President Barack Obama rang in the New Year by signing the NDAA law with its provision allowing him to indefinitely detain citizens. It was a symbolic moment to say the least. With Americans distracted with drinking and celebrating, Obama signed one of the greatest rollbacks of civil liberties in the history of our country . . . and citizens partied only blissfully into the New Year.
Ironically, in addition to breaking his promise not to sign the law, Obama broke his promise on signing statements and attached a statement that he really does not want to detain citizens indefinitely.
Obama insisted that he signed the bill simply to keep funding for the troops. It was a continuation of the dishonest treatment of the issue by the White House since the law first came to light. As discussed earlier, the White House told citizens that the President would not sign the NDAA because of the provision. That spin ended after sponsor Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) went to the floor and disclosed that it was the White House that insisted that there be no exception for citizens in the indefinite detention provision.
The latest claim is even more insulting. You do not “support our troops” by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the President. The “American way of life” is defined by our Constitution and specifically the Bill of Rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.
The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking. Many reporters have bought into the spin of the Obama Administration as they did the spin over torture by the Bush Administration. Even today reporters refuse to call waterboarding torture despite the long line of cases and experts defining waterboarding as torture for decades. On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law. That is not true. The Administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review. Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the Constitution.
There are also those who continue the long-standing effort to excuse Obama’s horrific record on civil liberties by either blaming others or the times. One successful myth is that there is an exception for citizens. The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. That spin is facially ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens are not just subject to indefinite detention but even execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality. THe Administration and Democratic members are in full spin — using language designed to obscure the authority given to the military. The exemption for American citizens from the mandatory detention requirement (section 1032) is the screening language for the next section, 1031, which offers no exemption for American citizens from the authorization to use the military to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.
Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops. Instead, as confirmed by Sen. Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power while portraying Obama as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or as Obama maintains a reluctant president with dictatorial powers.
Most Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in voting for this unAmerican measure. Some Montana citizens are moving to force the removal of these members who they insist betrayed their oaths of office and their constituents. Most citizens however are continuing to treat the matter as a distraction from the holiday cheer.
For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment. 2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.
So here is a resolution better than losing weight this year . . . make 2012 the year you regained your rights.
Here is the signing statement attached to the bill:
————-
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 31, 2011
Statement by the President on H.R. 1540
Today I have signed into law H.R. 1540, the “National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012.” I have signed the Act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families, and vital national security programs that must be renewed. In hundreds of separate sections totaling over 500 pages, the Act also contains critical Administration initiatives to control the spiraling health care costs of the Department of Defense (DoD), to develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, to build the security capacity of key partners, to modernize the force, and to boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide.
The fact that I support this bill as a whole does not mean I agree with everything in it. In particular, I have signed this bill despite having serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists. Over the last several years, my Administration has developed an effective, sustainable framework for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected terrorists that allows us to maximize both our ability to collect intelligence and to incapacitate dangerous individuals in rapidly developing situations, and the results we have achieved are undeniable. Our success against al-Qa’ida and its affiliates and adherents has derived in significant measure from providing our counterterrorism professionals with the clarity and flexibility they need to adapt to changing circumstances and to utilize whichever authorities best protect the American people, and our accomplishments have respected the values that make our country an example for the world.
Source: ABC
@Angry: You missed the point entirely.
The point is this: If you believe murder should be illegal, and murder should be punished, then you believe society has the right to control the behavior of people. Period.
If you believe theft of property should be illegal, and you believe thieves should be pursued and tried and punished, then you believe that society has the right to control the behavior of people. Period.
If you believe in law of any kind, then you believe in society, by some means or another, determining that some behaviors are crimes and shall be punished or disallowed. Period.
Once you admit that society, by majority vote or by expert elected panels voting or by some method has the right to determine what is and is not acceptable behavior, then you have to admit that not all decisions are really up to individuals and their own morals. Murder in anger can be outlawed, even if you DO think that is sometimes justifiable.
Societies determine acceptable behavior, not individuals, and if the society is fair (all laws apply to all persons equally) then presumably the majority won’t suppress themselves very much, and we will have a great deal of freedom. But there is no such thing as absolute freedom, the only system that delivers that is one where murder, theft, rape and slavery are not punished, and that is just brutal anarchy that nobody really thinks is “freedom” except for crazy people.
You need to redefine what your idea of “freedom” is; true freedom is to be free from oppression, free from coercion, free to choose your own life, to earn more or earn less, be more educated or less educated, to be protected from subjugation and predation by those stronger than you, to not be discarded and left to die of starvation or disease just because you weren’t lucky enough to be born smart or rich or gifted.
Freedom doesn’t mean the same thing to me as it means to you. I believe the first role of government is to protect the weak from the strong, and I do not care how vanishingly small a percentage of abortions are of healthy infants within healthy mothers in the final month of pregnancy, that number means nothing, they are persons that should not be aborted.
When it comes to people, one murder is too many. If we find someobdy has killed an adult we do not just trust in their judgment to decide if that was a murder or not, so if you think a healthy mother aborting a healthy infant is killing a person, why would we automatically trust in the judgment of the killer?
We should not, in either case: We need to see if the killing was justifiable, and in the case of abortion, that is something that can be done ahead of time. And in both cases, we can define the hypothetical situations that determine justification, such as self-defense, or a threat to the mother’s health or life.
