Redstate

I misplaced my Reply To This button. Obviously that was for you, birdmojo.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I was writing the post below and, as such, didn't see your "I SEE YOU'RE AVOIDING TALKING TO ME" post and, as such, didn't reply to it.

Feel free to take this thread down there.

Unless, of course, my logic and intelligence has scared you to the point where you refuse to answer my posts...

I note that you haven't responded to it yet.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Should I assume the conversation is over and you've conceded?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Why you started this thread if you didn't want to have a conversation.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Concede? No. I'm trying to have a conversation, but I'm starting to feel like it is just with myself. I'll wait until after you reply to my last comment below to find out if I am.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

It's unseemly.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

I agree with you completely. People do have lives that involve not being on the internet continuously.

"No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong." - Winston Churchill

It's not a "why isn't eanybody reading my stuff" comment, it's the "they read it, but they don't address the argument when they reply" comment. I shouldn't be on RedState now myself. I need ot get to work.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I am going to bed.

Please do not assume radio silence on my part to be evidence of anything except human frailty.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

that gives me a break to actually work. Darn RedState being so darn addictive.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Someone yells "child abuse!", the cops actually show up, they actually ask her if she has kids, they then sift through birth certificates and other records without a warrant, and they have a right to see the kids without a warrant? And this is okay with you? This is the kind of thing you want the govt to do?

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

The first thing that jumps into my mind is that thing that happened in Texas the other day.

Do you have a better example for me?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

If yes, then your problem is not with extending protection to the unborn, it is with current laws. Focus on that and leave the unborn out of it.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Dude. I howl about government power quite often. (Can I get a witness? You don't have to agree with anything I say, you can think I'm an odious human being, but if you've noticed that I complain about government power, could you say "dude, he complains about government power to the point where I wish he would just shut the heck up" or similar?)

As it is, you asked me to talk about what happens when CPS shows up.

Here's a happy fun webpage that talks explicitly about CPS.

I couldn't help but notice the part of the page that talks about "What does CPS do in a child abuse or neglect investigation?"... specifically the "talks to and visually examines the child reported to have been abused or neglected. The talk with the child must be audio taped or videotaped. The interview may be conducted at any reasonable time and place, including at school. The caseworker may transport the child for purposes relating to the interview or examination and must notify the child’s parent of the transportation." part.

So you call the UIPS (Unborn Infant Protective Services) because you suspect an abortion.

What would your UIPS webpage have on it's webpage for the section under the "What does UIPS do in an abortion investigation?" heading?

Yes, yes. I know. "There I go again."

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Then just say you don't object to equal protection. Just say, you don't like current law. You don't make the world any better by opposing equality under the law because you think the govt has too much power already.

I don't like current immigration law either, but I don't support illegal immigration either. I advocate legal immigration, and I advocate different immigration laws. They are different issues. Or would you prefer I be pro-illegal immigration until I get my way on immigration laws?

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I'm not saying "I like current law", I'm saying "the proposed laws to make abortion illegal strike me as having unintended consequences that will be worse than the status quo" and then, as the conversation progresses, I see that the consequences that I thought were unintended were actually *INTENDED* by some.

At which point my brow knits and I say "the status quo, as bad as it is, strikes me as not as bad as what you are proposing".

Now if you want to revamp family law, the War on Drugs, Taxation, and privacy rights, I would be 100% down for that. Let's also get rid of the Department of Education. And the Department of Energy! And the BATF!!!! And let's revamp the FDA!!! And...

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

before they get your vote to extend equality to the unborn? Sorry, but that is a bizarre set of priorities, and frankly I guess the pro-life movement will have to roll on without you because taking the time to revamp those isn't worth your vote.

And in the spirit of opposing things for the wrong reasons, I'm now against the WOT since I think the unintended consequences will be higher taxes, something I'm personally opposed to. No one has to say it will follow necessarily. No one has to say that Congress could raise taxes w/ or w/o a war. No one has to point out that I could support a pro-WOT group until it got unreasonable and then I could join the opposition. I'll just cut it off at the knees now.

You in effect support a class of people being treated unequally because you fear govt power. The exact same arguments could (have?) been made against women voting. The exact same arguments could be made about the entire civil rights movement. And they were both wrong just as much. I prefer to split the two very distinct issues, one of which carries a higher moral value to treat all men the same, and lobby for both. Consider all the arguments made by state's rights advocates about the civil war. The wrong answer is to say I'm in favor of states rights regardless of the laws about slavery. The acceptable answer is to say, I'll scrap some state's rights if I have to stop slavery (what ultimatley happened). The optimal answer is to say I'm in favor of states rights and I'm going to get my state to repeal slavery before the feds are forced to. The pro-lifers don't want the acceptable answer, and if they take it, it'll only be because the opposition forced the issue (ie if the RvW isn't overturned, what other choice do pro-lifers have but to lobby for more laws and a possible HLA*?)

I'm not pulling a holier than thou card, and I hope it doesn't come off that way. I'm just frustrated as crap that we can argue this far only to result in the premise that are my moral standards simply not being in the same order as your moral standards. I'd actually prefer for the sake of understanding if this argument ended with "well I just don't think they're humans deserving of human rights until X has been met", not "well sure they deserve to be treated equally, but I'd rather not since someone might be unfairly forced to pee in a cup".

If I'm mischaracterizing your position, please explain to me how you think the unborn should be treated aside from anything that happens to the mother. (my memory is short, so if you already stated it, please refresh my memory or at least tell me where to go).

*which I don't support, but that is a matter of political reality not a matter of principle.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

What I am saying is that the law, as it is structured, tells me that the change that you are proposing will be worse than what we have now.

And, when challenged ("do you even know what the CPS does when they show up?") and I give a set of answers regarding what the CPS itself says it does and I say that "No, I don't want people showing up and knocking on the doors of young women asking 'Are you pregnant?'", I get told that I'm blowing stuff out of proportion.

This is all well and good, of course, until someone shows up and says "dude, we could totally make UIPS work based on the model of CPS!"

At which point I'm back to saying, you know what? I think the status quo is better than what you seem to be proposing.

I mean, I personally take the idea that setting up a department SPECIFICALLY with the job of going to houses based upon anonymous phone calls and asking young women "are you pregnant?" is crazy. I mean, crazy crazy. I mean "holy cow, there is no way that you are seriously proposing that this be done, right? You're just playing 'let's drive the libertarian nuts', right?"

And then someone comes along and says "we can use the model that we use for abused children!" again. And they aren't talking about some idealized CPS model, or if they are they don't mention it, but they are talking about the CPS as it exists now at the time of this very conversation.

And this strikes me as absolutely and totally unacceptable.

Which, of course, makes me someone who doesn't care about the unborn because I don't want a state department whose *PURPOSE* it is to knock on doors and ask "are you pregnant?" in response to an anonymous phone call.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

put the right to not have your door knocked on and asked "are you pregnant?" in response to an anonymous phone call ahead of the unborn. I didn't say you didn't care about the unborn, I said your priorities don't match mine.

And your comment below about how I must differ from TomlinsonDouthat is wrong. You ask a pro-life foot soldier what the game plan is as if I have to come up with the whole plan. I tell you what I'm comfortable with but totally willing to compromise on, and you treat it like it is my die-hard, uncompromising goals. I'm not the one who's going to make this law, and I will actually oppose bad pro-life law. I'd oppose a pro-life activist judge on the supmreme court if I thought he was also a socialist. I'm not blindly pro-life.

But because you can't accept some of the things I'd be willing to accept, you mischaracterise the cause as too dangerous. If most of the country thought like you (something that some pro-lifers work tirelessly at doing), then you'd have nothing to fear from being pro-life since no one including pro-lifers would support a police state. Instead you throw out a couple of police state examples (mild ones I might add since you never included random beatings, re-education, secret imprisonment or any of the really scary stuff a police state does), say "are you comfortable with that?" someone like me says "better than the status quo" and you react with "worse than the status quo, I withold all support for your cause".

There are 14 proposed HLAs. Are you going to ask me which one I support and based on my answer say that you reject all HLAs? Wouldn't it make more sense to say "I support my version of the HLA" rather than trying to weigh the merits of the argument on its weakest proponent?

You know, some conservatives/libertarians do scare me in some of their goals. But I still treat them as allies in the overall goal. It's after my goal is achieved that I dump them and declare that they are extremists. If you and I were on the same page, you'd either be saying "tadams' goals are whacked, but he's still my ally until I can make my police-state free solution to abortion" or "my goals have already been met. tadams is just plain whacked".

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

it makes you someone who's priorities put the right to not have your door knocked on and asked "are you pregnant?" in response to an anonymous phone call ahead of the unborn.

Yea, it does. Yea, that is exactly where "I" stand on MY rights over the unborn.

You ask a pro-life foot soldier what the game plan is as if I have to come up with the whole plan. I tell you what I'm comfortable with but totally willing to compromise on, and you treat it like it is my die-hard, uncompromising goals.

Your compromise is a tactic to move the debate from
full abortion | no abortion
to
some abortion | no abortion.

How is this a compromise? If people thought that a middling position was the end game, movement would probably be possible, but it is not. The pro-life movement considers any abortion to be murder and the goal is to stop abortions. We get it. It won't happen. Because us people that do not like abortions and want to see them reduced and yet still allow them can't stand with the pro-life movement in good faith opposition to the pro-abortion. It is a fundamental reason why I think you get conflicting opinions on abortion with polls:

Yes we oppose abortion as a method of birth control
Yes we want to see significantly less abortions
Yes we want some control and limits on abortion *
NO, we do not want to abolish abortion.

* see previous comments and slippery slopes.

you (something that some pro-lifers work tirelessly at doing), then you'd have nothing to fear from being pro-life since no one including pro-lifers would support a police state.

You see a harmless investigation, I see the fifth amendment. How many people REALLY in the back of their minds believe someone with nothing to hide evoke the 5th? What is a harmless investigation into a potential abortion? If nothing is happening, full disclosure ends the process - no harm. BS.

As a foster parent, I saw how family services works. Working for an attorney dealing with custody issues, I see how family services works. Let me tell you that many family service workers are wonderful people. But the system is 'abuse is happening, prove it not" mentality. Adding a section on potential abortion abuse...NFW.

You and our host consider the possibility of our worst fears unfounded. Too late if you are wrong.

I oppose all the versions of HLA that are out there - (full disclosure, I have seen one). BECAUSE you want to give equality to the unborn of the born. Sorry. They are NOT equal in my eyes, for all the reasons I have already stated here and elsewhere.

