This issue is like immigration. They don’t want to solve it. They want to get the sides engaged and to turn out to vote every 2 years. That is why it was leaked now, as It appears the Democrats will lose Congress.
Completely aside from its subject matter, Roe was a terrible (and precarious) legal decision in the first place. If the pro-abortion politicians wanted to codify the right to abortion, they have had fifty years to do it properly via a federal law, and yet they have not. Why would you kill the goose that lays the golden outrage vote? The vote that you can tuck away in the back of the cupboard and pull out whenever it looks like your power might be in jeopardy.
Wonderful, clear writing here gato. Personally, I'm always amazed at the concept that secular humanists or other atheists should somehow AUTOMATICALLY be pro-abortion. I don't want to go on a long screed, but that makes zero sense. As a humanist who is open-eyed about the natural behavior of mankind, I am very much pro-life for the unborn. I know full well how easy it is for the powerful to disdain and destroy the powerless. Secular humanists should be ALL ABOUT trying to stop that abuse.
We do not know when a person starts to be a person. Conception? 2 hours? 15 days? We have no idea. We cannot know. The human being does not know everything. Assume it.
Then, just in case, let us be cautious and do not kill from the very beginning.
Good rational take on the issue. I'm wondering of some of those who argue that life and personhood begin at conception would be persuaded by the ancient Hebrew law, which held that life begins at "quickening," or about 20 weeks, but legal personhood does not begin until birth. I see this supreme court leak as a deliberate attempt to polarize the population and herd straying liberals back into the fold for the midterms.
I’m so tired of hearing people discuss the right to choose. Everyone has a choice to not get pregnant in the first place. I’m sick of the hedonistic world we live in where people would rather decide when a baby is a person worth having love rather than practice some self restraint.
Abortions will always and forever happen, whether or not they are safe and legal-that much will always be true. First trimester abortion is something I’ve never had an issue with. After that, things get complex, both medically, legally, deterministically. The states should decide. I’m fine with that. I was an L and D nurse in a teaching hospital delivering 800+ babies a month to poor and low income mothers, many moons ago. It’s a complex issue and the medical issues, most lay people haven’t a clue about.
What? You don't like emanations from the penumbra?
My terribly cynical suspicion is that this leak was strategic. The actual decision handed down will be a typical kick the can down the road and not overturn the current status quo at all. This leak galvanizes otherwise completely unengaged democrats just as a historic midterm defeat was approaching.
Next, the reversal of what we are led to think would be the decision will generate just the sort of partisan controversy that keeps everyone distracted. The right will say the court was intimidated, the left will say they -should- be intimidated, etc.
I think it is even possible that the leak was orchestrated by a Trump appointed judge who is afraid to go along with the decision and afraid not to. Leak it and then let everyone think you were afraid of angry leftist rioters.
People who opposed abortion for many years are celebrating but I think it is premature. The entire leak redounds too strongly in favor of the pro-abortion / democrat crowd. No leak and the decision coming on schedule would have been much worse for them as there would be nothing to do other than express anger. Right now they can believe protests and riots and fundraising might change the decision. That is motivation on the most sensitive issue they have. Democrats running for election could not have wished for anything better.
If we have to come up with a standard for when life begins, I would suggest that it be a standard based on human compassion and not scientific logic. The importance of protecting unborn life is not merely to protect defenseless gestating babies, it is to defend the sacredness of human life as a moral and legal concept.
That concept is under attack at both ends and from the middle. We saw the elderly deliberately left out of hospitals to die in nursing homes because their lives were considered unimportant. Some states push the upper limit of abortion ever further past birth. Ill health or infection now can cause you to lose your rights and be detained. Hospitals treat patients as if admittance to the hospital is a surrender of all their sovereignty over their own medical decisions and life.
These are all encroachments on the value and sanctity of life. If we surrender on one front, we lose on all. The end of that road is a state that determines where and how your life begins and ends with no human compassion whatsoever. We can see that now more clearly than at any time in our lifetimes.
I could be way off here, but I don't see the summer of fire and brimstone that most are anticipating. I also don't see the middle that already decided to vote R going back. I think it is good this came out so far in front of the mid-terms instead of being dropped the week before.
Many states already have laws in place in preparation for the overturning of Roe. Once those kick in, the birthing people of those states will see plainly what they have voted for, and either be happy or sad. So the sad people might protest, but hopefully the middle will understand and move forward.