The situations are not different. Freedom is the freedom from oppression, not the freedom TO oppress.
@Angry: Or if you don’t believe in a god; then kharma will surely handle the matter.
I do not believe in anything supernatural at all; I do not believe we will be judged by anybody but other people, and I do not believe in supernatural payback (Karmic Justice). That is for the movies and stories, which I like, but it is just a comforting fiction.
In the real world, the sociopaths, serial killers, rapists, frauds, child molesters, slavers, thieves, mobsters and murderers get away with their crimes for life, and die peacefully in their sleep of old age. You should not project the guilt you would feel for destroying lives on them, they seldom feel guilt or regret, or they would not have done what they have done in the first place.
I am not comforted by your fantasy of imaginary justice, I am only comforted by the drive for actual justice. There is only one thing the criminals understand, and that is why they are criminals: Overwhelming force. There is only one way for the 95% of normal, caring people to obtain actual justice: band together against the people that try to take what they want by force, fraud, subterfuge and thievery.
But in order to band together and present a united front, we have to define what is and isn’t right, and what is and isn’t justice. We have to define the law and agree that everybody abide by it, even if that prevents them from “making their own choices.”
It is not ME that should decide, and it is not the mother: It is society that should decide when person-hood begins and ends, it is society that should come to a majority consensus. They have, but such decisions are subject to change, and that is what I argue for; a change that better comports to what we know of biological science and how that should inform person-hood, and rights.
@Angry: Either we believe in the right of man to make his own choices or not.
The right to make his own choices does NOT include the right to harm another person. Period.
I presume you also believe murder should be illegal. Isn’t that restricting the right of a man to make his own choice to kill his rival?
I presume you also believe that killing another person is not always a crime, it could easily be self-defense: Although it is not always justified to end one life to save your own (for example, you might die without a heart transplant, but that does not justify you having a donor killed for his heart), it is sometimes morally justified to use lethal force to protect a life (even somebody else’s life).
That is the situation you refuse to acknowledge: If you give her permission to end her pregnancy no matter what the reason then you are giving her permission to kill another person for trivial, juvenile reasons.
Forget all the justifiable reasons for terminating a pregnancy, such as the mother’s life being in danger. That isn’t the question.
You only want to answer the easy question and completely ignore the hard question: With NO mortal danger whatsoever to the mother, and a perfectly formed and disease-free infant in the womb that can survive just fine on its own, why doesn’t that infant have any rights at all?
Your answer is that you are just a magical and hypocritical thinker, somehow it is a person but has no rights whatsoever, then by virtue of being exposed to the air, it is a person that does have rights.
We do have rights to decide what we do, but
a) Those rights do not give us license to kill others for no good reason,
b) Some of those decisions cannot be undone: She had plenty of time to terminate the pregnancy and she did decide what to do, she decided to commit to the completion of it, and by the ninth month it was too late to back out.
When soldiers make their decision to enlist in the military, they are also committed in an analogous way. They cannot back out, even if their life is in lethal danger: They made a decision, and they were committed.
The same analogy applies here: The woman had time to decide she did not want to be pregnant, if she allowed that time to expire, she committed to the birth (with an option out if any unusual risk arose), and she cannot back out on a whim.
Ok Tony; now you want to narrow the scenario a bit. I realize that your earlier interaction was concerning Third Trimester Abortion but I believe we had not specified that and our conversation took on a less specific question. However I am prepared to discuss Third or Late Term Abortion.
There are points of intersection so let me answer your prior……..comments first.
“I presume you also believe murder should be illegal. Isn’t that restricting the right of a man to make his own choice to kill his rival?”
I believe you meant legal so I will answer that. I do not approve murder.
I don’t approve of Abortion but what I approve of or would chose for myself or my family doesn’t enter the discussion.
I realize that this is a tough pill to swallow but if we want to be free; we must allow others the same right.
That will by it’s very nature create situations where we disagree with a person’s action so vehemently that we want to stop them.
As an example: Suppose you are at a neighbors house (i love these extreme scenarios; make it so much more fun); In the door walks a man; with a knife and he proceeds to come straight down the hall toward your neighbor in the kitchen; screaming “I will kill you Joe”
Now you and the neighbor are just back from softball practice and he is standing there with his baseball bat standing next to him.
He could probably subdue the intruder by picking up his bat and nailing the guy. Knife against bat? Knife usually looses.
Instead however; he runs to the closet; pulls out a shotgun; turns and removes the intuder’s head with one blast. Entirely possible.
I know you already understand my point but for the sake of continuity:
The question is: Should your neighbor have picked up the bat and used it to fend off the attacker? Or was he justified in getting his gun and killing the man?
Let us assume that you disagree with his extreme action.
You would probably feel that he is a murderer and deserves punishment in your choice of severity.
But suppose you were to find that this attacker was actually a stalker and your neighbor had been dealing with him for years though this was the first time he attacked? Would that make a difference to your opinion of him?
He may not have told you about his stalker. He may not have told anyone; believing the man to be a non-violent nuisence more than anything. (Bad judgement yes but…).
He has no documentation in Police reports; no video; telephone tapes or letters. Nothing to prove what he knows of this man.
Now you in your blissful ignorance tell the Police that he is a murderer and could have used the bat.
He will more than likely be convicted and you will feel that you made a good and right decision……………………….and yet your neighbor will be in prison for killing a dangerous staker.
