Let me preface this with I don't agree with the bill. My personal opinion is that abortion should be legal and rare, but here's some background. What the Alabama bill is specifically intended to do is go to SCOTUS to reverse Roe vs. Wade. This is why there are no exemptions for rape and incest. The sponsor of the bill is actually a woman, when the State Senate indicated it planned to add rape and incest exemptions in committee, the sponsor said she would kill her own bill when it went back to the State House if those changes were included. Her mindset is those two exemptions would increase the ability for SCOTUS to strike down the law without having to rule on Roe (I'm not exactly clear why this is the thought). The prevailing thought is the fetal heartbeat bills that have been or are being passed in 10+ other states are will be ruled unconstitutional based on Roe, but are too narrow in scope for SCOTUS to have to revisit the issue of Roe itself. Alabama's sponsor ultimately wants a fetal heartbeat bill and has pushed for one in the past, but believes that Roe has to first be overturned so that it can't be ruled unconstitutional. All indications point to Alabama crafting new legislation to provide exemptions to rape, incest, and life of the mother (included in this bill) while banning abortion after fetal heartbeat if Roe is indeed overturned. Again, I don't agree with the bill. I don't like abortion and think termination of pregnancy for convenience is reprehensible, but it's also not a choice I'll have to live with for the rest of my life either. My stance has definitely moved more against abortion since having a kid. I simply point this out so you can attack the position on facts and not the fantasy stories being run through the media.
Also, the state of Alabama passed a right to life Amendment 60-40 last year. I voted against it, but this is indeed the will of the state.
If you believe there is doubt, how can you place your stake so firmly in the ground on the side of allowing abortion under all circumstances? Because you are making a false equivalence in equating lab fertilization and terminating pregnancy. You are also operating under the apparent assumption that all pro-life people are liars about their motives. Why do you believe so many people--half of the country?--hold this position if it is not because they believe that abortion, in at least some cases allowed by law, may violate the rights of a human being, albeit unborn? And I believe they have made a mistake, but time will tell. In flying directly in the face of Roe, the Bama law gives the court the opportunity to deny cert on any of the reasoning presented in Roe (or any other decided precedent.) If they can find one instance where it would be illegal in Alabama to perform an abortion that they believe the proceedure should be allowed, they can shoot the law down. They don't have to consider every reason, just one. The court can, of course, choose to hear it, but generally courts don't like to do that unless they must. Don't be surprised if this get bounced around a bunch of districts before being stricken on some technical ground at appellate level and denied cert by the Supremes.
Not if you are a proponent of the idea that the fetus at some time before termination being a living soul. Rape or incest or not, if the unborn child has rights, it has rights. This concept conflicts with the rights of the mother, which, I believe, is why many on the left disregard the discussion. At some point, the fertilized embryo becomes a person. At that point, the person has rights. Terminating a pregnancy at some point becomes terminating a life. Maybe that's at conception, maybe at 90 days or 6 months or birth, I don't know. I believe that's a question for philosophers and priests and doctors and parents faced with difficult decisions. It is, in my opinion, a decision for legislators, and whether that is at the federal or state level is a difficult jurisdictional matter. But I believe very strongly that it is not, and should never have been, a decision for the courts, who in this case inserted themselves through convoluted reasoning into the roles of all of teh above while inventing a Constitutional right to privacy out of whole cloth. Roe is bad law because it is judicial overreach encouraged by societal and legislative dysfunction. And if nothing else comes of all of these state laws (Kentucky, I think has one moving along, as well as some other states,) there is some small chance that it will place the decision of whether this medical procedure/taking of a life (whichever side you are on,) should be allowable or not in the hands of our elected representatives and not our appointed ones. Judges are supposed to be referees, not rule makers.
I'm always split on this debate. I don't like the idea of Kayleigheey using abortion as a form of birth control because she's too stupid to be on the pill or put a condom on a [penis] while sleeping with the entirety of the male enrollment at her community college. On the flip side, I've seen kids that have come through my wife's classroom throughout the years that would have undoubtedly been better off aborted than having to live through the daily hell that is their life due to unfit parents/being an unwanted pregnancy/etc..
Probably. I'm not completely rational on this. It very much bothers me. It's the one issue where when I read the other side's viewpoint it just hardens my own more and more. To me, the definition of an immoral act is to harm someone else in order to benefit yourself. Snuffing out a life is the ultimate form of harming someone else. Honestly, this is the only reason I still vote for Republicans.
I see a lot of the same. I would really love to see adoptions become a whole hell of a lot easier process.
first one: collective doubt was what I was referring to. I don't personally have any doubt that a woman is a person and has full autonomy of her own body at all times. likewise, I am certain a fetus is not the same as a baby. for someone to say there is no doubt requires ignoring that the topic is controversial. explain why the equivalence is false, if life begins at conception. I think people who believe a human being exists at conception are either ignorant or illogical. I think I said that earlier. by the same spirit of your question, why do you believe half of all Americans are cool with murdering babies right up until they are no longer inside someone, and then are not? Heck, why aren't we counting fetuses in the census? why don't we have conception day parties? assuming these laws go through and RvW is overturned, there are going to be many uncomfortable realities that begin manifesting about pregnancy and why there should be the ability to terminate it. One in four women have terminated a pregnancy, and for a lot of reasons. It's going to be horrible, and actual lives will be lost because of it.
