Oklahoma court rejects personhood ballot initiative (because they aren't lunatics)

I am glad we have competent judges that see this for the travesty of justice it really is. It's sort of funny that this whole personhood thing is coming from the right. Aren't they the ones that threaten that legalizing gay marriage will mean people will want to legalize marrying animals, rocks, etc etc. Wouldn't granting personhood to a fetus mean people will end up wanting to grant it to couches, and chairs, and animals and rocks? Slippery slopes can go in both directions.


http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/us-usa-abortion-personhood-idUSBRE84000H20120501

 

No.
Every once and awhile I do get amazed by the stupid questions I see on this forum. This certainly rates up there!

 

I wonder if supporters of personhood bills are aware of the radical beliefs behind them. They would criminalize abortion without exception for birth control, rape, incest, ectopic pregnancy, and even the life of the woman.

"A life of the mother exception to any abortion law would be a violation of the equal protection
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment"
http://www.personhoodinitiative.com/uploads/7/7/9/1/7791541/personhood_booklet_mississippi.pdf

 

I doubt it is true. You can certainly legally kill another person, even born person, if he/she is a direct threat to your life or health. Its killing in self-defense in such case.

 

It's from the Personhood USA literature.

 

Reference the material and your statement regarding your personhood literature post.

I believe the opinion that holds the bill would require a mother-to-be to die is inaccurate.

Doctors used to take an oath to do no harm, maybe some still do?

Members of the medical service are taught that there are two (sometimes more) patients when you are dealing with an expectant mother.

If mother doesn't survive the child would not, in most likelihood, survive. At that point (expectant mother's life is or would be in jeopardy) a surgery would take place to save the life of the mother and her unborn child. The difference being the child wouldn't be killed outright, if the child doesn't survive the child's death would not have been the objective, simply an outcome of an effort that fell short.

 

Those are referenced in post #3 and #5

I didn't intend to specify any particular legislation, but rather the beliefs held by Personhood USA. The Mississippi Personhood initiative had no exceptions. I am not familiar with text of Oklahoma's initiative, but personhood initiatives are usually written in intentionally vague language which would require extensive analysis should the initiative pass. Please read the entire Personhood USA manual that I linked to in post #3. The organization has presented mostly religious justifications for disallowing abortion for any circumstance.

 

Very interesting. I'm still unsure that their intent is ever to kill the mother, if only because it would most certainly affect the health of the child if not cause the child's death. This is not their mission. Some very interesting arguments and positions. Have you read it in its entirety?

Do you think you could ever think of a child in the womb, at any point of the child's timeline of development, as a human life?

 

In most cases, the intent of anti-abortion law is not to protect the zef, but to punish the woman for choosing to have sex. This is revealed in several ways, one of which is exception in anti-abortion law in the case of rape, the reasoning being that the woman didn't choose to have sex conferring acceptability to abortion. Other means of revelation are arguments that "the woman caused the zef to be there", "she put the zef there", etc., meaning that the woman is at fault for the existence of the zef, so she must suffer for it.

"A human life" is very vague, the entity in the womb IS human and alive, as are the egg and sperm which formed it. While the womb inhabitant is human life, it is not a "child", a "child" is a human life between birth and adolescence. Some definitions include adolescents as "children."

 

I don't think their mission is to kill women, but neither do I believe their motivation is reverence of life. Many of the so-called pro-lifers are also pro-war, anti-environmental protection, and anti-universal health care.

I read it some time ago, and I found it appalling. What arguments did you find convincing?

I think of it as a potential child, alive and human. Based on arguments I have heard, I would not likely change my mind. People have been known to change their position, however. In the 70's, evangelical leaders were not particularly opposed to abortion, but by the mid 80's, they were radical pro-lifers. What brought about that change?

 

Grannie, I am far from OK (many kilometers-pun intended) and unfamiliar with the (local?) colloquial term zef. What exactly is the definition of the zef and how did the term originate? I Googled zef and found this "The word zef stems from an Afrikaans word, which roughly translates to the English word "common."

Pregnancy is a natural condition and not a punishment, well wait, if you are a God fearin' woman you would probably point out that Genesis tells of God explaining what childbirth was going to feel like to Eve. In that case I would say that God did notify the mother of mankind that this is gonna hurt, alot.

Which anti-abortion law are you sourcing for your position?

What exactly is in the law that makes you believe it is intended to punish expectant mothers and not designed save the life of a human being who is unable to defend him or herself?