You can say he should have reported the stalker. You can say he should have saved evidence. But the fact remains that if we knew what your neighbor knew; most people; I think; would agree that he was justified in killing his attacker.
Really; only he knows for sure.
To avoid that possibility; all we need do is allow that man the freedom to defend his home; family; and himself as he sees fit regardless of what you or I or anyone else thinks he should have done.
This is not the perfect Analogy I know but it is close enough.
That is what Freedom is all about. People making their own decisions; to the best of their ability in a society where knowledge and information are part of the culture so that they have all of the best scientific and spiritual opinions that they might need to make an intllegent decision.
It’s about de-stigmatizing pregnancy; as a part of the culture and making help available to any pregnant female regardless of age so they will come for help and protection.
If we want to be a free nation; that is our responsibility; to provide the means for free people to learn; understand; and decide.
Even a pregnant teenager; who by the way might well not be pregnant if contrceptives were available to anyone; anytime; anywhere; Free. A worthwhile expenditure for our Government if ever there was one.
But accidents happen and even teenage girls are human (despite whatever rumors you may have heard to the contrary); and that is where all the rest comes into play and hopefully; likely I believe that the number of Late term Abortions would drop to almost nothing in cases where the fetus and mother are healty.
I sincerely believe in the ability and intent of most people to to the best; most merciful; thing when they understand the alternatives and are given clear options.
But of course that still leaves us with Joe and betty Sleeze who; through no fault of their own have no conscience and don’t see anything wrong with killing a viable fetus. Yes it does.
You know; even though I know that most; the vast majority of Abortions are done in the early stages of pregnancy; and I know I have no right; I am almost tempted to say that once a fetus has reached a point where ir can survive without the mother; the child should be required to be induced soas to preserve the fetus alive and allow it to be adopted.
If the fetus and mother are healthy; it would seem the logical choice. I can’t think of a good reason a person might have to insist on the death of a healthy child rather than allow it to be saved. but if I were setting a stage to draw the line (which I will not) I would think the child should be able to survive with no more than normal care. I think we would at this point need to once again decide degree and intent. How much care are we willing to allow? if it needs incubation and life support for 3 months; is that viable? I can’t say. That is another reason i say it is best left to the mother to decide; right or wrong.
To be honest; at the point where a fetus can survive outside the womb it really isn’t a case of abortion when both are healthy.
You got me on this one Tony. I am sorry folks but i must say that if Abortion is not neccesary to save the life of the mother; and the fetus is able to survive on it’s own; it is too late for an Abortion. Early delivery and adoption are the only choices if we wish to avoid committing murder I fear.
Early delivery even by C-section if it is the mothers choice would allow for the satisfaction of both issues.
I can’t imagine that any of you would argue in support of this. it is for all intents and purposes; the same as having a baby and then deciding to have it euthenized for no reason.
I don’t think that this falls under Abortion. This is a different action altogether.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_termination_of_pregnancy
United States: In 2003, from data collected in those areas that sufficiently reported gestational age, it was found that 6.2% of abortions were conducted from 13 to 15 weeks, 4.2% from 16 to 20 weeks, and 1.4% at or after 21 weeks.[12] Because the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual study on abortion statistics does not calculate the exact gestational age for abortions performed past the 20th week, there are no precise data for the number of abortions performed after viability.[12] In 1997, the Guttmacher Institute estimated the number of abortions in the U.S. past 24 weeks to be 0.08%, or approximately 1,032 per year.[13]
1.4% at or after 21 weeks. But a fetus can’t survive on it’s own until 24 weeks generally speaking of course.
Babies born at 24 still require incubation and extensive medical care to survive.
You see the problem? We are right back at defining viability.
If for no other reason; this would stop me from a non-medical/neccesary abortion.
I don’t believe that your Frontal Cortex marker is right. I believe it is at conception that I must set my point but I don’t believe I can set that point for others. It’s not my place.
You see? You can’t legislate this type of thing and I’m back to where i started because I don’t believe this is a common problem; I don’t believe it would a happen as often as it apparently does if we treated the problem correctly; and I don’t believe it is our place to decide for a woman if she needs an abortion.
I am happy to leave that to her conscience.
I will just make decisions for myself and allow others to do the same. if that means that a few infants are killed by uncaring parents; it is the nature of a free society that some will act in bad faith or with malice. we can’t allow this to restrict our right to govern our own body male or female. It is a hard pill. It does suck. but it is the only way to maintain our freedom.
I fear we can’t have it both ways no matter how much we would like to.
And how do you blame a mother who feels unable to keep a baby for not wanting it to enter the Foster Care system. It is rife with abuse; neglect; and heartache.
No I think we just step back and let women make their own decision.
Look at that. Talked me out of my confidence in my position and right back into it.
I do understand the issue with third trimester abortion and I wish i had a better answer but i don’t think legislating it is it.
At the risk of repeating myself:
Given the choice between Freedom for Americans and losing a few viable unborns OR saving them all and allowing Government to set the limits; I go with Freedom.
Allowing the Government to legislate morals; decide what is Ok for us to have or smoke or do is how we got here to begin with.
I believe even you will be wishing you let those few babies go when you see this as just another way the Government keeps us at each others throats and you see that allowing this decision to be made by Government is asking them to step in where they don’t belong and is the opposite of what we should be seeking. Once you let them set this limit; it opens the door for them and allows so much more control over our lives.
