Pro-Life or Pro-Choice?

Now I can go to bed - I'd been trying to remember this term all the time (yes, I still remember my name .... and even know Alzheimer's first name:wink: ).

Thanks, Joe.

Can you fix your poll so that the last option reads pro-choice?

Pro-life is not an accurate term for the anti-abortion faction. Most of them do not seem to have any problem with killing people in wars or letting them die of diseases that might be cured through stem cell research.

Murder is "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought."

Early abortions are not murder since it they neither unlawful nor do they kill a person. (Embryos are not persons since their brains are not developed enough for sentience to be possible. A third trimester fetus has less awareness and intelligence than some of the animals that we kill every day for food.) Late term abortions are only done when medically necessary and no one but the woman and her doctor have any right to make that determination.

How is it moral to demand that women who accidentally become pregnant must suffer the discomforts of pregnancy for 9 months, lose time from their jobs, curtail pleasures and activities, endure the pain of childbirth and its aftermath, be subjected to invasive and unpleasant medical procedures including a 20% chance of abdominal surgery, risk death, and then donate the product of their labor to another woman without being compensated for their time and effort?

If you think that is ethical, how about requiring all sexually active men to participate in a lottery with the randomly-chosen winners being required to donate a kidney, liver lobe, or other organ of their choice to save the life of another person?

Being an old man in reasonably good health at the moment, I'm pro-life. If my health were to deteriorate badly and I became a useless bundle of pain for people to deal with, I think then I'd be pro-choice.

Terry, oops, sorry about the mistake of the post. I can't figure out how to fix it, sorry. If you know, let me know.

I think this subject is leaning towards pro-choice. And I'm glad. Everyone had great opinions. I, personally, am Pro-Choice (all the way). Terry made some excellent points that lawmakers and Pro-Life activists don't take into consideration. I myself, have had an abortion, and I am satisfied with the decision I have made. I believe there are way too many young and unfit mothers, (I myself would have probably been one,) and the decision to not have a baby was probably the most smartest and most responsible decision I have made to date. I was not greedy in this situation, (although I admit I didn't want to give up my life to raise a child,) but considerate of this unborn child growing inside me. I didn't want to raise a child on welfare, as I didn't have a job, and no skills to get a job that could afford to pay the exspenses of a child. I didn't love that child, and an unloved child is the most saddest child there is.

Today, I am using protection. (Orthro Evra Patch). I know someday, when the time is right, I will want to raise a child the right way. I did not only do myself a favor, but also that fetus, my parents, the welfare system, and the taxpayers.

It is only murder if it is a human being that is killed. Until it is born, or able to be born safely, a fetus is not a human being. It's not murder to kill a dog, it's property damage. Same thing here. Fetuses are alive, and I realize some people have emotional connections with them, but that does not make them human.

Both PBA and Capital punishment meet your definitions for murder and legalized. They are both murder and legal. The baby is alive, the death row guy/woman, too. Both events are sanctioned by law.

First year Crimes:

Homicide: The killing of one human-being by another.

Murder: The killing of one human-being by another not sanctioned by Law. Typically, killing is sanctioned in the following circumstances:
a. When serving in the military services in combat against enemy combatants.
b. When carrying-out judicial warrant of execution.
c. When the killing is in self-defense, or to protect others whose lives are reasonably at risk.

Murder, unlike most crimes in the Common Law, may exist in more than one degree. The legal standard between the various degrees of Murder vary both in title and definition from one jurisdiction to another, and largely turn on the question of specific intent. The following is, I believe fairly typical across most jurisdictions in the United States:

a. Murder in the First Degree. The corpus delicti is, "The unsanctioned killing of one person by another, with malice aforethought."
a.1. Murder with Special Circumstances is generally required for the death penalty. Special Circumstances typically are: Murder for hire, Lying in Wait, Use of poison or an explosive device.
a.2. Felony Murder (|Rule). The corpus delicti is, "It shall be First Degree Murder if the death of a human-being results of an inherently dangerous felony."
b. Murder in the Second Degree. The corpus delicti is, "the killing of one human-being by another without malice aforethought." Mutual combat is one circumstance where no malice might be shown, but a culpable homicide resulted. Murder in the Second Degree is often a jury option during the penalty phase of a Murder trial.
c. Negligent Homicide. The corpus delicti is, "the death of a human-being resulted from the wanton negligence of the defendant." Typical of these cases are: DWI. Failure to provide reasonable safety precautions where the dangers of death, or serious injury, are inherent. Misrepresentation of a product as safe, when the seller knew or should have known that the product was mortally hazardous. And so on ....