Difficult topic to discuss. I don’t get the insane howling and managing of teeth on social media though. Anyone would think the government has just mandated forced injections of an experimental vaccine that doesn’t work particularly well and has a horrible side effect profile relative to its target disease. The judgement only refers it to state laws, so it’s still possible and easy to get an abortion. Personally, I’m “anti-abortion” in my personal life but think also that people should have the right to choose; although it should be limited to early in pregnancy. I find late term abortions where babies have survived being born that early abhorrent.
"positive 'right to abortion' nowhere in evidence in the constitution"
This is a dangerous route to traverse. If we only have the "rights" that are "in evidence in the constitution," then we really don't have much in the way of rights.
The Constitution doesn't confer ANY rights to people. The rights to marriage, to eat, to sleep, to have sex, to work, to do much of anything are NOT in the Constitution. That doesn't make those rights non-existent.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments aren't just afterthoughts. We have a semi-infinite number of rights that are not "in evidence in the constitution." To believe the latter is to imply that we can only do that which is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. That is a complete inversion of what the Constitution is for: to place limits on the GOVERNMENT, not the people.
As for the rest, well:
"Abortion: A Philosophical and Scientific Approach" is available online.
1. What are rights?
2. Why do we have/need rights (if we do)?
3. What foundational trait distinguishes humans from all other animals?
4. What physical characteristic makes that trait possible?
5. At what point in the development of a fetus does this characteristic first manifest itself in the brain?
6. That point is the MINIMUM demarcation between what it means to be a PERSON (in a very rudimentary, primitive sense with the possibility of having rights that need to be protected) and just a living entity that does not yet possess the uniquely HUMAN characteristic that differentiates us from any other living entities.
7. These facts are OBJECTIVE, even if the borderline of when this occurs can be somewhat fuzzy.
This point in gestation occurs around six months. Before that, the fetus does not have the brain structures that even minimally qualify it for personhood, i.e., a being with rights. After that point, one can reasonably argue for restrictions against killing the fetus.
But, regardless, in the extremely rare cases after that point where it can be objectively shown that the woman's life is in ACTUAL danger from the pregnancy, HER life, her ACTUAL independent existence takes precedence over any POTENTIAL that is physically, parasitically dependent on her being to exist.
It's not "privacy" that underpins the right to abortion (though we do have such a right, whether "in evidence in the constitution" or not), but personal autonomy arising from our SELF-OWNERSHIP. The burden of proof to ban ANY and ALL abortions is on those who DENY our right to self-ownership. Self-ownership is the DEFAULT position. I should think that this whole mask/vaccine mandate debacle should/would have made that fact crystal clear.
In “A Last Survey,” writer-philosopher Ayn Rand wrote, “One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months.” She also wrote that, “Not every wrong idea is an indication of a fundamental philosophical evil in a person’s convictions; the anti-abortion stand is such an indication.”(Nov.-Dec., 1975, The Ayn Rand Letter.)
In Ayn Rand Answers (2005), Rand says, “I’d like to express my indignation at the idea of confusing a living human being with an embryo, which is only some undeveloped cells. (Abortion at the last minute — when a baby is formed — is a different issue.)”
This is most emphatically NOT an issue that should be "left to the states" to decide. Just because Y is not a federal issue does NOT mean states can AUTOMATICALLY pass laws about Y. That is not what the Tenth Amendment says or implies. That would just allow states to become localized tyrannies. Yes, certain issues are the bailiwick of states, for them to legally deal with, but they are PERMITTED to deal with/have jurisdiction over ONLY A LIMITED RANGE OF ISSUES, ONES THAT DO NOT VIOLATE FUNDAMENTAL INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, ones that emerge from the ONLY proper purpose of government, i.e., to protect our rights from infringement by others, whether those others are individuals or arms of the State.
Both sides in this controversy commit the same violations of critical thinking: they rely on the Circular Argument Fallacy of assuming what they are obligated to prove: that an embryo/fetus (at stage X) is/is not a PERSON with RIGHTS that cannot/can be killed rather than murdered.
