempt to cover his ášš.
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PAD
You go right on dismissing, Peter. It’s your way of covering yours.
The other thing that’s interesting about Peter’s attitude here is that he seems to assume that because his blog is a this great big important thing in HIS life, it would therefore be such a thing in mine as well. This is why he makes a big deal out of the “four years” figure. To him, it’s absurd that someone who was being facetious would wait that long because, dag nabbit, this is Peter David’s blog.
“Liberals” do not this or that, and more than “conservatives” do this or that. This is because any large group of people is diverse, and does not speak with one voice. You’re simply making a bigoted generalization based on bias.
Do not feed the troll.
This reminds me of an old DOONESBURY cartoon where as a similar measure was being debated, then-President George W. Bush was asking if there’s be funerals for all the discarded embryos that weren’t used in in-vitro fertilization. The response: “Um, we’ll get back to you.”
Abortion remains (and will remain) an emotional, divisive issue — but something as broad and (sorry, but it must be said) ill-conceived as this proposal is the wrong way to go. Heck, the number of pro-life people who opposed the bill should be a sign of that.
There’s an excellent movie called “Rain Without Thunder” that deals with exactly this topic. It’s done in a documentary style, and is set in the year 2042 where a Constitutional Amendment just like this was passed in 2017.
My review of the movie is here:
http://fersforum.blogspot.com/2011/04/rain-without-thunder.html
It’s not on DVD, but is available for streaming on Netflix.
Similarly, could a family with a pregnant woman count a fertilized egg as a tax deduction?
An amusing question. I’ll give it a serious answer. No, at the Federal level and almost certainly no on Mississippi (MS) taxes. An amendment to the Mississippi Constitution is not going to change the Federal rules for when you legally exist. At least not directly. To be listed as a dependent on a Form 1040 U.S Individual Income Tax Return, a person needs to have a valid Social Security Number (SSN) which the IRS will check versus Social Security Administration (SSA) records. No such amendment to a state constitution is going to convince the SSA to start issuing SSNs to people who haven’t even been born yet. I don’t know the specific requirements in MS, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that they currently also require an SSN to be listed for each person you claim as a dependent. Specific legislation would have to be passed to allow the claiming of a…call them a “pre-birth person” or PBP as a dependent. Even if such a ridiculous amendment were passed in MS or another state, I expect such legislation would never be passed in said state. In addition to being as absurd as the actual amendment, the logistics of quantifying the unknowns about a PBP, like say gender and name, shortly after conception would cause legislators’ heads to explode.
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However, this is all academic. I don’t think that even the people who proposed this amendment expected or even wanted it to pass. I think it was placed on ballot to make other restrictions on abortion and birth control appear to be less extreme by comparison, and thus easier to pass.
Whereas I feel the supporters genuinely wanted it to pass, knowing there would be a challenge, which they could then take all the way to the SCOTUS.
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this may in the end have the effect you state, however.
Darin-
My sister lives Mississippi and is firmly pro-life. She was shocked when she read the bill and realized that she would be forced to vote pro-choice. She quite enjoys her IUD. Her best friend was molested and was too afraid to tell anybody until her 5th month of pregnancy, which meant she had to carry that baby to term. Adoption leaves a gapping hole in a mother’ heart, and is another form of emotional rape.
I’m a diabetic who discovered she was pregnant at the age of 37. Not only did I have my health to think about, my medical condition put my child at a higher risk of birth defects. My husband and I talked about our choices for days, struggling with the potential to be forced to outlive a youngster with a 37 year head start on us. We tested the baby with all the non invasive tests we could, fully prepared to go through more invasive tests if we needed them. And nobody was more estatic to learn that our daughter had a 1 in 100 chance of Downs, 1 in 225 chance of Spinal Bifida.
We are our daughter’s parents. Nobody else has the right to decide to carry a child to term (yes, I used the word child because I find fetus too clinical to discribe what the lump of cells are.)
My breaking point with the pro-life movement came when I read that some seriously believe that my health matters less than the baby’s. I learned that if you truly don’t want a child, you won’t be willing to take care of your body. I’ve lost a child before- I know that leaves scars on your heart. And I’ve learned from friends who have abortions that the casual dismissal of that decision doesn’t exist.
But as a man, one who most likely will never find yourself where my husband and I found ourselves, how can you know that?
Intuition.
Denise: Be aware that Darin is simply a troll whose single intent is to say whatever is required to stir up angry responses. He will ignore any counterargument, no matter how reasoned, and simply reiterate the same talking points. I shrouded him ages ago and never address his comments. You’re welcome to do what you want, but be aware that you’re wasting your time if you’re trying to convince him of anything other than that you’re just another target for him.
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PAD
Denise: Be aware that Peter dismisses me as a troll because he doesn’t want to address the things I state on his blog. He and others like him like to link a facetious statement I made where I essentially described myself the way they describe me as “proof” that I’m not legitimate in my opinions or my intent. I will not ignore a valid counterargument, once one is actually provided. (Although I do have a life, so I might not get back to you right away.)
