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Well, I quess in your utopia the government would control every aspect of parent's lives. Welcome to GldnRule's Nannystate of America.
If we are going to regulate every aspect of a woman's pregnancy, right down to her diet.....why should we stop there?
Why shouldn't we regulate PARENTS lives just as vigorously as we do a pregnant woman's life? Let's not forget daddy.....a child has a right to have a healthy father too.
Children depend on their parents....so..... should we allow parents to eat an unhealthy diet? Engage in potentially dangerous activities? Smoke, drink, gamble, ride motorcycles? PARENTS should be held to a higher living standard because a child's welfare depends on them.
In your new Utopia, the government will oversee parent's diets and what they feed their children. Parents will no loner be allowed to own or use motorcycles, ATV's, boats or guns. NO UNNECESSARY risks allowed. You are a parent.....and a CHILD now depends on you. Your life is no longer your own.
Overweight parents will be required to see government doctors, who will design an optimal diet and exercise program that they will be mandated to follow......or the child will be placed with adoptive parents who are in excellent physical condition.....fat, unhealthy parents will no longer be tolerated.
Oh yeah.....parents need to submit to random drug screening too. Can't have parents doing drugs.
After all..... children have a RIGHT to have two parents who are healthy..........good role models who will be there for them until they reach adulthood, don't they?
Oh wait.....let's not forget people who carry genetic defects. NO CHILDREN for them. Children have a RIGHT to be brought into this world with healthy, disease free bodies.
Welcome to parenthood in the Nannystate of America.
{BTW.... to address one of your other points....abortion has been legal in the US longer than it was illegal.}
We already have lots and lots of "nanny-like" laws that criminalize "risk of injury".
And forget killing or causing actual/risk of physical harm...you can't even cause "emotional distress" without getting legally jammed up. You can't even neglect an animal without criminal sanctions.
In NY, they now have a law that makes it against the law to sell a "sugary drink" that is over 16 ozs in size...to ANYBODY, nevermind pregnant women!
We DO regulate Fatherhood. Ever hear of "child support"?
Doing certain drugs is a crime, regardless...do it while you are caring for children and get greater punishment.
There are LOTS of laws to regulate parenting and childcare...and HUGE agencies to investigate and enforce. I'm sure you are aware of this.
As soon as the science prompts legislation...the unborn will be protected too.
There ARE those who oppose abortion on other than religious grounds and we have seen examples of them here. But as my two friends, Gldn and Pleroo indicate (in response to my view of Annie53's posts) . . . there are additional reasons why LAWS criminalizing abortion are opposed separately. Clearly there are those like me who abhor abortion as a solution to ANY problem . . . but just as vehemently oppose any LAWS criminalizing it.
My friend Gldn would have the coercive and punitive power of the state used against women who do not want to continue their pregnancy to term and invoke all the protections of personhood for the unborn child. Annie53 posed just a few of the myriad complications this would create.
My friend Pleroo otoh would have us scale back those protections of children who are already born . . . for valid reasons I suspect. We indeed have gone overboard in legislating our lives in our supposedly free society. Bureaucrats are notoriously incompetent (and sometimes just evil) in their administration of those same laws. So I am sympathetic to Pleroo's point.
The important issue that this reveals, however, is that laws must be used judiciously. They can indeed become the "atomic bomb" of solutions to problems that are far more delicate and complex than would justify their use. When placed in the hands of usually incompetent bureaucrats, they can be almost as damaging and devastating to individual relationships and lives as a dirty bomb in the hands of fanatic terrorists. My hyperbole aside, these are not trifling issues and should neither be pursued with the zeal of Gldn toward their expansion . . . nor the dismissal of Pleroo toward their existence. I believe they are central among the reasons many people oppose abortion and abortion law that do NOT involve religion.
You make well taken points in many respects Mystic. You already know what I think of your wisdom, intellect, and enlightenment.
And, like most...there are laws that exist, I think shouldn't...and laws that don't exist, I think should. As for the latter...protection for the unborn (at least to the most basic degree) is one of the main ones I think should.