Relying primarily on faith-based principles is a gross violation of the principles of critical thinking. But that's the main crutch used by those against any and all abortions. They have little else to fall back upon. Adherents have told me that people are not animals; that's it's wrong to compare/contrast humans and animals; that our rights emerge from the fact that we have "human blood"; and much more. Evasion and ignorance masquerading as "facts."
Anti-abortionists like to harp on the phrase “a human life.”
Well, duh. It IS a HUMAN embryo/fetus, after all, not a cabbage. And it’s obviously ALIVE.
1. A sperm is a living entity
2. An egg is a living entity
3. When these two entities merge, the resulting embryo is a living entity
4. The moment they merge, that embryo does not instantly acquire fundamental rights
The real issue is whether that living entity is a human BEING with VOLITION, thus, with fundamental HUMAN RIGHTS that should be protected.
As for the rabid other side who thinks it is okay to "abort" a 30-day old infant, well, they are just nuts. And evil.
ASSERTIONS without objective evidence or proof that even non-believers can evaluate are not arguments.
But such form the core of this "debate," the same tactics utilized by every statist and collectivist to push through the destruction of rights, freedom, and morality.
(From a graphic I created on this topic):
What (objectively) (non-religiously [as required by the principles of critical thinking]) distinguishes/differentiates humans from other animals? What is the foundation (the basis) for our rights? What are rights? Why do we have them? These rights are what makes killing an innocent human being murder. When does (if it does) a human embryo/fetus develop the (minimal) capacity/trait/attribute necessary to transform it into a human being and make (any) rights possible (on at least a rudimentary level)?
Both sides commit a Circular Argument/Begging the Question Fallacy by assuming what they need to prove, i.e., that fetuses/embryos do/do not have rights and thus cannot/can properly be killed.
Judges and legislators - and the religious - should NEVER intrude on or opine on a person's bodily autonomy and medical procedures. Not anybody's business except patient and doctor. That goes for vaccines and that goes for ending unwanted pregnancies. Saying that you just think the court should punt it back to state legislatures or Congress is cowardly and ignores the real-life women and their families that this affects.
This issue is like immigration. They don’t want to solve it. They want to get the sides engaged and to turn out to vote every 2 years. That is why it was leaked now, as It appears the Democrats will lose Congress.
Completely aside from its subject matter, Roe was a terrible (and precarious) legal decision in the first place. If the pro-abortion politicians wanted to codify the right to abortion, they have had fifty years to do it properly via a federal law, and yet they have not. Why would you kill the goose that lays the golden outrage vote? The vote that you can tuck away in the back of the cupboard and pull out whenever it looks like your power might be in jeopardy.
Wonderful, clear writing here gato. Personally, I'm always amazed at the concept that secular humanists or other atheists should somehow AUTOMATICALLY be pro-abortion. I don't want to go on a long screed, but that makes zero sense. As a humanist who is open-eyed about the natural behavior of mankind, I am very much pro-life for the unborn. I know full well how easy it is for the powerful to disdain and destroy the powerless. Secular humanists should be ALL ABOUT trying to stop that abuse.
There is other approach.
We do not know when a person starts to be a person. Conception? 2 hours? 15 days? We have no idea. We cannot know. The human being does not know everything. Assume it.
Then, just in case, let us be cautious and do not kill from the very beginning.
Good rational take on the issue. I'm wondering of some of those who argue that life and personhood begin at conception would be persuaded by the ancient Hebrew law, which held that life begins at "quickening," or about 20 weeks, but legal personhood does not begin until birth. I see this supreme court leak as a deliberate attempt to polarize the population and herd straying liberals back into the fold for the midterms.
I’m so tired of hearing people discuss the right to choose. Everyone has a choice to not get pregnant in the first place. I’m sick of the hedonistic world we live in where people would rather decide when a baby is a person worth having love rather than practice some self restraint.
Abortions will always and forever happen, whether or not they are safe and legal-that much will always be true. First trimester abortion is something I’ve never had an issue with. After that, things get complex, both medically, legally, deterministically. The states should decide. I’m fine with that. I was an L and D nurse in a teaching hospital delivering 800+ babies a month to poor and low income mothers, many moons ago. It’s a complex issue and the medical issues, most lay people haven’t a clue about.
What? You don't like emanations from the penumbra?
My terribly cynical suspicion is that this leak was strategic. The actual decision handed down will be a typical kick the can down the road and not overturn the current status quo at all. This leak galvanizes otherwise completely unengaged democrats just as a historic midterm defeat was approaching.
