[On Hiatus] Artificial Womb Act

[Nulono]

I was responding to Urgench.

OOC: ?? You quoted me.

OOC: I thought you were defending Urgench.

[Coxnord]

OOC: ?? You quoted me.

OOC: I thought you were defending Urgench.

OOC: Defending? No. Agreeing with? Yes. The character I RP asked your character to argue against Urgench rather than just calling him "anti-life". I don't understand what you meant by "I was responding to Urgench." I thought both of your last comments were directed at my character since you quoted him/me.

[Nulono]

OOC: I thought you were defending Urgench.

OOC: Defending? No. Agreeing with? Yes. The character I RP asked your character to argue against Urgench rather than just calling him "anti-life". I don't understand what you meant by "I was responding to Urgench." I thought both of your last comments were directed at my character since you quoted him/me.

Urgench's arguments against embryo adoption also apply to infant adoption.

[Urgench]

Urgench's arguments against embryo adoption also apply to infant adoption.

No they don't the two things are totally different, one adopts a born child which has a right as a citizen to expect that it be properly cared for, and has rights in law as a citizen both in national law and in international law.

The foetus has none of these things and is not an orphan unless the state forces it to become one by farming it instead of allowing it to be aborted. The state has no interest in and no moral right to farm millions of foetuses to become orphans.

We do not recognise the concept of foetal adoption.

Yours,

[Kulaloe]

I would like to bring to everyone's attention a certain fact. There are nations in this organization that have faster-than-light technology. The resources necessary to build and maintain one vessel capable of this feat is - pardon the pun - astronomical! Most of these faster-than-light capable nations have militaries with thousands if not [/i]millions[/i] of such vessels. I sincerely doubt that any civilization that can handle the construction and upkeep of one thousand starships would have any issue with financing a few million incubators. Hell the intergalactic travelling nations could probably handle trillions of them when you consider how advanced a culture would need to be to pull that off. The economics of this program is a non-issue.

As for duplication of GA 44, the only clauses I can see as being an issue are the ones calling for sharing the technology and advancing it. Yes, this is a pre-natal procedure, but so is abortion, and yet resolutions have been passed post-44 on this issue. What are your thoughts on changing the sharing and advancement clauses to include merely registering a nation's capabilities in this field? I would have to make it a social justice issue for sure then. Does this satisfy those who see it as a duplication? Cat-Tribe, as the WA's unofficial law expert, what are your thoughts?

Then there's the nationality issue. Does a clause mandating the citizenship of the resultant child be determined by the mother, between her own citizenship or the procedure performing nation? Or should it be up to each nation to treat this side of it as they see fit?

[Kulaloe]

Urgench's arguments against embryo adoption also apply to infant adoption.

No they don't the two things are totally different, one adopts a born child which has a right as a citizen to expect that it be properly cared for, and has rights in law as a citizen both in national law and in international law.

The foetus has none of these things and is not an orphan unless the state forces it to become one by farming it instead of allowing it to be aborted. The state has no interest in and no moral right to farm millions of foetuses to become orphans.

We do not recognise the concept of foetal adoption.

Yours,

Your Excellency, your nation must not have ever had surrogate mother or handmaid contracts in its past, has it?

[Coxnord]

The Holy Empire might be persuaded to rethink its opposition to this proposal if the following section were to be removed:

3.2 Provide citizens of nations unwilling or unable to develop such technologies the opportunity to visit nations with such technologies so that they may have the services aforementioned. Such voyages shall be paid for by the World Assembly in cases where this is not financially feasible

With the removal of this section, perhaps even His Excellency the Khan of Kashgar would note that this technology would not be forced upon any nation.

[The Cat-Tribe]

I would like to bring to everyone's attention a certain fact. There are nations in this organization that have faster-than-light technology. The resources necessary to build and maintain one vessel capable of this feat is - pardon the pun - astronomical! Most of these faster-than-light capable nations have militaries with thousands if not [/i]millions[/i] of such vessels. I sincerely doubt that any civilization that can handle the construction and upkeep of one thousand starships would have any issue with financing a few million incubators. Hell the intergalactic travelling nations could probably handle trillions of them when you consider how advanced a culture would need to be to pull that off. The economics of this program is a non-issue.

