Does life begin at conception? I think it does.

[FIFI]

Great point Lessthan! But I have to play devil's advocate; a child being born has no power over its actions: BUT those recieving abortions, though not wrong, DO have the power of choice.

[Starboy]

Quote by: FIFI Great point Lessthan! But I have to play devil's advocate; a child being born has no power over its actions: BUT those recieving abortions, though not wrong, DO have the power of choice.

So a child having an abortion is excusable but an adult having one is not?

Starboy

[Starboy]

Quote by: GWilikers I haven't been around for awhile and I did not read all 361 posts to this thread, so I may be out of line but I voted other and my explanation is that all life is life regardless of its termination. It really doesn't start and end. As long as there is life, it's alive as we understand living. So the fetus is a living thing, as is the person carrying it. The matter that makes up the fetus is alive prior to conception, because the two beings responsible for it are alive. This precludes removing the fetus prior to birth (forced abortion) because it's destroying life. It does not preclude capital punishment because that is a law that society creates to protect itself from those they deem unsuitable to live among people who obey laws.

It appears that so many that hold the position that abortion is murder do so by conflating human life with a human being. Cancer is alive and it is human life but no one has any problem with killing it. What is wrong is killing a human being not killing human life. If the brain is dead but the rest of the body is alive then it is not a human being. A human conceptus has no brain so it is not a human being. So killing it is killing human life but not a human being.

As for the Supremes and the Constitution argument..... the court does not have the right to interpret any case that comes before them. All they are empowered to do is rule on each case, as it answers to the Constitution. Either each case answers one, some or all the points in the Constitution or it doesn't. And the Supremes cannot interpret it in such a way that it creates new law.

What in the world are you talking about? How is it possible to rule on a case without interpreting the laws and the facts of the case? You are playing games with words to suite your purpose. You don't like the perfectly legal ruling in Row v. Wade so you must justify your desire to oppose the law by claiming that the Justices were not duly empowered to rule as they did. It is nonsense. The Justices have every right to rule based on the constitution, federal and state law. If they find a federal or state law unconstitutional then that is what it is, and no amount of whining by religious zealots will change it. You all just need to get over it, teach your kids not to have abortions and get on with your lives. No one is making you have an abortion.

This is currently how all our courts operate. It's nearly all unconsitutional. I say nearly all, because once in awhile something is decided based upon the Constitution. A rarity that not many people seem to appreciate. They'd rather see judges change the laws they dont' like. Which is what drives the current impass over judical nominations.

Please quote me the part of the constitution that indicates that the Supreme Court is not duly designated to rule on all cases as they apply to the constitution and rule that a federal or state law is unconstitutional.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Quote by: That RascalPuff Not eggsphero ackley a thesaurus monkey on my back, but rather a standard reference Merriam Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus on my desk.

I have no doubt of that and that you know how to use them but you appear to have gone way, way, way overboard.

Starboy

[Starboy]

Quote by: That RascalPuff [Post Script. I don't recall having a memory problem, senator Starboy.

RascalPuff, what happened? Did your dictionary or thesaurus fail you? That is not what I said.

Whereas, it's thoughtfully informative of your noventarian, masterfully effusive, missing mouth fixations to speelunk your cited cavities.

Yikes it happened again. Maybe you don't know how to use a dictionary or a thesaurus.

Starboy

[Gorgo]

Quote by: Starboy Maybe you don't know how to use a dictionary or a thesaurus.

I think he had a thesaurus shoved up his noventarian.

[FIFI]

Quote by: Starboy So a child having an abortion is excusable but an adult having one is not? Starboy

Thats not what I said, and I am surprised at the length your imagination goes. I was responding to someone's comment over mother's death during child birth and abortion.
So *rasberry*! :)


Maybe we should get back to the debate and stop name calling and using elevated insults. Consulting a dictionary is not going to make your mud-slinging more impressive, just longer.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Gorgo I think he had a thesaurus shoved up his noventarian.

I was wondering about that. Now to place the noventarian....