We see differently on the matter. It does not reduce your status in my eyes one bit. If anything...your dissent has made me contemplate my position more deeply. Though it hasn't changed it.
Yes..."most agree that if someone has no intention or ability to care for a born child, turning it over to someone that can and will do so is a good choice". But, unless and until they do find some surrogate caregiver to turn it over to they are responsible for the care and safety of the child. Snuffing or neglecting the kid are not some of the options...that carries criminal penalties...BIGTIME criminal penalties.
It's just a matter of time...once the science is brought forward before the legislature proving they have determined that the unborn are, from conception on, the exact same entity as will exist after birth, just less developed...that will compel rights to be assigned. And if those rights are violated, the perpetrators will be punished accordingly. Same as with any other entity that is legally assigned rights.
You don't see people seeking to disown animals because "animal cruelty laws" were passed. Or people deciding not to start a company because they can no longer purchase people they don't have to pay to labor as slaves. Or people deciding not to open a business just because it now has to be "handicap accessible". Or lots of people deciding not to own a car because the laws and regulations that govern operating a vehicle on the road got more stringent then it was years back. I could go on and on with examples.
Of course, there will always be a few radicals...but overall people realize a society needs laws to provide protection to those that would be subject to harm by those that would otherwise be self-serving or uncaring.
I submit: The unborn are just the next group to be legally shielded from harm at the hands of the selfish and the evil...like all the other groups of oppressed and exploited before them that gained rights & protection through laws, regulations, codes, and ordinances.
I realize that we are all illuded in one aspect or another.
Yet, I have a hard time understanding the depth of some denial to obvious truths... like life vs. death, or "it's not my problem, so who cares?"
If such narcissists were the one getting murdered, they'd want others to make it their problem and help them.
This ignorance, I find unacceptably disgusting & makes me question the ability for some humans to reason beyond narcissism.
Too many, including Atheist herd thinkers, have never even researched human development, but are still so quick to say, "kill it!" despite the fact that "it" was them just a matter of time previously. Most abortion murder supporters are also ignor-ant of the cruel & inhumane manner in which such abortion killings are conducted.
8 weeks gestation: a child (developing human being) has all body systems in tact.
By 12 weeks gestation, children in the womb can feel their bodies being ripped apart limb by limb during abortion murder.
12 weeks gestation... the silent scream, ultrasound of an abortion...
You make well taken points in many respects Mystic. You already know what I think of your wisdom, intellect, and enlightenment.
And, like most...there are laws that exist, I think shouldn't...and laws that don't exist, I think should. As for the latter...protection for the unborn (at least to the most basic degree) is one of the main ones I think should.
We see differently on the matter. It does not reduce your status in my eyes one bit. If anything...your dissent has made me contemplate my position more deeply. Though it hasn't changed it.
We have mutual respect, Gldn . . . and we do not see that differently on the matter, my friend. We mostly differ on the utility and appropriateness of the means available to achieve the protection. Laws are atrociously poor at protection and enormously destructive (like a dirty bomb). They contaminate ALL aspects of a person's life purportedly to affect their actions about only one. But, once one IS a criminal . . . ALL other aspects of life are permanently contaminated. It is a lousy choice to apply to such deeply personal matters as abortion of one's own unborn child, Gldn. Are there some instances where the use of abortion borders on the criminal . . . probably. But not all, Gldn. OTOH, there are some truly awful and ugly human beings out there who become biological parents . . . and that is truly criminal as well . . . in some cases far more so. It is a complex and deeply troubling area that the "dirty bomb" of criminality is simply not appropriate for, IMO.
All else aside, it's amusing that Gldn screams that Christianity/God is a WINNER due to popularity and THAT'S TRUMPS ALL and ALWAYS WILL .That's whether it's right or wrong, true or not.
Applying the same logic............
We already have lots and lots of "nanny-like" laws that criminalize "risk of injury".
And forget killing or causing actual/risk of physical harm...you can't even cause "emotional distress" without getting legally jammed up. You can't even neglect an animal without criminal sanctions.