With regard to your last comment.

But I still treat them as allies in the overall goal. It's after my goal is achieved that I dump them and declare that they are extremists.

Good faith? I need a shower...

There is no freaking way that I would ever, EVER, agree that there should be a Government-funded office whose job it was to knock on doors and ask whomever answers the door if there's a pregnant woman in the house.

For the life of me, I cannot imagine how you could possibly feel that such a Government-funded office is DESIRABLE. This blows my mind and I begin to wonder if you aren't putting me on in the hopes that I'll say a swear word.

I'm not going to ask you which HLA you support because that argument doesn't really appeal to my particular sensibilities... I'd rather ask "how do you hope to accomplish what you hope to accomplish?" and then when you say "we've got a model in the CPS right now", that's when I know to say "Yeah, I'm Audi."

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Any one that says, "Hmmm... I'm for that. Do you have a suggestion on how to do that? Oh. Then I'm against it" isn't being honest. You ask me to supply a solution. If you don't like it, come up with your own and convince me.

I for instance might say, I don't like our current income tax. You theoretically suggest the national sales tax. I say "Oh, well then never mind. The taxes should remain the same". That is willfully and stubbornly blind to many other possibilities, and that line of questioning is only dishonest (and illogical) attempt aimed at trying to highlight the negatives of a national sales tax as a means of discrediting the whole idea of changing the current tax code.

You have no intention of trying to find a way to make abortion illegal without risk of power abuses, so your question was never an honest one. You just wanted to make me say something "scary" and attack it. If you disagree, put up or shut up: Tell me how you think abortion should be made illegal and how to do it better than my way. If you don't think it should ever have be illegal, power abuses or not, then your whole "police state" BS has been a fantastic waste of time and dishonest.

TomlinsonDouthat, JSobieski, Menlo, mbecker and others have all adjusted my beliefs on how to properly go about accomplishing pro-life goals. You make a cartoon of my suggestion and claim that is the reason you won't support a pro-life political position. I was pro-HLA till mbecker corrected me. Why don't you take a stab at a pro-life solution since you claim to be open to one except for extremists like me.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I am agree that fetuses have some amount of "Rights". Now we get to haggle over the issue of whether you have the right to ascertain whether a fetus exists. (The fetus, you remember, that we both agree has "Rights".)

Let's hammer this stuff out.

What do you argue that you have the right to do?

Remember, I'm merely nauseous over the thought of the status quo. Do you think your proposed solution will settle my stomach or do you think it'll make me want to puke? Let's find out! Put it down and we'll see.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

to what extent do we define as rights for the unborn? If we can't agree, whatever I say may be too harsh or not enough.

Do you agree that a child 1 day before birth has the same right to live as a child out of the womb? If not, what makes passing through the birth canal so special? I think I've already done this earlier in this article. If you agree that it does have the same right to live as the born, then how far back does that go?

As far as how much right does the state have to investigate its citizens, I don't advocate anything without sufficient judicial oversight which requires sufficient evidense that a crime has already occurred. I advocate that kind of limit on investigation for crimes against any class of people.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I support making 3rd Trimester abortions illegal (with a handful of exceptions, of course) and 2nd Trimester abortions legal only with counselling of this or that sort... but I always feel like this is the first step before the next one.

We've seen little things bubble up about how people feel they have the right to send a government office over to someone's house and ask if any young women in the house might be pregnant. We've seen people argue that they think that 2nd Trimester abortions deserve the death penalty. These little things bubble up.

And that's what makes me think that the status quo, as awful as it is, might not be worse than what is being proposed.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

They DO deserve the death penalty! Why wouldn't such brutal and inhuman torture?! We're talking about yanking off limbs, stabbing, butchering, and beheading a living human (who may feel pain worse than the born) over an hour before they bleed to death for the purpose of killing them. Can you honestly consider such barbaric acts to be a legitimate "medical procedure?" We don't do that to animals!

To think such torture is acceptable or legitimate in a civilized society, especially as a "medical procedure," is nothing short of sadism. It's like what the Nazis did, and it should be likewise punishable.

That punishment has or should have nothing to do with the standards of proof required for criminal investigation or arrest.

My general sense that when people say "X should be illegal!" and "the punishment for X should be Y!" that, eventually, they will want Y to happen when X happens?

Or is my general idea of that something that only crazy people would think?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

How is such a penalty alone worse than the status quo of such torture that needs to be brought to justice under the law.

It's not that I have a problem with my stated compromise position. Indeed, I stated it.

It's that I suspect that people aren't being totally up front that they are okay with the stated compromise position... I suspect that we'll compromise a little bit here... and then we'll have laws saying that we need a new state office dedicated to visiting houses and knocking on doors and asking about the pregnancy status of the women therein... and then people will start saying "you know what, maybe we *SHOULD* have the death penalty for this particular act"... and then the whole "remember how we said we'd never, ever, suggest prison for the mother? We've re-thought that position and we agree that if abortion is murder that it is absurd to not pursue charges against her" statements might start being made...

And I'm stuck here thinking "yeah, what they are proposing will lead to something worse than the status quo".

So I'll stick with the status quo, thanks. As odious as it is.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

See bottom for reply.

I can't argue with you about this if we just jump straight to the "scary" parts. You say 3rd trimester abortions should be outlawed, you say 2nd trimester abortions should have conditions, you imply 1st trimester abortions should be legal, but you never explain why for any of those. I need to know on what basis should 3rd trimester abortions be illegal and on what basis should 1st timester abortiones be legal without bringing enforcement into it.

I haven't bothered to do my "scary" accusations because I don't think it adds anything to the discussion. If I wanted to, I suppose I could mention a theoretical world where already born infants are killed in the hospital when the family realises they can't afford to keep the child or the child is handicapped. I could also talk about a world where we euthenize the handicapped based on ther dependance or any number of reasons used to justify abortion.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I don't think I have the authority to investigate an abortion on a hunch. I think I either need a confession or bloody evidense or something, but then again I am not too terribly knowledgeable about what my rights and moral responsibilities to dealing with my neighbors potential crimes are. So my opinion probably isn't worth that much. Someone like gamecock probably has a better answer than me.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

What's the difference between a social worker and a Rottweiler?

You might get your kid back from the Rottweiler.

(Not commenting on the issue immediately at hand, I just had to repeat the joke.)

The more I think about your idea of the Unborn Infant Protective Services, the more realistic it sounds to me, and it's certainly not a desirable prospect. However, I think that the danger of such a development comes, roughly speaking, from the left rather than from the right.

I just finished Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism (I think you might find it particularly interesting, birdmojo, by the way), and something like the UIPS would fit in perfectly with the late chapters of the book, particularly the one on Hillary Clinton and the background of her concern "for the children." She might believe that you have a right to an abortion, but once you decide against it, then Clinton's logic would have it that you have no rights as an expectant mother—not to drink a glass of red wine, not to eat a cheeseburger, not to do anything that could conceivably result in an unhealthy child, and especially not since any unhealthiness in any child will be costly to the state in the form of socialized medicine, the public schools, etc. I think that Goldberg cited a Nazi slogan along the lines of, "You have no right to be unhealthy," and it's clear that this line of thinking has been taken up by modern liberals, and could be taken further.

But while eventual laws against abortion might be a further weapon in the arsenal of such a liberal-fascist organization, its existence would by no means be contingent upon it. In fact, I think that laws against abortion should be conceived of as an entirely separate issue from this prospect, since laws against abortion, on their own, could not invite the development of such an organization.

This is because abortion, from the perspective of the mother, is a discrete event. You intend to have an abortion, the abortion takes place, and then it's in the past. On the other hand, the contemporary CPS and our hypothetical UIPS are both concerned with ongoing behavior. CPS assesses evidence of past child abuse (a wound from a blow already given, say), presumes (and often reasonably) that this is evidence of similar current behavior, and then it takes action to prevent such behavior from occurring in the future. Likewise, our hypothetical UIPS would examine evidence of past wine-drinking, say, then presume that this evidence is indicative of present wine-drinking, and finally take action to prevent such wine-drinking in the future. How they would do this last, I have no idea, but it probably wouldn't be a place where either of us wants to go.

However, if the concern is not for the general healthiness of society's members, in the Nazi sense, but the protection of the rights of society's unborn members, then such an arrangement would be impossible in practice, because we are not dealing with an ongoing process. While evidence of past child abuse can also serve as evidence of present and future child abuse, a past abortion is not indicative of a future abortion, certainly not in the short term. On the other hand, any woman of child-bearing age might have an abortion at some point in the future: there's no way of narrowing this class down to the point that such a bureaucracy could conceivably start bossing people around. There would be no reason for such an organization to develop in the first place, so the state would point its bureaucracy-developing ambitions in other directions, as it always does.

But this is just with regard to abortive mothers. With regard to abortionists, we do have an ongoing pattern of behavior, and so past behavior can serve as realistic evidence of present and future behavior. If a state sees fit to involve itself in the matter of abortion, then the only avenue realistically open to it in this regard is to go after the abortionists. This, however, would be a simple criminal matter rather than a matter for any sort of social services. And this, of course, is what the pro-life movement has been saying was its intention all along. But I don't think you have to take anybody's word on this, because nothing other than what they're saying is even possible.

Are those commercials with those kids in them.

You've got the voice of a lady talking about how she hit a rough patch 8 years ago and found she was pregnant but chose to keep the kid and there are just pictures of the kid in question playing with a puppy or looking in wonder at a walking stick or something like that and then it shows the mom hugging the kid and laughing and says "Choose Life." in the final few frames.

When I was in college and one of those commercials came on, the hippie pinkos all started yelling about how much they hated those commercials and how the goal was to make women feel guilty. Quite honestly, I couldn't believe the virulence.

Change people's minds. Changing the laws won't do anything except throw a handful of people in jail. Change people's minds and you won't *HAVE* to change the law.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary."

But I'd rather deal with the wickedness of independent contractors than with the wickedness the AFL-CIO is capable of generating.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Someone yells "child abuse!",

Why the hell is someone yelling 'child abuse'? Who the hell is sticking their nose into someone elses business?

Privacy reme....never mind....

Ever have a malicious piece of poop for a neighbor that calls the cops when your dog barks too much, runs along the fence and 'threatens' people. Ever have a neighbor that parks their car 1" from your property line driveway?

