Abortion.What do you think about it?

On the contrary, I am eager to discuss the legal ramifications of considering a fetus as a "person" under the fourteenth amendment, and I trust that you are too. So please address the following:

1. If a fetus is a person, how should the state deal with pregnant woman incarcerated in prison? After all, the fetus hadn't committed any crime, and no person can be deprived of his or her liberty without due process of law. So the fetus should be freed, even if the mother remains locked up, correct?

2. Even you believe that a woman should be allowed to have an abortion in those instances when her life is at risk. But, as Blackmun pointed out in his Roe opinion, allowing the woman to authorize an abortion under these circumstances is itself violative of the fourteenth amendment, which prohibits depriving someone of his or her life without due process of law. So wouldn't you concede that every abortion, even emergency procedures designed to save the woman's life, must be preceded by a court proceeding in which the fetus's interests are fully represented?

3. If a fetus is a person, then abortion is murder, and the abortionist is a murderer who should get the death penalty (I'll just assume that's your position, rather than wait for you to answer my repeated questions on this point). But shouldn't the woman be arrested and charged with being an accomplice to murder? It is extremely unlikely that the women are not complicit in their own abortions (I have yet to hear of an abortionist who performs the procedure on unwilling patients), so isn't a woman who arranges for an abortion the same as a woman who arranges for the murder of her husband? Death for abortionists, 20 years to life for the women who get abortions, right?

4. If legal "personhood" begins at conception, then wouldn't you agree that any form of birth control that is an abortifacient (e.g. the birth control pill or the IUD) rather than a contraceptive (e.g. condoms or diaphragms) should be outlawed? Furthermore, any woman who aborts a fertilized egg by means of a birth control pill would be, by definition, a self-abortionist, and thus should be arrested, tried, and convicted of murder and sentenced to death, correct?

5. In fertility treatments, clinics routinely use multiple fertilized eggs as a means of increasing the chances of a successful pregnancy. Currently, the unused eggs are discarded. If a fertilized egg is a person, however, we couldn't just dispose of them. What, then, are we to do? Forcibly implant the fertilized eggs into the woman that donated them? What if she doesn't want any more children?

6. According to the fourteenth amendment, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." Citizenship, consequently, depends upon where a child is born. So what is the citizenship of a fetus?

7. If a fetus is a person, shouldn't fetuses be counted as persons in the census?

Surely the reason they kill fetuses in the womb is prevent it being born alive, I know in the uk if an abortion somehow fails and the child is born the doctors must do all they can to save the childs life, I would assume this is the same in the usa

Naw, we just grind 'em into hamburger, right on the spot . . .

Does anyone know what really happens (by law) in the US, in the case of a failed abortion?

http://www.modbee.com/life/faithvalues/story/9774051p-10637283c.html

Do I miss the link to the law in that article?

I REALLY could do without the propaganda, RL.
Just the facts, please.

Is anyone aware of laws that cover what the doctor's responsibility is (to the child's life, to the mother's life..), in case of an abortion that doesn't take?

I just showed this post to my boyfriend, who happens to be a pediatrician. (oh, and i'm a guy as well) His response was "A physician wrote this? I think not." I found that amusing. One of his fellow MD's happens to be a lesbian who also wanted to birth her own children. However, due to the methods we use for fertilization, she became pregnant with four embryos. They selectively aborted two. Having quads markedly increases the risk that all will suffer premature birth and/or other dangerour complications. So perhaps she should have just taken the chance that all of them would die?

No...you didn't.

And this is what you get when you legalise abortion. An Eton wall game with human life rather than a ball.

There is no meeting ground between legalisms and ethical principles. Joe is correct on every point he makes but it alters nothing to the other side.

When it was illegal other systems managed these intractable problems but once legalised everybody chips in and usually without the proper knowledge and experience. Sometimes informal systems have a use and it is a question of finding the right people.

Is anyone aware of laws that cover what the doctor's responsibility is (to the child's life, to the mother's life..), in case of an abortion that doesn't take?
Okay, I admit I'm avoiding the research......

Not sure of US law, but here is an article from the UK newspaper "The Times" titled "Fifty babies a year are alive after abortion"



http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1892696,00.html

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/apr/05042505.html

and

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/08/20020805-6.html

... and here, from 'Thomas': House Report 107-186 - BORN-ALIVE INFANTS PROTECTION ACT OF 2001

Its terrible that a law had to brought in to protect failed abortions due to the heartlessness of doctors, is this what the human race is coming too? I worked in a slaughter house when in my teens and the animals where treated with more dignity than this.

I suppose, not many would prefer to live in a law-less society.

No they weren't!

And it is this kind of excess from your side of the issue that causes so much of the trouble...and inhibits any kind of accomodation.

Well it doen't really mater now, there are laws to stop such inhumanity

Why is this debate on the Spirituality and Religion forum. It has nothing to do with either?

It should be on Engineering or Style or Finance or something.