Starboy

[Starboy]

Quote by: FIFI Thats not what I said, and I am surprised at the length your imagination goes. I was responding to someone's comment over mother's death during child birth and abortion. So *rasberry*! :)

Now, now FIFI. IT was a reasonable question. If a baby is not culpable for the death of its mother because it can't be held responsible then why would one hold a child responsible for an abortion of a fetus?

Maybe we should get back to the debate and stop name calling and using elevated insults. Consulting a dictionary is not going to make your mud-slinging more impressive, just longer.

What insults are you talking about? If there ever was a master of effluent of the oral cavity then That RascalPuff would have to be it. A man of his effluent should be pleased that he is considered a master at it. How could anyone think for a moment that his goal was brevity and clarity of thought.

Starboy

[FIFI]

Quote by: Starboy Now, now FIFI. IT was a reasonable question. If a baby is not culpable for the death of its mother because it can't be held responsible then why would one hold a child responsible for an abortion of a fetus?

That was the point I wanted Lessthan to come across and ask himself. I know I was slightly confusing, I responded before quoting and ended up on a different page.


[/QUOTE=Starboy] What insults are you talking about? If there ever was a master of effluent of the oral cavity then That RascalPuff would have to be it. A man of his effluent should be pleased that he is considered a master at it. How could anyone think for a moment that his goal was brevity and clarity of thought.

Starboy[/quote]

*laugh* I do have to agree with you once again, I think RascalPuff would be very pleased to be the master at something...well, something appropriate enough to say on the forum! :)

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: lessthan i dont get how the parent can kill the kid and be charged but nothing happens if the kid kills the parents when its being born isnt that murder also? even though its not meant isnt it the same thing?

If a woman dies during childbirth, it is a natural death. Unfortunate, but natural. When a parent "decides" to terminate the life of her child, however, it is a premeditated action. Hardly the same.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Starboy Maybe you are right about elementary school but that would mean you still have to learn how to count and say your ABCs. In any case the part you need to try to sound out carefully while using a dictionary is in bold and underlined. Starboy

So, when you've done all that, come back and show me where I said "some cases" and show me where Article III specifically STATES that SCOTUS has the authority to INTERPRET the Constitution. In other words, Starboy, try actually reading what is posted instead of reading into what is posted.

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Starboy What in the world are you talking about? How is it possible to rule on a case without interpreting the laws and the facts of the case? You are playing games with words to suite your purpose. You don't like the perfectly legal ruling in Row v. Wade so you must justify your desire to oppose the law by claiming that the Justices were not duly empowered to rule as they did. It is nonsense. The Justices have every right to rule based on the constitution, federal and state law. If they find a federal or state law unconstitutional then that is what it is, and no amount of whining by religious zealots will change it. You all just need to get over it, teach your kids not to have abortions and get on with your lives. No one is making you have an abortion. Starboy

Rule BASED ON THE CONSTITUTION, not rule in such a way as to say the Constitution says something it doesn't say. The Constitution is absolute. There is no room for interpretation or any other such thing in it. SCOTUS does not have the authority to interpret that document. So, whenever those 9 idiots in robes up there in Washington claim that "unreasonable search and seizure" means "a right to privacy," they have stepped outside their constitutional bounds. When those same idiots decide that giving money to politicians is "freedom of speech," they've stepped outside their constitutional bounds. They don't have the authority to change what the Constitution says or means.

[Starboy]

Quote by: Chancellor Rule BASED ON THE CONSTITUTION, not rule in such a way as to say the Constitution says something it doesn't say. The Constitution is absolute. There is no room for interpretation or any other such thing in it. SCOTUS does not have the authority to interpret that document. So, whenever those 9 idiots in robes up there in Washington claim that "unreasonable search and seizure" means "a right to privacy," they have stepped outside their constitutional bounds. When those same idiots decide that giving money to politicians is "freedom of speech," they've stepped outside their constitutional bounds. They don't have the authority to change what the Constitution says or means.