Entity is an interesting choice of word. Some sources define it as "a being" among other choices. A human being?

When egg and sperm join a whole new being is formed. I would suggest that the being in the mother's womb is a developing human being, an unborn baby, child, boy or girl etc..

I'm curious how did you describe your pregnancy, when you were with child, to others who may have offered congratulations or were interested in how things were going for you and your unborn baby/infant/ child/being-entity?

 

Sorry you are not OK, hope you improve soon. ZEF is an acronym, zygote, embryo, and fetus, and it is fairly commonly used on abortion boards.

The pregnancy itself may not be a punishment, but forcing an unwilling woman to remain pregnant is a punishment and the law forcing it was designed to be.

It is not the law itself, but the lobbyists for the law who reveal their true motivations. I gave you some hints in the previous post, if you watch for those statements you will see those motives.

When egg meets sperm a whole new being is BEGINNING to be formed. The formation is a process that takes a few months. Describing the potential new being as a "baby", "infant", "child", is very optimistic, as that may not happen. WHAT it is, however, is less important than WHERE it is.

 

I think the ballot initiative is misguided but in the linked article there is an error.

Abortion is not really constitutionally protected, but protected by stare decisis with questionable constitutionality, or as many legal scholars have said before, judicial activism.

 

Wow Cady! You do lump all your political opponents into one big barrel, find it easier to shoot 'em? .

I think that anti-abortion people are struggling to have the unborn to be seen as developing human beings. Not unlike those who opposed slavery because of their view of its as an inhuman status/treatment of human beings. Our own SCOTUS denied Dred Scott's humanity by ruling he had no standing before the court. I do not like war but I am not opposed to a necessary military action up to and including war. The United States would not be what it is today without war.

We need to be good stewards of our environment but not enslaved by an eco-warrior philosophy.

Even those without insurance use the same facilities that those with insurance use. I'm for healthcare but not surrendering personal freedom to the U.S. government to have it.

A first impression. For the faithful, biblical references. For the legal eagles, the Law stating that none of us can be put to death without due process (what crime have the unborn committed?). Science/Med Arts, the observations/conclusions/arguments of the doctors cited, granted most were not of our generation or age but wisdom is timeless. I did not research the cited cases.

There is much that, in fairness, one would best ruminate on before a complete and full opinion is rendered. Thank you for sharing these ideas.

Be careful Cady , if you can think of the unborn as a "potential child, alive and human" you don't have much farther to go. Just one baby step and you'll be there.

It is my understanding that religious leadership (except Satanism and others of the same ilk or source) opposed abortion then and still do today. That has been a consistent message over the decades and fifty million plus dead and counting since Roe vs. Wade.

Are the religious leaders of your area or faith preaching abortion?

 

Why does the right seem to enjoy the equivalent to frivolous legislation more than actually solving modern social dilemmas in modern times?

The Right could establish more confidence in their sincerity by legislating better infrastructure that could render the medical procedure of abortion, obsolete in modern times; instead of merely resorting to the coercive use of force of the State to enforce something that should only require faith.

 

The sad fact of the matter is that the pro-life movement is a right-wing movement, and they, generally, don't support any of those measures. In fact, some of them feel that teaching sex education, and making access to contraception and family planning services the way we do is wrong. They'll cling to the abstinence only line simply because they have no other alternatives, but abstinence only education, at least when it's not coupled with comprehensive sex education, is not going to work. The idea is sound(don't have sex and you won't get STD's or an unwanted pregnancy), however, the expectation that human beings are always going to act responsibly is anything but. Abstinence only education could potentially be more successful if it was being done in a culture that hasn't simultaneously glorified and castigated sex for quite some time. In fact, I'd wager that the sexual liberation movement of the 60s wasn't just a feminist thing, but a repudiation of hundreds of years of religious dogma put into a new light by the space program and the manhatten project, among others(these two occurrences went a long way towards showing humanity, through knowledge and understanding of the very world and universe we inhabit, that we actually are in control of our own destinies, thereby ripping it out of the clenched hands of religious fairy tales).

The problem with the rights approach to this is simply that they have no approach. Their entire position is based largely around the word "NO", and, to quote Loki from the movie Dogma, a God "wagging his finger at you from thousands of years ago, saying if you do that, I'm going to beeping spank you". That's not going to work. In fact, that's going to do the opposite, as anyone with children knows. Our culture is not what it was 75 years ago, and while it's not right to say we're never going back, it is correct to say it's most certainly not going to happen overnight through legislation or by denying reproductive services and information to those who need and want them.