In NY, they now have a law that makes it against the law to sell a "sugary drink" that is over 16 ozs in size...to ANYBODY, nevermind pregnant women!
We DO regulate Fatherhood. Ever hear of "child support"?
Doing certain drugs is a crime, regardless...do it while you are caring for children and get greater punishment.
There are LOTS of laws to regulate parenting and childcare...and HUGE agencies to investigate and enforce. I'm sure you are aware of this.
As soon as the science prompts legislation...the unborn will be protected too.
You are forgetting one inconvenient FACT. Banning abortion does not stop abortions.....never has.....never will.
As far as society policing every aspect of a pregnant woman's life.....good luck with that. Good luck with our society going for it.....good luck paying for the massive amounts of manpower and prisons trying to enforce it even if you could pass such draconian legislation.
As much as you don't like it.....women are not breeding stock that you can confine and control.....and we NEVER will be.
BTW....how are all of those laws requiring men to pay child support working out? Not too well considering all of the single moms out there who need government assistance to support their children.
I realize that we are all illuded in one aspect or another.
Yet, I have a hard time understanding the depth of some denial to obvious truths... like life vs. death, or "it's not my problem, so who cares?"
If such narcissists were the one getting murdered, they'd want others to make it their problem and help them.
This ignorance, I find unacceptably disgusting & makes me question the ability for some humans to reason beyond narcissism.
Too many, including Atheist herd thinkers, have never even researched human development, but are still so quick to say, "kill it!" despite the fact that "it" was them just a matter of time previously. Most abortion murder supporters are also ignor-ant of the cruel & inhumane manner in which such abortion killings are conducted.
8 weeks gestation: a child (developing human being) has all body systems in tact.
By 12 weeks gestation, children in the womb can feel their bodies being ripped apart limb by limb during abortion murder.
12 weeks gestation... the silent scream, ultrasound of an abortion...
In reviewing the neuroanatomical and physiological evidence in the fetus, it was apparent that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not intact before 24 weeks of gestation and, as most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain perception, it can be concluded that the fetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this gestation. After 24 weeks there is continuing development and elaboration of intracortical networks such that noxious stimuli in newborn preterm infants produce cortical responses. Such connections to the cortex are necessary for pain experience but not sufficient, as experience of external stimuli requires consciousness. Furthermore, there is increasing evidence that the fetus never experiences a state of true wakefulness in utero and is kept, by the presence of its chemical environment, in a continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation. This state can suppress higher cortical activation in the presence of intrusive external stimuli. This observation highlights the important differences between fetal and neonatal life and the difficulties of extrapolating from observations made in newborn preterm infants to the fetus.
Such blatant ignorance of scientific FACT on the part of pro-lifers will not promote swaying others to your side on the debate over abortion rights.
In fact, it will do just the opposite. People will automatically dismiss ALL of your arguments as emotional drivel. Kinda like the story about the boy who cried wolf.....after awhile no one pays attention to anything you have to say because you have a reputation for not telling the truth.
Part of the problem with this whole black and white debate is that there are many, many people who are both "pro-choice" and "pro-life".
"Pro-choice" does not mean people want more or even the same number of abortions. I'm sure most of them do in fact want to see fewer abortions and in a perfect world agree there would be zero. But they recognize that not making/keeping it legal and available to women will not prevent abortions; rather, it stands to make matters worse. Everything from "back alley" abortions to abortion attempts that instead result in a newborn with severe handicaps.
"Pro-lifers" acknowledge that scientists do not know as much as they pretend about a fetus' level of consciousness, just as they didn't twenty years ago. The development of human tissue into a human life is a remarkably gradual thing with absolutely NO marker on which we can be sure. Though I do not subscribe to the idea that life begins at conception, I think most other definitive stances may very well have some merit; NO ONE KNOWS.
I personally believe that an embryo becomes a human life somewhere around the time it becomes a fetus. Most of the parts are now present and growth from there is a development of existing parts, just like with the rest of us.
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