Of course right now they already have the control and we need to take it back. This is no time to worry about a few unborn children. I am sorry if i sound cold but let’s get our freedom back and then we can sit down and try to find a really workable solution that will help everyone
I don’t feel the urge to police others choices where clear lines are not visable and there certainly are no clear lines here. Not for me.
@Angry: it isn’t a human but if we wait a week and it grows to 100 billion and starts working; it is a Human? Does that really make sense to you?
Yes. A clump of living human cells is not a person. A mole is such a clump, and harmless. A tumor is such a clump, and can be removed. If a diabetic has a leg amputated, the leg is not a person.
Consider this: When is it okay to stop life support on a person? When their brain stops functioning. Not any other part of their body. A person can lose any of their limbs and still be no less a person, they can lose organs and we will try to save them, the one thing that is the difference between me being alive and me being dead is whether my brain is functioning (and it is still functioning even in patients in deep coma; We feed them by IV and keep them alive). Even if a heart fails to beat properly, if we can we will keep somebody alive using a pacemaker or an artificial means of circulation.
Person-hood resides in the brain. Period. Everything else is fuel supply, sensory equipment, manipulative equipment, or reproductive equipment, in service to the brain.
Then what of the brain? What is unique about our brain that makes us human? It is certainly not the neural machinery that runs our circulatory or muscular or digestive or sleep or reproductive or sensory systems; those are evolutionarily ancient and simple, dinosaurs had them.
It isn’t even our more esoteric abilities: We are not the only animals with self-awareness; we share that with (at least) apes, dolphins, elephants and corvids. We are not the only animals with altruism and sharing, it has been observed in these same animals. We are not even the only animals with an apparent language, dolphins can apparently communicate, by sound alone (in separated tanks connected by speakers & hydrophones) a several-step combination of moves to release a tasty fish from a trap.
What we know is different, and uniquely human, is the degree to which abstractions can be employed, predictions made, logic used, and categorizations made. Put simply, we are the only animals that can make and execute long term plans, we may be the only animals that can make conscious plans more than a few days into the future. We may be the only animals that imagine different futures and effect actions now to try and achieve one instead of another.
Even chimpanzees do not think ahead more than a few hours; that has been shown recently by convincing experiments (where they go hungry in the evening if they do not think ahead at lunch, yet day after day after day, they never learn and always go hungry). Other self-aware animals also seem to be limited in their foresight, and in their levels of abstraction (just one level, basically).
All of that difference goes on in our cortex. Yes, it may be centered in the frontal cortex, but I am not completely convinced these functions are exclusive to it; other parts of the brain are active too when we engage in them.
What makes humans different from other animals is our ability to think, project, predict, plan, categorize, and use many levels of indirection. All of that is in the cortex, and once that is functional, I think that confers the presumption of the rights of person-hood. Once we are certain it won’t be working again (brain death), I think that rescinds the presumption of the rights of person-hood, and we can morally decide to withdraw life support and let the body die.
That is also why I believe once a fetus has a working cortex, it has the presumption of the rights of person-hood, regardless of whether it is in utero or not.
The functionality of the cortex is, I believe, a consistent standard of person-hood, on either end of the life, in utero or on the deathbed.
Listen Tony; I am totally in agreement with your very eloquent and engaging description of the human brain and the comparison to animals.
Remember I believe that it is a human from the time of conception and for myself I give any unborn child at any stage all of the rights i would give any child after it’s birth.
But; (and this is a tough one) I could conceive of a scenario where I might be forced to decide to allow even a child or my wife or myself to die or be killed to save the family. It is possible that I might not be able to live with that decision after it is done and I may want to check out early but nevertheless. That’s the same discussion really because i support all rights I include the right to end your life if you decide to.
But I digress. In the same way; I might decide to allow an unborn child to be killed to save my family i.e. my wife.
For me and for almost all others; this would be a heart-wrenching decision.
Having said that; I do not have the right to decide what goes on inside a woman’s body. Neither do you. Neither does any Government.
You see; you say one point I disagree and I say conception; someone else might make an argument for another point in the development. There are at least two possibilities because the scientific answer that you offer will not suit everyone. Myself for instance.
We could go on arguing over when life begins etc. to no avail.
But that just isn’t the point.
Whenever life begins or we call it a person it is still inside of another; already viable functioning aware human being and that human being is the only one who should make that decision. I don’t know what else to say.
Either we have a free country or we don’t.
Either we believe in the right of man to make his own choices or not.
We can’t and shouldn;t try to set a point that we chose either biological; chronological; or random.
The point is set. It is inside a woman and she owes me no explanation for her decision as to it’s future.
Only her God. Why are you not satisfied to allow God to judge? He will anyway.
Or if you don’t believe in a god; then kharma will surely handle the matter.
As I said; the person who makes the decision to kill an unborn child lives with that choice and the necessity of that choice.
It is a very callous person who will not feel the effects of that decision for life. How do we then come along and presume to condemn her on top of her own conscience?
I just don’t understand and you never answered my question.
What makes you believe that you or I have the right to make these rules and decisions?
Why would you want to take on such a thing?
Of course the Free Country point is the only one I find pertinent.
That clears the whole thing up and leaves the decision and the consequences to the person they belong to; the mother.
Leave it at that and it won’t matter when the Frontal Cortex is functioning.
My opinion; your opinion; doesn’t matter. Only Mom’s
After all; you are free to decide such things for your own family if you need to and you probably believe you would make the right choice.