Next, the reversal of what we are led to think would be the decision will generate just the sort of partisan controversy that keeps everyone distracted. The right will say the court was intimidated, the left will say they -should- be intimidated, etc.
I think it is even possible that the leak was orchestrated by a Trump appointed judge who is afraid to go along with the decision and afraid not to. Leak it and then let everyone think you were afraid of angry leftist rioters.
People who opposed abortion for many years are celebrating but I think it is premature. The entire leak redounds too strongly in favor of the pro-abortion / democrat crowd. No leak and the decision coming on schedule would have been much worse for them as there would be nothing to do other than express anger. Right now they can believe protests and riots and fundraising might change the decision. That is motivation on the most sensitive issue they have. Democrats running for election could not have wished for anything better.
If we have to come up with a standard for when life begins, I would suggest that it be a standard based on human compassion and not scientific logic. The importance of protecting unborn life is not merely to protect defenseless gestating babies, it is to defend the sacredness of human life as a moral and legal concept.
That concept is under attack at both ends and from the middle. We saw the elderly deliberately left out of hospitals to die in nursing homes because their lives were considered unimportant. Some states push the upper limit of abortion ever further past birth. Ill health or infection now can cause you to lose your rights and be detained. Hospitals treat patients as if admittance to the hospital is a surrender of all their sovereignty over their own medical decisions and life.
These are all encroachments on the value and sanctity of life. If we surrender on one front, we lose on all. The end of that road is a state that determines where and how your life begins and ends with no human compassion whatsoever. We can see that now more clearly than at any time in our lifetimes.
Well. They can’t get pregnant after taking these vaccines, anyway. Even the men. Heh.
Brave, principled, well reasoned perspective. Prepare for incoming.
I could be way off here, but I don't see the summer of fire and brimstone that most are anticipating. I also don't see the middle that already decided to vote R going back. I think it is good this came out so far in front of the mid-terms instead of being dropped the week before.
Many states already have laws in place in preparation for the overturning of Roe. Once those kick in, the birthing people of those states will see plainly what they have voted for, and either be happy or sad. So the sad people might protest, but hopefully the middle will understand and move forward.
Difficult topic to discuss. I don’t get the insane howling and managing of teeth on social media though. Anyone would think the government has just mandated forced injections of an experimental vaccine that doesn’t work particularly well and has a horrible side effect profile relative to its target disease. The judgement only refers it to state laws, so it’s still possible and easy to get an abortion. Personally, I’m “anti-abortion” in my personal life but think also that people should have the right to choose; although it should be limited to early in pregnancy. I find late term abortions where babies have survived being born that early abhorrent.
Excellent take!
Also see Glenn Greewald's latest piece: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-irrational-misguided-discourse?s=r
Very very interesting, as a Canadian watching from my side of the border this helps put the lunatics in context
"positive 'right to abortion' nowhere in evidence in the constitution"
This is a dangerous route to traverse. If we only have the "rights" that are "in evidence in the constitution," then we really don't have much in the way of rights.
The Constitution doesn't confer ANY rights to people. The rights to marriage, to eat, to sleep, to have sex, to work, to do much of anything are NOT in the Constitution. That doesn't make those rights non-existent.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments aren't just afterthoughts. We have a semi-infinite number of rights that are not "in evidence in the constitution." To believe the latter is to imply that we can only do that which is explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. That is a complete inversion of what the Constitution is for: to place limits on the GOVERNMENT, not the people.
As for the rest, well:
"Abortion: A Philosophical and Scientific Approach" is available online.
1. What are rights?
2. Why do we have/need rights (if we do)?
3. What foundational trait distinguishes humans from all other animals?
4. What physical characteristic makes that trait possible?
5. At what point in the development of a fetus does this characteristic first manifest itself in the brain?
6. That point is the MINIMUM demarcation between what it means to be a PERSON (in a very rudimentary, primitive sense with the possibility of having rights that need to be protected) and just a living entity that does not yet possess the uniquely HUMAN characteristic that differentiates us from any other living entities.
7. These facts are OBJECTIVE, even if the borderline of when this occurs can be somewhat fuzzy.
This point in gestation occurs around six months. Before that, the fetus does not have the brain structures that even minimally qualify it for personhood, i.e., a being with rights. After that point, one can reasonably argue for restrictions against killing the fetus.