Is the fetus a person when it has a heartbeat? When it is viable outside of the mother? When it is full term tomorrow? When it was full term a few minutes ago? I don't think these are easy questions. Is this thing a person a minute after the cord is cut but not a minute before? I think that position is stupid and illogical. And to ignore that question requires either ignorance or duplicity. That's a recurring theme with you, btw. I don't know how to explain how two things that are not alike are not alike if you don't already understand it. Fertilization is the process by which sperm from the male combines with an egg from the female. Abortion is when an embryo is removed from the parent. They are two different things. They are not equivalent. So saying that it is not OK to like one of these things but not the other does not make sense. This is a recurring theme with you, btw. Another false equivalence, that because we do not celebrate the day of our conception that it must not mean anything, and also that because the government doesn't inclued fetuses in a census, that life must not begin at that point. Those things have nothing to do with one another, but it does appear to fit nicely on a bumper sticker. This is a recurring theme with you, btw. I don't understand the bolded part.
we are getting very efficient at getting to the end of conversations. I was clear as day: women have full autonomy, fetuses and babies are not the same. full stop. you didn't argue that, you ignored it. cool. So in a person it is a person, in a tube it is not. Sounds like folks just make it up as they go along. What is another instance where a person's existence is completely dependent on where they are? it's not a false equivalence, it's cognitive dissonance to claim a person exists prior to being born. it's like saying someone is a swimmer when they have never been in water. there is no reason to associate a heart beat with cognitive function or consciousness. the uncomfortable reality of how many pregnancies result in unviable fetuses, or how many doctors will be reluctant to risk their freedom on declaring a pregnancy dangerous which will lead to childbirth deaths.
I agree with your point, and I’m only providing this for some context to their thinking: Link: https://www.apnews.com/fbae135281e64818946f72cfdb199dcb
regarding fetal heartbeats: https://www.wired.com/story/heartbeat-bills-get-the-science-of-fetal-heartbeats-all-wrong/
These are all important points and things to consider, but they’re also all secondary to the question at hand - the same which you and Cotton now disagree, and upon which the whole issue pivots and will likely be decided - when is the fetus a person, and in turn, have rights? Rape, incest, the autonomy of women, etc. - can’t be considered, much less settled, outside of that singular question being answered. And, I’ll get all of the dangerous comments out on one post and say that I absolutely, positively, unequivocally and without a wisp of hesitation agree with Cotton and others that Roe is the single worst and least legally defensible ruling in the history of SCOTUS. I say that as a matter of reason, and of law, alone - and not one ounce of that belief is intended to support any pro-life argument or oppose any pro-choice position, whatsoever. I think that if Roe is overturned, or greatly curtailed (I think both are unlikely and remote), it will not be for any of the reasons you’ve mentioned - but because there’s now enough jurists who aren’t strongly in favor or opposed to abortion, per se, but who will see no option but to strike Roe v Wade as the atrociously bad ruling it was, and still is.
I didn't ignore it, although I'm not surprised you don't understand. Are you defining life as beginning at the moment of birth? When does a fetus become a baby? First breath? Women have "full autonomy" (whatever that is) over themselves. They don't have full autonomy over someone else if that includes ending a life. I don't know what it means to get very efficient at getting to the end of conversations. I think it means that you ran out of smart assed tee shirt slogans to quote that make you feel intelligent, but you'll have to define it better. Please explain how you believe mixing sperm and egg in a lab is the same as aborting a pregnancy. I would like to point out, however, that you are defining a person's existence completely dependent on where they are, as that fetus is a medical condition a couple of inches from where it would be a person. Again, false equivalence in whatever that stupid swimmer analogy was supposed to represent, but that's par for you. There's cognitive function well before birth. There's consciousness well before birth. There is as much of both of those things before birth as there is shortly after. Where are you on post-birth abortion? Yet worse than any position you hold is the attitude that anyone not in keeping with your radical left-wing ideology is stupid or duplicitous. Examine thyself, IP. You are just a loudmout stone thrower with a gift for making babble sound intelligent to those that aren't paying attention. And it never seems to occur to you that your zealotry just might, every now and then, be misplaced.
The idea that a woman's reproductive rights starts anywhere but at conception makes no sense to me. Any person alive should have total dominion over their body. Gay marriage should be legal. All the freedom. However. You have sex, there are consequences. Conception is the natural consequence of the act of reproduction. Is it fun and pleasurable and all that? Sure. That doesn't take away the fact that there are natural consequences for doing it without proper birth control or prophylaxis. Condom broke? You took that risk. Jumped off a bridge without knowing physics? Well, you still get the consequence. The country HAS fallen behind on sex education just because it's an uncomfortable topic. It is not just a topic about a woman and her body. That zygote is not just the woman and not just the man. It is a new being that is completely individual and deserves the right to live that we all have. Otherwise, you may as well just encourage the purge and say [uck fay] it all. Life is the ultimate right that everything else emanates from. There is no choice, there is no freedom, there is no nothing without life. The fetus certainly isn't operating in the same fashion that infants are, yet that is the foundation and the propagation of life. It's a natural process. Good luck defining exactly the point of something becoming "living". May as well go ahead and define consciousness while you're at it. Spoiler: you can't. If you get raped, you didn't make the choice so I'm more than ok with women making the choice over that pregnancy.
much like you don't feel that this issue hinges on incest or rape, I don't think it hinges on Roe v Wade or legal rulings. it is a fundamental question of body autonomy and personhood, imo. Laws can and will get it wrong.
see, this logic doesn't track for me. it sounds like you aren't making an argument about human personhood but rather consequences for sex.
