Considering the legal framework for abortion

[Nowake]

Hello people

Trying to decipher your grammar is what tries my mental faculties. (...)
I don't see that as resolved - unless you want a special dispensation for a particular lifestyle practiced by a small number od people in a particular social context - it remains true that most people are "negligent" and not "safe" or especially "moral". If most people are "abusing" sexual liberty you have to look at the idea and wonder if, really, the kind of sexual discourse we have is really healthy. (...)
You're stretching the meaning of what I wrote - demagogy is playing to the crowd. If that's your primary objective you're still culpable.

I already remarked that you do not know the meaning of your own words, because, as I wrote before, simply aiming your arguments towards an independent third party does not equate to playing on that party’s prejudice. The dictionary definition of demagogy: the art and practice of gaining power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people. Could you point out how I have aroused the emotions, passions and prejudices of our readers?
I’d be glad to improve my grammar if you could point the flaws for me PVC, please. I am by no means claiming to be proficient, so I’d welcome your input.
Now, onto sexual liberty, your assertion about which group constitutes the majority still remains to be demonstrated. Secondly, and this should be an inescapable truth, the only path one can rightfully take in addressing the poor understanding of sexual liberty is to work on providing the best environment for its correct development. Upon reaching that point, you have to allow humans their agency. I suppose we are reaching here a negative versus positive liberty argument, with foreseeable results sadly.
I have to quote Isaiah Berlin though because, the fact of the matter is, sexual liberty is part of one’s fundamentally private sphere.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hobbes, and those who agreed with him, especially conservative or reactionary thinkers, argued that if men were to be prevented from destroying one another, and making social life a jungle or a wilderness, greater safeguards must be instituted to keep them in their places, and wished correspondingly to increase the area of centralized control, and decrease that of the individual. But both sides agreed that some portion of human existence must remain independent of the sphere of social control. To invade that preserve, however small, would be despotism.

Lets define the following as Freedom from:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

‘All the errors which a man is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem is good.’ To threaten a man with persecution unless he submits to a life in which he exercises no choices of his goals; to block before him every door but one, no matter how noble the prospect upon which it opens, or how benevolent the motives of those who arrange this, is to sin against the truth that he is a man, a being with a life of his own to live.

And the next as Freedom to:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

what gives such plausibility as it has to this kind of language is that we recognize that it is possible, and at times justifiable, to coerce men in the name of some goal (let us say, justice or public health) which they would, if they were more enlightened, themselves pursue, but do not, because they are blind or ignorant or corrupt. This renders it easy for me to conceive of myself as coercing others for their own sake, in their, not my, interest. I am then claiming that I know what they truly need better than they know it themselves. What, at most, this entails is that they would not resist me if they were rational, and as wise as I, and understood their interests as I do. But I may go on to claim a good deal more than this. I may declare that they are actually aiming at what in their benighted state they consciously resist, because there exists within them an occult entity – their latent rational will, or their ‘true’ purpose – and that this entity, although it is belied by all that they overtly feel and do and say, is their ‘real’ self, of which the poor empirical self in space and time may know nothing or little; and that this inner spirit is the only self that deserves to have its wishes taken into account.
Once I take this view, I am in a position to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully, oppress, torture them in the name, and on behalf, of their ‘real’ selves, in the secure knowledge that whatever is the true goal of man (happiness, fulfilment of duty, wisdom, a just society, self-fulfilment) must be identical with his freedom – the free choice of his ‘true’, albeit submerged and inarticulate, self.

Oh boy, here we go again. Look, any normal person is capable, in the absence of judgement impairing trauma and other psychological issues, of utilizing empathy in order to identify the one situation in which their actions have the least negative impact on another human being. You write:
“that choice has already been decided independant (sic) of our judgement”
as if that would imply an abstract authority, when in fact you are describing the very mundane realization that there’s always an optimal solution to a certain problem. You don’t go about talking about the technological arbiter and how our brain is bringing our thinking into harmony with the “right” technological choice, do you? It would just be an utterly redundant way of asserting that there’s always a best outcome for a given set of parameters. The empathic function of identifying the best moral outcome is our moral arbiter, and normal persons may be more or less proficient at searching it within themselves. Reaching different moral conclusions in this case does not mean both persons are right, it means one’s emotional intelligence (which can be increased through education a lot) is more developed than another’s.

