Point 1: I fully understand that child-support payments & alimony are two distinct issues. I only asked because I was beginning to sense, from you, an attitude that might conflate the two. To wit, Point 2: You never answered how mandatory child care support, or if child-support payments, would play into your overall conception of limiting abortions to the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. I guess your answer, "is in the mail?"
the father of a child has no rights to the child until after they're born if a woman chooses to get an abortion it's her choice and it should be her responsibility to pay. why should the father of a child who has no say in what happens to the child at all be responsible for paying for an abortion that he didn't support
Evasion noted. I don't believe you are so dense that you really can't see what anyone else can plainly tell I've now asked you twice: if you are in favor of a woman being prohibited from having an abortion after 13 weeks into her pregnancy (as you said, on page 1), would you include requirements, for the children who, then, would be brought to term, and kept, to be raised by those women-- & if you can't conceive of a woman who may have, initially, wanted an abortion, deciding after carrying the child inside herself for 9 months, and then going through the traumatic experience of giving birth (which often culminates, at the sight & sound of her newborn, with a feeling of joyful ecstacy), ultimately finding that her maternal bonds have become too strong to bear parting with her child, that automatically disqualifies all your opinions on the matter, as it would demonstrate an utter inability to relate, understand, or sympathize with the woman's perspective on this (which is indispensable to this issue)-- that the fathers of said newborns would be held responsible, materially, for these children? And, I'll add, with regulations that had the same teeth as whatever laws you would advocate towards the women? In other words, if all that would be required of the fathers would be a court order for child-care payments which, if it were not adhered to, the worst likely outcome would be having an attachment placed on the man's paychecks (provided that an employer could be verified), then would your penalty for women (& medical personnel who aided them) be limited to fines? Or, in the alternative, if you felt that violations of your proposed, post-1st trimester, abortion ban should entail jail sentences, as an incentive for compliance, would you, likewise agree that the same, "incentive/punishment," should apply to men who did not meet their financial responsibilities regarding these children-- with the state, in those cases, paying the man's obligations, since the obligation had been put upon the mothers, by the state, to carry their pregnancies to term because, presumably, this had been deemed to be in the compelling interest of the state? A more abridged version of my question is, would there be CONSISTENCY in your policy's treatment of the two sexes, and would they be held COMPARABLY RESPONSIBLE? Or is it your attitude that, since she's the one who gets pregnant, it's her problem?
Exactly what I'd been anticipating, from your response. But abortion, per se, is not against the law, unlike violent acts against, what the law considers, people. Hence, my saying that we were talking about a legal argument; i.e., that a fetus, before a certain stage of development, is not legally considered a person-- though I realize you believe that is a mistake. But your feelings notwithstanding, the arbiter of these types of legal questions is nobody's book of scripture. It is, ultimately, our Supreme Court, the laws of which must apply to ALL citizens, regardless of their religious beliefs. Note that the Court's determination DOES NOT STOP anyone who wants to use a stricter, MORAL basis for deciding NOT to have an abortion, from doing that. It would only stop a person wanting to use a looser standard. Hence, the Court gives legal protection to what it could-- using impartial, factual scientific data, accepted by the medical profession, the Justices, & the community at large (regardless of religious belief)-- legally determine. Though laws can be imbued with moral judgements, the Court does not render strictly moral verdicts. All judgements of law must be based on presentable, incontrovertibly factual, evidence. It should not prevent a woman, who does not personally believe that her undeveloped fetus (or, earlier, her zygote) is a yet a human being, from aborting it, unless it can be proven as a truth, that all citizens should be compelled to acknowledge. And, scientifically-speaking, that an inseminated egg is a human being, is very debatable. What's not debatable is that, once a fetus can survive, apart from its mother's womb, it is a human baby. So that's why the standard was set at between 24 and 28 weeks gestation. Do you understand the difference between morals, based on beliefs, which are sustained by faith-- which cannot be, "tested," & verified true, in court-- and laws founded on a moral framework that is considered to be universally accepted (that we should not kill each other, w/o specific justification, or steal things that don't belong to us, etc)? That is the difference between a human,"at conception," & a human being in the eyes of all people, & of the law, which cannot be denied.
I'm sure you're going to see it, & I'm flattered at your interest. If you'd like, I'll mssg you (under Conversations) right after I post it.