 

I believe the Rights' insistence on abstinence only is disingenuous at best and the abomination of hypocrisy at worst; since abstinence only is never preached for real crimes in a manner as serious as it is for something that comes naturally for political animals. Why any double Standard while claiming any Faith?

 

Thanks Grannie.

Well if you are a God-fearin' woman and have read Genesis you gotta admit it is an attention getter. Keeping a mother-to-be and the abortionist and his/her co-conspirators from killing the life within the mother-to-be may seem like a punishment to you but I can't help but believe that it is considerate of the other being/entity developing within.

Ahh, a magician, no you see it now you don't? Sorry, really can't see it.

You say "What" and I say "Who", isn't that really at the heart of the debate?

We develop throughout our life, within Mother's womb is one part of that development of a human being. Wasn't mother's body designed to protect and nurture her developing child? What has the developing human being done to warrant his/her death?

You bring an interesting thought to mind with your last sentence. What (who) it is, is less important than where it (he or she) is (at). You can get away with taking a life if you do it somewhere where responsibility/discovery can be deferred. A desert in Nevada, construction jobs out East, the trunk of a car or an abortion mill. A court cannot hear a case unless it has both jurisdiction and venue. In all these perspectives I can see what (or who) may certainly be less important than place and time. But is mother really just a place and time or is she a what (or who) too? Just musing in text.

 

Do you not agree that MANY pro-lifers are pro-war, anti-environmental protection, and anti-universal health care?

Slavery is more analogous to forced pregnancy, because the zef lives only by the efforts of the woman.

Pollution Causes 40 Percent Of Deaths Worldwide, Study Finds
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070813162438.htm

The US is the only industrialized country without a national healthcare system. Healthcare is more costly in the US than any other country, and yet our ranking is 37th. Something has to be done.

Harvard Medical Study Links Lack of Insurance to 45,000 U.S. Deaths a Year
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes....-lack-of-insurance-to-45000-us-deaths-a-year/

Why is religion an issue? We have freedom of religion in the US, and not all religions are anti-abortion. Wisdom is not necessarily timeless, at least in the medical field, as noted by David Magnus, M.D:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8865-abortion-science-politics-and-morality-collide.html

Not true. The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice provides a list of its membership here:
http://rcrc.org/about/members.cfm

From a conservative evangelical seminary professor, writing in Billy Graham’s magazine for editor Harold Lindsell, 1968:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slackt...lical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal/

So why the abrupt evangelical turnabout?

 

Actually, when abortion was illegal, it was clergy who helped young women find their ways to safe abortionists.

http://rcrc.org/

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&...YIs9Je&sig=AHIEtbQrxSPMg5HpyglwLGc1eCU8qrNQlw

 

Expand upon your question, "what has the woman done to warrant the sentence of sacrificing a year of her life to give birth? (Nine months gestation, birth, and recovery) Yes, she is guilty of choosing to have sex, so there you go, the punishment mode of thinking.

BTW, what has the "developing human being" done to deserve the sacrifice that a woman makes to give birth? The "developing human being" has no life of its own, it only has the life the woman gives it. If she chooses to refuse to continue giving it life, it's her choice.

 

There are clergy who abused children but I wouldn't use that as a formal statement to declare that a religion or faith supports that behavior.

 

Cady, gonna have to look this over, running out of time at the moment. I can't ever be for anything save life but sincerely thank you for these challenges.

 

I don't see the carrying of, bearing a child as punishment. With the choices we make come associated results or consequences.

The developing human is separate but dependent. True a mother sustains life in a physical sense but that developing human is just as dependent on his or her mother as is the developing baby/infant.

Whether something is legal or not, we have free will...trumps all laws unless/until responsibility kicks in.

DixNickson is outta the house for now. Thanks Grannie

 

I'm not surprised you don't "see" it. In the case of pregnancy, the result or consequences can be controlled by modern medicine, well actually even ancient medicine. Refusing to allow women access to the medical treatment they desire is punishment.

A baby or infant is separate but dependent, a zef is not separate. A baby's or infant's needs can be provided by anyone, one who does so voluntarily. Zefs, on the other hand, can only be provided for by one person, that one person should not be forced to provide.