Justice John G. Roberts?

Thanks!

Thanks Busho4. Now that we have that out of the way, I still think you Republicans are entirely off your rockers.....

But, we can debate as civil human beings - I also appreciate your acknowledgement of my earnest apology.....

 

Join the club....

It's funny. I hear this almost everyday. Many of my friends and acquaintances happen to be of the liberal persuasion. Maybe it’s a geographic or academic thing? Either way, they sure do love to gang up on me. It’s all in fun of course, so I’m more than happy to provide them (and now you) with the entertainment.

Anyway, what is your take on this Judge Roberts fella? Have you heard enough to make up your mind yet, at least preliminarily? I guess the real test will begin in October, so until then, all we can really do is speculate. Sadly, (for me, not you) I speculate that he will not be like Scalia or Thomas. However, my gut feeling is that he will still be a pretty good justice.

Nosborne probably knows more about this, but I think the Supreme Court agreed to hear an abortion related case next term. If that’s true, we might be lucky enough to find out how socially conservative or liberal he is early on. I wish I knew what the lower court case citation was. Anybody out there know? All I found so far is this article: http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-abort24.html

 

Republicans certainly are NOT "off their rockers"! Perish the thought! They are all REALLY "out of their trees"!

There's a difference.

Yes I'd heard that the Court agreed to hear (I think) a parental notification/cross state lines case.

If memory serves, the "state lines" bit makes it squarely a federal question...

 

out of my (?) shrub

Insisting on civility from persons with whom I largely agree? Perish the thought!

Insisting on fairness in permitting/forbidding stuff in sig lines (what's denied to the left should not be permitted to the (sic) right)?
What a thing for a "purported man of God"!

This young whippersnapper long ago cast aspersions on my sexuality. When I responded with satire instead of the blistering contempt which such vileness deserved, he whined that I wasn't being nice to him.

I dislike political savagery.
Must be my "dark heart".

So I'll get off this thread with the following observations.

I think Judge Roberts is a good pick.
I think legalised abortion is a horror.

I think that real conservatives--not the cowboy hat a size too tight types--ought to speak up. Same thing with real liberals--not the I hate America crowd.

***This board has plenty of good conservatives and good liberals.***

***Long may they rave.***

For anyone who finds this all too subtle, I apologise slightly. This is a distance learning board. So learn, already.

Janko Preotul

 

"...and if not now, when?"

 

Even I, a confirmed pro-choicer, cannot but agree that abortion is a horror. But it is not the ONLY horror in the equation.

 

You two-timer! I thought we had a little odd-couple thing going: both attorneys, one a liberal Jew, the other a pseudo Jew, one a leftie, the other a rightie--we had something real and beautiful!

Go ahead, scorn me, leave me in the dirt for some radical neocon who has 215 different conservative links on his posts. You beast!

 

Why can’t we just get along? ……

Janko: Are you saying that use of political sig lines are denied to the left? If so, then I agree with you and will remove mine. However, I don't think that's the case. A more liberal buddy of mine who posts here on a regular basis has a few left wing political links in his/hers. It doesn’t bother me. I click on what I want to click on and ignore the rest.

There you go again. Blistering contempt? I remember two threads where sexuality came up. Here is what I remember: One time, a long time ago, I made a smart remark about Priests after you said something hurtful. Shortly thereafter, I apologized for it and I really meant it. In another thread, you were on my case (again), and I tried to befriend you. You responded by implying that I was gay, I think. Did you think I was homophobic or something? In any case, I have tried to start fresh with you since then, but to no avail. This is why I have used the term dark heart.

What is savage about a few pro-life Christian links and informational firearm links? What did I say/do that was so offensive that made you attack my sig line? Why is it not okay for me to express my strong pro-life views? I believe abortion is murder, and I am not afraid to say so. However, I have been making a concerted effort to avoid getting overly heated during abortion debates.

I hope you are right about Judge Roberts, and I agree with on the abortion. However, I am a real conservative, not a hat size too tight type. I am thoughtful and compassionate conservative, actually. I love America and I believe that Christianity is a big part of this country. I believe that abortion is homicide. I support a flat tax. I believe that affirmative action is racism. I support strict immigration control. And I feel that all law abiding citizens should have a right to bear arms. The fact that I can hold these beliefs while maintaining close personal friendships with those who completely disagree me with attests to the fact that I am in no way an extremist.

 

Bush04,

I foget; where are you studying law? I ask because you make rather an interesting statement, "abortion is homicide".

"Homicide" is a legal classification; it describes the killing of a human being, whether murder, manslaughter, or, arguably, non criminal.

