The Gauntlet's Thrown
Governor Mike Round of South Dakota's followed through and signed a sweeping anti-abortion bill.
Yes, we expected it. It was an inevitable step, and if not in S.D. it would have been somewhere else - and while there's little we can do about it either way it's not something to be ignored.
The religious Right/anti-abortion groups are on the path to finding out how much of their money's worth they've gotten via the two, recent, Bush Supreme Court placements. The law is not intended to simply stand, but has been put forth with the sole aim of having it draw a challenge and work its way towards the U.S. Supreme Court in order to give the revised court the opportunity to overturn in part or completely Roe v. Wade.
The law makes only an exception for the mother's life, but does not include one for instances of rape and incest.
Comments
An interesting note, I'm pretty sure SD's governor's term is up this year. I'll be curious to see if he runs for re-election and how he does there...after this.
It was something I knew was coming -- it had been mentioned for a while, and the abortion laws in S.D. are already highly restrictive. The governor would have signed a very similar bill much sooner except that one would have resulted in all of the existing abortion restrictions being suspended during a legal challenge. The wording this time around circumvents that.
I don't know the specific political landscape of S.D. well enough to say how well he'll fare in re-election, but I'm presuming he feels he has a strong base of support for this.
Anyway, if it is morally acceptable to have abortions, it wouldn't matter if there is some kind of State sanction to it or not.
I don't have children, and don't plan to, so I'm probably the last person who should weigh in on this subject, but I think the whole pregnancy is on a continuum where when the sperm first fertilizes the egg I would say that is most definitely not a human being. Having an abortion, using an IUD, or doing any kind of medical research doesn't bother me. However in the last two tri-mesters it is much more complicated morally and ethically.
I agree that RvW needs to be overturned.
Now wait a second, don't light the torches just yet, and watch where ya point them pitchforks. I also happen to disagree with this law. I think rape victims should retain the option, but also have free counselling and state-paid pre- and post-natal care, and a guarantee that the child will be accepted for adoption by a state agency if the mother so chooses.
See, I don't oppose all abortions, just the ones used as after-the-fact contraception. Mother's health is threatened? Rape victim? Step back, and let the woman do what she needs to do.
RvW never touched on whether or not abortion ends a human life. The decision as written is based upon privacy statutes. Why? Because the strongly liberal justices that made the decision wanted to make that decision, and like every pro-choice supporter in existence, not one of them could supply a definition of human life that excluded the unborn which would not also exclude someone that they felt should receive the protection of the law.
I am a geek. Among the many other things I do, I involve myself in Internet debates, Evo vs. Creation, Kirk vs. Picard, Abortion. I have some experience arguing against the pro-choice argument. I've found that all of it's valid concerns evaporate when a moderate pro-life stance is taken, where rape/incest and medical neccesity cases remain a matter of choice.
I've found though, that the more clearly I show the other side that a moderate position is very defensible, the more strenuously they object to my very existence. This has led me to believe that the pro-choice movement is far less concerned with the rights of women than it is with promoting sexual irresponsibility. There's really nothing I can say to that. The abortion debate is an issue about ethical considerations, the right to life vs. the right to financial and social convenience, and if someone values their social and financial convenience higher than someone else's life, well, ethics is not exactly a high priority for them.
These debates always go the same way: someone starts with a challenge post, and pro-choicers immediately launch an offensive based on freedom, and usually the more lettered ones will go to some lengths to dehumanize the unborn. The pro-lifers will generally spout some Biblical quotes (which have no bearing on modern legal systems) or simply condemn, condemn, condemn anyone who disagrees with them.
Then I come in. At first, the pro-lifers are glad to have me. Then they find out that I actually support some abortion freedoms. The pro-choicers turn on me like sharks on a wounded comrade from the start. Me, I just point out the same things I always do: that human life begins at conception; that discriminating against people based on their appearance, ability, or age is accepted as immoral worldwide unless it is done to protect said people (mainly minors); and that in cases of choosing who to save, mother or child, it makes far more sense to save the mother since the child will die without her.