Well I was talking about the Roe v. Wade decision, specifically, but you're right, of course, unless the Constitutionality of a law, or its interpretation, is challenged in the court system, it is our elected Representatives who make laws. (So you've accepted my points about even the Supreme Court allowing some role for the majority of citizens' opinions?). You know, I thought of another way to differentiate between questions of religious morals, & the public morals that underpin our laws. So, with your permission: It is accepted that stealing is wrong. Our society has laws against it, & religions preach against it. So, regardless of whether 2 people share the same religion, if they both live in our country (or any country, for this example), they both know they should not steal, though they may both have different reasons for this. Imagine then that the two are at a restaurant, & one, for example, takes a bunch of napkins from the dispenser, or ketchup packets, etc., for later. If the other asks, "why are you stealing?" & the first replies that what they're doing isn't stealing, the truth of the matter can be fairly easily proven in terms that both will have to accept, since we all understand the definition of stealing, even if our reasons for believing it is wrong, differ. So the first person would need to show that what the 2nd was taking 1) was not something he was intended, or entitled, to take and 2) that it had VALUE, defined in terms both could agree on. For this second part, if one could show that the items had cost MONEY, this would be something anyone would recognize as having value. But if, instead, the first person was maintaining that the second was breathing up too much of the restaurant's air, or soaking up too much of its, "good vibes," the 2nd person would not be expected to necessarily grant this as a legitimate measurement of value (even if the 1st person considered vibes to be the most precious of commodities). The same idea applies to murder. We all know that to kill another person-- though, of course, there are a number of generally accepted exceptions to that rule-- is wrong, whether or not we are religious. But if the life in question is not agreed by all to be a, "human," the proof would have to use measures that we all accept, must be described in terms of a common currency, so to speak. So if the, "proof," is, in any part, dependent upon some tenet of religious faith, or Holy Scripture, to which the other person does not ascribe, then it is not proof, but only one's opinion. Do you follow the analogy?
I'm not sure what you mean by "the Supreme Court allowing some role for the majority of citizens' opinions." I swear that you didn't mention that previously. Yeah, I follow.
Post #550. You had, "liked," it. #1 & #2 are alternatives for the expression of the will of the majority of the people (your initial question was how the hell do you know what the majority thinks, or something like that, remember?) that circumvent the Supreme Court; #3 & #4 are ways the majority opinion of the people directly affects it.
You didn't confirm if you would have a moral argument against a law in which gay people were executed by the state for being gay.
Of course. I thought that's what I said. This, naturally, only applies to the time period prior to the fetus being deemed legally a person, i.e., the earliest point of its independent viability, about 24 weeks.
Let me try one last time to make my argument crystal-clear on this point. LEGAL perspectives INCORPORATE the prevailing MORAL views of their jurisdictions. This general rule, however, is subject to our country's legal protocol, in which state laws are subordinate (so, in many cases, can't contradict) national laws; & local laws are subordinate to state laws. Understanding this concept, requires one to use some common sense, however, & not be stymied by only being able to see things in an absolutist way. For example, there are, "dry," counties, in which the sale of alcohol is prohibited, even though alcohol sales are legal in state & federal law. Nonetheless, a County law saying its citizens need not pay State sales tax, for instance, would not fly. Regarding the determination of something's, "humanity," the national standard, likewise, cannot be over-ridden, as is also the case with the criminal definition of homicide. Lastly, on this point, when a law applies to a larger population (a national law, as opposed to a local one) it has a greater number, & variety, of peoples' moral perspectives to consider. So, with regard to your reiterated question about killing gays, which I had already answered, anyone's repulsion from the idea, internally, would immediately be due to its violation of one's sense of morality. But, in this fantastical example of yours, the LAW agrees that this is wrong. So one would argue against the law as having an ILLEGAL foundation. In still more words, moral arguments are generally ineffective as legal arguments, except where that morality is ALREADY PART of existing law, making one's argument, in fact, a legal one. So forcing others, or being forced, myself, to kill, unless we concur with the need for that killing (as in cases of war-- though, even then, I support the rights of conscientious objectors) is something I obviously (morally) object to. As noted at top, this would be both a morally reprehensible idea/law, and one that flew in the face of accepted legality. I think the need to, "argue," this case, unless one was a lawyer, would be far less urgent than the need to oppose it through non-compliance.
We're going around in circles. It would be challenged as being unConstitutional, & the law would have no chance of being upheld; except, of course, because your example is SUCH an obvious violation of the right to life, it would never, ever be passed by any American legislative body. And, in predicting where you may be going, in this thread about abortion-- there is no uncertainty surrounding homosexuals' categorization as humans, unlike the ambiguity of a fetus between the time of conception & at least 22 - 24 weeks of gestation.