As for duplication of GA 44, the only clauses I can see as being an issue are the ones calling for sharing the technology and advancing it. Yes, this is a pre-natal procedure, but so is abortion, and yet resolutions have been passed post-44 on this issue. What are your thoughts on changing the sharing and advancement clauses to include merely registering a nation's capabilities in this field? I would have to make it a social justice issue for sure then. Does this satisfy those who see it as a duplication? Cat-Tribe, as the WA's unofficial law expert, what are your thoughts?

Then there's the nationality issue. Does a clause mandating the citizenship of the resultant child be determined by the mother, between her own citizenship or the procedure performing nation? Or should it be up to each nation to treat this side of it as they see fit?

I am no expert on WA legality and would not pretend to be.

My main question would be this: what does your proposal do that the Reduction of Abortion Act does not do? What precisely is the benefit to the WA of passing your proposal?

Please be as specific as possible in answering these questions.

Personally, I think some nations have latched onto your idea because they see it (correctly) as an alternative to abortion, but they (1) fail to recognize how WAR #44 already does this and (2) have not considered other consequences of this proposal.

[Tanzoria]

Maybe a way to end the abortion discussion is to stop making proposals about it.

[Scolville Units]

Memorandum:
From the desk of The Exalted Pep of the Heat Indexed Theocracy of Scolville Units,

It is our nations intent to strike this bill down at all costs for the following reasons.

1) Passing the Artificial Womb Act into law will place a de-facto definition on the nature of when a human being is a human being. By requiring that all known unwanted zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are transplanted it establishes the definition spiritual or otherwise that human life starts at conception.

2) Passing the Artificial Womb Act will eliminate a patient's right to choose what body parts are to be retained or removed. This calls into question which parts of a living person's body actually belong to him/her. This could set a precedent leading to legislation where other organs or body parts, DNA, blood, stem cells etc... could be forcibly removed from a living human being.

3) The financial strain caused by the passing of Artificial Womb Act would be considerable for developing counties such as the Heat Indexed Theocracy of Scolville Units. It would force us to alter our trade policies in the field of biotechnology and others. Without serious financial aid this law would ensure that money better spent on growing an economy would be spent growing a very specific part of the economy which would not be competitive because all nations would be forced to develop this technology.

4) Our closed border country would lose its border integrity by being forced to allow our females across borders into territory not controlled by the Exalted Pep. Our isolationist country is isolationist because of the discrimination against our national religion. For a people to remain pure in the eyes of God a people must maintain a religiously endogamous integrity.

1 Vote Against,

Jean Claude VI

[Urgench]

I would like to bring to everyone's attention a certain fact. There are nations in this organization that have faster-than-light technology. The resources necessary to build and maintain one vessel capable of this feat is - pardon the pun - astronomical! Most of these faster-than-light capable nations have militaries with thousands if not [/i]millions[/i] of such vessels. I sincerely doubt that any civilization that can handle the construction and upkeep of one thousand starships would have any issue with financing a few million incubators. Hell the intergalactic travelling nations could probably handle trillions of them when you consider how advanced a culture would need to be to pull that off. The economics of this program is a non-issue.

So because some nations have super-light speed spacefaring vessels the economics of this program are a non-issue? That is total and complete nonsense. What of all the thousands of member states which do not have such technology? Or is the honoured Ambassador for Kulaloe suggesting that the spacefaring member states must finance this scheme for non-spacefaring states? How could that possibly be justified or even remotely fair?

Besides it is hardly just the incubation of these foetuses which will present a prohibitive cost to member states is it?

No indeed the cost of this program remains a very serious issue indeed, and flippant nonsense arguments will not make that issue vanish.


Yours,

[Urgench]

Your Excellency, your nation must not have ever had surrogate mother or handmaid contracts in its past, has it?

Surrogacy contracts in the CSKU do not involve foetal adoption, nor is it necessary that they should.


Yours,

[Ardchoille]

I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to see a request for a mod ruling in this thread. I've been suffering such a glut of abortion proposals that I've been avoiding indigestion by looking mostly at the ones that get submitted.

Kulaloe, your proposal does duplicate #GA44. TCT's proposal is written in sufficiently inclusive language to cover the legislative issues you describe in your proposal. That is, the GA doesn't need legislation to say this can be done because it already has legislation that says this can be done. Therefore, if it were submitted I would have to rule it illegal because of duplication.

