[Abortion Thread] (YET ANOTHER POLL!) Taking measure.

[Jebslund]

I mean, they stopped doing it in 1973. But it was perfectly legal, and they still reserve the legal right to do it again.

The government still requires men to register for it in case they decide to reinstate it. Under pain of severe consequences.

Fifty years ago is hardly recent. Lots and lots of changes since on the whole issue of medical consent. Registering for it is not the same thing as overriding the informed consent requirement.

Laws that the government makes, the government breaks. Tends to come with the territory when the ones breaking the law are also the ones who interpret and enforce it.

[Kernen]

Katganistan you may not be a direct product of rape but nevertheless I assure you that you are indeed a product of rapes. I have the audacity to say thousands of rapes. We have existed on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and have only had a collective modern moral compass for two to three thousand years at the most liberal usage of moral compass. You sure you aren't a product of rape?

At some point, there's insufficient proximate cause to say a person is the product of rape when it goes back far enough.

Fifty years ago is hardly recent. Lots and lots of changes since on the whole issue of medical consent. Registering for it is not the same thing as overriding the informed consent requirement.

Laws that the government makes, the government breaks. Tends to come with the territory when the ones breaking the law are also the ones who interpret and enforce it.

Not under an effective, separated arrangement of powers. Which, despite all the grumbling about the US, we have.

[Jebslund]

Laws that the government makes, the government breaks. Tends to come with the territory when the ones breaking the law are also the ones who interpret and enforce it.

Not under an effective, separated arrangement of powers. Which, despite all the grumbling about the US, we have.

No, we don't. We have the illusion of such. The people who write the laws pick the people who interpret them, based on whether or not they like nominations made by the people who enforce the law. And the head of that enforcement branch? Is also the head of the military, who does, in fact, override the informed consent requirement. Even if the Judicial were to say that isn't legal, the old quote, "John Marshal has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!" applies. There is nothing forcing the Executive branch to enforce the interpretation of the laws the Judicial goes with. There's a social contract, but it isn't physically enforceable, as the Judicial branch has no force with which to do so. On paper, separation of powers exists. In practice, it's not so clear cut.

[Kernen]

No, we don't. We have the illusion of such.

Not actually the case. Working as a judicial law clerk, I got to see it first hand.

The people who write the laws pick the people who interpret them, based on whether or not they like nominations made by the people who enforce the law.

Gross oversimplification.

And the head of that enforcement branch? Is also the head of the military, who does, in fact, override the informed consent requirement. Even if the Judicial were to say that isn't legal, the old quote, "John Marshal has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!" applies. There is nothing forcing the Executive branch to enforce the interpretation of the laws the Judicial goes with.

Except the political suicide and certain institutional loyalty to the preexisting structure that now exists.

There's a social contract, but it isn't physically enforceable, as the Judicial branch has no force with which to do so. On paper, separation of powers exists. In practice, it's not so clear cut.

Sure, you can reduce anything to "might makes right" but that doesn't mean it works like that in practice.

The military cannot, and does not, ignore informed consent to do medical research. I cited my sources. Got any yourself?

[Estanglia]

And such bans should be seen as illegitimate and rebelled against, especially with the second amendment as women and doctors will likely be prosecuted for practicing their inalienable rights.

This inalienable right to murder, do they have it just by virtue of womanhood?

It ain't murder.

Katganistan you may not be a direct product of rape but nevertheless I assure you that you are indeed a product of rapes. I have the audacity to say thousands of rapes. We have existed on this planet for hundreds of thousands of years and have only had a collective modern moral compass for two to three thousand years at the most liberal usage of moral compass. You sure you aren't a product of rape?

Depends on what you mean by 'product of rape'.

You don't seem to mean "Born from rape" but rather "descended from someone who has been raped, no matter how long ago".

The problem with that is that we'd have to assume everyone is one (thus making any argument involving 'product of rape' pointless).

Even then, it still falls flat because we aren't operating with that definition. Even if we were, that doesn't prevent the main argument which is all the effects of a pregnancy caused directly by rape. The only thing that would change is tagging on a 'direct' label to 'product of rape'.

[Ashanara]

I'm pretty torn on abortion.

On one hand a women should have the right to do whatever she wants with her body and not go through months of torture being pregnant. On the other hand, the (unborn) baby (but still is alive) should have a right to live.

I dunno.

