Same-sex marriage: An interesting new religious wrinkle

I attempted once before to talk about Roe v. Wade but the system hung up just after I finished.

Roe v. Wade is not really an example of judicial activism or judicial legislation. Most people who say that it is have never taken the trouble, or perhaps are not equipped, to analyse the decision.

What the Court did in Roe was balance the implied but real right of a citizen, in this case, a female citizen, to be left alone against the State's interest in its future citizens. This kind of constitutional analysis is absolutely standard.

The trimester "bright lines" are, more than anything, an effort to protect a citizen's right to privacy, to be left alone, in a way such that the right would not be rendered meaningless by litigation and delay.

I do not comment here on abortion as a moral issue; I am not competent to do so. As a lawyer, however, I must say that a fetus was not a "human being" in Jewish law or in Torah, or at the common law as late as the ninteenth century, nor is the fetus a human being in modern American law.

 

Re: God made Adam and Eve

Holy Homophobic Homilies, Batman!

 

This is an interesting argument.

Under the civil (Roman) law of succession the fetus is awarded protection under the law IF it is a beneficiary, the court appoints a curator bonis to guard the rights of the unborn child.

The law then interprets the fetus as viable and holder of rights only when free from the mother (the test being the cutting of the umbilical cord and drawing breath)

I always considered this an intriquing and contentious issue, because the law protects the pecuniary interests (not the fetus per se) but in doing so discriminates favourably in favour of the fetus.

Interesting.

B. (By the way I am against abortion, and that is my right)

 

Re: Re: Same-sex marriage: An interesting new religious wrinkle

Getting government out of the marriage business! AMEN to that!

 

bozzy:

Interesting post. The distinction you draw illustrates my point quite nicely.

My post should not be read as saying that abortion has always been legal or anything of the sort. It hasn't. But illegal abortion is not, as a matter of law, homicide.

 

Yes that is quite true as the law now stands. I do find it intriquing though.

B.