Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

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Which you have not addressed. Or at least you need to elaborate on your "I did not get married so I could remain celibate."

 

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OMG, I know it was the 19th century, but can you believe that a gynecologist, Dr. Lawson Tait, would actually say that you can’t thread a moving needle?

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http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/men-defining-rape-history

 

Strawman.

I am not telling you to do anything.

I am addressing a topic of discussion. You're not. You're just making claims.


Hence, again -

Modern views of sexuality tend to be shrouded in taboo ...
It can be easier to openly talk about sex with a traditional Buddhist monk than with a liberal.

:shrug:

 

This and That

The underlying question of LACP functionally demands that the baseline outlook focus on optimizing fetal survival.

We have, in the United States, already seen an occasion in which a court ordered a woman to bedrest in order to improve fetal survival chances. True, the decision was eventually overturned, but that doesn't erase the underlying question.

We're already charging and jailing women whose children are born with birth defects; see Calhoun, Pilkington. The question you note is well-founded.

Indeed, it would be puzzling to figure why some of our neighbors would prefer to ward off such questions of the implications of this LACP belief. As much disgust as we might show prosecutors in Alabama, Indiana, and South Carolina, it's a fairly logical outcome: If one believes in LACP, then one must regard that fetus as a person. Hence, the twisting of a law intended to protect children from the dangers of meth production is used to prosecute a pregnant woman for her child's fatal birth defect, or a woman's mental health is disregarded in order to prosecute a miscarriage under a law intended to protect women and fetuses from violent domestic partners.

Some look dubiously upon the implications I've suggested, but I don't think, given the evidence we already have on the record in our society, that these implications are far-fetched. Rather, they're already in motion in places where authority figures happen to hold personal beliefs including LACP.

• • •​

Having given this some thought, yes, I can see a pathway by which things might verge on such ridiculous enforcement, but I still think you're overlooking something—the complexity of such a claim.

With prosecutions for miscarriages, the situation is generally perceived as fairly simple: Were you pregnant? Did you do something that might endanger the fetus? Did the fetus emerge with birth defects or die? Over the long run, lawyers will introduce nuance, and jury deliberations grow more complex, but LACP is still a far cry from reviewing every day of a cancer-stricken life to ensure that the only factor responsible for the development of the disease is parental genetics. And asking the current generations of jurors to consider that kind of charge? Imagine a prosecutor trying to find twelve people with no known genetic irregularities, people who won't be subject to thinking, "If I find the defendant guilty, am I also convicting myself?"

Yes, I can see the implications of LACP extending all the way to eugenics, but I still don't see the direct comparison. It's a different concept, and invokes an entirely separate question of law: Who has the legal right to reproduce?
____________________

Notes:

Calhoun, Ada. "The Criminalization of Bad Mothers". The New York Times Magazine. April 25, 2012. NYTimes.com. December 1, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/magazine/the-criminalization-of-bad-mothers.html

Pilkington, Ed. "Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges". The Guardian. June 24, 2012. Guardian.co.uk. December 1, 2012. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

 

Simple question for parents as well. Did you have this child? Did you get tested for genetic predispositions for breast cancer? Why did you not give her this potentially lifesaving information?

I agree! It's also a far cry from presuming guilt on women who have had miscarriages.

Also agreed. Now try to imagine the implications of asking a woman juror to convict another woman of a miscarriage. "Wow, I had a miscarriage - I think - do I really want to send a woman to jail for something that happened to me, that wasn't even my fault?"

 

(Insert Title Here)

Seriously? The defense's argument is going to be to wonder how it is the issue never came up with the patient and her doctor.

Except that prosecuting women for miscarriages is already happening.

Well, let's see. In the first place, it's already happening. In the second, it's happening enough that a defense attorney would advise a client to plead guilty and accept a ten year-sentence for having used methamphetamine once during pregnancy. It was a good deal, apparently, insofar as the chief assistant district attorney in that prosecution suggested she would have received even more time had she been convicted by a jury.

So I would ask you to please consider that imprisoning women for miscarriages is already happening.

And not just in my mind.

No matter how much it might pain you to acknowledge this fact, it is still a fact.

 

As long as you include, in your re-linking, my compiled responses, no problem. And no more claims about my "ignoring" your garbage, eh? Enough is enough, even from your kind.

If you want to join an actual discussion, you need an example of a people, a culture, (if you want relevance, a modern Western one, the only type actually involved here) that considers and treats a three month embryo as a person in situations other than willful abortion. Not a born baby being assigned its birthday, not a superstition regarding twin births of live babies, not a woman talking to their future child in the womb, not invocations of grief at the loss of a developing embryo and all the dreams that died with it, but rather something that addresses the issue at hand.

Hence the indirect approach re invalid claims of moral high ground - the "personhood" of embryos, killing innocent babies, assertions that "life begins at conception", etc. Claims which are made and acted on in no other circumstances than abortion.

The problem is that the central issue - the discomfort arising in authoritarian religious types when confronted by the free will of a sexual woman - is hard to handle from the "prolife" pov without revealing oneself to be on dubious and objectionable moral grounds, and ethically completely without foundation.