The second problem is the point Community Property (whose SF bookshelf evidently duplicates mine) raised (my emphases):

I recognize OOC'ly that FT and PMT nations exist, as do PT nations. Up until now, most WA resolutions have been written with the implicit understanding that they must be (somewhat) relevant to all milieus. But what I haven't seen (although I have been fairly inactive of late) is a proposal that essentially requires us to blur the lines between milieus and introduce PMT or FT technology into MT or PT nations ... <snip> ... Consequently, I'll vote against this thing just because of the meta-gaming consequences of its passage from an RP perspective ...

That is, your proposal tries to create a roleplay scenario that all WA members have to take part in, and that's something the GA can't do. As CP correctly said, it's metagaming. It might make more sense if I call it "forced roleplay".

Think about it in terms of what players are given by the mechanics of the game: a nation with a population. The game doesn't tell us what the population's made up of. Players are free to roleplay anything they choose or not roleplay any more than that very basic level.

The game mechanics also give players the power to directly affect the laws of other people's nations, via the WA. You can see the effect of changes to those laws in the way WA member nations' statistics change.

But the game doesn't let players change the history or the surroundings or the costumes or the species or the technology or the time period of other players' nations.

As a result, the WA sticks with only the in-game powers that game mechanics give it. Its resolutions are part of the game mechanism. They're allowed to change only the things the game actually, OOCly, lets them change. It can't say, "All nations must have air transport". It can say, "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws."

In a way, all GA resolutions force roleplay to a very limited extent by pretending that situations exist and that laws are needed to deal with them. The trick is to describe those situations and phrase those laws in a way that applies to the widest possible number of nations.

GA#44 forces nations to recognise that there may have been, may now be, or will in the future be "abortion reduction technology", and if/when it exists they're encouraged to share it.

Your proposal forces to them to recognise that there is such a thing as "an artificial womb", and that they should either share it, learn about it and make it themselves, or allow their populations to travel to share it.

[The Cat-Tribe]

(emphasis added)
I'm sorry it's taken so long for me to see a request for a mod ruling in this thread. I've been suffering such a glut of abortion proposals that I've been avoiding indigestion by looking mostly at the ones that get submitted.

Kulaloe, your proposal does duplicate #GA44. TCT's proposal is written in sufficiently inclusive language to cover the legislative issues you describe in your proposal. That is, the GA doesn't need legislation to say this can be done because it already has legislation that says this can be done. Therefore, if it were submitted I would have to rule it illegal because of duplication.

The second problem is the point Community Property (whose SF bookshelf evidently duplicates mine) raised (my emphases):

I recognize OOC'ly that FT and PMT nations exist, as do PT nations. Up until now, most WA resolutions have been written with the implicit understanding that they must be (somewhat) relevant to all milieus. But what I haven't seen (although I have been fairly inactive of late) is a proposal that essentially requires us to blur the lines between milieus and introduce PMT or FT technology into MT or PT nations ... <snip> ... Consequently, I'll vote against this thing just because of the meta-gaming consequences of its passage from an RP perspective ...

That is, your proposal tries to create a roleplay scenario that all WA members have to take part in, and that's something the GA can't do. As CP correctly said, it's metagaming. It might make more sense if I call it "forced roleplay".

Think about it in terms of what players are given by the mechanics of the game: a nation with a population. The game doesn't tell us what the population's made up of. Players are free to roleplay anything they choose or not roleplay any more than that very basic level.

The game mechanics also give players the power to directly affect the laws of other people's nations, via the WA. You can see the effect of changes to those laws in the way WA member nations' statistics change.

But the game doesn't let players change the history or the surroundings or the costumes or the species or the technology or the time period of other players' nations.

As a result, the WA sticks with only the in-game powers that game mechanics give it. Its resolutions are part of the game mechanism. They're allowed to change only the things the game actually, OOCly, lets them change. It can't say, "All nations must have air transport". It can say, "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws."

In a way, all GA resolutions force roleplay to a very limited extent by pretending that situations exist and that laws are needed to deal with them. The trick is to describe those situations and phrase those laws in a way that applies to the widest possible number of nations.

GA#44 forces nations to recognise that there may have been, may now be, or will in the future be "abortion reduction technology", and if/when it exists they're encouraged to share it.

Your proposal forces to them to recognise that there is such a thing as "an artificial womb", and that they should either share it, learn about it and make it themselves, or allow their populations to travel to share it.

Thank you.

[Nulono]

Memorandum:
From the desk of The Exalted Pep of the Heat Indexed Theocracy of Scolville Units,

It is our nations intent to strike this bill down at all costs for the following reasons.

