Do the States have the right to be wrong?

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

It's a question that has perplexed philosophers, theologians and scientists for thousands of years.

Pythagorean Greeks, early Christian church fathers, Talmudic rabbis, Sunni and Shia thinkers, Hindu brahmin and modern bioethicists have grappled with the fundamental, ultimately unknowable, mystery: At what point in our biological development are we infused with a soul? At what point do we become human?

On May 14, the final day of their legislative session, Missouri lawmakers declared the answer, and last month, by withholding his veto, Gov. Jay Nixon signaled that he agreed. On Aug. 28, their answer will become the law of the land.

"The life of each human being begins at conception," according to Senate Bill 793, which will add new regulations to the state's 24-hour informed consent law for abortions. "Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being."

Those words will be displayed "prominently" on brochures that abortion providers will be required to hand out to every woman seeking the procedure — even if they don't happen to believe the Christian theology the words represent.

"Those are not sentiments that all the world's religions, or all the people in the state, believe in," said Paula Gianino, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri.

But supporters of the new law say they see no conflict between religion and the law's definition of life.

Sen. Jim Lembke, R-Lemay, one of the sponsors of the bills, said the language on the new brochures "is not a religious statement. It's a scientific statement."

It's a false argument - yes cell masses are alive, including human embryos, no one debates this. The only legitimate debate(and I'm going to ignore unprovable arguments about the soul that have vexxed philosophers for all of human history) is about when the rights of Personhood are assigned. And no state legislature is going to alter the standard definition of 'born, living human' so instead there's just a series of laws passed on the state level to scare, humiliate, "educate" women who want an abortion - forced viewing of ultrasounds, etc. Most of which read more like an Onion parody.

It would be awesome if state legislators(I'm looking at you, Party of Small Government) stuck to the actual business of their states and didn't try to ramrod their personal ideology into law for the brief time it will take for court challenges to dismantle. This is part of why we can't have nice things.

Comments

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Republican Party wants a government small enough to fit in people's bedrooms and uteri.

[op-tech-glitch.livejournal.com]

The Republican Party wants to sniff through everyone's undies.

(And as it happens, I've got plenty to donate in the clothes hamper...some of 'em sufficiently rank to stun a rhino at 50 yards.)

[silver-chipmunk.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking this one is going to be found unconstitutional pretty quickly.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

The State has an interest in the life of the unborn, and is allowed under current precedent to advocate for that life and its interest therein. If it is found unconstitutional, it will not be on this basis, it will be because it presents a significant obstacle to obtaining an abortion.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Rights are not "assigned". Inalienable rights come from our identity as human beings. This is a rather important concept in America, even if our society hasn't followed it to the extent they should have.

And western civil and legal traditions declare the rights of Personhood apply to born, living humans, you or Missouri wants to change that, a compelling argument needs to be made.

And I notice that in the article you've linked, the only people bringing up religion are the opponents of the bill and the author of the article.

Strangely, there's a lack of secular-humanist legislation about forced propaganda requirements to get a legal abortion. 99.9% of the time, it's coming from some Bible-thumping red state legislator.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Then what happens with the 50% of pregnancies that are naturally miscarried and never come to term?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

You're cutting out the context of the statement. You do that a lot. Is it some kind of reflexive action?

The false argument is that terminating a living cell mass such as a human embryo is equivalent to terminating "the life of a separate, unique, living human being."

Roe v Wade wasn't about personal ideology. It was about privacy and the right of a woman to control her own body.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> Then it's not really a "false" argument, is it?

Perhaps not false, but specious. Sperm and Eggs are irrefutably 'alive' just as a fertilized zygote is. Why does life, then, 'begin' at conception? Obviously, then, mere biological aliveness isn't the only question now, is it? this is a typical rhetorical strategy, exploiting the fallacy of equivocation.

The movement which pushes the "Life Begins at Conception" idea... and by life we mean "an independent life deserving of specific, compulsory, and enforcible rights"; has been overwhelmingly religiously inspired, stemming from ideas in the last century or two concerning 'ensoulment'. Do you expect us to ignore modern history?

