Fetal personhood

Discussion in 'Political Discussions' started by nosborne48, May 5, 2022.

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  1. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    If the Roe draft becomes case law, the next step in the pro life playbook is pretty obvious. It would be to obtain a declaration from the U.S. Supreme Court that a fetus is a "person" for some constitutional purpose and therefore has a constitutionally protected right to life. At a stroke of "judicial legislation" abortion would be outlawed throughout the United States.

    This is unlikely but far from impossible. The Supreme Court has defined "person" repeatedly throughout the nation's history covering claims from slaves to corporations.

    Such a decision would not be subject to appeal or repeal short of an unlikely constitutional amendment.

    Who can say that this Court would never do such a thing?
     
    SteveFoerster likes this.
  2. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Not I.
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    So, if a pee stick says it's okay, we can take a tax deduction? And apply for a Social Security card? And date the kid's age from zygote status? Amazing.
     
  4. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Well, those are good questions. My own thinking, which isn't any more pursuasive than yours might be or anyone else's for that matter, is that ancient law and a few references in the constitution seem to stand for the idea that you aren't a "person" for legal purposes until you are "born alive". That particular test is found in the Talmud (IIRC) and it is certainly a part of the common law. But a "legislating" Supreme Court needn't trouble its collective little head over such mere details. It could craft whatever astonishingly statute-like order it deems necessary to give effect to its "Good Idea".

    That's my point. Judicial legislation is a dangerous abuse of power.
     
  5. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    There's precedent - but not here. I suppose it's likely gone with the Communist Revolution - but I read there was a tradition in China for centuries that every child was credited with having lived for one year, prior to birth.

    (Source - Ripley's Believe it or Not, during the 1950s - just so you know.)
     
  6. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Incidently, if anyone cares, here is one place where I think the U.S. constitution at least implies that a "person" must be "born":

    "Amendment XIV
    "Section 1.

    "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Emphasis mine.

    The text declares as "citizens" only persons who have been born, whether within the U.S. or elsewhere. It does not appear to concern itself with any other sort of person as might be...well...conceived as it were. This is not a rock crushing argument however.
     
  7. SteveFoerster

    SteveFoerster Resident Gadfly Staff Member

    Imagine conservative apoplexy if a foreign national was able to apply for a U.S. passport because they were conceived in the U.S.
     
    Dustin likes this.
  8. Flelmo

    Flelmo New Member

    This is still the case to an extent in Korea. Korean age: all Koreans have their birthday on January 1, and they are 1 on January 1 of the year they were born. https://www.90daykorean.com/korean-age-all-about-age-in-korea/#what-is-korean-age
     
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  9. Lerner

    Lerner Well-Known Member


    I think for the pro life there is the following rational:
    If there is a slight chance that this is an act of killing or murder then the decision should be pro life.
    With understanding that some times this are not that simple, and small cases when life of pregnant woman can be in danger but these are more exceptions to the rules.

    Whit understanding that this subject is threatening other groups on struggles such as gay marriage and trans-gender, etc. In free society in our democratic country understood the fight for rights of each group, the achievements and progress and much more at stake.
    But pro-life fight stands on its own:
    When to abort and how serious is that decision and action.

    Simplified Pro-life view against choice to abort/kill fetus:

    A baby’s heart begins to beat 18 days from conception and they are able to feel pain by 10 weeks– life begins at conception.
    --
    A new individual receives 23 chromosomes from each parent. He or she is truly a unique individual human being, never to be repeated. A new person has been created, who at this stage is a tiny living organism weighing only 15 ten-millionth of a gram. Life begins.

    First day of new life: The first cell divides into two, the two into four, and so on. Each of these new cells divides again and again as they travel toward the womb in search of a protected place to grow.

    18 days from conception: Heart begins to beat, with the baby’s own blood.

    28 days: A baby has eyes, ears, and even a tongue!
    Muscles are developing along the future spine. Arms and legs are budding.

    30 days: Child has grown 10,000 times to 6-7mm (1/4”) long. Brain has human proportions. Blood flows in veins.
     
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  10. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    Louisiana has signed a bill into law that makes it a crime to have a miscarriage.
     
  11. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    On the face of it, it sounds crazy. Any details, wording etc?
     
  12. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Last edited: May 6, 2022
  13. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Oh, that's nothing new. California declared abortion to be second degree murder back in the '50s.
     
  14. Rachel83az

    Rachel83az Well-Known Member

    If you say that it's a person as soon as it's fertilized, any "mistake" that leads to a miscarriage can wind up with the mother being jailed. It happens/has happened in other countries with similarly draconian anti-abortion laws. Did you fall down the steps and lose the baby at 6 months? Jail. Did you get a negative pregnancy test, start chemotherapy, and wind up losing a "surprise" 5-week fetus? Jail. Were you around a smoker a couple of weeks ago and now you're miscarrying at 4 months? Jail. It doesn't have to make sense either logically or medically. What matters is what they can get away with.
     
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  15. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Please tell me that was the 1750s -- even 1850s. No? These homegrown zealots in Louisiana sound like the 1650s - a few years before Salem and all that bad stuff. What's next? A resurgence of maniacs like this guy? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Charles_Kopp

    Don't like a place where zealots in power, mostly men, tell women what to do with their bodies. Not a bit. Bad place for a guy like me.
     
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  16. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    The irony is that California now has enshrined the right to abortion in its state law.
     
  17. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Okay, I read the propsed Lousiana bill (it hasn't been signed into law) and it's typical ex-Confederate States nonsense including impeaching and removing any Judge who rules that any federal law supercedes State law on the subject. That's wildly unconstitutional on its face. The rest of the bill is so badly drafted that I'm not sure exactly what they're doing. It looks like "fetal personhood" but that idea has so many, many complications involving title to property and estate distribution that I really can't imagine they mean it. Mostly it violates the principal of federal supremecy.
     
  18. Johann

    Johann Well-Known Member

    Yep - more "git th' rope, Clem." Just what America needs, right now. :( Sad to see.
     
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  19. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    No authoritarian regime can tolerate an independent judiciary. South Carolina tried the exact same thing in the Nullification Crisis before the Civil War. Didn't work then either. Old Hickory said he'd send in the troops. Probably should have. We might have avoided secession if he had.
     
  20. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Meanwhile the GOP leadership in Congress is busily hemming and hawing about why they can't try to pass a nation wide abortion ban. They've run on promises to do that for decades, never believing they'd one day have to honor those promises. But "never " looks like arriving any day now.

    How about it, Mitch? Gonna suspend the filibuster to get this ban enacted? Why, no, that's "breaking the senate"! Can't do that! Not even for all those unborn babies we've been yelling about.

    Fun to watch all the excuses now. Too bad the subject matter is so grim.
     

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