[Country of CityTowne]

(Deleted because I didn't read the message I'd quoted. I'll probably edit it in after a bit but I've some puppet nations to attend to.

[Highever]

Let's remember, all, that the Catholic church is against contraception and abortion. It doesn't make sense.

And uh... "separation between church and state" or how I call it, "separation between religious bullcrap and state" appears to be a new concept for you.

Pretty sure you completely misread what they are saying.

[Country of CityTowne]

the (unborn) baby (but still is alive) should have a right to live.

I dunno.

Fetuses aren't alive until they meet the requirements for life and has a chance of surviving outside of the womb. Until at least week 21, a fetus cannot be considered "alive," so you are not killing it by preforming an abortion. The fetus is being denied a chance at life.

[Country of CityTowne]

And uh... "separation between church and state" or how I call it, "separation between religious bullcrap and state" appears to be a new concept for you.

Pretty sure you completely misread what they are saying.

Eh, I probably did.

[Highever]

Pretty sure you completely misread what they are saying.

Eh, I probably did.

They're saying that it makes no sense that the Church is against both contraception amd abortion.

[Galloism]

Fetuses aren't alive until they meet the requirements for life and has a chance of surviving outside of the womb.

What?

[Mettaton-EX]

don't know if this article has been posted yet, but it contains a quote that is deeply revealing about the mindset of the people pushing these anti-abortion laws:

Chambliss, responding to the IVF argument from Smitherman, cites a part of the bill that says it applies to a pregnant woman. "The egg in the lab doesn’t apply. It’s not in a woman. She’s not pregnant."

logically speaking, then, the """pro-life""" senate sponsor of the alabama bill would be perfectly fine with infanticide.

[Mettaton-EX]

the (unborn) baby (but still is alive) should have a right to live.

I dunno.

Fetuses aren't alive until they meet the requirements for life and has a chance of surviving outside of the womb. Until at least week 21, a fetus cannot be considered "alive," so you are not killing it by preforming an abortion. The fetus is being denied a chance at life.

sure it can be considered alive, and honestly, focusing the debate on this question is harmful.

fundamentally, it doesn't matter if an embryo/fetus is alive/a person/etc - even if it is, no person has the right to use another person's body without consent. there is literally no other situation besides pregnancy where such a right exists, regardless of whether the first person's life depends on it.

[San Lumen]

I'm pretty torn on abortion.

On one hand a women should have the right to do whatever she wants with her body and not go through months of torture being pregnant. On the other hand, the (unborn) baby (but still is alive) should have a right to live.

I dunno.

You have a right to your opinion but you should not force that opinion on others. Plus if we are going to use the term alive in the first few weeks of pregnancy the fetus is totally dependent on the mother so it techinlly doesn't meet the definition of alive. I am not sure when it is viable because im not a doctor.

I do think it should be a women's right to choose and is not anyone's decision but between a women and her doctor

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

Fetuses aren't alive until they meet the requirements for life and has a chance of surviving outside of the womb. Until at least week 21, a fetus cannot be considered "alive," so you are not killing it by preforming an abortion. The fetus is being denied a chance at life.

sure it can be considered alive, and honestly, focusing the debate on this question is harmful.

fundamentally, it doesn't matter if an embryo/fetus is alive/a person/etc - even if it is, no person has the right to use another person's body without consent. there is literally no other situation besides pregnancy where such a right exists, regardless of whether the first person's life depends on it.

I think the conversation should be framed primarily around whether the fetus is alive, and at which point it becomes alive. If it is not alive, there is no legal issue with terminating it, but if it is alive then it is murder as your are killing a living human. No person has the right to use another person's body without consent, but can a landlord kill their tenants if they don't pay rent? No one but the most vicious pro-lifers are against performing an abortion to save the mother's life.

[Galloism]

Plus if we are going to use the term alive in the first few weeks of pregnancy the fetus is totally dependent on the mother so it techinlly doesn't meet the definition of alive.

Your biology teacher just screamed in frustration.

[Necroghastia]

sure it can be considered alive, and honestly, focusing the debate on this question is harmful.

fundamentally, it doesn't matter if an embryo/fetus is alive/a person/etc - even if it is, no person has the right to use another person's body without consent. there is literally no other situation besides pregnancy where such a right exists, regardless of whether the first person's life depends on it.