> I notice that in the article you've linked, the only people
> bringing up religion are the opponents of the bill

Because the proponents of the bill have stealthily concealed their motivations for that bill. It's transparently religious in the same way as Intelligent Design was. One could as easily have said that "only the opponents of Panda's and People made a point of bringing up religion." Of course, because the Panda's and People publisher's knew that an overtly religious text would be constitutionally unacceptable. So did the authors and supporters of this bill.

> Rights are not "assigned". Inalienable rights come from our identity
> as human beings.

A zygote has no identity as a human being.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

It would be awesome if state legislators(I'm looking at you, Party of Small Government) stuck to the actual business of their states and didn't try to ramrod their personal ideology into law for the brief time it will take for court challenges to dismantle. This is part of why we can't have nice things.

If it's the business of the states to keep people from murdering other people, why wouldn't it be the business of the states to keep people from murdering fetuses, which are a few months away from being people?

Part of the anger comes from choosing not to understand WHY certain groups think a certain way. You see it as a women's rights issue to have an abortion, but they see it as a right of a fetus not to be murdered. By continually framing it as a women's issue ignores the crux of their argument and does nothing to explain why they're wrong (if they are wrong at all).

Understanding goes both ways.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

If it's the business of the states to keep people from murdering other people, why wouldn't it be the business of the states to keep people from murdering fetuses, which are a few months away from being people?

The basic problem is that the other mini-fiefdoms making up America, along with the Federal part of government, disagrees with their definition of murder. And so will the courts, yet again. This is not an approach to the Personhood debate that's worked in the past, so it's just a waste of legislative and court time.

And yes, I distrust the altruistic motivations of legislators attempting to throw up roadblocks to legal abortion because it makes them feel squicky inside.

I think I've been arguing this debate my entire adult life, including in person and I can say that the "crux of their argument" comes down to control issues(women doing things they don't like) and a frothy mix of sentimentality and superstition.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Given a fetus can't talk and that all the ones that advocate for their rights happen to be old rich white people who probably have three mistresses and one wife while simultaneously bemoaning the decay to marriage that would be gays getting married.....

[penguin42.livejournal.com]

You see it as a women's rights issue to have an abortion, but they see it as a right of a fetus not to be murdered. By continually framing it as a women's issue ignores the crux of their argument and does nothing to explain why they're wrong (if they are wrong at all).

It's women's rights over their own bodies vs an arbitrary definition as to when civil life begins. There's no scientific or social reason to draw the line at conception -- the transformation from some semen and eggs to a full person is a continuous process with no stark boundaries. As far as I know there's no specific religious requirement to draw the line there either (I don't think the bible ever mentions "conception"). There are compelling reasons to define it later (such as implantation, or viability). But basically everyone agrees that a born baby is a person, and is probably a person for some time before being born.

So with no specific reason to draw the line at a certain point, weighing against the rights of the mother becomes a hugely important part of the question. Pro-choice advocates are looking at the whole question, including the the rights of the fetus and mother. Pro-life advocates are only looking at one side.

edited for some weird wording

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> You see it as a women's rights issue to have an abortion, but
> they see it as a right of a fetus not to be murdered.

I don't think this is universal.

Yes, I do think that some anti-abortionists are motivated by a sincere and consistent (though to my mind wrong) commitment to the idea of ensoulment at conception. But, I think there are others who use the idea of life beginning at conception as a false flag argument, as a way to make their anti-abortion stance more palatable, when the real agenda is to prevent/reverse what they see as the social effects of abortion specifically, and birth control in general.

For instance, any anti-abortionists who is willing to make an exception in the case of legally substantiated Rape, is being inconsistent. The fetus would not be any less an individual and thus any less deserving of rights than one produced by consensual sex. This inconsistent position reveals the hidden agenda... i.e. the key fact is that sex was or was not consented to... not that a zygote does or does not have a human identity.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Part of the anger comes from choosing not to understand WHY certain groups think a certain way. You see it as a women's rights issue to have an abortion, but they see it as a right of a fetus not to be murdered. By continually framing it as a women's issue ignores the crux of their argument and does nothing to explain why they're wrong (if they are wrong at all).