In this community, a woman dialed 911. The 911 operator heard nothing and because it came from a cell phone, nothing was done - until the woman was found 3 hours later dead. Three weeks later I was cutting the grass with my new self-propelled lawn mower (CJ was getting her first lesson) when we came around to the front of the house to 4 cop cars parked in the street.

We stopped the mower and I walked up to the cop at our front door. He wanted to know if we had any children - I pointed to CJ (5'6", 13 yrs old) and then he asked if I had a cell phone. I walked to the car in the driveway and pulled mine out.

Apparently a 911 call from a cell phone came from the house next door or close to it. Their kids are less than 4 yrs old. Just about everyone was out.

Was it an overreaction? Did the cop have a warrant to ask about my kids, my phone? No. Did we all have something to talk about that afternoon. Sure.

Cops will respond to an accusation. When people cooperate and clear up any misunderstandings, it all blows over real quick. But if someone, like me, asks why they need to know if I had a cell phone...their attention is going to get focused. Good people can stop bad things from happening when they pay attention. Bad people can create bad things happening when they stick their noses where they don't belong. The difference obviously is whether bad things are happening or not.

There is NO way that someone thinking abortion might be on the mind of another is a good person stopping a bad thing from happening. It is a bad person using the cops to pry.

And I have my regular day dreams where I wrestle whoever threatens to take my kid from me over some bogus charge. But see TomlinsonDouthat's comment below for a well reasoned explaination of why it is unreasonable to expect that equality for the unborn will lead to mass abuse of power.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

don't schools provide that kind of thing all the time? If you don't like it, fine. Scrap it. I don't know any prolifers that'll get crazy bent out of shape if we don't do that.

"you don't understand the militancy of some" I think I do, and I don't believe we have any crazies in the mainstream. At least no more than are also willing to lock themselves in a cabin and tell the "revenuers" to come at their own risk.

And to your answer of my question: if there is nothing wrong when there is evidense, then there is nothing more intrusive when there is evidense of an abortion. I don't think gut feelings by the neighbors count as evidense of an abortion any more than it did when we discussed child abuse. I'm not recommending any extra power to the govt. If the govt needs a warrant to investigate child abuse (something that sounds reasonable enough to me), then they need one to investigate abortion. There is nothing scary, chilling, or unreasonable about demanding due process, warrants, evidense, cause and everything else we require for every other crime investigation. The only real difference is it'd be a crime where as now it isn't considered one.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Yea. Answering the door to find two social workers coming to talk to me about abortion is not something I think is a good thing. Especially if I am impolite about their desires and where they can stick them. I am sure that will be sufficient probably cause at some point in the future.

I am not allowed to answer the door when there are J-dubs in the area. Victoria says I am too mean to them.

I'd like you to define what you think is 'evidence' of an abortion. A previously pregnant woman no longer pregnant? Is that sufficient probably cause?

Haven't you ever received a recommendation at the doctor's office? No one is suggesting making up anything that doesn't already exist.

I don't feel like defining evidense. I would prefer that states define it. If I define it, then the argument shifts away from equality under the law, to "Tom Adams idea of evidense is scary". Why don't you define it as you think it should be, and I'll tell you if I can compromise on it. I'm flexible.

When the neighbors notice that you are short one kid, is that evidense of abuse or murder? I doubt it. If that is your issue, advocate good laws that define evidense. Equality under the law has nothing to do with it.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

You are way better at this than I am.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

And thanks to everybody in this thread. I think that this has been a really useful discussion, and I know that my own thinking on these matters has been sharpened by it. I hope that others can say the same.

Anonymously calling the cops to tell them that a neighbor might have had or might be about to have an abortion would not engage the interest of law enforcement, because 1.) she would not have committed or would not be about to commit a prosecutable crime under the laws that pro-lifers are generally proposing

Would not the woman having an abortion be evidence of a clinic or doctor performing abortions - and even if the mother was not prosecutable, would not law enforcement be interested in WHERE she got an abortion?

This fear is not the same fear I have. I don't think the law as proposed would be left the way it is offered. Folks are often quick to quip that a slippery slope is possible when they don't like where that might lead, but there is a slippery slope that leads from where the pro-lifers think they can stand safely also.

My family uses Christ Hospital. My father is a regular customer. The issue is appalling. From what I have heard, the hospital is battening down the hatches...

Sorry. Despite the suggestions to the contrary, I am firmly convinced that 1) the mother will be prosecuted eventually and 2) accusations of imminent abortion will result in 'protective custody' in some cases.

Every part of this thread over the last 2 weeks has supported my convictions, not lessened them.

With respect to the question of whether or not the police would be interested in where our hypothetical neighbor allegedly got her abortion, I would hope that they would be interested. But what could they do about it in this particular case? They could, conceivably, knock on her door and ask her whether she had had an abortion. She would probably say no, even if she did. That would probably end it, since they don't have any more information on the matter. They wouldn't have any grounds to ask her where, and if they did, she'd still deny it.

Similarly, if an anonymous informant called the cops and said, "My neighbor smokes dope," and they went to the neighbor and asked him if he smoked dope, he would probably say that he didn't, even if he did. And so they wouldn't be able to use him to go after his dealer, which is who they're really interested in. Therefore, the cops probably just don't respond to calls, anonymous or otherwise, saying, "My neighbor smokes dope," or hypothetically, "My neighbor might have had an abortion."

With respect to the question of whether abortion laws will inevitably only pertain to abortionists and not to abortive mothers, I am agnostic. Pre-Roe, many states only had laws against the abortionist, but others did, in fact, have laws pertaining to the mothers. However, my understanding is that in the latter set of states, the mothers were not generally prosecuted, but rather offered immunity in exchange for their testimony against their abortionist. Likewise, I have read of a recent case in Great Britain where an abortive mother was prosecuted and convicted of having an illegal late-term abortion. However, my impression is that this is unusual there.

It's possible, then, that some sanctions might eventually be levied against abortive mothers. It would not be unprecedented, at least. But I think that this is unlikely, given the frequency with which American pro-lifers have insisted that this is not on their agenda.

But even if there are eventually sanctions against abortive mother, I think that we can be certain that prosecuting them would be a very low priority relative to prosecuting abortionists, just as prosecuting drug users is a low priority relative to prosecuting drug dealers. And just as drug users are often offered immunity in exchange for testimony against their dealers, I believe that, under these circumstances, abortive mothers would, as before, usually be offered immunity in exchange for testimony against their abortionists.

And with respect to "protective custody," this possibility is entirely new to me, though maybe I missed reference to it in the previous thread. I have never heard of any pro-lifer mentioning such a thing, and I cannot conceive of why they would.

Indeed, I find myself mulling over whether what you propose would be worse than what we have now.

But, surely, you realize that those who argue for a model based upon child protective services are not arguing for the model you argue here, correct?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Thank you, birdmojo, and likewise.

I've long lost track of who's arguing what, or even if they are. If somebody's arguing that point, then they can defend themselves, but I'm sure I would disagree with them on that. And if it turns out that there are significant numbers of pro-lifers who harbor this as a hidden agenda, I think that, beyond being politically impracticable, it would be absurd in practice. But I'll get into that in a comment above. (I'll title it UIPS.)

And thanks again, by the way, for your participation here. I know that it's tried the patience of a number of people, and perhaps yours as well, but I think it's brought up a number of important issues that it's in everybody's interest to understand better.

Massachusetts actually prosecuted a woman for taking it (under the crime of "inducing a miscarriage").

Gee, thanks for making my case. Eventually, actions reasonably considered to result in the spontaneous abortion (a miscarriage), will be prosecuted and the woman will be restricted from a whole host of activities shown to harm the unborn child.

But, to your point:

If you want to talk disingenuous, how do you respond to the many state laws that punish the killing of an unborn child the same as murder of the born except when done by a licensed doctor or the woman herself?

Let's see. The unborn was killed in the commission of a crime - other than the killing of the unborn? The unborn was viable and could not be saved? The unborn had an expectation of living that was interrupted by the illegal act of a third party?

I am glad however that you have clarified your point of view that abortion is murder. There was some question of that last week - or at least, my assumption that you held that view was questioned. Or am I just reading into the leading question a particular bias that doesn't really exist?

The Mass law is exactly what I would expect over large parts of the country should Roe be overturned and states begin outlawing abortions. The pregnant mother will become a slave to the needs of the child with the state enforcing those needs being met.

Actually, the Massachusetts law is a good example as to why a statute that exempts the pregnant woman from criminalization will resolve that problem. Such a statute could be written to contain any limitations on enforcement procedures and criminal penalties. This is a matter on which all major pro-life lobbying groups like NRLC, AUL, CWFA and their state affiliates have explicitly agreed upon. It is also a view which the opposition would never let slip by. Of course, if you are NARAL, you can lie and say there is no exception even when it's there in black and white, as they did recently in Wisconsin.

The only way your concern would then be realized is if enough people agreed that more was needed. And if you fear what the majority will someday favor, you may as well fear the sky will fall; because any law could come up at any time if there is enough similar support for it. This one is no different.

You are wrong about the state laws. The crime the unborn were killed in WAS none other the killing the unborn. The woman was not injured, and she had wanted an abortion. Her boyfriend gave her one, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Moreover, the laws apply from fertilization, not "viability."

"My" point of view that abortion is murder? Actually, I'm clarifying the point of view of the Texas legislature, the governor, and the Texas State Supreme Court. But more importantly, I am pointing out that murder can be more narrowly defined with various exemptions and exceptions.

That said, I believe there is a limit to the standard of care that can be expected from anyone who has not accepted responsibility for a child. If a child arrives on the doorstep of someone who has not agreed to take responsibility for the child, would you call the homeowner a "slave" to that child until someone else could come take responsibility? I see pregnancy as a similar situation. However, such a view is unfortunately in the minority, even among those who are pro-life.

but I'll be back to pick this up some time tomorrow. G'night!
"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

The National Right to Life is the largest and probably most influential pro-life group in the nation. Check out this article in response to that question posed by Newsweek's pro-abortion columnist Anna Quinlan. Note she was asking it of people outside abortion centers. So you can see their replies as well as NRLC's.

Referring to trigger laws to prohibit abortions that do not exempt women, the writer for NRLC says:

I am not aware of any, and certainly none that any prominent pro-life organization supports.

And of course, it sums up with this:

It replenishes their need to believe that pro-lifers are shallow and inconsistent people whose only real talent is veiling their secret vindictiveness.

I certainly agree that people's misperceptions regarding the unborn need to be changed, and that is what pro-life people are working on. Indeed, it's time for people to shake off their blinders and see the unborn for the full humans they really are.