1) Passing the Artificial Womb Act into law will place a de-facto definition on the nature of when a human being is a human being. By requiring that all known unwanted zygotes, embryos, and fetuses are transplanted it establishes the definition spiritual or otherwise that human life starts at conception.

2) Passing the Artificial Womb Act will eliminate a patient's right to choose what body parts are to be retained or removed. This calls into question which parts of a living person's body actually belong to him/her. This could set a precedent leading to legislation where other organs or body parts, DNA, blood, stem cells etc... could be forcibly removed from a living human being.

3) The financial strain caused by the passing of Artificial Womb Act would be considerable for developing counties such as the Heat Indexed Theocracy of Scolville Units. It would force us to alter our trade policies in the field of biotechnology and others. Without serious financial aid this law would ensure that money better spent on growing an economy would be spent growing a very specific part of the economy which would not be competitive because all nations would be forced to develop this technology.

4) Our closed border country would lose its border integrity by being forced to allow our females across borders into territory not controlled by the Exalted Pep. Our isolationist country is isolationist because of the discrimination against our national religion. For a people to remain pure in the eyes of God a people must maintain a religiously endogamous integrity.

1 Vote Against,

Jean Claude VI

1.) This proposal does not mandate anything of the sort. If the mother wants an abortion, she can still get one. This is only offering another option.
2.) I don't know what the hell you're talking about here. We aren't removing anyone's body parts. This is a complete non sequitur.

As a result, the WA sticks with only the in-game powers that game mechanics give it. Its resolutions are part of the game mechanism. They're allowed to change only the things the game actually, OOCly, lets them change. It can't say, "All nations must have air transport". It can say, "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws."

That's all this proposal does. If you have artificial wombs, you have to share them.

[Urgench]

As a result, the WA sticks with only the in-game powers that game mechanics give it. Its resolutions are part of the game mechanism. They're allowed to change only the things the game actually, OOCly, lets them change. It can't say, "All nations must have air transport". It can say, "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws."

That's all this proposal does. If you have artificial wombs, you have to share them.

OOC- those two sentences mean exactly the same thing. You have Ard's ruling, deal with it.

[Nulono]

As a result, the WA sticks with only the in-game powers that game mechanics give it. Its resolutions are part of the game mechanism. They're allowed to change only the things the game actually, OOCly, lets them change. It can't say, "All nations must have air transport". It can say, "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws."

That's all this proposal does. If you have artificial wombs, you have to share them.

No, these are the same.

[The Cat-Tribe]

That's all this proposal does. If you have artificial wombs, you have to share them.

No, these are the same.

You are quibbling with only one portion of Ard's ruling. Even if you were correct about this, the proposal is still illegal on grounds of duplication.

[Coxnord]

That's all this proposal does. If you have artificial wombs, you have to share them.

No, these are the same.

Sharing a technology means interaction with other nations, i.e. RP.

[Urgench]

No, these are the same.

No they're not, because this proposal requires that all member states use this technology once that technology has been shared. Which is the same as saying "You must all use artificial wombs" not the same as saying "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws." . The second does not require that any states which do not have air transport should use it, only that those who do use it apply specific regulations to their own use of it, the first requires member states which use artificial wombs to give that technology to others states who must then use that technology.

[Ardchoille]

Not clear? Sorry, it's 3am here and I shouldn't still be NSing, gotta work at 9am. Trying for a better example (just forget, for the sake of example, that "Boeing 747" is a real-world reference):

Consider, "Recommends that all nations with the ability to safely undertake powered flight share (all the things the proposal wants shared) ...".

Now consider, "Recommends that all nations with the ability to safely undertake flight in a Boeing 747 share ..."

Boeing 747s are way beyond the RP technology of a Roman nation. They're way behind the RP technology of a Star Trek nation.

But "powered flight" is a concept that a Roman nation can handle -- they already have the myth of Icarus and Daedalus, so they just have to think that someone, somewhere, has overcome the wing-wax-melting-near-the-sun problem.

The Star Trek nation may have long since forgotten Boeing 747s. But powered flight ... hey, dilithium crystals power their flights!

That's the difference between "abortion reduction technology" and "artificial wombs". One can happen in many times/places/techs -- doesn't force RP. The other can happen only in a time/place/tech. The specific thing (the Boeing, the artificial womb) has been RPd into definite, confirmed existence inside the NationStates multiverse by the proposal. That forces all WA nations' players to "join" the RP -- something proposals can't do.