What you are describing is intellectual process, but not the meta-ethics behind ethical decision making. Further, you are conflating the realm of ethics with that of the physical sciences - this makes a certain amount of sense in a metaphysical model which is monistic, but it is at odds with concepts such as "good" and "evil". You are just describing Utilitarianism, that's not morality in terms of "good and "evil", just "most benefit". In which case you are not talking about the "best" in an objective sense just the "preffered" in a mean or modal sense accross the population.
That is at odds with New Atheist rhetoric, and you just can't have it both ways.

You are wrapping yourself in words mister. And you are not doing a very good job at it. First of all, I did not describe a purely cognitive intellectual process and I clearly mentioned we are referring to one’s emotional intelligence. The best moral outcome, the best empathic outcome, does not equate to the most benefit, so any hint of utilitarianism is out of the picture. The moral outcome is always empathy conditioned and it can very well contradict the overall benefit. Also, to quote Paul Zak: “We’re social creatures, so we share the emotions of others. So if I do something that hurts you, I feel that pain, so I tend to avoid that. If I do something that makes you happy, I get to share your joy, so I tend to do that thing.”, referring to the common emotional development of people. And please provide some sort of sources on that New Atheist rhetoric that so agrees with you.

So the difference is that Ultras kill people? Surely that's just a result of critical mass in the mob and the herd instinct magnifying the actions pf the individual. (...)

You believe the current predicament of the lower class, i.e. the increase in the rate of abortions, is caused by a moral degeneracy inspired by the social elite. Please, to resume ourselves to our specific case, the onus is on you, go ahead.

Easy. Violent student riots in which shops were smashed and public monuments decicrated were follwed by popular riots in whichs hops wer smashed up and stuff nicked. In both case initially peaceful protest degenerated into random wanton violence and the students came first. Subsequently, it was discovered that many of these students were from wealthy upper class families who would not be practically affected by the rise in student fees.

Please provide evidence for the implicit allegation that bullers would also cause murders during their private parties should their numbers reach a critical mass.
And before we engage in another pointless side-debate, how does your last paragraph prove the way in which the rate of abortions rose amongst the lower class due to the moral degeneracy of the social elite? You are side-stepping the issue.
And I pose it to you now because I am tired of waiting for a cogent argument, that it would be a lot more logical, considering the history of the movement, to observe how in the past the widespread use of abortion amongst a lower class desperate to avoid poverty, morally desensitised by war and urban uprooting and ignorant of the plethora and efficiency of contraceptive methods (as many were in the ‘50s to ‘90s) actually influenced the young social elite into accepting abortion as norm even though they had the means to secure the upbringing of their children.

Please, don't be coy. Tell the audience exactly what you think of me.

Personally, that you are a textbook case of a person who was not yet seriously confronted by reality. This, of course, I presume and my opinion is subjective. I believe your frame of reference was established with your first post. No one denies that your argument needs to be dismissed only on factual grounds, but you should not be that worried the readers do not understand your Judeo-Christian cultural baggage

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Hello people

I already remarked that you do not know the meaning of your own words, because, as I wrote before, simply aiming your arguments towards an independent third party does not equate to playing on that party’s prejudice. The dictionary definition of demagogy: the art and practice of gaining power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people. Could you point out how I have aroused the emotions, passions and prejudices of our readers?

Trying is not succeeding, personally I feel that the way you play to the crowd and the little sniping comments are are directed at me, and not my arguments.

I’d be glad to improve my grammar if you could point the flaws for me PVC, please. I am by no means claiming to be proficient, so I’d welcome your input.

I already have, once.

Now, onto sexual liberty, your assertion about which group constitutes the majority still remains to be demonstrated.

I would have thought that would be taken as a given, really, one only has to spend a few evenings in a university town to see the sort of liaisons most people engage in. Of an evening the majority of people who go out go to clubs, the largest clubs have the most people and they are invariably environments where people are intoxicated and the majority of people don't know each other.