Unlike others, I do believe that a change in the law would change some minds. You'd be surprised how many people defend their position on this with the statement, "it's legal." And polls left no doubt that the Roe ruling changed minds across the nation very drastically in very short order. Few people realize that it was and is all a pack of lies based on lies.

I also think the rejection of the practice by the medical community will likely cause women to feel differently. And I say that because the number who would resort to self-abortions would probably be less than one percent of those who would otherwise go to an abortion facility. Women don't want to knowingly risk their own lives, and I think it would become more apparent that they would be killing not only another human being but also their own child. The abortionists hide that reality since women don't want to see their baby being killed, much less be the one doing it.

That is why I think there ought to be an even bigger push to have the medical community reject abortion as a legitimate medical procedure. They are perverting their professions and their entire purpose for existing, and they should not be legally allowed to do that. Indeed we need more people picketing the AMA, the ACOG, and the nation's medical schools.

I could be wrong, and such changes may not influence women. Indeed they may be quickly repealed if they cause enough strong opposition. Even if they did change minds, whether those changes would produce a change in law in either direction is something no one can predict. However, if you want to make finality of the law a part of a legal compromise, then I think that could be included as well as could be done for any law.

ASSUMING that

senior citizens were not considered to have a legal right to life beyond a certain age and millions of them were being killed every year, what power would you be comfortable with giving govt to see that it stopped happening?

Lets see...in order for that situation, people will have to vote to deny the rights of the senior citizens. If a sufficient minority - because it would not be more than 50% of adults that vote in favor - accomplish such a law, then it would be LEGAL for them to be killed. This goes back to the My Rights thread where I was dismayed at the possibility that a majority of voters could reinstitute slavery if they wanted.

BUT, that is not what we are talking about

do you not consider the unborn to deserve the same rights as the elderly?

Grammar aside, the unborn do not deserve the same rights as the elderly, or the infirm, or the disabled...

OK?

A) No, it would not require even a large minority of the people. It would only need one jacked up court decision just as is the case now for the unborn.

B) If you think the unborn don't deserve the same rights, the why the heck are you fighting with me here? We were arguing in our emails about when they get the right. If you don't think they deserve the right (something I'm trying to determine with you where to draw the line), then the govt intrusion is a red herring. I don't want the govt to create a law that says grizzly bears are to be treated equally under the law, not because I fear govt intrusion but because it's a stupid law I disagree with. The govt intrusion is just extra scary. If you think they don't deserve to be protected, then stick to that. Leave the scary police state out of the argument because it just distracts me trying to come up with some kind of law that would be acceptable when no law is currenlty acceptable to you.

C) The good faith insult is BS. We have flat taxers and fair taxers in our movement. They don't want the same end, they just oppose what we have now. When one of the two wins, they will ditch the other. That ain't backstabbing, that's just a strategic political ally. (BTW, you could have a hot shower with all the hot water you need from a Rinnai tankless water heater...)

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I'm not moving the goals like you say. I'm arguing legal abortion|illegal abortion. I'm flexible in how we handle the illegality.

If I didn't think it was murder, I'd be full on in favor of the mom doing whatever she wants. I don't side logically with the "I oppose it as a method of birth control" crowd. They are convenient in that they don't completely oppose my position but they are devoid of any logic. This isn't like a "consequence of sex" argument. STD's might be considered a consequence of sex, but I'm not opposed to curing them (though I do know one weirdo who is). If you don't think it's a human life deserving of being protected, the only logical conclusion is that the mother must have the right to do whatever she wants with it. For the record, I'm in favor of a right to abort if a woman is somehow pregnant with puppies (gross as that example may be, it does explain my position).

And no I don't see a harmless investigation. I see 1 million+ executions a year of a class of people I consider deserving of a right to life. I'm willing to risk the exceptionally remote possibility that someone might abuse their power just as I'm willing to keep the LAPD around for the greater good even if they do screw up every once in a while. You don't think they deserve the right, then fine, I look crazy. But I think they do, so you must look equally absurd from my perspective based on our premises.

There are 13 other HLAs. I'd suggest that you check them all out at wikipedia, but it wouldn't do much if you didn't accept that the unborn deserve a right to live...

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

B) If you think the unborn don't deserve the same rights, the why the heck are you fighting with me here? We were arguing in our emails about when they get the right.

Because I didn't say they didn't deserve SOME rights, just not equal rights. AND saying they deserve does not mean that the rights are inherent, unalienable.

This whole thread began on the opening statements: are social conservatives absolutists? My point, taken to task for, was, yes, they are. Their offer of compromise is a bargaining tactic, it is not the end point. Everything that has followed in this discussion confirms that.

See, my problem is that when I think compromise, that is a solution to the issue. So when I stand for no abortion in the third, freely available in the first, issues in the second, that is the point to which I am fully committed to reach AND no further. Your point (and mine) is that such a compromise is only temporary to get past the freely available abortion status quo we have now and get moving toward the real goal of eliminating abortions all together. I am not going there, and if the compromise is simply a tool to try and get me there, I am not interested. EVEN if the compromise results in MY goal, because you will use it against me and continue to push the matter. A compromise that results in no solution is not a compromise, it's a negotiation tactic.

I get the political expediency angle. I just have a problem negotiating over the table with someone that thinks I am an evil murderer, or at least someone willing to HELP an evil murderer.

We were arguing in our emails about when they get the right

We are arguing when rights attach. I got the impression you might be considering my position, apparently not. THAT'S FINE! Really.

C) The good faith insult is BS. We have flat taxers and fair taxers in our movement. They don't want the same end, they just oppose what we have now.

But do you have any that just want to abolish the income tax all together? Or would they settle on either a flat tax or fair tax and be content with the middle ground? The income tax issue is not an either or issue. Income tax is going to stay, only the form is in play (except for the loons).

"The child has all the rights at conception, any abortion is a bad abortion." Any political compromise is a calculation to reach that point. What can you offer me to move me off the status quo? Because if I move, the argument doesn't end, even if I move 100% of the distance I am willing to.

Our host does not believe laws would be put on the books to reach the point I fear they will. That might be true, but I see Family Services make parents jump through hoops to get their kids back, hoops that are illegal IF they were on the books to begin with. I have seen Family Services demand a couple stop smoking and drinking (and require tests to prove it) in order to get kids back.

A mother under suspicion of considering an abortion will remain under suspicion during the entire pregnancy. Enforcement does stop because someone says they are not doing something illegal. Proof will be demanded.

My argument here has always been the same: rights attach at viability - up til then, abortion is legal and available. The pro-life movement is absolutist (if the participants here are any indication) and even if they were willing to offer a compromise, it is only a tactic to get to their end game.

I understand you think that is compromise and good faith - because everyone knows the real goal. It is because everyone knows it is the real goal, that there is no compromise. And that, is a terrible waste.

Come now, in other contexts you make sound principles arguments about how if a right exists, infringement of that right is illegitimate.

Would you prefer to deal with someone willing to compromise on abortion even though they believe that the unborn are entitled to equal and inalienable rights under the law?

I am much more comfortable with people who just don't think the unborn are entitled to human rights than those who acknowledge the existence of such rights and just compromise them away.

Some things shouldn't be subject to compromise. For example, slavery.

? My french is not so good.

Come now, in other contexts you make sound principles arguments about how if a right exists, infringement of that right is illegitimate.

I say that in society we give up some of the ability to freely express our rights. The right exists - the state can and does infringe upon them. And I both accept and agree with it - which gets me tossed from the libertarian cookouts.

My argument here is that the rights don't exist until we have a viable individual. Up to then, there are no rights to infringe upon.

Would you prefer to deal with someone willing to compromise on abortion even though they believe that the unborn are entitled to equal and inalienable rights under the law?

I am standing in the middle. Here, we have the anti-abortion at all costs group, over there, the abortion at all costs group. I have a middle position. I can offer it as an inducement to the pro-abortion group, but meanwhile all my associates are standing at my back yelling murderers! Not helpful.

(I've tried to avoid this word because NO MATTER how much I qualify it, it is 'just wrong') Moderates can't move things along because the absolutists on both sides don't trust each other. And, the pro-life don't really trust the moderates because we - willingly support the murder of the unborn - and the pro-abortion don't trust us because we - think the unborn get rights superior to the mother.

I think it is a waste because we might be able to cut abortions by as much as half or more, but the compromise is to leave abortion on the table for all practical purposes, forever. And, that is not acceptable to the pro-life movement.

It is an all or nothing position. The status quo.

It all depends on when you attach the right to life. You and I currently disagree on it. So let's work on that, until then, you shouldn't be offended that I call it murder because that is just the logical result of my premises. You should think me spineless if I said otherwise.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

It all depends on when you attach the right to life.

So, your position is that it is possible that it might not be murder at 4 weeks, but it absolutely is at 22 weeks? I don't think you are saying that at all.

I think you believe that it is murder if the mother takes any action with the intention of terminating the pregnancy at any point after conception. What is there to negotiate from your point of view? I see nothing.

just like in our emails back and forth, we talk about a benchmark when we will protect them. You said something like 18-21 weeks, so you agreed (it seemed) that from 21 weeks at the latest forward, it would be considered murder. I'm hagling over the time period and requesting an objective, verifiable/testable difference to distinguish the baby from one stage to another (like brain activity). When we can settle on/compomise/agree to "what makes a human worthy of equal protection under the law", then we will have determined from what point forward we consider it murder, and from what point back we don't. I'm flexible and open. Currently I'm not convinced though that is shouldn't be conception. Hence our emails.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

You said something like 18-21 weeks, so you agreed (it seemed) that from 21 weeks at the latest forward, it would be considered murder.

Frankly, no. I would consider it illegal if the law outlawed abortion.

When we can settle on/compomise/agree to "what makes a human worthy of equal protection under the law", then we will have determined from what point forward we consider it murder, and from what point back we don't.

Worthy? I am not negotiating worth? Is your position that on Thursday it is not murder, but on Friday it is? Or are you suggesting that is MY position?

I can't imagine that you will ever be swayed to consider the situation to be a rights' based issue.

you just choose to use other words than I do.

We both know my position is quite clear that I do not support it being murder on thursday but not on wednesday, hence my objection to an arbitrary measurement like time. Time was your recommendation. In my view, legality doesn't change Truth. If the only difference between a murder is a day and everything else is equal, the legality of it has nothing to do with it. It'd still be murder. I believe anything we define in Truth as being murder should be illegal, not the other way around.

I do consider it a rights based issue, but we know that I do not subscribe to your theory of rights.