From a lawyer, the statement seems odd to me because there's neither common law nor constitutional law supporting this.

So I am curious; upon what do you base this legal conclusion?

 

I don't necessarily consider myself "pro-choice", though I do support abortion.

(In otherwords, I don't think that women have a 100% right to choose. Society at large and fathers in particular have a vested interest in the human reproductive process. But I'm aware that telling women what to do with their own bodies is a terrible intrusion into their private affairs. I don't know the solution to that one, frankly. So I prefer to justify abortion on more utilitarian grounds and set the choice/privacy thing aside.)

Concerning the "horror" aspect, I'm not sure that I share it. I'm not entirely comfortable with abortion, but I'm not horrified by it either.

Perhaps it comes down to your "homicide" point. Are aborted fetuses human beings? If they are, then terminating pregnancy is homicide. But if they aren't, then it isn't.

Obviously fetuses are human life in a genetic sense. But does that imply that they are human beings? (Skin cells are being shed all the time. They are human life but they aren't human beings.)

My question is this: What is it about a human being that is worth protecting? What is that we value? What is it that we want to preserve and protect?

My own tentative opinion is that what I'm looking for here is the human personality. It's the sense of self, the "I", the "me", the self-awareness. It's the plans and dreams and hopes and loves and memories. It's what a brain-dead person has lost, despite the heart's continuing to beat. It's what skin scrapings never had.

So if human fetuses aren't human beings in that personal sense, if their neural activity resembles developmental sub-routines more than cognition and consciousness, then aborting them may not be all that horrible.

 

Whether one agrees with the reasoning or not, Roe v. Wade contains a fairly complete but brief summary of the legal and religious history of abortion.

It really DOES repay reading, folks. If anyone wants it, I'll be happy to look up and post the citations to the opinion.

 

First, I am not a lawyer. I'm only a third year law student. In any event, as you stated, homicide is defined as: The killing of a human being, whether murder, or manslaughter. My Black's Handbook of Basic Law Terms defines it simply as the killing of one person by another.

And, if I remember correctly, the definition of murder is: The killing of another human with malice aforethought. This means one is guilty of murder if, with a depraved heart, that person intends to kill or cause serious bodily injury. A person is also guilty of murder if that person’s recklessness, with an extreme disregard for a substantial and unjustifiable risk, results in death to another. I suppose the risk disregarded would be unjustifiable if it served no redeeming social value.

Based on these definitions, I believe that abortion is clearly murder. No one would argue that abortion is not an intentional killing because it clearly is 100% intentional. After all, it is the woman’s purpose to end the life of her unborn child. In addition, many would argue that when a woman kills the child of her womb she is acting with a depraved heart. In my view, it must take a depraved heart to purposely kill your own innocent child. Further, even if the act of abortion was not intentional, it serves no redeeming social value as far as I can tell. Absent extreme circumstances (shooting down a hi-jacked plane, for example), the taking of innocent human life never should.

Sadly, abortion is not illegal, so from a legal standpoint, I guess I am technically wrong when I say that abortion is murder. However, I do firmly believe that human life begins at conception. I guess that’s the problem since the law doesn’t see it that way. Two wrongly decided cases (Roe and Casey) provide women with non-existent privacy rights and permission to intentionally kill. These faulty rulings prevent states, via duly elected representatives of the people, from classifying abortion as murder, a classification it truly deserves. So, when Roe and Casey are overturned, I believe many state legislatures will redefine abortion as homicide; hopefully as a capital murder, or at the very least, a voluntary manslaughter.

To my knowledge, though, the constitution doesn’t specifically state when human life begins. Therefore, I think it is a mistake for anyone to decide that life does not begin at conception. We should always err on the side of innocent life, shouldn't we? I think legislation was recently introduced in an effort to address this. The objective would be to bypass Roe and Casey by clearly stating that human life begins at conception, and that unborn children are deserving of full constitutional protection, especially under the 14th amendment. I'll go see if I can find the bill number.

 

You are quite right, even the Roe Court mentions that the constitution does not state when human life begins.

Please consider, though, as a lawyer (or so close as makes no difference...it seems like a long way off to YOU but I promise you it's going to happen sooner than you think!) what effect so radical a departure from history and precedent your position would have.

The Framers apparently didn't consider that human life begins at conception, nor does the Hebrew Bible take this position.

The law at the time DID seem to say that human life begins with fetal movement. Naturally, the advances of science place us in a better position to judge than THAT.

I suggest that you reread Roe with as open a mind as you can muster. Its historical and legal review is a valuable starting point, whether you agree with the ruling or not.