Jane Roe going to Supreme Court.....

[elephant]

So you all seem to agree that teenagers have limited rights - not the same as adults or as one of you put "when they are of legal age" or something. So do Americans get more rights as they get older? If so, what rights do they start with and why? And who decides which rights they gain on which birthdays?

Working backwards:

21 - to drink
18 - to vote
16 - to drive

So then, one could argue that a fetus having not reached even its actual birthday has even fewer rights than teenagers. And you all seem quite comfortable with affording teenagers fewer rights.

 

[krisy]

So you all seem to agree that teenagers have limited rights - not the same as adults or as one of you put "when they are of legal age" or something. So do Americans get more rights as they get older? If so, what rights do they start with and why? And who decides which rights they gain on which birthdays?

Working backwards:

21 - to drink
18 - to vote
16 - to drive

So then, one could argue that a fetus having not reached even its actual birthday has even fewer rights than teenagers. And you all seem quite comfortable with affording teenagers fewer rights.

I don't know what the laws are everywhere lses,but here a parent is responsible for a child/teen for a reason. They aren't capable of making the best decisions for themselves all of the time. A fetus is a lot different-not a good comparison. You have to give someone a chance to have those rights before they can have them. It isn't our place to take that away. Teenagers have proven over and over again,that they do not mkae the wisest of decisions for themselves. Obviously,as a person gets older ,they mature and make better decisions.

 

[Shattered]

Teenagers have proven over and over again,that they do not mkae the wisest of decisions for themselves.

Just the fact that they're having unprotected sex, and getting pregnant in the first place proves that...

 

[dilloduck]

So you all seem to agree that teenagers have limited rights - not the same as adults or as one of you put "when they are of legal age" or something. So do Americans get more rights as they get older? If so, what rights do they start with and why? And who decides which rights they gain on which birthdays?

Working backwards:

21 - to drink
18 - to vote
16 - to drive

So then, one could argue that a fetus having not reached even its actual birthday has even fewer rights than teenagers. And you all seem quite comfortable with affording teenagers fewer rights.

They do have fewer rights but the right to life is one they DO have. Why take it away--give me one good reason other than incest or the health of the mother?

 

[Said1]

...Americans use 'mental development' as a litmus test for just about everything actually. Just look up the average IQ of a high security prison. Or even better try the average IQ on death row.

Then look at the 'mental development' of the homeless for example. Then look at some other groups of adults that have been more or less thrown to the curb by American society.

So we actually do kill, or at least push people aside when they become too burdensome.

Just a thought.

I'm not following the point you're trying to make.

 

[Said1]

So then, one could argue that a fetus having not reached even its actual birthday has even fewer rights than teenagers. And you all seem quite comfortable with affording teenagers fewer rights.

Are you a teenager?

 

[Gem]

So then, one could argue that a fetus having not reached even its actual birthday has even fewer rights than teenagers. And you all seem quite comfortable with affording teenagers fewer rights.

Even if we go upon your premise here, I think that most people would agree that the "right" to be alive is probably the very first right a person has, therefore, the baby in the womb, the youngest form of human, still has the most basic right, the right to live.

 

[no1tovote4]

Even if we go upon your premise here, I think that most people would agree that the "right" to be alive is probably the very first right a person has, therefore, the baby in the womb, the youngest form of human, still has the most basic right, the right to live.

Exactly.

 

[Gem]

Thinking on it some more...I would add that the things you have mentioned (driving, drinking) are not RIGHTS but privledges bestowed upon people when the law has decided they are mature enough to handle them...

I believe the line is, "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..." not, "Life, liberty, the right to drink a 40 with your friends in the basement of your best friends house on a Saturday night, a new car in the driveway when you turn 16, and the pursuit of happiness..."

 

[no1tovote4]

When was the last time you swatted a fly, sprayed bug spray, set out a roach bait or a mouse trap?

I don't. Well I did set a mouse trap but it was the kind where the mouse lives and you return it to the wild.

When was the last time you ate a steak or a chicken or fish fillet?