Frankly I'm quite happy with our discussion as we have been able to work it down to our basic premises and not get caught up hiding behind complexities to mask what we really think. I think your views are mostly (all?) reasonable based on your premises. I'd hope that you thought my conclusions are (or I hope that I am) reasonable based on my premises.

If we want to sway each other one way or another, we are going to have to keep hammering on each of our beliefs on rights and protection of life vs liberty. It makes little sense for me to hold to the premise that the equal protection of life at all stages trumps the protection of liberty at any stage, and you to hold to the premise that rights like life are recognised at different stages and therefore liberty can trump an unrecognised right to life, and then for us to scream at each other over what is or is not a police state. We need to come to an agreement on premises or the argument makes no sense.

Like I said, I've really enjoyed our discussion on the matter. You are one of a very few who disagrees with me on the matter and hasn't called me a sexist nazi oppressor of women (or something similar). I like your well reasoned approach. :) You've certainly made me adjust and rethink my views like most of the good ones on RedState.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

On the issue of slavery, the center of the country embraced the Missouri compromise. We compromised on slavery for almost 100 years. Some just wanted to stop its expansion, while others where abolitionists. Some times those two forces were in conflict, but more often they were not.

The idea that compromise now is impossible because moderates are scared by a slipperly slope and are only willing to go so far is empirically false. See the slavery example above.

If 70% of the country wants 2nd and 3rd term abortions eliminated, I don't see how concerns about 1st term abortions stops that compromise. The only thing stopping a compromise is Roe v. Wade.

Its not all or nothing, its something now, more later, and at some point, my side won't have the juice to get any more.

The slippery slope argument is not very convincing on the pro-choice side. Certain legal principles, such as the right to take a life to preserve your own life, are well established.

The idea that extreme pro-lifers will somehow gain "juice" once they get a little bit of their way doesn't make sense to me. (Though I did get a chill when I read TomlinsonDouthat's linking things concepts like UIPS to liberal facism.... darn do-gooders).

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Come now, in other contexts you make sound principles arguments about how if a right exists, infringement of that right is illegitimate.

Would you prefer to deal with someone willing to compromise on abortion even though they believe that the unborn are entitled to equal and inalienable rights under the law?

I am much more comfortable with people who just don't think the unborn are entitled to human rights than those who acknowledge the existence of such rights and just compromise them away.

Some things shouldn't be subject to compromise. For example, slavery.

This most recent thread that I re-fired back up was not about pro-lifers being absolutists but about the police state scares. You carried the "not a compromise but a tactic" stuff into it. I'm just trying to separate out the mixed up priorities issue now.

and I am willing to be converted on when rights attach, but I need to be convinced first why they should attach between conception and birth or later. I'm not as closed minded as you imply.

We do have some that do want to abolish the income tax all together, fair taxers (aka sales taxers). Perhaps you meant all taxes instead of income taxes. Most of the "no taxers" are loons, but I might be open to a discussion about how the feds should not get their revenue directly from the people but rather through the states.

The whole issue illustates the orginal point of the post though. Many pro-lifers, myself included are open to many options different from the status quo. We are not open to all options, but apparantly enough to scare some. We have an ideal we strive for, but we also realise that it is unrealistic to demmand it all up front, and we also realise that the complete ideal may never be reached. All of us are willing to give up some practical but easily abused means of enforcement, especially if it is applied equally to all peoples. What is also apparanet is that more of those who oppose pro-lifers than support them are absolutists who demmand that the status quo not be changed in favor of the unborn. They think any compromise with pro-lifers is a "slippery slope", and they don't propose a means to protect their other priorities while respecting the pro-lifer's. Pro-lifers are flexible, not stubborn, single-issue voters types as they are frequently accused of.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I don't think you'll find any compromise on a "viability" standard, much the same way you won't get any on a broadly defined or subjective "health" exception.

However, I do think you would find a majority of pro-life people who would be more than willing to come to a FINAL compromise regarding various exceptions, limits on enforcement, and not prosecuting or investigating women. You simply make finality a part of the compromise. Of course about as final as you could get in our system of government would be a constitutional amendment. So if that isn't enough, there really is not much more to be said.

The idea of SCPS does not scare me, for the record.

Do we need to hammer out exactly how hypocritical I am because I think that senior citizens are different from 6-week old fetuses or are we good?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

I'm so lost now.

You are against current CPS powers? But you are not against theoretical SCPS powers? And you are against theoretical UIPS powers?

Can we cut to the chase here? I think I know where this is going, but correct me if I'm wrong: Regardless of what power it would take to protect them, you don't think the unborn deserve the same right to life that the born do? Right?

You say six weeks to imply some kind of absurdity. Just cut to the part where you tell me when they deserve to be treated equally regardless of what the practical requirements of law enforcement are.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

SCPS is also known, to the best of my knowledge, as "The Local Police".

I have no problem with a guy calling the cops and saying "I just got hit in the head by a guy who wanted my wallet" and the cops showing up and questioning the guy with a sap in his hand.

My problem is when people anonymously call CPS (or the theoretical UIPS) and say "my neighbor needs some heavy investigation" and the government office (with the unofficial secondary objective of proving to the public that it needs even more funding) shows up at your door.

When an old man calls the cops? That's what the cops are for. That's what the government, for that matter is for.

When I call the government and say "I suspect my neighbor of being pregnant", the government should *NOT* send a car over to make sure that everything works out.

I can't believe that I'm having to post this.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

because you love to alternate between real examples when they help your argument (bringing the real police into it) and fictitious examples (UIPC forcing women to pee in cups) when they hurt my argument.

Stick to the princples:
-If the elderly needed a special dept with similar powers to protect them as the CPS, would you be in favor of it?

-You mock my belief that a 6-week fetus deserves the same legal protection as the senior citizen. Tell me when you think it deserves the same legal protection.

-so if a fetus could call the cops, would everything work out for you? Or since you'll claim that's absurd, if the old man can't call the cops, will you say he doesn't deserve legal protection?

Stick to the principles. Arguing the practical details means little if the principles disagree. If we come to an agreement on practical details but disagree on the principles, it is more than likely just coincidence.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Fully Grown Folk have protective services already. Heck, some people believe that they should be allowed to own guns in order to defend themselves against bad folk!

When it comes to issues of children, however, the dynamic changes. Children cannot defend themselves against grown folk, for the most part, and they can't go out and buy a gun... so, in that, there is a significant difference.

Heck, even if they live in DC, they could still say "look, I am in fear for my life, I need a cop over here".

Children, understand, cannot do this. But in the case of, say, a six year old with bruises, a teacher/neighbor can call and say "I see bruises on the next door kid above and beyond normal wear and tear that little kids get having jumping down the stairs contests or what have you." Then you can have someone come over and ask the parent "Can I see the kid?"

The kid comes out. The bruises are checked.

Which brings us to the 6-week old pregnant lady.

The government shows up and says "Can I see the kid?"

And now I ask you: What does this entail?

Do we need to dig even deeper into the differences or are we good?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

I just want you to confirm or deny that you don't think that a fetus (at some stage) doesn't deserve the right to life like the rest of us do. You dance around the issue with what kind of abuses of power might occur, but I can't determine for certain where you stand on equality.

Just take a stand for the love of Pete like Tracy did. She picked viability. What do you pick?

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

That's what we're dealing with now. Does a Fetus have a right to life? Of course it does! Of course it does!

Now I'll ask if you have the right to go up to your neighbor's door and ask the young lady who answers the doorbell if she is pregnant... I suppose you have the right to ask. And if she pulls a piece and tells you to get the heck off of her property?

Here's where the rubber meets the road for me: If *YOU* don't have the right to press the issue over whether the chick next door is pregnant... where do you think The State gets the right to do so?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

I really couldn't tell that you thought that way seriously based on your concerns.

For me it does not first come down to whether the state has the right to do anything. It first comes down to what actions should and should not be illegal. After that we should iron out if there is a practical way to enforce our standards without worse consequences. After all any amount of power can be abused by a govt, yet we don't want to live with the alternative which is anarchy. So we of course decide what we must have and then we try to come up with the most limited/practical/safest way to accomplish it.

If we decide, yes it should be illegal, which it looks like you actually agree we me on, then we have to figure out how we do that without leading to a worse situation.

We protect life over liberty in law with things like Martial Law, yelling fire in a crowded theater laws, etc... Now of course we limit the power of the state to protect the lives of its citizens when the powers become unreasonable, like we justly reject any law that outlaws fatty foods. Now on the other hand if you accept that I can equate a child one day away from birth with one born, and you then accept I can just as easily equate them to anyone else and so for the ease of illustration I'll just substitute for some other demographic of people like hispanics that makes the issue clearer (but still requires you accepted the prior premises). So following that (please feel free to knock out anything there if you think I did something illogical), if I told you that it was legal to kill hispanics and that 1+ million were being "murdered" a year and the govt wasn't doing anything to stop it, you too might be in favor of something drastic like martial law over the status quo. But by all means if we can find a way that doesn't go out of control infringing on liberty, then let's do that. Whatever it is though, the priority (assuming we agreed on all the previous premises that life is more important than liberty, that the unborn have an equal claim to life as everyone else, etc) has to be to reduce the 1+ million "murders" a year to a much more reasonable number* at which point we could then balance life and liberty.

What of my premises do you disagree with?

(dang, this one was long winded... but I just didn't want to leave my premises unconvered)

*like, I don't know, +/- 5% of the average murder rate of any demographic? I don't know. I open to suggestions on what "reasonable" is.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

"For me it does not first come down to whether the state has the right to do anything. It first comes down to what actions should and should not be illegal."

See, when I think of the word "illegal", I think "the state has the right to send men with guns to your house, point said guns at your head, and have these men tell you to come with them to the police station."

What does illegal mean to you if it does not mean this?

Is it some variant of just officially getting it out there that we, as a society, disapprove of this particular action?

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

I have been ticketed for speeding. I got a ticket. I was out of the state on Marine training at the time when I wanted to contest the ticket. The state of WV put out a warrant for my arrest. When I got back, I showed up to court and paid a reduced ticket after I pled my case, and no arrest was ever made. There is a range in escaltion of enforcement. Even the most minor of laws like jay walking can result in "men with guns" making you do something, but there is no reason to treat everything you know should be illegal (keying peoples' cars, beating someone elses' dog, beating your own dog, riding the metra without paying, etc...) as though it will result in a police state if someone innocent little mother wants to break any one of those laws.