 

No, I'm not suggesting it to you either.

I take issue with you interpreting my words the way you do. There goes that black-and-white thinking and aversion to detail we were talking about earlier.

I have not told you nor suggested to you in any way that this or that stance on sex is superior and should be complied with. It is you who is projecting this into my words. You read this into my words.

If anything, it is you (and some others) who do not only suggest, but in fact tell others what a normal sex life is or should be, by asserting, for example:

And I'm not offering anything yet. You're reading things into my words that are not there.

If you think it is not only perfectly morally acceptable, but even commendable and morally superior to have sex when one doesn't want to have children, then I would think you would have no problems justifying your stance, and with more than just declaring that anything other than said stance is "absurd to the extreme."

You are welcome to show that it is not only perfectly morally acceptable, but even commendable and morally superior to have sex when one doesn't want to have children.


I proposed a topic for discussion - is it morally reprehensible to engage in sex when children are not desired?
And this is all I did so far. I have not yet taken sides on it. You are projecting that I have taken sides. It's this projection that is so typical for the abortion-debate that keeps is stuck.


Again, if you think your stance is the right one, you should have no problem justifying it.

Myself, I am open to the issue.

 

The taboo reference was to liberals and to their reluctance to actually discuss issues pertaining to sex.
Liberals can be just as dogmatic and tyrannical about sex as conservatives, both of them claiming to know what the standards of normal human sexuality are and expecting people to comply with those standards.

 

But in your responses, much like your responses here, you do ignore stuff so its hardly garbage.

In all your responses you begin by stating to the effect "no one, nowhere at no time" grants some sort of status of personhood to under 3 month old fetuses and what not.

In all my responses I provide the same reference to show how that statement is incorrect.

In all your further responses, you totally neglect to address this information. This thread is perhaps slightly different in that you momentarily fall back to a specific cross section of the USA population ... but then in the same post haphazardly expand it again to "no one, nowhere at no time" scenario

First of all, if you want to isolate discussion to contemporary western paradigms, you can't use catch-phrases like "real world categories" or venture into any other sort of "no one, nowhere at no time" statements and the like. In fact it would probably pay for you to openly declare at the start that you are exclusively talking about particular contemporary mainstream western communities so it becomes painfully obvious when you exceed your parameters.

If however you want to suggest that only mainstream western communities are valid in an ethical understanding of a proposition (and are therefore "real world categories" et al) then I am afraid you are in the wrong century of academic discussion

So before we proceed any further, I think we have to get a conclusive statement from you - are you talking exclusively about contemporary western mainstream communities or do you wish to proceed with something more along the lines of this (which faces numerous problems on all fronts) :

Iceaura : There are no graves in the cemeteries for early miscarriages, no funerals for ectopic pregnancies, no procedures or routines anywhere under any circumstances that treat an early embryo as a child in any way, except one; no one - not the most rabid and rigid of the "prolifers", not you, not l g, no one - has ever in history treated a three month embryo as a child in any circumstance, except - -

and also

Iceaura : Mention away. Meanwhile, the flagrant and fundamental dishonesty of your arguments and assertions on this subject is something you should correct in the future - you have never in your life shown or advocated general behavior consistent with the belief that a three month embryo is a human being, in any circumstance other than voluntary abortion instigated by the pregnant woman. Neither has anyone else, in all of human history AFAIK. Such a belief cannot be the basis of any argument you make honestly on this forum.

what on earth are you talking about?
birthdays correlating to one's actual birth are universal, regardless which way you want to slice and dice the human population

Its not a superstition - in a majority of twins being conceived its a case of "first in last out". whether the birthing results in still borns or whatever doesn't change the order of things either (learn something new every day, huh?). Why else did you think the first born was declared the youngest?

So i take it you want to scrub "behaviours" from your posts on the previous page?

Why is pregnancy loss a concern?

Some pregnancy losses do not cause any problems, while others may be very serious and life threatening for the mother, if untreated. However, the most difficult part for most families is the emotional stress of the loss itself.

The loss of a baby at any time in pregnancy can be emotionally and physically difficult for the mother and other members of the family. For some families, the timing of the loss in the pregnancy may make the experience more or less difficult. For example, an early loss, before the mother even knew she was pregnant may not be as stressful as a loss later in pregnancy, after feeling fetal movement or seeing the fetus on ultrasound examination. However, parents may have strong feelings and sadness whenever a loss occurs.

Iceaura :- " ....no graves, no population statistics, no acknowledgement in medical records, no religious rituals, no concomitant or appropriate behavior of any kind, indicate otherwise."

:shrug:

Oh, you mean like funeral services for children in the womb?