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Denise, here. You be the judge.
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“Darin March 23, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Guys, Guys, Guys….
Havent you figured out what I do on these political blogs yet?
I go in every once in a great-great while, make statements that I know most of you oppose and then when you throw up little links to provide your side with support, I just repeat myself. I ignore your links and just reiterate what I’ve said. It’s what I’ve done every. Single. Time. Here… when there is a political thread.
Sheesh.
Darin”
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http://www.peterdavid.net/index.php/2007/03/22/this-is-all-starting-to-sound-extremely-familiar/comment-page-2/#comment-31387
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Basically, he’s laughing at you every time he gets you to respond to something ignorant or inflammatory that he puts out there. He’s a troll. He’s a self admitted troll. You’re never getting an intelligent discussion out of him.
See what I mean? The cling to this post as “evidence” when the joke was on them the whole time.
Jerry: have you noticed that whenever GOP presidential candidates say something self revelatory that pìššëš people off, their favorite means of trying to roll it back is declaring that, gee, gosh, I was just kidding, what the hëll is wrong with everyone else because they couldn’t realize the comedic intent?
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Some people, it seems, have taken that example to heart.
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PAD
Peter, it’s not hard to look back and see that everything I said in your favorite link up there parroted what others had already been saying about me for a long time.
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I find funnier things in slightly unrelated topics that still tie in to Republican politics.
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I was actually got off guard last night by a question thrown at Newt. It turns out that his group was one of the many run by conservative heavy hitters hired by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to lobby against stricter regulations on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac back when Bush was in office. So while talking on Fox News about how the loose regulations and freewheeling nature of the regulations that were in place on Freddy and Fannie helped lead to the problems we’ve been having, he was fat and happy in part from the money they paid him and other to prevent more regulations from being placed on them.
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Classic. Just classic.
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Or “caught” off guard…
Jerry, hypocrisy is hardly limited to the Republican party. My all-time favorite:
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in 2007 upon the occasion of the Supreme Court upholding the partial birth abortion ban: “I would only say that this isn’t the only decision a lot of us wish that Alito weren’t there and O’Connor were there.”
Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) in 2003 when the partial birth abortion ban was up for a vote: “Aye.”
How to explain this? In 2003 Reid was a US Senator up for reelection the next year, so he needed to say what his constituents wanted to hear, and in 2007 he was the new Senate Majority Leader, so he had to say what his caucus wanted to hear. (His official explanation, that he supported the opinion but was just commenting that he didn’t like Alito, was almost as good and might have been believable if he hadn’t specifically referred to the decision.)
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You left out voting yes on banning partial birth abortions in 1999 and Reid being one of only two Democratic Senators to vote against the resolution reaffirming Senate support for the holding of Roe v. Wade.
“Adoption leaves a gaping hole in a mother’s heart, and is another form of emotional rape.”
Speaking as an adoptee, I’ll give you the first one, but I think “rape” is too loaded a term for the second.
Peter David: have you noticed that whenever GOP presidential candidates say something self revelatory that pìššëš people off, their favorite means of trying to roll it back is declaring that, gee, gosh, I was just kidding..
Luigi Novi: No. I’ve noticed that people do that. Nothing political about it.
Regarding the implications of Personhood initiatives… they are not far fetched especulations. I will try to provide the links when I am back home but I remember reading about a growing trend of prosecuting women whose (wanted) pregnancies ended, under the suspicion that they willingly risked the welfare of the fetus via their lifestyle. I specially remember reading about a woman with a substance abuse past that, after having to deliver a dead baby in the hospital, was handcuffed by the police. A nurse who knew of the woman’s past assumed her lifestyle caused the miscarriage and called the cops, because there is “right” and there is “righteous”.
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The Handmaid’s Tale anyone?
Regarding cars, I think it would be reasonable to define “High Occupancy” based on the number of seats that are occupied.
If I’m a person from conception, does that mean I’m nine months older than I think I am? Do I need to ask my parents for my date of conception so I can know how old I am?
More importantly, can I retire nine months sooner?
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Only if I can too.
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Wait… Ðámņ… Does that mean I have to also start considering the nine month difference when carding people on the job? I grab a drunk in public walking down the street one night and the DOB shows them to be twenty years old + seven months. Would this kind of law then make them really over the age of twenty-one and thus legally able to drink?
Jerry – I think you will have to ask the date of conception. If the person in question was premature or born late, the additional age could be less/more than nine months.
The real agenda here isn’t concern for the unborn innocent, but the quest to make sexual freedom more restricted, and consequently to push women back a bit closer to a “traditional” role.
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If concern for the kids were the real priority, conservatives would be equally worried about the conditions in orphanages, and in the households of the poor. Yeah, I know, people are poor because they’re lazy and inferior, says Saint Ayn. But there must be a exception made for kids under 13 or so, right?
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No one can be expected to be a Self-Sufficient Randyan Superman at 12.
If concern for the kids were the real priority, conservatives would be equally worried about the conditions in orphanages, and in the households of the poor.