So what does illegal mean? It means you are not allowed by law do that, and if you get caught there will legal repurcutions. If you resist the legal repurcutions long enough and hard enough, you may escalate the methods of enforcement all the way up to a full fledged military stand off. But that is up to you, and that applies to every law, so nit-picking any single law over the fear of a use of force is illogical since every law has that threat if you fight it hard enough.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

When you were in your car, breaking the law, in a public place, on public roads, where a policeman was sitting with a radar gun.

So, to extend your analogy... what could the state do with regards to young women getting pregnant?

"But that is up to you, and that applies to every law, so nit-picking any single law over the fear of a use of force is illogical since every law has that threat if you fight it hard enough."

I don't think you appreciate how crazy Libertarians really are, deep down.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Maybe I din't appreciate that enough :)

Let me turn your question around on you though: if the woman had her abortion breaking some anti-abortion law in plane view of a cop on a public road, what would you do with the young woman?

Public has nothing to do with it. That's simply a matter of enforcement. If I sped on a private road where it was illegal to speed and no one was around to catch me, I still would have broke the law. Sure you can argue how you don't want the cops to have a way to catch me under those conditions, then fine. Go ahead and argue how you don't want the cops to have a way to enforce some laws under such circumstances. That still doesn't take away from a logical argument claiming the action should be illegal.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

then I have to get the heck off her property.

I don't think the state should necessarily be able to do much more. I don't think they should be able to search her car without good cause, I don't think they should be able to search her house without a warrant, etc... Whatever my opinion is on enforcement though, I also think that the legality shouldn't depend on the method of enforcement unless all practical methods to enforcement have been exhausted and none are found acceptable. There can be good ways and bad ways to enforce the same law, and I'm open to suggestions on how to enforce that law better.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

"I also think that the legality shouldn't depend on the method of enforcement unless all practical methods to enforcement have been exhausted and none are found acceptable."

This is why Prohibition, for example, was a bad law.

This is also why I oppose the War On Drugs.

When the enforcement of the laws create greater injustice than what would happen if the laws were not enforced... well, the law is a bad law and we ought not have it.

And when folks say that we need to use CPS as a template for preventing abortion, then I immediately say "that would be an awful, awful law".

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

against selling drugs to children? Personally, I think that would be a greater injustice than the law against it.

Night Twister • Veterans For McCain

But I also oppose the idea that a dad giving his 16-year old kis a beer when they're out camping constitutes child abuse.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty:

There is, in fact, no recognized principle by which the propriety or impropriety of government interference is customarily tested. People decide according to their personal preferences. Some, whenever they see any good to be done, or evil to be remedied, would willingly instigate the government to undertake the business; while others prefer to bear almost any amount of social evil, rather than add one to the departments of human interests amenable to governmental control. And men range themselves on one or the other side in any particular case, according to this general direction of their sentiments; or according to the degree of interest which they feel in the particular thing which it is proposed that the government should do; or according to the belief they entertain that the government would, or would not, do it in the manner they prefer; but very rarely on account of any opinion to which they consistently adhere, as to what things are fit to be done by a government. And it seems to me that, in consequence of this absence of rule or principle, one side is at present as often wrong as the other; the interference of government is, with about equal frequency, improperly invoked and improperly condemned.

I am a poor wordsmith, please forgive my constant referral to someone I consider much more qualified than I.

It would appear to me that Mill just said that both of us are probably wrong.... Or maybe I'm not reading him right.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

A point Mill makes, and actually birdmojo does also (and I agree with both) is that often the question is not how much government involvement is appropriate, but whether government involvement is appropriate AT ALL.

So, when government is used by either side, it is often an inappropriate use - not just an overstep/understep.

Do you hold the position that the mother should not be punished? Do you hold the position that all means (doctors, RU-486) should be outlawed, but the mother, if she could self abort, be left alone?

If so, are you not stating that the mother has a right to self abort?

just in the opposite direction leaning towards anarchy. I've seen it argued plenty here before that the lower levels of govt shouldn't be able to do things like enforce local liquor laws based on the local culture. I'm all in favor of denying the feds that authority since it is completely innapropriate at their level of power. But the same "it's not appropriate" argument can be just as wrong and more frequently is when arguing with libertarians about local govt.

My position on the mother's punishment is largely irrelevant. I've stated before that I'm very flexible on the matter. I also think that it should be a local (state?) issue as to what the level of punishement is if any. I've been convinced of a lot of things in the last several years (except to change from conception to some other benchmark to recognise the right to life at), and in my experience (as I've told qlangley here before) is that people generally only ask me what I think about how the mother should be punished when they already disagree with the rest of the argument. I find it distracting usually. You can see Slick Willy pull it off back when I posted this.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

you brought my CPS example up without supplying an alternate solution almost as if you mean to say "there are no other ways to enforce it, so therefore it should no be law".

Prohibition was wrong not because the enforcement was unjust. It was wrong because it was an overstepping of their authority and the law was unjust prior to enforcement even being discussed. If enforcement of murder was "unjust" in your opinion, it wouldn't mean that murder should suddenly be legal, only that the method of enforcement might need to be changed.

Your War on Drugs arguments don't often pertain to justice. Usually your arguments have to do with cost.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

I'm saying "The Status Quo is good enough for me, thanks".

When the CPS example came up, I said "Nope, the Status Quo is good enough for me, thanks".

Now, when you complain about me not providing an alternate solution, let me say again: The Status Quo is good enough for me, thanks.

If you'd like, we could go back to asking questions about what type of person I'd have to be to prefer the status quo to giving the government more power and stop talking about alternate solutions entirely.

"Your War on Drugs arguments don't often pertain to justice. Usually your arguments have to do with cost."

When I argue against Fiscal Conservatives, my arguments have to deal with cost. When I argue against Hawkish Conservatives, my arguments have to deal with The War On Terror and drug money going to the Taleban or HAMAS or whomever rather than to Bayer. When I argue against Social Conservatives, my arguments have to do with Justice. When I argue against Historians, my arguments have to do with Prohibition in the 1920s and 30s. When I argue against people who have read the Constitution, my arguments have to do with the 18th and 21st Amendments.

When I went to the Democratic Caucus and suggested a resolution to remove the war on drugs, everyone else in the room started howling about The Children, and how we should at least be able to invade Nicaragua to fight the drug war down there, and how it was bad how the hammer of the law comes down heaviest upon minorities, it was still better than giving up.

I've got to say that I didn't have that many arguments against people who believe that if only they, and people like them, had enough centralized power that we'd finally be able to immanentize the eschaton.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

previously you have stated that you are in favor of outlawing 3rd trimester abortions and put limits or rules on 2nd timester abortions. Those statements indicate a desire to change the status quo. If you really thought that abortion was a really wrong thing related to killing and not just some sexual taboo like when some people make such spineless claims as "Well, I don't think it should be used for birth control", then you really would want to change the status quo.

You cloud the issue by trying to avoid the basic premises of these arguments.

I'll lay mine out to show you how I can logically conclude that abortion MUST be outlawed and that enforcement is beside the point as long as there is some acceptable form of enforcement.

Premise 1: The govt's primary job is to protect the lives of the citizens. It's secondary job is to protect the liberties. No life, no liberty.

Premise 2: A govt must treat those under its care equally. Do I really have to expand on that?

Premise 3: The right to life must be applied in an objective way and not on an arbitrary scale. For instance, if you are going to execute someone, you must find them objectively/fundamentally different from those you would not execute (ie. the committed an act that the non-executies didn't).

Premise 4: There is nothing fundamentaly or objectively different between a baby 1 day out of the womb and a baby still in the womb. Until a fundamental or objective difference can be determined that would justify saying "They are not human", we must err on the side of caution and declare that they are human all the way back to conception. We all agree that they are definitely, objectively and fundamentally different from us humans prior to conception, so that is fine to stop there.

Which of these premises do you disagree with? Most of them? You can't claim to agree with them all and still say "status quo is better". That'd be absurd.

Nice use of eschaton. You don't really use that in conversation do you?

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

The idea in my head when I say "abortion should be illegal" is more of the idea that this is something that the society, as a whole, says is morally wrong (AND SO SAY WE ALL!) and it is difficult to find a doctor who will entertain the idea of performing such an act without a diagnosis of how the mother's life would be in danger... but I also know that there will be doctors who will be willing to say "oh, yeah, the mother's life would have been in danger!" even though another doctor may have come to a completely different diagnosis. The focus would be on society saying "AND SO SAY WE ALL!" and not on the law enforcement portion. (To be honest, I would see law enforcement bringing such a case to trial in the same light as I saw law enforcement in the case that took Lawrence v. Texas all the way up to the Supreme Court... namely, did you *WANT* this law overturned to the point where no law like it would remain on the books as well???)

Anyway, I think that the laws would remain on the books so long as enforcement was, at best, lax. "And So Say We All!"

I suppose you might argue that that is hypocritical and it would be better to not have a law than to have one that isn't enforced (or that a Libertarian, anyway, should think so).

I think that the issue of abortion is an awful one and not one that law enforcement can fix. If anything, law enforcement will result in laws being overthrown. For example: Roe v. Wade.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

I prefer a law that is uniformly enforced just so those who do get caught aren't the "unlucky ones" or the ones who just didn't have enough friends in high places. Sure I would prefer it be enforced, but I don't expect that each case be caught or that there even be a way to determine 100% of the time if the law had been broken. I'm willing to sacrifice enforcement powers when they become too overberring.

You and I had this discussion before here, I just forgot about it.

As far as I can tell you and I aren't on the same page when we say it is "wrong". I say it is wrong like killing a 20 year old is wrong (or perhaps a little worse when you take into account the defenselessness). You say it's wrong, but you mean some kind of moral belief that you can't force on other people. Or so that is how you make it seem.

Based on our conversations here and back there, I don't see the point in arguing enforcement with you because no amount of enforcement or non-enforcement appears to be acceptable to you. For you it seems that there is a fundamental problem with the law let alone the enforcement. You and I really should try to hammer that out before we get into the enforcement.

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"

Stick to the princples:
-If the elderly needed a special dept with similar powers to protect them as the CPS, would you be in favor of it?

Beyond the idea that it already exists - I have no problem with nursing home police checking on accusations of mal-treatment of seniors.

-You mock my belief that a 6-week fetus deserves the same legal protection as the senior citizen. Tell me when you think it deserves the same legal protection.

I leave birdmojo to answer an intention of mocking - I have not seen it - but to your point. A 6-week old, or 1 day, or not-yet-viable fetus does not deserve the same legal protection as an individual born human being does, senior or otherwise.