I think the conversation should be framed primarily around whether the fetus is alive, and at which point it becomes alive. If it is not alive, there is no legal issue with terminating it, but if it is alive then it is murder as your are killing a living human. No person has the right to use another person's body without consent, but can a landlord kill their tenants if they don't pay rent? No one but the most vicious pro-lifers are against performing an abortion to save the mother's life.

That's a pretty big false equivalence you have there. Surely you think that it's okay for a landlord to evict tenants if they don't pay rent?

[The Xenopolis Confederation]

I think the conversation should be framed primarily around whether the fetus is alive, and at which point it becomes alive. If it is not alive, there is no legal issue with terminating it, but if it is alive then it is murder as your are killing a living human. No person has the right to use another person's body without consent, but can a landlord kill their tenants if they don't pay rent? No one but the most vicious pro-lifers are against performing an abortion to save the mother's life.

That's a pretty big false equivalence you have there. Surely you think that it's okay for a landlord to evict tenants if they don't pay rent?

Not if eviction means death, no.

[The Caleshan Valkyrie]

sure it can be considered alive, and honestly, focusing the debate on this question is harmful.

fundamentally, it doesn't matter if an embryo/fetus is alive/a person/etc - even if it is, no person has the right to use another person's body without consent. there is literally no other situation besides pregnancy where such a right exists, regardless of whether the first person's life depends on it.

I think the conversation should be framed primarily around whether the fetus is alive, and at which point it becomes alive. If it is not alive, there is no legal issue with terminating it, but if it is alive then it is murder as your are killing a living human.

Killing another human being is not inherently murder. There are plenty of situations in which it is quite reasonably justified, such as when the other person is harming them in some way... maybe a violation of bodily integrity...

No person has the right to use another person's body without consent, but can a landlord kill their tenants if they don't pay rent?

They can boot them the hell out. With a woman’s body in question the matter becomes even more fundamental. It is quite simply unreasonable to require that she give up her bodily rights for any reason, as the fetus quite directly threatens the woman’s bodily integrity if she does not want it to remain.

[The New California Republic]

Plus if we are going to use the term alive in the first few weeks of pregnancy the fetus is totally dependent on the mother so it techinlly doesn't meet the definition of alive.

Your biology teacher just screamed in frustration.

Widen that to all science teachers in the entire world.

---

Apologies to other folks in this thread for not being too active on this thread as of late, currently very busy in Ukraine.

[Kernen]

sure it can be considered alive, and honestly, focusing the debate on this question is harmful.

fundamentally, it doesn't matter if an embryo/fetus is alive/a person/etc - even if it is, no person has the right to use another person's body without consent. there is literally no other situation besides pregnancy where such a right exists, regardless of whether the first person's life depends on it.

I think the conversation should be framed primarily around whether the fetus is alive, and at which point it becomes alive. If it is not alive, there is no legal issue with terminating it, but if it is alive then it is murder as your are killing a living human. No person has the right to use another person's body without consent, but can a landlord kill their tenants if they don't pay rent? No one but the most vicious pro-lifers are against performing an abortion to save the mother's life.

For what its worth, a landlord can seek the use of force to evict tenants who don't pay rent.

Whether the fetus is alive or not is an interesting, but ultimately useless debate. The question of bodily sovereignty doesn't center on the life of another. If it did, mandatory organ donation, pre- or post-death, wouldn't be controversial. Its a balance of harms issue. To the extent that the fetus is a life worthy of protection, it's rights must be balanced against the societal interest in bodily sovereignty and reproductive choices.

Accepting, ad arguendo, that a fetus is alive and a person, it clearly has a high interest in survival.

Society has a high interest in allowing abortions. It reduces the aggregate cost of welfare by not pushing women into financial ruin by supporting a child they were not ready for.

The women have a high normative interest in control of their own futures, reproductively, economically, and ethically. They are better positioned socially and financially by choosing when to reproduce, and we have a strong normative interest in our society in favor of liberal treatment of our bodies. Which is why we allow tattoos and piercings even when they look terrible.

If life was always overriding over competing interests, we wouldn't pay for medical care or allow lethal self defense during home invasions, etc. So, there are more interests in favor of allowing abortion than banning it. Done and done.

[Jebslund]

Not actually the case. Working as a judicial law clerk, I got to see it first hand.

Specifics? Because you being a law clerk in, say, Smallville is different from you being a law clerk in DC, for example.

