Abortion.What do you think about it?

real life wrote:

It is the Supreme Court that stated that the personhood of the unborn was the issue that could justify banning abortion.

In which decision? Give me a name or a legal citation.

The Supreme Court decision in Roe versus Wade can be read at this Find Law-dot-com page.

Please quote for us the portion of the text of the decision in which any member of the Court states that the "personhood of the unborn" would be a basis for banning abortion.

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. 51 On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument 52 that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Setanta wrote:

The Supreme Court decision in Roe versus Wade can be read at this Find Law-dot-com page.

Please quote for us the portion of the text of the decision in which any member of the Court states that the "personhood of the unborn" would be a basis for banning abortion.

Quote:

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. 51 On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument 52 that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Hope you're having a super day.

Please quote for us the portion of the text of the decision in which any member of the Court states that the "personhood of the unborn" would be a basis for banning abortion.

Part of the cultural bounty of which you could avail youself would be buying crack from the narco-terrorists who were previously the Ulster Defense Force or the Provisional IRA . . . don't miss that once in a lifetime opportunity ! ! !

The culture of death and the violent death of children

For all the violence of the troubles, the number of children killed or injured by violence in Northern Ireland is less than anywhere else in the UK. Child deaths as a result of violence are at 0.0 per 100,000, which means that the rates are too low to quantify.

By contrast, a league table produced by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children of child murders among the world's most developed nations list England and Wales as the fourth highest with a rate of 5.5 per 100,000. Most such children are killed when they are less than one year old.

In 1991 the Northern Ireland Health Minister Jeremy Hanley stated that "during the period 1980 to 1989 there was only one recorded maternal death resulting from an illegal abortion" in Northern Ireland.25 However, between 1991 and 1993, five women in Britain died as a direct result of complications following legal abortions. In recent years the lowest rate of maternal deaths from all causes-including abortion-in the UK has been in Northern Ireland. The evidence clearly demonstrates that there is no foundation to the claims of the pro-abortion lobby that illegal, so-called back-street abortions, are being carried out in Northern Ireland.

A leader in the Irish News of 15 May 1991 stated: "Earlier this week a British High Court judge ruled that a 12-year old girl should undergo abortion against her mother's wishes...Capital punishment was abolished in the early 1960s...And yet all these years later we have another judge, sitting in secret session, condemning a life to be snuffed out before it has properly begun. This is a tragedy and a scandal. You can tell much about a society by the way it treats its most defenceless members: the elderly, the sick, the handicapped and the children. A society that sanctions and encourages abortions is a selfish, uncaring society...This scandalous affair will go down in legal history, not so much because a judge and a crowd of social workers overruled a mother's heartfelt wishes, but because it is a symbol of how the noble principles of justice become perverted in a society that does not care."

real life wrote:

Setanta wrote:

The Supreme Court decision in Roe versus Wade can be read at this Find Law-dot-com page.

Please quote for us the portion of the text of the decision in which any member of the Court states that the "personhood of the unborn" would be a basis for banning abortion.

Quote:

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. 51 On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument 52 that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Hope you're having a super day.

Uh, you do know what an "appellee," an "appellant," and "amici" are, don't you? They're not members of the court. They're the litigants and non-parties who offer briefs in support of one or the other of the litigants. They speak for themselves, not the court.

Indeed, Justice Blackmun, writing for the court, stated: "All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn." I don't know what could be clearer.

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment

The justices wrote their opinion:

Quote:

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment

and stated that the appellant concurred.

Yes it is very plain.

By the way, if you ever remove your Protestant blinders long enough, you'd note that my remarks condemned the UDF and the Provos . . . but you're in too big a hurry to put a chip on your shoulder about the Prods to notice . . .

real life wrote:

The justices wrote their opinion:

Quote:

If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment

and stated that the appellant concurred.

Yes it is very plain.

Blackmun, throughout his opinion, spoke of "personhood" only in terms of the fourteenth amendment. But that's a legal definition, not a medical one -- remember, under the fourteenth amendment even corporations are considered "persons," so "personhood" under the amendment means something very different from what it means in normal discourse.

I suspect, real life, that you would prefer talking about "personhood" in a medical or even a metaphysical sense, rather than in a constitutional sense. The legal complications of considering a fetus as a person would, after all, be vast and bewildering. As Blackmun pointed out in Roe,

When Texas urges that a fetus is entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection as a person, it faces a dilemma. Neither in Texas nor in any other State are all abortions prohibited. Despite broad proscription, an exception always exists. The exception contained in Art. 1196, for an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother, is typical. But if the fetus is a person who is not to be deprived of life without due process of law, and if the mother's condition is the sole determinant, does not the Texas exception appear to be out of line with the Amendment's command?

Or, as he more succinctly remarked, "We are not aware that in the taking of any census under [the apportionment] clause, a fetus has ever been counted."

At least, the sources take your quotation from, BDV, are ... aren't ... well, they are kind of extreme .... protestant.