So where did they step outside their bounds on Roe v. Wade?

Starboy

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: Starboy So where did they step outside their bounds on Roe v. Wade? Starboy

Most blatantly, they overstepped their authority and violated the 10th amendment, which clearly says that any power not given to the federal government in the constitution is reserved for state governments.

I don't find any mention abortion in my copy of the constitution, much less mention of the fed having power where the subject is concerned.

[fedfem]

Quote by: Pale RIder Most blatantly, they overstepped their authority and violated the 10th amendment, which clearly says that any power not given to the federal government in the constitution is reserved for state governments. I don't find any mention abortion in my copy of the constitution, much less mention of the fed having power where the subject is concerned.

The states had no right imposing restrictions on what a woman did with her body.

[Starboy]

Quote by: fedfem The states had no right imposing restrictions on what a woman did with her body.

Exactly. It was a state law that they ruled to be unconstitutional not the act of a person. The constitution also says that the Supremes can do that.

Starboy

[Pale RIder]

Quote by: fedfem The states had no right imposing restrictions on what a woman did with her body.

But they do have a right to regulate what she may do to the body of her unborn child. In the US, all human beings have an inalienable right to life. No single person has the right to decide arbitrarily whether another human being lives or dies.

If you can somehow prove that the offspring of two human beings is something other than human, even from its earliest stages, then you have a case for a woman's ownership of it, but failing that proof, humans are not allowed in this country to own other humans and decide their fate.

[Technosoul]

I would also question what people think of as "life" per-say. Is a sperm a human being? It seems to be alive because it can swim and that is before conception. So the real question might be when does human life start? We have the sperm and then the sperm knew the egg - then a anonymous stem cell which matures during and evolutionary process in the womb, passing through stages where it looks like a fish with gills, then like a small animal with a tail, then little by little takes shape as a human baby. Does a human being have gills and/or a tail? And so you see that it does not evolve into a human being until after a few months of evolutionary changes within the womb. "It" being used generically as a term for life before human life.

Now the anti-abortionist would debate that it is all part of a process that in fact will become a human being and once the process is started then we have the moral responsiblity not to abort the life developing - even if it has no human rights until after birth. For example if the stem cell is a human at the moment following conception then it should be issued a "conception certificate" so that it will belong to the country where the conception took place, not where it was (is) born. (with a birth certifitcate) - which certifiticate in turn gives life form it's rights relative the country where it orginated. Needless to say stem cells are not given certificates of conception and so have no real rights under any country because they cannot be an American or whatever until birth. And so also we should not count chickens until the hatch.

Now that life process started long before the one child in question was born, life started thousands of years ago as far of this human strand goes. The most important part of that process for continued reproductive life is the sex drive which becomes dominate from the teens on up. So if you tell young people who are old enough to be reproductive not to have sex at all until married then you are aborting the natual processes of reproductive life and thus the baby human that might have been born to that highschool mom will never see the light of day.... so using will power not to have sex to avoid having children is an abortion of the life process that would result as a human being of the next generaiton. So life did not start with conception but with the first human couple at the beginning of the process and or via some evolutionary pre-human speices.

So it must have the complete appearence of the physical human and in addition the self consciousness of being "I Am". And most experts would agree what it must be independant of the mother so that the individual can breathe and take food as a seperate identity.

Technosoul

[Starboy]

Quote by: Pale RIder But they do have a right to regulate what she may do to the body of her unborn child. In the US, all human beings have an inalienable right to life. No single person has the right to decide arbitrarily whether another human being lives or dies.

A conceptus is not a human being. It has no brain.

If you can somehow prove that the offspring of two human beings is something other than human, even from its earliest stages, then you have a case for a woman's ownership of it, but failing that proof, humans are not allowed in this country to own other humans and decide their fate.

You are at it again. Human life is not a human being. However humans beings are allowed to own human life. There is nothing stopping you from obtaining and keeping in your home cultures of human cells. Unless you want to argue that the cells are not human or alive?

Starboy