-so if a fetus could call the cops, would everything work out for you? Or since you'll claim that's absurd, if the old man can't call the cops, will you say he doesn't deserve legal protection?

This attempt to equate a disabled individual born human with a child in the womb is repeated over and over again and because it is, it is clear that my comment that the two are not the same is either ignored or beyond comprehension.

A child with CP and Tiger Woods are not equal. We expect that under the law they be treated equally, we also expect that at all levels of society, the child with CP will be treated differently than Tiger. Do they have the same rights? Yes. A child in the womb is not equal to a born human. YOU expect that under the law they be treated equally. Do they have the same rights? No.

Menlo has already clearly stated that viability as basis for compromise is a non-starter. I appreciate that. If you and Tom have the same position, I appreciate that also. As my position is fundamentally based on viability, there is no room for any negotiation between us.

The only outstanding question is whether there is ANY compromise available to society in general, and those of us here on RS in particular on the abortion issue? Tom argues and JS suggests, that the pro-life movement would be open to a compromise if we could move off of Roe. As I think Roe was decided wrongly (it interfered in a states issue - I think privacy is an unenumerated right and on that basis the decision, a right to privacy portion, was decided correctly) and it should be sent back to the states. That is a place we can agree on (and it is the position that I espouse in general). From there, arguments of rights in a state arena would come back to viability on my part and right to life attachment at conception.

(Tom try not to answer this!)

I am asking this from my point of view that rights exist inherently, but the free expression can and is often infringed.

To anyone that believes rights attach at conception, do you believe all rights attach, or a limited few?

It's kind of confusing because it would seem ANY compromise on ANY law would be subject to further expansion and/or contraction. So what mechanism do you propose to prevent future expansion or broadening of a law?

Anyway, the unborn cannot have all the rights of the born, just as illegals don't have all the rights of legal citizens and children don't have all the rights of adults. So if you limit it to the right to life, then that is something all living humans should have. However, that right can be limited when it interferes with another's rights. Those limitations and the interferences warranting them can be divisive and difficult to resolve. This is one defense against prosecution of women.

Legally, I certainly do not think we should ever be able to get to the point where a pregnant woman has any more responsibility to the child than to a newborn left on her doorstep without her consent or knowledge. This would preclude someone from butchering the child to death or poisoning the child simply out of psychological or emotional despair or discomfort. However, it would not preclude other actions that could endanger the child's life. By that standard, there are only two actions of a pregnant women that could pose what I would consider a prosecutable danger to the child are already prosecutable for women who are not pregnant. That is the smuggling in of mifepristone or the endangerment of one's own life. The state can institutionalize any individual deemed a threat to his or her own life, which is probably the exact same punishment the woman would end up getting for posing the same danger to her born child.

So in practice, the only change I would propose to the status quo is against doctors. And there is a second reason to support such a change among those who do not accept an equal protection. That is its perversion to the medical profession, something very real and very serious that should concern everyone using it.

As important as a right to life, there must be an unquestionable right for the child to be free of needlessly inflicted torture and pain. This is why there can be no compromise on most standard second trimester "abortions." Again, women who do such things to their born children are not charged with murder but insanity. It certainly has no place in any legitimate medical practice.

Even if the unborn were given equal rights in the law, I believe competing rights would need to be balanced in a reasonable and fair manner. To achieve that balance in the unique sitation of pregnancy, it would be reasonable to apply a standard that may not parallel any for the born.

has already been explored extensively elsewhere.

Anyway, the unborn cannot have all the rights of the born, just as illegals don't have all the rights of legal citizens and children don't have all the rights of adults. So if you limit it to the right to life, then that is something all living humans should have. However, that right can be limited when it interferes with another's rights. Those limitations and the interferences warranting them can be divisive and difficult to resolve. This is one defense against prosecution of women.

I have argued that rights are inherent, we are endowed by the Creator. The rights exist from the point of individual life - born. Every right. Obviously a child 1 day old can not freely express those rights because s/he is not capable of doing so at that time but also because we limit that freedom in most cases - a child must attain 18 before voting. The right to vote exists, freedom to express it is time limited. So, for me, those rights are not withheld, they are infringed/limited. This is the basis for me wondering why anyone would use a disable person or someone in a coma and equate that to a child in the womb. The person born has all rights, period. [note: a previous comment clarified that McCain was born with the right to be President, Arnold was not.]

I think we got into the issue that limiting a necessary liberty can infringe illegally on a numerated right. Specifically, outlawing ammunition but allowing guns is inconsistent. One without the other is useless.

So in practice, the only change I would propose to the status quo is against doctors.

If you outlaw all means of having an abortion, you have outlawed abortion. Just stand for outlawing abortion and be done with it.

I still don't understand the desire to protect the mother from prosecution.

Legally, I certainly do not think we should ever be able to get to the point where a pregnant woman has any more responsibility to the child than to a newborn left on her doorstep without her consent or knowledge.

Except the mother must provide all the necessary functions of life to the child including modifying her own behaviors to account for the child. A newborn left on her stoop can be brought in, the police called and the child removed in a matter of minutes, an hour at most. A pregnant woman must 'care' for the child for 9 months, even if she didn't want to, making abortion illegal demands such.

I gather you support punishing the mother if she acts unilaterally? Isn't seeking an abortion a unilateral action against the child?

Even if the unborn were given equal rights in the law, I believe competing rights would need to be balanced in a reasonable and fair manner.

There is only one set of competing rights - the mothers. Forcing the mother to continue a pregnancy she does not want (by eliminating the right to an abortion) infringes on her liberty. She can not be a little bit pregnant. I can not conceive of a manner that is balanced, reasonable or fair. The mother's rights exist, the child's do not.

You are using your own value judgment to argue one needs to be born to have any rights. That is not a statement of fact. You can compare the born and the unborn because they are complete and distinct living humans. You form your opinion on the notion that the unborn are somehow of less value and are less human than the born, an assumption that is factually incorrect and outdated.

Of course none of your arguments about rights make any sense if you believe rights come from a "Creator" but then don't believe in a Creator. In any case, we know that no one is created at birth. Biologically individual humans are created at fertilization.

No, a woman does not "have to" provide the functions of life for the child any more than anyone "has to" digest the food he or she might have eaten. She should have no legal obligation to do anything she would not do if she were not pregnant.

To equate being pregnant to caring for a child is totally unreasonable and beyond bizarre. The law should make no demands of a pregnant woman it would not make of a non-pregnant woman. Similarly, it should make no demands of someone who has not accepted responsibility for a born child on his or her doorstep until help can arrive. If that lack of action results in the child's death, that is unfortunate; but it is not (or should not be) a legal obligation. One cannot, however, beat, butcher, or poison such a child to death.

So given the limited means of self-aborting, any punishment for a woman for acting on her own would apply whether she were pregnant or not. There is no need for any additional or more restrictive laws that would do nothing but prompt stronger and more intrusive enforcement. And I believe that would be wrong given a reasonable balance of rights (remember I said the unborn should have a right to life). It is that same balance that leads me to oppose prosecution for women. To that end, simply seeking an abortion would not only not kill the child but would, in my view, violate that balance.

You cannot simply argue only the woman has rights and the unborn child has none after I explicitly stated the clause "if the unborn were given equal rights." The key there is "were given." So you have to assume, for the sake of this argument, that they are to be treated as though they do. Of course you also have to realize that I said earlier the unborn should have a right to life. Where do you think the "right to life" descriptor came from? So the balance I speak of is how I justify the inaction against the women. It is also why I would argue it would be proper to stretch that 5 minutes to get someone to care for the child to 9 months without adding requirements to account for the time.

Of course, you have no coherent basis for your notion of rights so you really are not capable of making any sensible arguments here.

Of course, you have no coherent basis for your notion of rights so you really are not capable of making any sensible arguments here.

I am not certain why this concept is difficult to understand, but I will try to keep it as simple as possible:

Once upon a time a child was born on a deserted island. Ignoring the unrealistic nature of such a birth, the child grows up. During all this time, the child may do whatever she wants, limited only by her imagination, capabilities and the resources at hand. She has every possible, absolute right, and absolute freedom to express those rights. There is no morality, no society, no law. She learns what is harmful to her and avoids those things. She learns what things are enjoyable even if they do not improve her survivability. She is content. And then...another appears. This other, a boy for the convenience of this discussion because she has no word for it, makes certain agreements to limit his foraging to certain areas, and further to leave her alone as much as possible. Now we have a society and rules. One might suggest a morality. If more come, the rules are expanded to deal with them, but the original agreements between the two, form the basis for all that follow. Each additional person and need limits our bonny lass more and more. But peace reigns.

So, back in 1958, Tracy was born. With all those absolute rights tucked in the pretty diaper. Only her abilities, imagination and resources limit her future - that and a society of laws. In the most primitive manner, her Creator was Mom and Dad. Each and every one of us was created the same way.

You may have a different set of beliefs upon which you rest your certainty that you have rights. I hope they suffice. Because if they come from your God, and 12 guys with big bats and a mean streak move into your community don't believe in your God? And if the system of laws you have supported and claim are based on your God, and the 12 guys start making the rules according to 12guywithbat. Well, not much you can do about that.

I will address the rest, incoherent that I might be, momentarily.

So one's parents endow him or her with his or her rights? That's a new one.

It's still inconsistent that since the child is actually created and living at fertilization, the child has no right to life then. Then you go on to make up a concept of an "individual" on a totally different and inconsistent basis. And of course it REALLY makes no sense to make a right to life be dependent on the location one needs to stay to survive.

You are using your own value judgment to argue one needs to be born to have any rights.

I disagree, but it is unimportant. A child needs to exist to have rights. Now, for you, the mere fact that an egg has been fertilized is sufficient to denote existence. I prefer something more tangible...like, an individual. I don't recall if it was you or another that claimed that fertilized egg was a distinct human being, I would simply ask you to place that fertilized egg on a table and count for me in seconds the length of time it's distinctiveness lasts.

The law should make no demands of a pregnant woman it would not make of a non-pregnant woman.

Really? You do not believe the law has any say against a woman that acts in a way that reasonably expects a spontaneous abortion would result? Her, limited ability to self abort is legal in your mind?

If yes, then why does a chemical ingested change that?
If no, then pregnancy does increase the government interference in her liberties.

No, a woman does not "have to" provide the functions of life for the child any more than anyone "has to" digest the food he or she might have eaten. She should have no legal obligation to do anything she would not do if she were not pregnant.