Don't be disingenuous and resort to Reductive Fallacy you were doing so well until then.

I eat other living things often, but no matter what you eat you take life even vegetables were living before you ate them. It is part of the circle of life thing. What is needed is respecting the exchange and the life taken. I don't call it a bunch of cells in order to make myself feel better nor do I propose that it is okay to kill an animal at any juncture just because they may be in your way.

When was the last time you thought it was okay to kill a cow just for fun? The point is to avoid taking the life spontaneously for only your convenience. In this I would say it would be wrong to abort puppies, let alone human life.

When was the last time you ate a banana, or had a salad?

Already answered in the above statement. You don't take the life simply because you like to step on bananas you need to eat the banana and show respect for the life taken, do not waste the necessary exchange made in order to keep your life.

All living things. Certainly we revere human life as far as human beings above these - natural survival instinct - but there is a line that can be drawn. An embryo the size of a dime cannot be said to have rights that exceed the rights of the woman.

And once again, they do not exceed the rights of the woman they are EQUAL TO the rights of the woman. No matter how many times you say I said the right to life of the child EXCEEDS the right of the woman you know intellectually and in reality I have never said anything of the sort and in fact I have expressed the opposite and that when the woman's life is at stake she has the right to defend herself. At that point her right exceeds that of the child but until then the right to life is uppermost.

 

[CivilLiberty]

So you all seem to agree that teenagers have limited rights - not the same as adults or as one of you put "when they are of legal age" or something. So do Americans get more rights as they get older? If so, what rights do they start with and why? And who decides which rights they gain on which birthdays?

Working backwards:

21 - to drink
18 - to vote
16 - to drive

So then, one could argue that a fetus having not reached even its actual birthday has even fewer rights than teenagers. And you all seem quite comfortable with affording teenagers fewer rights.

What an unbelievably excellent point.


A

 

[no1tovote4]

What an unbelievably excellent point.


A

Except that it isn't. How to explain... the human never will lose the right to life it is the most fundamental right and if taken it removes every other right in perpetuity. To say that a fetus has less right than a mobile human is clear and easily shown, but to say that they do not have a right to life is simply taking that a step too far.

 

[CivilLiberty]

Even if we go upon your premise here, I think that most people would agree that the "right" to be alive is probably the very first right a person has, therefore, the baby in the womb, the youngest form of human, still has the most basic right, the right to live.

It's not a baby in the womb - it's either a Fetus, Embryo, or Zygote.

As a zygote it's nothing but a few undifferentiated cells. How do a few cells have a "right"?


Andy

 

[5stringJeff]

What an unbelievably excellent point.


A

Yet, as Gem stated, the right to Life is the utmost right one has - the right that supercedes driving, voting, drinking, or even liberty itself. And, as acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence, it is unalienable, in other words, incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another. It is also given to us, not by the government, but by our Creator. So while progressive rights are a fine concept, it is a concept that applies only to those rights which stem from the government - like driving, voting, and drinking.

 

[no1tovote4]

It's not a baby in the womb - it's either a Fetus, Embryo, or Zygote.

As a zygote it's nothing but a few undifferentiated cells. How do a few cells have a "right"?


Andy

The same way those same cells have a right when they have developed into a Fetus, an Infant a Child, etc.

Development cannot be a standard of human life when it is clear that those cells will not develop into any other life. Therefore the zygote is at one stage of human life and deserves the most fundamental of rights, the right to live.

 

[CivilLiberty]

Yet, as Gem stated, the right to Life is the utmost right one has - the right that supercedes driving, voting, drinking, or even liberty itself. And, as acknowledged in our Declaration of Independence, it is unalienable, in other words, incapable of being repudiated or transferred to another. It is also given to us, not by the government, but by our Creator. So while progressive rights are a fine concept, it is a concept that applies only to those rights which stem from the government - like driving, voting, and drinking.

Okay, but I'll state the "progressive" life rights apply to a zygote, and embryo. As the BRAIN (the part of the human animal that really differentiates us from lower animals) develops, that is where we can draw the line at person hood.