So why just you. Why is not each person allowed to decide for themselves and their family.
Because you fear they will make a different decision than you or I perhaps?
Because you and I are so far superior and more qualified tahn the mother?
Please; that is just arrogance. I’m sorry but you just don’t have the right period.
Sorry I went on so long. If you don’t get my point then I give up.
Anytime men have tried to be free; someone comes along and thinks they know better; believes they are m ore qualified to lead; etc.
Why is Free such a frightening concept for folks like yourself?
Santorum’s wife was reported as saying she was not sure her decision was correct about placing her life in jeopardy to have their last child. Obviously Santorum still believes he would rather have had the child then his wife if that was what happened as a result of continuing the dangerous to the Mrs. Santorum birthing.
(AGM had to add the caveat birth control, none, is 100% effective)
Well heck Tony, If she is of sound mind, healthy and there is a healthy pregnancy maybe detaining her against her will is the safest way to assure she does not choose to abort in the ninth month, or 3rd trimester, which you seem to think is a common occurrence – maybe one reason why you are being called a misogynist) but, for argument’s sake, if a woman decided to abort in the ninth month, healthy baby, healthy mother (and again the rarity of this is astronomical) then let her abort. After all if healthy baby then let baby live and put it up for adoption. Then everybody is happy. Right?
@AngryMan: Why should I feel that I have the right to make such a decision for a woman?
To be sarcastic, why should you feel that you have the right to make the decision that theft shall be illegal, or murder, or rape, or drunk driving, or kidnapping, or child pornography?
it is all the same reason, collectively we decide how to protect people and what is permissible behavior and what is not, from murder down to speed limits and graffiti.
Unless you believe in complete anarchy with no law at all, then whatever gives you the right to decide, for yourself, that other crimes should be crimes is the same thing that gives you the right to decide, for your self, whether (and when) a fetus is a person before it is born.
Nobody should decide the law unilaterally, but you certainly should feel like you have the right to weigh in and try to influence the course of society in their decision, because as a member of society you do have the right to decide what is and isn’t wrong, to have an opinion, and try to promote it, that is part of the process of forming new law, or overturning old law.
@AngryMan: After-all it isn’t really a citizen until it is born in this country.
It is not only citizens that are protected from murder and assault, it is all persons. It is still illegal to kill an illegal immigrant, or a tourist, that is not a citizen of the United States.
Thus your argument falls apart, it does matter when the fetus becomes a person, because then they have the right to life, which cannot be abridged by another person (the mother) on a whim.
@Carol: I do not know how many times I have to qualify this, I think you are being purposely obtuse to avoid the obvious: I am just fine with exceptions being made if the woman has any unusual risk factors for giving birth. If she contracts cancer, is in a car accident, whatever.
In the calculus of which life is more important, I think her life is more important, and it is entirely up to her if she wants to take an unusual amount of risk to birth the child; and if she is not conscious to make that decision, the presumption of the MD should be to abort and save her.
Stop trying to twist my words into saying I want her to sacrifice or risk her life to give birth. I haven’t said that. I won’t say that. The question is unambiguous: If the pregnancy is normal, if the fetus is normal and healthy and can survive on its own outside the womb, if the mother is not taking any unusual or exceptional risk by giving birth, does she or does she not have the right to kill the fetus?
I contend she does not, I contend that particular fetus is a person with rights. And I am not moving the goalposts, I am proposing the obvious extreme. I actually believe the fetus gains personhood before that, but this is the extreme case that should provide an obvious answer.
It isn’t a hard question, and in this question the mother is not in any more jeopardy than any other mother, and she had plenty of time to unilaterally decide to abort before the ninth month.
Now I am sure you will find a way to misinterpret this and answer some other question I did not pose.
The inability to seperate the moral right from the legal one is the reason you can’t find harmony.
There is none.
But whether you think it is Ok or not doesn’t come into play.
What I think is right doesn’t come into play.
Why should I feel that I have the right to make such a decision for a woman?
Isn’t she as capable of doing that as i am?
Why do I need to agree with her choice.
I don’t understand the need people seem to have to legislate everything and have everyone do as we think is right.
Isn’t the essence of freedom the right to decide for yourself and deal with your god later?
Why must we all do the same?
It is the opposite of freedom.
Just last week I heard Rick Santorum saying that we need strict abortion and other laws to make people do right.
He said, “We can’t just have everyone running aroundd doing whatever they want”
Isaid, “Why not” Thats why we live here in America.
That is supposed to be the motivator for us to have started this country in the beginning.
“However; as long as a child is unborn; the “State” should have no voice in what you do. After-all it isn’t really a citizen until it is born in this country. It is however connected to it’s mother and is dependent on her for life.
It doesn’t matter if the fetus could survive with the latest in medical technology. It doesn’t matter that it might survive on it’s own if it were delivered. It doesn’t matter.
It is part of the woman as far as we; her neighbors and the State should be concerned.”
AMS,
For an American person of faith yours is the correct position. Far be it from me to argue anyone’s faith with them, but they shouldn’t impose their faith on others. I am a Jewish deist, which some might say puts me on the fence between belief and non-belief, however, I’m not into proselytizing my ideas to anyone else. How in hell would I know the secret of life, no human does in my opinion, but some are so comforted in their beliefs that who am I to dispute them? We are all frail beings, living a confusing, bittersweet existence and I won’t begrudge anyone the comfort they can find.