Western links if you want to run with your eurocentric circa 19th century mode of thinking
http://www.uk-sands.org/support/when/funerals.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/hb_fun.pdf

:roflmao:

Kind of like saying "If we exclude death from artillery, gunshots, nuclear blasts, or drowning or otherwise suffering fatally as a consequence of one's vehicle being assaulted in the before-mentioned manner and/or finally a lack of adequate supplies for things such as food, shelter and medicine on the battlefield, we can safely conclude that practically no soldiers died during WW2"

Actually the problem is the various mind tricks people play on each other (and even themselves) to pretend that a child in the womb isn't a person. Your attempt to talk about an absence of any ritual, behaviour, or systematic method of dealing with children in the womb is clear evidence of this.

 

Apologies this will appear twice - this anti spam thing is starting to get annoying ...

But in your responses, much like your responses here, you do ignore stuff so its hardly garbage.

In all your responses you begin by stating to the effect "no one, nowhere at no time" grants some sort of status of personhood to under 3 month old fetuses and what not.

In all my responses I provide the same reference to show how that statement is incorrect.

In all your further responses, you totally neglect to address this information. This thread is perhaps slightly different in that you momentarily fall back to a specific cross section of the USA population ... but then in the same post haphazardly expand it again to "no one, nowhere at no time" scenario

First of all, if you want to isolate discussion to contemporary western paradigms, you can't use catch-phrases like "real world categories" or venture into any other sort of "no one, nowhere at no time" statements and the like. In fact it would probably pay for you to openly declare at the start that you are exclusively talking about particular contemporary mainstream western communities so it becomes painfully obvious when you exceed your parameters.

If however you want to suggest that only mainstream western communities are valid in an ethical understanding of a proposition (and are therefore "real world categories" et al) then I am afraid you are in the wrong century of academic discussion

So before we proceed any further, I think we have to get a conclusive statement from you - are you talking exclusively about contemporary western mainstream communities or do you wish to proceed with something more along the lines of this (which faces numerous problems on all fronts) :

Iceaura : There are no graves in the cemeteries for early miscarriages, no funerals for ectopic pregnancies, no procedures or routines anywhere under any circumstances that treat an early embryo as a child in any way, except one; no one - not the most rabid and rigid of the "prolifers", not you, not l g, no one - has ever in history treated a three month embryo as a child in any circumstance, except - -

and also

Iceaura : Mention away. Meanwhile, the flagrant and fundamental dishonesty of your arguments and assertions on this subject is something you should correct in the future - you have never in your life shown or advocated general behavior consistent with the belief that a three month embryo is a human being, in any circumstance other than voluntary abortion instigated by the pregnant woman. Neither has anyone else, in all of human history AFAIK. Such a belief cannot be the basis of any argument you make honestly on this forum.

what on earth are you talking about?
birthdays correlating to one's actual birth are universal, regardless which way you want to slice and dice the human population

Its not a superstition - in a majority of twins being conceived its a case of "first in last out". whether the birthing results in still borns or whatever doesn't change the order of things either (learn something new every day, huh?). Why else did you think the first born was declared the youngest?

So i take it you want to scrub "behaviours" from your posts on the previous page?

Why is pregnancy loss a concern?

Some pregnancy losses do not cause any problems, while others may be very serious and life threatening for the mother, if untreated. However, the most difficult part for most families is the emotional stress of the loss itself.

The loss of a baby at any time in pregnancy can be emotionally and physically difficult for the mother and other members of the family. For some families, the timing of the loss in the pregnancy may make the experience more or less difficult. For example, an early loss, before the mother even knew she was pregnant may not be as stressful as a loss later in pregnancy, after feeling fetal movement or seeing the fetus on ultrasound examination. However, parents may have strong feelings and sadness whenever a loss occurs.

(Please don't try and equate this with someone grieving for the loss of their teddy bear unless you want to further embarrass yourself)

Iceaura :- " ....no graves, no population statistics, no acknowledgement in medical records, no religious rituals, no concomitant or appropriate behavior of any kind, indicate otherwise."

:shrug:

Oh, you mean like funeral services for children in the womb?

Western links if you want to run with your eurocentric circa 19th century mode of thinking
http://www.uk-sands.org/support/when/funerals.html
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/misc/hb_fun.pdf

:roflmao:

Kind of like saying "If we exclude death from artillery, gunshots, nuclear blasts, or drowning or otherwise suffering fatally as a consequence of one's vehicle being assaulted in the before-mentioned manner and/or finally a lack of adequate supplies for things such as food, shelter and medicine on the battlefield, we can safely conclude that practically no soldiers died during WW2"

Actually the problem is the various mind tricks people play on each other (and even themselves) to pretend that a child in the womb isn't a person. Your attempt to talk about an absence of any ritual, behaviour, or systematic method of dealing with children in the womb is clear evidence of this.

 

You've never justified why you find it absurd.

 

And prosecuting parents for harming their children is already happening. Neither one is close to prosecuting a woman for having a 'normal' miscarriage or for prosecuting a parent when her child has a 'normal' tumor.

 

These are the justifications that you have provided:

I find them to be very sketchy. I would expect a more detailed analysis of the beliefs and values that go into those justifications of yours.

For example, the beliefs and values that are necessary for one to conclude that having sex when children are not desired "tends to cement the relationship."