This is one of my major issues with political debate in general. So often, people simply are not arguing on the same topic, or are willfully failing to see the underlying viewpoint of the other side. That's a problem for reasonable debate, because it makes it impossible to learn from the other side. If you say "These are just some cells within the woman's body," and the other side says "this is murder," then there's not much to be done to bring you together. The argument should be over whether it's murder or not, not over whether these restrictions on the methods used to eliminate cells/kill babies are reasonable.

American states...

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

... aren't in the business of keeping people from murdering other people. In fact, some of them even practice the act themselves. The Federal government also performs a significant number of murders itself.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

Wait, we have a party of small government?

Since when?

Last I checked we had

Republicrats: The Big government party that is pro big business, anti big labor and wants to tell you what you have to believe regarding god, religion and morality

Democans: The Big Government party that is pro big business, Pro Big Labor, and wants to tell you what you have to believe regarding equality, fairness, and Social Justice.

Then a handful of inconsequential cranks running 3rd parties than can't capture 1% of the electorate between them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The Republicans are the ones who raise small-government and CUTTAXES as rhetoric.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

I definitely like Carl Sagan's analysis of abortion, he gave both sides a fair shake in it. And btw, he came down on the side of Roe v. Wade in how to decide a point in which the state has a right to protect the unborn and protect the rights of the mother, as contradictory as that sounds.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Very this. Sagan has an exceptionally clear-headed view of the whole thing.

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

An appendix is a living thing. I believe that the appendix is where the soul resides, therefore we must inform each and every appendectomy candidate of this fact.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Well I haven't seen any proof against it, it must be protected!!

[sgiffy.livejournal.com]

Pythagorean Greeks, early Christian church fathers, Talmudic rabbis, Sunni and Shia thinkers, Hindu brahmin and modern bioethicists have grappled with the fundamental, ultimately unknowable, mystery: At what point in our biological development are we infused with a soul?

Baptism. Before that kill away.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

So we can abort atheists? Excellent.

[rogerdr.livejournal.com]

Since when are fetuses "separate"? One could argue for "living", but even "unique" is suspect while they are necessarily attached to their mothers. They should by rights be thought of as dependent entities unable to live separately, at least until the fuzzy time when they do become separately viable, if not 18 years old.

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, they are distinct genetically. They're dependent, obligate even, but they are distinct as well. But if they're not viable separately, they're not separable persons under the law; most pro-lifers don't accept that.

[anadinboy.livejournal.com]

im an atheist who hates abortion. Both the women who have them and the doctors who perform them are getting a sick sexual thrill from the process. At the very least its a form of munchausens syndrome by proxy.

Do states have the right to legislate science?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It seems like the state legislature is trying to upstage the Vatican in its interference with a definition that should be based on reason rather than despotic authority. My personal favorite definition of human life is that it starts at the moment that the person achieves a measure of reason. By that definition, Right-to-Lifers would not qualify.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I just have problem fathoming how the Republicans in Missouri have taken it upon themselves to define when life begins(for legal and civil purposes) and yet again have put obstacles in the way for women to obtain a legal abortion without being harassed or given propaganda.

[foolsguinea.livejournal.com]

I'm from Missouri, I live in Mo., I voted for Jay Nixon.

I am willing to work with people with widely different ideas on abortion; I don't like treating it as the great ideological divide, because it's not, & pragmatically we can't afford for it to be.

So, this bothers me more than it probably should. But does it.

This is so stupid. First off, if you mean fertilization, say fertilization. But of course if you say "fertilization," you might get a mental image of an already living spermatozoon joining an already living ovum. So it's more politically useful to say, "life begins at conception," which is actually not true, but what they're really saying is, "life begins at fucking." This is the line of the anti-contraception lobby here.

We can survive this, but right now I want to punch something.