Sorry; I did want to say that if it was me and my wife was going to die if an abortion were not performed; I believe I would save my wife; even though I believe I might be judged guilty of murder by God. I’m human and I don’t know if I would be strong enough to let her die although I suspect she might chose the opposite and I would have to honor her decision.
It is a terrible choice and I can’t imagine that women are just running around getting pregnant and having abortions without thought. Not most anyway.
Tony C, It is rare there are late term abortions. Make it unlawful then the woman in jeopardy may well lose her life or her health while the court goes throughs its manipulations. Since illegal, a roomful of docs would not be sufficient. Look, I think that when a late term abortion is done and the fetus is born alive and able to survive, the instances that have been reported (and let’s remember news is the uncoimmon, not the common) but is killed by doc is wrong. Maybe that should be prosecuted as murder (but tat is for another time)
To get back to at least a part of the original subject, maybe you would like the law to be indefinite detention of women who are in the last trimester of pregnancy so they will not willy nilly decide ‘heck, I’m bored, think I’ll go have me an abortion.’
@Carol: You didn’t answer the question, it was clear. If you do not believe it will happen, then you should not mind outlawing it. If you DO mind outlawing it, then you think it is the choice of a normal, healthy woman, with no unusual risk factors for giving birth, to abort a normal, healthy infant that can survive on its own outside the mother’s body.
I do not think that is a choice. I believe a normal, healthy infant that can survive on its own is already a person. I believe that abortion harms that person by depriving it of life. I believe my rights, or anybody else’s rights, do not extend to situations that cause harm to others, with the exception of avoiding imminent harm to one’s self.
It takes most of a pregnancy before a fetus is a person, and that is plenty of time for a normal, healthy woman to decide she did not want to go through with her pregnancy for any reason, including whim. I do not want to stop her from that, when the fetus is not a person. Perhaps she broke up with the father, perhaps she lost a job and is concerned about affording the health care, or concerned about her ability to find a new job while obviously pregnant. Perhaps the opposite, a new job demands travel and risk (like reporting in a war zone) and a pregnancy would get in the way. There are many pragmatic reasons for a woman to terminate a normal, healthy fetus. Just because you don’t think most women would do it, is not proof others would abstain. Nor do I demand they DO abstain, if the fetus is not a person.
But once the fetus IS a person, by virtue of allowing the pregnancy to proceed that far I believe she has assumed all the normal risks of delivery, and if no abnormal risks of delivery have developed, I think she is morally obligated to go through with it, because her rights and her body are not the only rights or body at stake.
TC, there is absolutely nothing in your comments about this subject
(or for that matter your Ron Paul rants) that are in anyway related to being “analytical” or “reason”.
You say you are “pro-choice” but you are only “pro-choice” as long as it meets your definitions of life (a definition that makes no sense). A little reminder what “pro-choice” actually means: the right of a woman to decide what happens with her own body. YOU or anyone else do not get to tell someone else what happens inside their body. You do not get to decide the health and life issues or consequences for someone else with regard to what happens inside or with their body. You do not get to draw the bright dividing lines for a woman of what is or is not a person inside her body when it comes to her choices or when she has that choice or does not. You are not the judge and jury of the circumstances of what a woman does inside her own body. You are not the judge and jury of what constitutes “unforeseen exceptional danger”. To even attempt to do so is the ultimate contempt for a woman and her individual rights. Being pro-choice is not about when life begins whether at conception or at any point during development (your own choice about such life is completely arbitrary) but the right of a woman to make the choice for herself within her own body.
Your pseudo analytics is neither analytical or reasoned. You fit perfectly to being a Paulite. Like RP and the rest of the Republican/Tparty/So-Called-Liberterians the only rights they are really interested in are their own. If they were really concerned about life they would be worrying about healthcare, poverty, education, and the environment. Instead of taking away the rights of a woman to make her own choices within her own body they would worry about the lives of the living.
You know? I’ve been listening to this argument for years; ever since I was a child and I have never understood the big argument over when life begins.
What we have here are two completely seperate questions. To accuratly assess my opinion it must be two opinions.
1) My moral opinion
2) My political opinion
So:
1) The confusion isn’t really over when life begins; be it heartbeat; cortex activity; conception; or birth.
Abortion is much older than our ability to make such distinctions and the ability to do so is wholely dependant on technology; which might or might not be available to us at any given time depending on our circumstances. Prior to this ability; decisions were made every day that meant life or death for the unborn.
Biblically; The Bible says that killing a pregnant woman is killing two people. it makes no distinction as to the stage or progress of the pregnancy. It says nothing about saving the life of the mother.
I believe that life begins at conception.
I think but I don’t know that many people who argue otherwise secretly believe this also but are reluctant to say so because it is an inconvevient thing to believe if you wish to approve abortion but don’t wish to feel morally culpable for a death.
I say Abortion is killing a human being from the time of conception on.
I believe that to do so is wrong.
To do so to save the life of the mother is wrong but totally understandable;
To do so just because you screwed up and forgot to use protection or you didn’t bother and are not ready for a baby is murder.
BUT: My moral or religious opinion need have no importance to anyone but me because;
2) My Political opinion is that in a Free Nation, I don’t have the right to tell you what you can do with your property.