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No, they wouldn’t. It’s pretty well established that they worry about you before you’re born (anti-choice, personhood at conception). And they’re worried about controlling the manner of your death (capital punishment, making sure that brain dead coma patients stay that way). They’ve got womb and tomb covered. Everything else, you’re on your own.
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PAD
Conservatives do worry about the conditions for orphanages and of poor households. It shows in how much more they give to charities and churches than liberals do, on average.
This week, in “more figures straight from Darin’s a$$”…
He’s have to pull his head out there first El Hombre Malo…
It hardly came “from my a$$.” It’s a well-documented phenomenon. All you have to do is Google “conservatives give more to charity” and you’ll see that. But go ahead and be snarky instead. It suits you.
I completely agree with you. I presented similar arguments to opponents of gay adoption. In the end they use children as a banner to rally well meant people to their cause, when in reality they just want things to be the way they were “back then”. And when bills like this pass, they usually end up turned down in court because they break some constitutional principle or the other, prompting it’s backer to say “see fellas? them judges vulnerate popular rule with their legislating from the bench” thus undermining the separation of legislative and juditial and democracy itself.
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I refuse to call these people conservatives anymore. Conservatism is a neccesary position in the political dialogue. Its healthy to have conservative voices even if I will not agree with them 85% of the time. But lately, mainstream conservatism have taken the back seat to straight forward reactionaries. So reactionaries it is.
Yes. Gay adoption really shows what their true colors are. They’d rather have the kids starving than exposed to a “sinful lifestyle”. The material well-being of the kids isn’t that important to them.
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The problem with mainstream conservatism these days: in far too many issues they betray a Christian agenda, poorly and hypocriticaly hidden. Well, to put it better, I wouldn’t even say it’s a Christian agenda, but a Evangelical Christian agenda.
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A more consistent Christian would oppose the death penalty and most wars. The Catholics in my country at least are consistent in their positions. You can really call them “pro-life.”
The reason Evangelical Christians and Evangelical Christian adoption agencies oppose the idea of gay adoption is because they believe that homosexual unions are an abomination and not a healthy home for a Christian child. That being the case, they’d rather have a child remain at an orphanage (where they are fed and are educated). It should be noted that there are other adoption agencies out there, however.
Actually, I’m not convinced that a “personhood” amendment would be able to stop abortions.
Now, I admit that I’m guessing here, but I believe that pregnant women are more likely to run into numerous health risks. How many people know (or at least know of) someone who was confined to bed rest in the last week or two of their pregnancy? Who had gestational diabetes? I would even go so far as to guess that, even in the 21st century, a woman who is pregnant has an increased likelihood of dying.
If you’re life is being threatened, aren’t you allowed to kill in self-defense?
Certainly, in cases where a doctor has said that the mother’s life is in jeopardy, this would have to come into play – wouldn’t it?
And I can see arguments being made for abortion in self-defense even without an explicit threat, if the statistics back up my assumptions.
For that matter, I tend to think that the abortion debate has missed a point here. The people who believe that someone shouldn’t have the choice to be able to end the life of another person often bring up the idea that the mother can simply give an unwanted baby up for adoption. However, as has been noted, carrying a child to term and then giving it up can cause significant emotional scars; and the pregnancy itself can cause physical issue that don’t necessarily go away.
Since it’s concern for the life of the unborn child that motivates these people, why doesn’t someone work on a (reasonably) safe way to move the person from one womb to another? Just imagine all the conservative women lined up to carry these unwanted children.
Honestly, I’m only half kidding there.
I believe there was a case several years ago that involved an accidental death of a fetus & the mother was charged with negligence or something of the sort. It sort of stuck in my mind because about a month later there was a similar story on on of the cop/lawyer shows. I’ll try to google it…
Re the HOV lane – although the pregnant woman could probably get away with driving in the HOV lane, the more important traffice law being broken is having two people share one seatbelt.
To quote Gianna Jessen, abortion survivor, “If abortion is about women’s rights, where were mine?” Gianna was burned alive for over 18 hours by saline in an attempt to abort her. She is not the only survivor of this horrendous act, but she has suffered greatly because of it. She lives with what she calls the gift of cerebral palsy.
Elective abortions account for 93-98 percent of all abortions. The remainder are terminations for health of the mother, and for cases of rape or incest. I personally believe even in the cases of rape or incest, a civilized society does not punish, or allow to be punished, the child for the crimes of the father.
Before you guys start on a rant about taking care of the ones already here, etc., you should be aware my wife and I are adoptive and foster parents.
Modern Planned Parenthood is the brainchild of Margaret Sanger, avowed racist and eugenicist. Francis Galton, cousin of Darwin, also has a hand in modern eugenics
Please lookup “Maafa 21” on YouTube.
I’m a Trekkie, and a conservative. For all the liberal ideals that Trek espouses, even it takes a dim view of eugenics, as it should. Although currently we may not be trying to create a superman, our society does endorse te selective reduction of those it views least fit. It’s abominable and should be stopped.