So it's the specific thing that's the problem. (Urgench, I don't see the "all nations" in the first clause as a central problem in this proposal, because it's just "recommends that". In my earlier off-the-cuff "air transport" example, it would have been a problem, because it was obligatory. But, yeah, the two weren't the same.)

Incidentally, just noticed a further probable illegality:

3. The CRT shall:
3.1 Ensure that all nations wanting the ability to adhere to the above clauses shall have access to this knowledge for development ...

Optionality, methinks -- you don't have to adhere to "the above clauses" unless you want to. And the clauses concerned are all the ones about sharing the technology and looking after the children born from such technology, which is to say, the essence of it.

Sorry, but it'll never fly.

[Glen-Rhodes]

As a result, the WA sticks with only the in-game powers that game mechanics give it. Its resolutions are part of the game mechanism. They're allowed to change only the things the game actually, OOCly, lets them change. It can't say, "All nations must have air transport". It can say, "If you have air transport, here are some air transport laws."

I'm sorry Ard, but I disagree with this. There are some examples of resolutions that require all nations have a certain level of technology/technical knowledge. Food and Drug Standards and the Clean Water Act comes immediately to mind. I could likely find more instances, if I read through other resolutions.

If I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, please for the love of God tell me. I think we all remember the last time I got into a prolonged argument with mods over their views of game mechanics.

[Community Property]

I'm sorry Ard, but I disagree with this. There are some examples of resolutions that require all nations have a certain level of technology/technical knowledge. Food and Drug Standards and the Clean Water Act comes immediately to mind. I could likely find more instances, if I read through other resolutions.

If I'm misunderstanding what you're saying, please for the love of God tell me. I think we all remember the last time I got into a prolonged argument with mods over their views of game mechanics.

We sometimes skate a bit on this when it's a case of assuming that nations have a level of technological development suitable to the late 20th Century or very early 21st Centuries (or that they have access to such technology), largely because the number of people who play PT nations is very, very small.

But given that MT nations predominate (they're the largest single group) and that a great many adamantly assert that they exist only in something roughly approximately the Real World™, you will almost always run into problems when you draft a resolution that assumes that everybody has access to PMT or FT technology.

[Scolville Units]

1.) This proposal does not mandate anything of the sort. If the mother wants an abortion, she can still get one. This is only offering another option.
2.) I don't know what the hell you're talking about here. We aren't removing anyone's body parts. This is a complete non sequitur.

To: The Ambassador from Nuliono,

In its letter the Artificial Womb Act does not mandate anything in particular, however what the Ambassador forgets it the influence that the technocratic world has on developing nations. The passing of any non-mandating as a law of 'strong suggestion' is in effect the same thing as passing a mandating law. It makes the issues in those laws moral obligations for which non-practicioners are judged pejoratively in the arena of international politics. This affects trade and and diplomacy making it more and more difficult to operate an autonimous and prosperous government without adopting said technology and the technocratic moral code with which it was passed.

As to the reference of the precedent of removing body parts. By passing a law encouraging the removal of material from a live body in which a country is potentially villified for not doing so by its potential trade partners and/or so called rich countries who provide aid, It essentially forces developing countries to adopt policies that operationally define live tissue as the property of the government and not the property of the patient. One must always remember the ramifications of the power and wealth differential of international partners in trade and aid. what seems like an option to a powerful country often becomes a mandate to one who relies on said country's opinion of them.

Cordially from the desk of The Exalted Pep
Jean Claude VI

[Glen-Rhodes]

But given that MT nations predominate (they're the largest single group) and that a great many adamantly assert that they exist only in something roughly approximately the Real World™, you will almost always run into problems when you draft a resolution that assumes that everybody has access to PMT or FT technology.

We always run into problems with PT, PMT, and FT nations any time with legislate on technology or anything tangentially related to technology. This is not a new occurance. What's relatively new -- I don't believe I saw it during the Jolt days (I've been playing since mid-2008) -- is placing the burden of reconciliation onto authors. It's only these past few months (maybe mid-2010) where I've seen the burden shift from nations interpreting resolutions to fit their roleplaying* to authors having to proactively make sure that their proposals are reconcilable with all tech levels. Somehow, game mechanics come into play, but I'm entirely unsure of how.


*And the reason why we pay any attention at all to tech levels in the World Assembly is beyond me. The traditional roleplaying parts of the game (II, NS, etc.) have long maintained that World Assembly resolutions are non-canon.