A few undifferentiated cells with no brain stem? Not a human being.


Andy

 

[no1tovote4]

Okay, but I'll state the "progressive" life rights apply to a zygote, and embryo. As the BRAIN (the part of the human animal that really differentiates us from lower animals) develops, that is where we can draw the line at person hood.

A few undifferentiated cells with no brain stem? Not a human being.


Andy

But is still human life.

No matter how many times you tell me that they are undifferentiated cells it will not convince me that it isn't human life. Although those cells may be more than one human being (a zygote can separate into twins as late as 14 days after conception) they will never develop into any other living thing than human. This is clearly human life and at even the basest level deserves the most fundamental of all the rights, the right to live.

 

[CivilLiberty]

As I posted earlier, it comes down to one, fundamental, issue:


At what point do an egg and sperm become a human being?


At such a point PRIOR to becoming a human being, there is no moral issue or problem with pregnancy prevention or termination.

At such a point AFTER, the moral issues become very complex.



You *** WILL NEVER *** Convince me that a few undifferentiated cells of a zygote are a human being. Such a belief goes beyond reason and rationality.

At the far end of the spectrum then, we find people that wish to label these few undifferentiated cells a human being.

At the other end of the spectrum, are those that believe that a pregnancy can be terminated at any time (not to mention the far loony end that encompasses infanticide).


I consider both of these extremes irrational, their arguments without merit.


I do find myself in the middle ground, than middle ground being brain differentiation and development. It is the brain that separates the human from lower animals. It is the brain that makes us "human". Without a human brain, we are not human. Our consciousness and sentience resides in our brains, and we have no further to look that the cerebrum for determining the emergence of a human individual being.



Regards,

Andy

 

[no1tovote4]

As I posted earlier, it comes down to one, fundamental, issue:


At what point do an egg and sperm become a human being?


At such a point PRIOR to becoming a human being, there is no moral issue or problem with pregnancy prevention or termination.

At such a point AFTER, the moral issues become very complex.



You *** WILL NEVER *** Convince me that a few undifferentiated cells of a zygote are a human being. Such a belief goes beyond reason and rationality.

At the far end of the spectrum then, we find people that wish to label these few undifferentiated cells a human being.

At the other end of the spectrum, are those that believe that a pregnancy can be terminated at any time (not to mention the far loony end that encompasses infanticide).


I consider both of these extremes irrational, their arguments without merit.


I do find myself in the middle ground, than middle ground being brain differentiation and development. It is the brain that separates the human from lower animals. It is the brain that makes us "human". Without a human brain, we are not human. Our consciousness and sentience resides in our brains, and we have no further to look that the cerebrum for determining the emergence of a human individual being.



Regards,

Andy

Floccinaucinihilipilificator!

I determine that an opinion that sets human being status at some other point than conception an argument without merit, there is no common ground for us to stand on. This is the reason I put forward what I believe to be a reasonable alternative.

Just saying my argument is without merit doesn't make it so. Any more than my saying so made your argument without merit. It is simply an opinion and one which we will never meet on. I can live with that so long as people are willing to work towards a compromise that will conceivably work for both sides of the equation.

 

[Gem]

Civil,

What stage of brain development are you speaking to? Afterall, we know for a fact that a newborn babies brain is not as developed as the brain of a healthy person in their 20's...should we determine a person not fully developed until their brain is functioning at its height?

Or are you simply going upon when the brain first appears...or is it another size thing...once the baby's brain is the size of a dime we can't abort it...or a quarter?

What about when the brain starts deteriorating...when an old person's brain deteriorates to a low enough level can we kill them because they are no longer "human"?

Perhaps a sliding scale of personhood? The age in which a person's brainfunction is at its height will be the "ultimate person"...and then sliding outwards is the downward sloping scale towards childhood and oldage and "human-ness" can of course slope accordingly.

Zygote---Embyro---Fetus---Baby---Infant---Toddler---Child---Youth---Adolescent---Teen---Young Adult---Adult---Elder Adult---Senior---Elder