You can dispose of your property and yourself as you see fit with the sole proviso that you do not in the course of this disposition; restrict or deny the rights of another person.
So in my mind; if you choose to kill yourself; no problem. If you also try to kill your child as part of the plan; now we have a problem because you are infringing on his/her rights.
However; as long as a child is unborn; the “State” should have no voice in what you do. After-all it isn’t really a citizen until it is born in this country. It is however connected to it’s mother and is dependent on her for life.
It doesn’t matter if the fetus could survive with the latest in medical technology. It doesn’t matter that it might survive on it’s own if it were delivered. It doesn’t matter.
It is part of the woman as far as we; her neighbors and the State should be concerned.
As I said; I personnally believe it is murder and I wish we could all just say, “Ok, it’s muder but I am going to do it anyway”
My answer is, “Ok, that’s between you and your God/Conscience”.
What I would not expect; as a result of this is not a mad rush to the Abortion Clinics to get those low introductory rates or the multiple abortion discount. I wouldn’t expect the number of abortions to change where they are currently available easily and I would expect them to increase where it is more difficult either because of availability or; shall we say; local culture.
What I would expect to see is womwen using their intellect and hearts to make decisions for themselves and do what they really think is best for them and the unborn.
I would expect to see a surge of educational and technical aids for mothers who are in doubt as to the course they should follow.
I would expect that in time the abortion rate would drop signifigantly when fear, uncertainty, and ignorance are done away with.
I would expect to see vast improvements made to our Foster Care and Adoption systems so that a young mother might feel safe in leaving her infant there for care and adption. (This is a HUGE problem and many young mothers; especially those who have come up through the system say they would rather abort than send a child through what they suffered at the hands of cruel and abusive Foster Parents; instituions etc.)
I would expect that most mothers would rather chose life if they thought the child was safe and well cared for and loved.
Those who still chose to abort willy-nilly as a minority do; it should be said; will find that repeated abortions are dangerous to your health and reproductive system; and Nature will take it’s course and deal appropriately with those who flout her rules. Nature. Not us. Not the State.
Nature.
Neither God nor Nature requires the assistance of humans to enforce their rules.
How dare we presume to make such a decision for a woman.
She must be allowed to make her own decision. if she or her husband to her life over that of an unborn child; it isn’t our place to say no. We are not the ones who will live with the decision; right or wrong.
The weight of such matters whichever way you decide is heavy and not taken or lived with lightly I am sure.
Whether you will be judged guilty for a decision you make; be it an emergency or not; is not for me to decide. It is not for the State to decide.
I stand corrected as to the protection of non-citizens but that doesn’t affect my argument. I still say that if it is inside a womans body; we must trust her to do the right thing. But if she does not; it is not our right to judge her actions.
Until the child has seperated from the mother; it is part of her and she is the only one who can decide it’s fate.
We should hope and I would expect that the vast majority of women will never encounter this choice.
Of those that do; the vast majority will handle it with maturity and with full consideration as to the consequences for the unborn and for herself.
Only a small minority of women and girls treat abortion as a means of birth control.
I would also expect to see educational and technical programs to end the ignorance associated with abortion. Only an informed person is able to make an intelligent decision. But the decision is hers never the less. So what we should be doing… but I am repeating 1zb1.
I do not understand the need that you have to control the actions of others. Not just you of course. I hear the same things from both Conservatives and Liberals. Both want to decide what others should be allowed to do.
Let me tell you what others should be allowed to do. Any damn thing they want to as long as it does not infringe on another persons rights.
The Conservatives say No Abortion and the Liberals want to argue over when it is Ok and when it is not. When is a baby; a baby? Hmmm. Or more to the point; when is a multi-celled organism a human?
If we take a Human Egg and we introduce it to a Human Sperm; both of these being the product of a Human Body; the result will be a Human Zygote.
If we leave it alone it will divide and reproduce itself and begin to specialize cells etc. and it will become a Human Embryo.
If we still restrain ourselves and allow it to grow it will become a Human Fetus.
And if unmollested and allowed to leave it’s mother it will become a Human Infant.
(At this point it becomes an individual; seperate from it’s mother; and it make the decision to live: which we assume until it is old enough to actually act of it’s own accord; thus the parents can’t for instance kill an infant and claim it lost the will to live etc.)
At what point during this process would you say the organism is Not Human?
“It’s not a human until it has a heartbeat.” So the heart isn’t human until it begins to beat?
“It isn’t human until it has a Cerebral Cortex” I believe you said; or what it the Frontal Cortex?
Whichever; therefore the Cortex in question requires let’s say 100 billion cells to function. You would say that if we kill the baby when the cortex has only 99 billion cells; it isn’t a human but if we wait a week and it grows to 100 billion and starts working; it is a Human?
Does that really make sense to you?
Why don’t you folks all just grow a pair and tell the truth? It is a living human being from the moment of Conception and to interfere with it’s development at any point is killing a Human Being.
I consider an act of blatant cowardice to attempt to justify abortion by denying the child’s humanity. it is well below the dignity of a free man to split hairs over when it is a life or a human or a child.
No justification is required. You do what you feel you must or should.
Even if that means killing an unborn child. It is killing.
I’ll admit it and I’ll admit that under certain circumstances I would choose to kill an unborn child rather than live with the alternative.
I will not make this decision lightly. I will search my soul for the right thing to do but in the end if I believe it is the best thing; I will kill that unborn child. I will not call it Abortion. I will call it what it is and i will take responsibility before my god.