It is clear than most of the cases in this last series of posts aren't murder. Soldiers and executioners are legally sanctioned, and the deaths resulting from their legal actions is not culpable. A police officer, or private citizen, who kill when in fear for their own lives, or the lives of others, are also legally sanctioned and are not murder.

Malice means the intent to kill. Aforethought can be either protracted planning, or the simple choice between safely walking away or picking up a handy weapon and using it. Flying aircraft into tall occupied buildings is certainly Murder One, with special circumstances. A bar argument gets out of hand, and one person leaves the saloon and returns a few minutes later with a handgun they got out of their car and shoots the loud mouth to death. That's Murder One. If, in our example, the two disputants went outside and engaged in a fistfight, where one fell and cracked his skull resulting in death, that's probably Murder Two. If the fellow who left the bar went to the local liquor store and, simulating a gun, robbed it of a fifth of whiskey, he committed an inherently dangerous felony. Now if in fleeing the scene he sees a police car and runs a red light causing a traffic collision where a 90 year old woman died, it would be charged Murder One under the Felony Murder Rule. If the fellow decided not to rob the liquor store, but raced through a school zone knocking down a child in a crass-walk, the probable result would be negligent homicide.

Now as to how the law would regard abortion. Until recent times abortion was a separate crime, and was not regarded as homicide. The reason is that in the Common Law one doesn't become "human" in a legal sense until after birth. Hence, the corpus delicti for homicide didn't exist. The progress of medical science and evolving public sentiment has in recent times cause a re-evalutation of what when a fetus becomes legally "human". The standard when I was in law school was that the fetus had to be viable outside the womb to be legally "human". That was a fairly clear distinction and for many years it served well. However, now significant numbers of the public demand "legal" status for embryos virtually from the time the sperm impregnates the egg. Pandora's Box is open, and we will have controversy into the indefinite future.

If the abortion, at whatever stage, is sanctioned by law, then no murder has taken place whether the embryo/fetus is "human", or not. Even if we accept the impregnated egg as "human", the abortion is no more than sanctioned homicide. Since the Supreme Court has sanctioned abortion laws, no abortion carried out within the constraints of a jurisdiction's abortion law is murder. That could change. If the Supreme Court reversed itself and adopted different legal standards abortion might no longer even be sanctioned homicide. To adopt the extreme definition of what is legally a human-being, and striking down existing abortion laws, the Court might eliminate ALL abortions (even some birth control techniques), except those that might be justified as "self-defense" to protect the life of the mother. I believe that is highly unlikely, and would be counter-productive to the Public welfare.

Thank you for your effort, Ash. I had thought about making a distinction when the term murder started to be bandied about, but wasn't motivated to the effort--so, instead, just made a flippant remark. I for one appreciate that you went to the trouble to point these things out.

can't let that one go;

that is precisely the kind of myopic thinking that creates 'abortionist murderers'!

Taking the life of any living thing for no justifyable (in a respectable court of law) reason is wrong. Life is not property; but includes the rights of the individual to personal autonomy; including women!

I was referring to the law, bogo. Pets are considered property, not people. "Murder" is a term that is defined by the law, not by morality, or anything like that. So I would say, that, as being living things that are not human, the law should treat fetuses as it treats other living, nonhuman creatures.

Yes. Thanks, Ash. I see once again I stand outside the law.

I see the intentional taking of a life as murder--but my country disagrees. I understand it is a bit upsetting to people who are pro-CP or pro-PBA or pro-war to consider that these things are intentional killing, and murder. So, luckily for them, the word has been defined to suit their sensibilities.

Sort of like the 'legal protection' of not calling what is going on in Sudan 'genocide'.

I didn't realize murder had been defined that recently.

I didn't say it had been recent.

PRO-Choice.

And no conditions either.
The woman should always have the last word.

and by the way.... that voting thing sux, since doesn't compells all options there might be, and there's not that many anyways, come on a couple more would have done it.

i believe in a hundred years society will look back at our current abortion situation and view it much like we view hitlers concentration camps...

Obviously, you have now idea about what was done to the more than six million Jews and all the hundredthousand others who ded in those camps.

Otherwise you wouldn't insult them, the surveivors and their families.

wrong...i have a very good idea what happened....however, i wager that much more than 6 million unborn humans have been discarded as trash through the process known as abortion....

I doubt that even more after this response than I did before.


Or ... but you can't be such bad.

ok...all of the sudden you simply are aware of my knowledge on the subject??



sorry...i'm unable to decipher this statement...perhaps there was a grammatical error...