Gross oversimplification.

Not really. But I'm sure you'll enlighten me.

Except the political suicide and certain institutional loyalty to the preexisting structure that now exists.

Institutional loyalty ain't worth its weight in hard vacuum in today's US, and political suicide requires the public to both know and care. Most of the public don't care until it's them personally having their rights walked all over, and, at that point, it's too late, and, even then, politicians work hard to convince the public that giving up inconvenient (for the government) rights isFor the Greater Good^TM, or that it would only affect Bad People^TM. You'd be amazed how easily people can be convinced that certain rights are negotiable. Patriot Act, anyone?

Sure, you can reduce anything to "might makes right" but that doesn't mean it works like that in practice.

I mean, yes, actually, it *does* work like that. If the other branches don't want to abide by the Judicial's rulings, there's nothing making them.

The military cannot, and does not, ignore informed consent to do medical research. I cited my sources. Got any yourself?

You've cited fuck all, mate. It can, and does, ignore informed consent. On a regular basis. I'm an Air Force brat myself, which means I've been around people in the armed forces most of my life, and just about every one of them has mentioned some procedure or another they were told was mandatory but weren't given the details to.

[Kernen]

Specifics? Because you being a law clerk in, say, Smallville is different from you being a law clerk in DC, for example.

Not really. Small municipalities get plenty of constitutional issues and big cases. As it stands, I worked in the capitol of my state. The details are, frankly, not something I'm willing or ethically allowed to share.

Gross oversimplification.

Not really. But I'm sure you'll enlighten me.

I'll try, but there is that great line about leading a horse to water.

Institutional loyalty ain't worth its weight in hard vacuum in today's US, and political suicide requires the public to both know and care. Most of the public don't care until it's them personally having their rights walked all over, and, at that point, it's too late, and, even then, politicians work hard to convince the public that giving up inconvenient (for the government) rights isFor the Greater Good^TM, or that it would only affect Bad People^TM. You'd be amazed how easily people can be convinced that certain rights are negotiable. Patriot Act, anyone?

The Patriot Act exploited unsettled privacy law aspects. Claiming that was negotiable violation of law is...well, untrue.

I mean, yes, actually, it *does* work like that. If the other branches don't want to abide by the Judicial's rulings, there's nothing making them.

Which is why it happens all the time, right? History shows that respect for the institutional powers in the U.S. government is exceedingly strong. To the point of deploying the National Guard to force desegregation in schools, for one example.

Sure, the government could simultaneously choose to ignore the judiciary. They could all agree to let Canada annex the US. Can =/= will. Its technically possible, but so unlikely as to be impossible.

The military cannot, and does not, ignore informed consent to do medical research. I cited my sources. Got any yourself?

You've cited fuck all, mate. It can, and does, ignore informed consent. On a regular basis. I'm an Air Force brat myself, which means I've been around people in the armed forces most of my life, and just about every one of them has mentioned some procedure or another they were told was mandatory but weren't given the details to.

I cited my sources when discussing the issue with Galloism. You're welcome to scroll up? I spent only about twenty minutes tooling around LexisNexis, but now that I'm not at work, I could probably do a deeper search. I've got access to all federal district and circuit cases plus SCOTUS. Would you care to cite cases that allow this practice? I'll happily Shepardize your selections.

[Galloism]

I cited my sources when discussing the issue with Galloism. You're welcome to scroll up? I spent only about twenty minutes tooling around LexisNexis, but now that I'm not at work, I could probably do a deeper search. I've got access to all federal district and circuit cases plus SCOTUS. Would you care to cite cases that allow this practice? I'll happily Shepardize your selections.

One of your sources explicitly gives exception to the military:

21 C.F.R. pt. 50

(d)(1) Under 10 U.S.C. 1107(f) the President may waive the prior consent requirement for the administration of an investigational new drug to a member of the armed forces in connection with the member's participation in a particular military operation. The statute specifies that only the President may waive informed consent in this connection and the President may grant such a waiver only if the President determines in writing that obtaining consent: Is not feasible; is contrary to the best interests of the military member; or is not in the interests of national security.

I will provide the rest by telegram so as not to threadjack into a discussion of bodily autonomy in an abortion debate (i'm still working on it, it's somewhat lengthy), but suffice to say, you didn't read your sources well or take into account surrounding context.