A woman with no right to abortion is therefore required to provide the child in her womb with those functions necessary for it's growth. I concede that her own bodily functions made that process automatic - but denying her ability to terminate those functions is 'have to', is 'required'. She is obligated to do more than she would be if not pregnant. Denying her the right to abortion enforces that obligation.

It is that same balance that leads me to oppose prosecution for women. To that end, simply seeking an abortion would not only not kill the child but would, in my view, violate that balance.

So your balance is the mother can do nothing that harms the child. As long as it exists, her inactions provide the balance to the childs rights. Any action by the mother against the continued free expression of the right to life of the child offsets the balance. Wow. All that to say that the child's right to life is superior to all rights of the mother that might infringe upon that superior right of the child.

You cannot simply argue only the woman has rights and the unborn child has none after I explicitly stated the clause "if the unborn were given equal rights."

I didn't concede your premise. The unborn can not have equal rights - it is physically impossible. You and others consistently state that the child has a right to life.

Fine, what exactly does that right to life grant the child to do? Act independently? No. Exercise any liberty? No. The only 'right' the right to life grants the child is to demand upon the mother everything necessary to actually LIVE. By your position, anything the mother does to terminate or avoid that demand upon her 'violates the balance'.

You are using your own value judgment to argue one needs to be born to have any rights.

Let's see. Is that meant to be derogatory? Dismissive? I think so...

The child has no independent rights, no individual rights, until such time as it is capable of being an individual.

A human individual life DOES exist at fertilization. That is an observable scientific fact. It IS "tangible." Trying to deny that is like trying to deny the sun is a star. "On a table," you would have a dead yet still distinct human being. That one must be in a particular physical location to survive does not negate a right to life.

Really? You do not believe the law has any say against a woman that acts in a way that reasonably expects a spontaneous abortion would result? Her, limited ability to self abort is legal in your mind?

If yes, then why does a chemical ingested change that?

Yes because it is what I would consider a reasonable balance between the rights of the woman and the right of the child to life assuming it were recognized.

A chemical ingested does not change that. I believe the woman should be able to ingest any chemical that she can legally obtain and she could legally ingest if she were not pregnant. Mifepristone fits into neither category.

I concede that her own bodily functions made that process automatic - but denying her ability to terminate those functions is 'have to', is 'required'. She is obligated to do more than she would be if not pregnant. Denying her the right to abortion enforces that obligation.

Not being able to stop one's own bodily functions by ANY means physically possible does not "require" one to do anything. By "do" and "require," I obviously refer to actions one has control over. Natural bodily functions are not obligations. I don't have an obligation to digest food that I eat. However I cannot use whatever means possible (even if that includes all means possible) to stop it.

No. The only 'right' the right to life grants the child is to demand upon the mother everything necessary to actually LIVE. By your position, anything the mother does to terminate or avoid that demand upon her 'violates the balance'.

That is just the OPPOSITE of my position. My position is that a reasonable balance would enable the mother to do things that may cause the child to die. But she can only do things that are legal for non-pregnant women too.

have the right to self abort? In other words, do things that could reasonably be expected to terminate the pregnancy - assuming those actions are legal, such as sit at home and drink a quart of vodka? Run a marathon? Two zombies and a night of dancing on Bourbon St?

Legally, I believe she should.

As I said before, one of the main reasons abortion was prohibited long ago in the US is because it was a perversion to the medical profession. It was not to control personal behavior or women or even to grant rights to the unborn. It was to control doctors if anyone. The AMA THEMSELVES pushed for the measure becasuse they knew that to intentionally destroy life for no legitimate medical reason goes against its very purpose.

Too many people seem to miss the commonsense principle that this profession is and should be extensively regulated and even licensed by the state. Individuals are not held to those standards.

Abortion needs to cease to be considered a legitimate medical procedure. States have the power to issue medical licenses and set standards for them; they have the power to take them away. To lower those standards in the cloak of "privacy" is contradictory for services offered to the public.

That's what's going on here.

I talk about the limits of government power and you ask me what kind of person I must be to not be willing to use the full force of government power to protect the innocent.

I talk about how I suspect that the pro-life position is actually interested in having, for example, a government office whose job it is to go to houses and ask about the pregnancy status of the women who live within and I get told by one person "No, that's absurd, no one would ever argue that" and three posts later someone points out how, well, we do make it work for abused children, we could use a model like that one. Someone else points out how they could subpoena medical records with a warrant so it's not *THAT* unthinkable. Someone else pops up and points out how abortion deserves the death penalty...

And when I squeak again about the limits of government power, people ask what kind of person I have to be to not be willing to use government power to go house to house to check if women are pregnant or to request the medical records of women who are suspected of either being pregnant or having received an abortion.

So I fall back to the thing I've said a number of times before.

What you propose strikes me as worse than the status quo.

I'll stick with the status quo.

To answer your question about what kind of person I'd have to be, I'll just say "one who suspects that getting the government involved to the degree you're talking about will result in massive waste, massive corruption, massive expenditures, and all for little forward movement. I'm someone who sees the phrase 'SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!' and immediately thinks that the government will start *REALLY* screwing things up."

There used to be a word for people who believed that but the definition of that word has morphed in the past few decades. You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you what that word was.

Man is free at the moment he wishes to be. --Voltaire

Perhaps what it ultimately boils down to is that with legislation, logic and reasoning from pre-existing legislation are in and of themselves insufficient to justify stepping up enforcement techniques or penalties. That premise should hold true for ANY law.

I see what you mean in part when I consider the still ongoing reaction and response to September 11.

However, in my opinion, stepping up a current law in the manner you worry about would really only be justifiable if the current law were to become widely seen and known as being violated (like prohibition) or "worked around" (like abortion "health" exceptions). In either case; either an expansion of the law should be "narrowly-tailored" (in judicial language) to suit the violation, or the law should be repealed altogether. The one used, if any, should depend on both the situation itself and public support.

Anyway, I wouldn't fear incremental addition of invasions, investigative powers, or penalties with laws most pro-life groups and individuals would support applying only to abortionists without prosecution or investigation of women. My thinking is that if that were insufficient, it would be repealed or remain as insufficient. Given the current positions and actions of most "pro-life" legislators, the positions of NRLC and its affiliates, and the lobbying from NARAL and Banned Parenthood, that is not something I could ever see happening.

Regarding the future of laws: I should have some confidence that those I am negotiating with do so in good faith. Parties to a compromise, politics, even a personal relationship, need to know that that both sides have contributed to the final agreement. That is the nature of compromise. Your position is 100% abortion free. Any 'offer' of compromise is not in good faith - you have no desire, stated openly, to leave the matter settled with the compromise.

I don't ask that laws (agreements/compromises) stay unchanged into the future. No matter how nice I try to say this, I keep coming back to the point that any compromise is not in good faith, the pro-life movement has NO intention of standing by their compromise.

"Abortion is murder. Anyone that supports abortion is for the brutal, torture and murder of innocent life." With that as the foundation, how anyone could, with a straight face, say that the mother is exempt from punishment. To tell me that every major pro-life group supports that premise is to tell me that every major pro-life group is not interested in compromise, is not interested in negotiation in good faith.

It might take 5 or 10, or even 20 years after abortion was outlawed before women start facing murder charges for obtaining an abortion, but it will happen. Women will be prevented, by force if necessary, from engaging in activities that can harm the child. It might take another 10 years, but that is the path outlawing abortion WILL take. It can take no other.

A human individual life DOES exist at fertilization. That is an observable scientific fact. It IS "tangible." Trying to deny that is like trying to deny the sun is a star. "On a table," you would have a dead yet still distinct human being. That one must be in a particular physical location to survive does not negate a right to life.

We have no common ground by which to continue the discussion between us on this matter. The disdain shown in your response to my comment on a foundation for rights is alien to any concept of discourse I am aware of.

It might take 5 or 10, or even 20 years after abortion was outlawed before women start facing murder charges for obtaining an abortion, but it will happen. Women will be prevented, by force if necessary, from engaging in activities that can harm the child. It might take another 10 years, but that is the path outlawing abortion WILL take. It can take no other.

On what basis do you say this? Abortion is generally illegal in many countries around the world, yet this has not happened. Abortion was generally illegal in the United States through most of its history, yet this did not happen. The abortion laws of almost every country on the face of this earth (the only exceptions that pop to mind are Canada and China) are more restrictive than they are presently in the United States, yet this has not happened.

And this, of course, applies as well to many of the other worries people have expressed about all the horrible things that might happen if you give social conservatives an inch. Nowhere are there executions for the crime of abortion, so far as I am aware. Nowhere do the abortion police menacingly knock on the doors of young women, forcing them at gunpoint to pee into a cup. There are plenty of horrible things out there in the real world, but these are not among them. And I cannot imagine on what basis we should fear that these things might possibly arise in modern America, uniquely in all the world and uniquely through all of history—much less that there can be no other path.

I don't ask that laws (agreements/compromises) stay unchanged into the future. No matter how nice I try to say this, I keep coming back to the point that any compromise is not in good faith, the pro-life movement has NO intention of standing by their compromise.

So you don't ask that it not be changed later, but you ask that no one try to change it later? Okay.

Anyone that supports abortion is for the brutal, torture and murder of innocent life

Read carefully. I said the standard second trimester abortion method (D&E) is torture, and most people (including the women getting them) haven't a clue what it involves. Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg will acknowledge it is worse than partial birth abortion, and it is done at the exact same stage.

With that as the foundation, how anyone could, with a straight face, say that the mother is exempt from punishment.

The same way they said it about partial birth abortion.

To tell me that every major pro-life group supports that premise is to tell me that every major pro-life group is not interested in compromise, is not interested in negotiation in good faith.

By your standard, a compromise or good faith negotiation is not possible unless one supports no more protection than you do. As you say, it can change, but no one can try to change it.

It might take another 10 years, but that is the path outlawing abortion WILL take. It can take no other.

Thank you very much, Madame Cleo.

Now can you look in that crystal ball and tell me if the Democrats will finally take away our toilets after reducing the gpf allowance a little more over several energy bills.

The disdain shown in your response to my comment on a foundation for rights is alien to any concept of discourse I am aware of.

Maybe that's because your foundation for rights is alien to any concept I am aware of.

Sorry that took me so long, everyone. Didn't mean to look like I was ignoring anyone, but I actually had to pretend like my family and job mattered for a short time. :)

"I'm not a malefactor, I'm a lagomorph"