>>>>If you believe life begins at conception, and you support roe, you’re effectively saying, “Yeah, it’s OK to kill unwanted children.” At this point, why have an age restriction, as you’d be acknowledging the allowable slaughter of young human beings? Why not say that it’s OK for parents to abort children up to age 16?

Even Obama is saying he was too flip on the question. Maybe he’s becoming Biden-esque?

Nethicus on September 8, 2008 at 8:21 AM >>>

It’s a long read, but well worth the time, and vital to understanding the state of our Constitution’s interpretation: http://www.valpo.edu/law/faculty/rstith/STITHLocation10.pdf

Of particular note: Majority of “ethicists” argue a woman’s right to “abort” beyond birth – some to age 18.

Legally, in Farmer v PP, “birth” is said to have nothing to do with the location of the baby but simply the mother’s intent. If the mother never intended the child to be a full-fledged human being, then it isn’t, even after it is all the way out of her body.

How long beyond birth she has the right to “abort” has never been legally decided. Seems that most “ethicists” say up to 2 years old, and the only way to see whether the Farmer v PP definition of “birth” passes Constitutional muster is if there is a case where the right to abort a 3-year-old (for instance) is argued before the Supreme Court.

justincase on September 8, 2008 at 9:42 AM

Roe v Wade said that it doesn’t matter when biological life begins. The SCOTUS ruled that the 14th Amendment’s use of the word “person” is not a biological term but a legal one. They said it makes no difference when a biological human being exists. Fourteenth amendment protections are only for “legal” persons – and they said one can’t be a legal person until at least birth.

There is nothing in Constitutional law, under this interpretation, that would prohibit Congress from ruling Jews to be legal non-persons, (or infidels, the disabled, elderly, Protestant, Blacks, etc) As long as the word “person” in the Fourteenth Amendment means “legal” person – and that is defined by law-makers – there is no Constitutional right to life for anyone just by virtue of being biologically human.

And technically, the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott that Blacks are legal non-persons. The Fourteenth Amendment doesn’t apply to them, if Roe is taken to its logical conclusion.

Unbelievable.

justincase on September 8, 2008 at 10:32 AM

Fourteenth Amendment, Section 1 (with SCOTUS Roe v Wade interpretation in parentheses):

“All (legal, not biological) persons born or naturalized in the United States and subect to the jurisdicion thereof, are ctizens of the United States and of the State herein 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 (legal not biological) person of life, liberty, or property (including Black slaves per Dred Scott), without due process of law; nor deny to any (legal, not biological) person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

In Roe v Wade, the SCOTUS effectively gave themselves the sole right to determine which lives are “legal persons”, and only those persons have Constitutional protection. They took biology totally out of the equation. Biological personhood means nothing. There is no protection for someone just because they are a biological human being – at any point in life. We are protected because some legal body defined us as a “legal” person – a definition that can be changed at the will of the politicians who make those definitions (or more likely, the Supreme Court)

Get Hindus on the SCOTUS and cows may be legal persons and humans not. Get PETA folks there and worms may be legal persons but humans not. Get Islamists there and Sunni males but infidel or female humans not. Get Nazis there and blondes may be legal persons but not Jews….

It’s almost impossible to believe, but that’s where the Constitution stands right now. Most people have no clue how ABSOLUTELY RADICAL Roe v Wade really was. It ruled that biological human beings have no Consitutional guarantees.

justincase on September 8, 2008 at 11:04 AM

JS at 11:26AM What is at issue is whether what begins at conception qualifies as a human being, and thus has all the rights that any other human being has, including the right to life.>>>

Not quite. It’s not “any other human being” that has the “right to life”. Only LEGAL PERSONS have the right to life – and Roe v Wade says that legal personhood is entirely independent of biological life.

According to Roe there IS NO right to life for biological humans of any stripe. Only the government can define what creatures classify as “legal persons”.

In the Dred Scott decision the SCOTUS ruled that Dred Scott had no standing to sue the government for his freedom because it was “obvious” that Black human beings are really just human livestock and could NEVER be anything but that. They were biological human beings, yes – but not LEGAL human beings.

The ony place in the Constitution where persons are given any “right to life” is the Fourteenth Amendment, but according to Roe, that is only LEGAL persons (which Black human beings have never been declared to be).

There is no human being alive today who could not become human livestock tomorrow on the whim of the Supreme Court.

Not one.

What do you think of that?

justincase on September 8, 2008 at 11:36 AM