HylianTom said:
Your personal opinion might think that a fetus is a "living human being," but in a legal sense - which is the only sense that matters here - a fetus is neither "born" nor "naturalized." (see: 14th Amendment)
Suggestion: Congress needs to amend our laws so that we begin issuing birth certificates and social security numbers to fertilized eggs. Until then, it isn't "homicide."
Strictly speaking, yes it is. Homicide is the killing of another human. It does not have to be illegal. There are many forms of legal homicide, including self-defense. Some of those are just. You would have an argument had I used the term "murder," which requires illegality.
And again, you're addressing legal personhood as it currently stands. You can not simply reference what the status quo is as an argument against changing the status quo.
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Also, a slew of comments from the previous page.
polyh3dron said:
Michael Vick is JayDubya's hero.
I'll try to put this to rest real quick since you keep bringing this up.
I said he was a piece of shit, actually, (something you're familiar with) but I also said that I don't necessarily believe anything he did
should be illegal. I also said that people should boycott and protest games if he's not fired, which is something I would support myself and take part in had I a) even known who Vick was beforehand, b) knew what team he played for, c) gave any money towards any NFL team let alone the one he worked for.
The crimes were animal cruelty, gambling, and tax evasion. a) Animals do / should not have, nor do they deserve legal rights, as such, I can see no justification for making harming your own animal illegal; b) I'm really not sure how can anyone justify making
gambling illegal without appeals to religion or pure stupidity; c) federal taxes are far too high and I don't believe the income tax is just.
thefit said:
BTW I've had my wife read many of the reasons here on why your "pro-life" and "pro-choice", her response? "Your nerd friends should stick to posting stupid cat picture and not trying to decide what the opposite gender should do with their bodies, maybe they'll get laid more if they just stopped telling women what they should do with their bodies whether pro or against"
Great. My wife agrees with me on the topic.
echoshifting said:
So...are we just supposed to ignore Palin's stance on the issue and just kinda keep our fingers crossed she won't move to overturn Roe v. Wade if she ends up in office? When McCain says he thinks Roe v. Wade should be overturned, should we roll our eyes and say "oh great, here's that dumb abortion thing again, who cares."
Like it or not, it's an issue. Defend it or lose it.
I'd love to see someone defend the total pile of detritus that was the Roe v. Wade decision. Plenty of scholars on the left are able to recognize the decision for what it is.
Also, oh noes, federalism, the horror.
Bad decisions based on nothing are bad, whether I agree with them or not. The Lochner era was full of decisions that protected unenumerated rights that I wholly agree with, such that the Supreme Court was an agent of promoting laissez faire capitalism beyond the bounds of the Constitution. I do not approve of that. I would not approve of the Supreme Court banning abortion either. Return the matter to the place it rightfully belongs.
speculawyer said:
Yeah exactly.
However, that could always be a silver lining if McCain wins. If Roe v. Wade were over-turned there might be a lot of people that ignored politics who get involved.
This is one of the reasons why many think abortion is the carrot-on-the-end-of-a-stick for the right. They want to keep it around as an issue to keep their voters voting for them . . . but if they ever actually suceed in outlawing it, they know there may be a huge backlash. Hence it is better for them as that issue that they never suceed on but keep getting voters to vote on. It has been working very well for some 30+ years now.
Cynical. It takes a very long time to overturn even the worst abuses of the Supreme Court. For starters, all the people that voted in favor of the bad decision have to die. And then you have all the whining about stare decisis.
I suppose we'll get the chance to see when and if McCain wins. Personally, I'm getting rather sick of Justice Kennedy holding all the cards in practically every decision. Kelo and Gonzales that I mentioned earlier? If you don't remember, take a wild guess which way the swing voter swung?