But, regardless, in the extremely rare cases after that point where it can be objectively shown that the woman's life is in ACTUAL danger from the pregnancy, HER life, her ACTUAL independent existence takes precedence over any POTENTIAL that is physically, parasitically dependent on her being to exist.
It's not "privacy" that underpins the right to abortion (though we do have such a right, whether "in evidence in the constitution" or not), but personal autonomy arising from our SELF-OWNERSHIP. The burden of proof to ban ANY and ALL abortions is on those who DENY our right to self-ownership. Self-ownership is the DEFAULT position. I should think that this whole mask/vaccine mandate debacle should/would have made that fact crystal clear.
In “A Last Survey,” writer-philosopher Ayn Rand wrote, “One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months.” She also wrote that, “Not every wrong idea is an indication of a fundamental philosophical evil in a person’s convictions; the anti-abortion stand is such an indication.”(Nov.-Dec., 1975, The Ayn Rand Letter.)
In Ayn Rand Answers (2005), Rand says, “I’d like to express my indignation at the idea of confusing a living human being with an embryo, which is only some undeveloped cells. (Abortion at the last minute — when a baby is formed — is a different issue.)”
This is most emphatically NOT an issue that should be "left to the states" to decide. Just because Y is not a federal issue does NOT mean states can AUTOMATICALLY pass laws about Y. That is not what the Tenth Amendment says or implies. That would just allow states to become localized tyrannies. Yes, certain issues are the bailiwick of states, for them to legally deal with, but they are PERMITTED to deal with/have jurisdiction over ONLY A LIMITED RANGE OF ISSUES, ONES THAT DO NOT VIOLATE FUNDAMENTAL INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, ones that emerge from the ONLY proper purpose of government, i.e., to protect our rights from infringement by others, whether those others are individuals or arms of the State.
Both sides in this controversy commit the same violations of critical thinking: they rely on the Circular Argument Fallacy of assuming what they are obligated to prove: that an embryo/fetus (at stage X) is/is not a PERSON with RIGHTS that cannot/can be killed rather than murdered.
Relying primarily on faith-based principles is a gross violation of the principles of critical thinking. But that's the main crutch used by those against any and all abortions. They have little else to fall back upon. Adherents have told me that people are not animals; that's it's wrong to compare/contrast humans and animals; that our rights emerge from the fact that we have "human blood"; and much more. Evasion and ignorance masquerading as "facts."
Anti-abortionists like to harp on the phrase “a human life.”
Well, duh. It IS a HUMAN embryo/fetus, after all, not a cabbage. And it’s obviously ALIVE.
1. A sperm is a living entity
2. An egg is a living entity
3. When these two entities merge, the resulting embryo is a living entity
4. The moment they merge, that embryo does not instantly acquire fundamental rights
The real issue is whether that living entity is a human BEING with VOLITION, thus, with fundamental HUMAN RIGHTS that should be protected.
As for the rabid other side who thinks it is okay to "abort" a 30-day old infant, well, they are just nuts. And evil.
ASSERTIONS without objective evidence or proof that even non-believers can evaluate are not arguments.
But such form the core of this "debate," the same tactics utilized by every statist and collectivist to push through the destruction of rights, freedom, and morality.
(From a graphic I created on this topic):
What (objectively) (non-religiously [as required by the principles of critical thinking]) distinguishes/differentiates humans from other animals? What is the foundation (the basis) for our rights? What are rights? Why do we have them? These rights are what makes killing an innocent human being murder. When does (if it does) a human embryo/fetus develop the (minimal) capacity/trait/attribute necessary to transform it into a human being and make (any) rights possible (on at least a rudimentary level)?
Both sides commit a Circular Argument/Begging the Question Fallacy by assuming what they need to prove, i.e., that fetuses/embryos do/do not have rights and thus cannot/can properly be killed.
Judges and legislators - and the religious - should NEVER intrude on or opine on a person's bodily autonomy and medical procedures. Not anybody's business except patient and doctor. That goes for vaccines and that goes for ending unwanted pregnancies. Saying that you just think the court should punt it back to state legislatures or Congress is cowardly and ignores the real-life women and their families that this affects.