Ok, light the torches.
While I believe the current court would be likely to gut Roe v. Wade -- taking away much of its power -- I don't believe that most of the justices are anxious to tackle this issue anytime soon.
My prediction? The lack of provisions for rape and incest will prove keye to getting this law to bounce around at the state supreme court level. If it is passed onto the federal courts too early that'll likely be the basis for it being overturned and sent back to the state.
A: Framing and argument with how one's persecuted for his Reason and how he's the voice of Logic and Moderation immediately damages his credibility. It's like trash talk before the game. At best it's irrelevant. This is not to dismiss or denigrate your points by any means, but merely to underscore a practice that immediately sets off warning lights when I see it. I'm sure you have well-reasoned arguments, but framing them this way is a point of style that gets things off to a bad start.
Before going into the rest, I'd like to point out that I'm no fan of abortion, and consider it to be a decision of tremendous gravity, not to be taken lightly. The later in the term the greater the gravity and the more vile the process. Something like a Morning After pill, though, that allows the body to flush an early cluster of cells from the body largely by denying it a place to attach doesn't bother me much, though.
Roe v. Wade is based on privacy and self-determination issues, yes, because that was the point of law it was pivoted on. That doesn't automatically mean that the other arguments are dismissed, merely that individual laws tend to run on thin rails.
The beginning of human life is still a sketchy matter, no matter how strongly held individual beliefs are, especially as we're seeking a definition under the law. The key - from my perspective at least - is one of viability and effective means of support.
This is not the same thing as equating the cluster of cells with a profoundly retarded person or aged an infirm person. Arguments equating abortion to leaving either of those in the woods (ie where he would die from starvation and/or exposure) do not stand. The key difference is that those unfortunates can be clothed, housed and fed by anyone willing to do so. So long as a an organism can only be supported by a single, unique human being, half of whose genetic material composes that organism, it can be reasonably argued that it is a part of that person and not a person unto itself.
When the growing cluster of cells with its distinct genetic map becomes a human being has become a technological issue. Until such time as it can be supported generically - where it is no longer dependent solely upon a single, unique support system (the woman it's growing in) - then it is not a human being.
This is not going to be something we're going to be able to agree on, I'm sure, but this is a human issue and as with most human issues it's going to be messy. It is, however, what at least appears to be a definition of human life that exclusively excludes "the unborn."
This state of viability has been an envelope that's been pushed, but the farther one goes back in the process the lower the odds become. As we proceeed it's going to become a numbers game determining when responsibility for a separate organism begins.
As a human issue, in a very significant way, conception becomes a matter of intellectual conception. A subjective matter. If one begins to have aspirations for the child to be from the moment he or she becomes aware of the conception, then as far as they're concerned it's a human being. Again, it's something that becomes messy, though linking it back to how generically viable the cell cluster/fetus (depending upon how far along it is) is, brings us back to the issue of generic support (viability beyond the womb) to determine when we've achieved a separate human being.
There will never be a final decision on these issues - one that will sit well with everyone, and I expect it to remain a hot button issue as any decision made will be viewed by an opposing side as a temporary state of injustice. On the plus side, this theoretically helps keep at least some minds sharp and is the sign of a society with some freedoms remaining.
I agree that a comment thread is probably no place to hold a lengthy debate on such a topic, so I suppose it's best to move on.
We can always agree to disagree.
...and, feel free to use the full name. I believe in truth in advertising.
"Truth in advertising" reminds me of stories of Faustian deals. Always a matter of perspective and always tricky catches.
Oh, sure, I've got friends who like me anyways, but for the most part, they only became my friends because of enforced long-term proximity. See, while I am abrasive and dislikeable at first and make terrible first impressions, I do occasionally do or say things that people like, so eventually that offsets the damage caused by my personality.
It's why I'll remain single for the rest of my life, no woman will put up with the immediate hassle that is me in exchange for some hazy, vaguely-if-at-all-defined later goodness. All of the women I know who do like me like me because their boyfriends like me and thereby forced my proximity upon them.
later