I will not attempt to rationalize my act by asking Biologists to tell me detailed information about he level of development etc. so I can try to avoid the guilt that must and should come when we kill another person. I will know as do many who decide for abortion that they are killing a Human Being.
However; killing a human being is not always wrong even if the victim is an adult.
If someone enters my home and threatens me; I have a right to kill that person.
By the same logic if an unborn child is threatening the life of it’s mother she has a righ to kill it.
Kill it. We won’t Abort it like a poorly executed mission; we won’t send it over the Rainbow Bridge; we won’t Put it to Sleep; Put it Down; Euthanize it; or send it to La La Land.
We will kill it. If I am right we will all have to justify that action and if I am wrong; no worries right?
But the one thing that I can’t tolerate or understand is people’s unwillingness to call it what it is; do what they want or need to do and live with it.
Few women indeed would consider killing an unborn child unless they felt compelled to do so for one reason or another.
I don’t like the way the opponents approach this issue.
They make it seem like they are waging a Holy War against a nation of Maniacal Baby Killing Women who are just waiting for the Ok to start killing every fetus that they conceive.
Foolishness.
But whatever the reason; a woman has a right to decide when it is her only choice or when it is the best for her and/or her unborn child.
I guess my question is; What makes you believe that you have a right to decide issues of morality for another person? I never have understood the desire to force your will and your choices on others.
People do wrong things. All people. Not our business Tony; unless they infringe on another person’s right like you do when you deny a woman the right to decide if abortion what she needs to do.
Re Santorum. just got this in my email
“Last June, one of Rick Santorum’s campaign staffer sent him an email that stated that having a female president would pose a threat to children because it was against God’s will “to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state.”1 It’s clear that the notion children would be harmed by a female president because it is against God’s will is not only absurd but harmful.”
Tony I think any reasonable person could tell I mistyped, based on the entire preceeding paragraph, I meant to write ‘abortion is not done in the last month just for the heck of it.’ (Although I doubt very few women, if any, would tell you they go thru the discomfort and potential risks of an abortion, even in the first month, just for the heck of it.)
The fact that you seem to believe many women would happily abort in the last month of pregnancy is further proof of, well heck, your schmuckhood, as previously noted.
@Mike: Shall you now start lying about me?
I am not an anti-abortionist, I am pro-choice throughout most of the pregancy, and I have no magical belief about conception or pregnancy, or birth. Birth is not the dividing line for being a person.
I am as far from emotional about this as it gets, I am analytical about this, and if you could forego your magical, emotional thinking you would realize that personhood is in the brain, not in the lungs or imparted magically by contact with air or light, and the fetus in the last month is no less a person for being inside a mother.
I am not an anti-abortionist, in my book woman are free to abort their pregnancy for the majority of their pregnancy. That is plenty of time to make a decision to proceed, entirely at their own discretion. But if they have NOT chosen to abort before their fetus is undoubtedly a person, THEN they have accepted the risk and responsibility of carrying it to term, barring the development of unforeseen exceptional danger to either mother or fetus.
I am an anti-absolutist, based on REASON, not emotion.
@Carol: And Tony abortion is not done in the lst month just for the heck of it.
Fine, if you truly believe that, then you should have no problem making it illegal for a normal, healthy woman to abort a normal, healthy fetus in the last month “just for the heck of it,” because that law should never come into play.
Right?
Or will you now insist that a normal, healthy woman DOES have the right to abort a normal, healthy fetus in the last month, even if she is in no exceptional danger from the birth, for any reason she deems fit, including no particular reason at all?
Thanks Angryman (:
Tony I missed your earlier response to meabout regretting voting for President Obama.We have seen what the repubs do and say when he uses his executive orders ability. You have to pick your battles. With an obstructionist congress, McConnell and Boehner sayiing and doing everything to obstruct this president, Mr Obama is often in a no win situation. Am I disappointed in, for instance, signing the appropriatioins bill? You betya. Do I however wonder if this compromise (adding the signing statement) was done so the debt ceiling coming up shortly will hopefully be less of a fight this time? Yes. I also think that, hopefully, when (not if, please) he wins reelection he will fix the appropriations bill.
Mike, I am so sorry for what your mother went through and the effects it had on you. Should some man have made the decision for her? Thank you for sharing your difficult story.
In my family there have been 3 abortions: my sister, out of wedlock. Her body, her choice – and she was wholly incapable at that time to be a mother.
My other sister, who was given an xray thru the abdomen for a back problem, no one realizing she was about 6 weeks pregnant. Her doc, who did not perform abortions, insisted she have one. The fetus was so malformed, and incompatible with life, that they would not even tell her the sex to try and help her not have fantasies about what might have been.
Then there was my mother who had to go before a male judge and lay bare her personal and confidential medical history to this non medical person to get permission for an abortion. It was granted but what kind of humiliation did they require before she was allowed?
People like tony haven’t a clue what it means to be pregnant when your body cannot handle it, when you cannot handle it, when a life is at stake. If he paid more attention to what happens to women, including when they had to go into the back alleys: dark, unsterile offices of people who represented they could do abotions or when they resorted to wire hangers, maybe he would get how dangerous anti-choice is.
I have never been pregnant but had I been I do not think I could ever have had an abortion; but that gives me no right to force that decision on someone else.
Bravo Carol,
Well said indeed.