Secondly, and this should be an inescapable truth, the only path one can rightfully take in addressing the poor understanding of sexual liberty is to work on providing the best environment for its correct development. Upon reaching that point, you have to allow humans their agency. I suppose we are reaching here a negative versus positive liberty argument, with foreseeable results sadly.

Underlying this is the assumption that "liberty" should be equated with freedom of action, and that freedom is exercised by action. Am I sexually oppressed if I choose not to have sex? I exercise my sexual freedom by not having sex and choosing to be discriminating in my associations.

I'm sorry, but I do not equate "liberty" with "action", otherwise I would conclude that we are all slaves because there are almost no instances in which our actions are not constrained.

I have to quote Isaiah Berlin though because, the fact of the matter is, sexual liberty is part of one’s fundamentally private sphere.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Hobbes, and those who agreed with him, especially conservative or reactionary thinkers, argued that if men were to be prevented from destroying one another, and making social life a jungle or a wilderness, greater safeguards must be instituted to keep them in their places, and wished correspondingly to increase the area of centralized control, and decrease that of the individual. But both sides agreed that some portion of human existence must remain independent of the sphere of social control. To invade that preserve, however small, would be despotism.

Lets define the following as Freedom from:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

‘All the errors which a man is likely to commit against advice and warning are far outweighed by the evil of allowing others to constrain him to what they deem is good.’ To threaten a man with persecution unless he submits to a life in which he exercises no choices of his goals; to block before him every door but one, no matter how noble the prospect upon which it opens, or how benevolent the motives of those who arrange this, is to sin against the truth that he is a man, a being with a life of his own to live.

And the next as Freedom to:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

what gives such plausibility as it has to this kind of language is that we recognize that it is possible, and at times justifiable, to coerce men in the name of some goal (let us say, justice or public health) which they would, if they were more enlightened, themselves pursue, but do not, because they are blind or ignorant or corrupt. This renders it easy for me to conceive of myself as coercing others for their own sake, in their, not my, interest. I am then claiming that I know what they truly need better than they know it themselves. What, at most, this entails is that they would not resist me if they were rational, and as wise as I, and understood their interests as I do. But I may go on to claim a good deal more than this. I may declare that they are actually aiming at what in their benighted state they consciously resist, because there exists within them an occult entity – their latent rational will, or their ‘true’ purpose – and that this entity, although it is belied by all that they overtly feel and do and say, is their ‘real’ self, of which the poor empirical self in space and time may know nothing or little; and that this inner spirit is the only self that deserves to have its wishes taken into account.
Once I take this view, I am in a position to ignore the actual wishes of men or societies, to bully, oppress, torture them in the name, and on behalf, of their ‘real’ selves, in the secure knowledge that whatever is the true goal of man (happiness, fulfilment of duty, wisdom, a just society, self-fulfilment) must be identical with his freedom – the free choice of his ‘true’, albeit submerged and inarticulate, self.

I'm sorry, but who (or what) you choose to have sex with can and does have profound effects on your community and your family. It is one thing to say that what one does behind closed doors is your own private matter, and quite another to say that who you choose to bring into your bedroom is. The former is clearly the business of those two people, the latter is not.

You are wrapping yourself in words mister. And you are not doing a very good job at it. First of all, I did not describe a purely cognitive intellectual process and I clearly mentioned we are referring to one’s emotional intelligence. The best moral outcome, the best empathic outcome, does not equate to the most benefit, so any hint of utilitarianism is out of the picture. The moral outcome is always empathy conditioned and it can very well contradict the overall benefit. Also, to quote Paul Zak: “We’re social creatures, so we share the emotions of others. So if I do something that hurts you, I feel that pain, so I tend to avoid that. If I do something that makes you happy, I get to share your joy, so I tend to do that thing.”, referring to the common emotional development of people. And please provide some sort of sources on that New Atheist rhetoric that so agrees with you.

"Benefit" does not have to be purely practical, in this case "benefit" might be the decision that sits well with the greatest number of people, given that we are all what you call "empathetic". You've actually proved this by quoting Paul Zak, according to him he does things that make him feel better, i.e. for his own benefit.

In any case, how is "emotional intelligence" not a cognitive process? It's just something your brain does, right?

Please provide evidence for the implicit allegation that bullers would also cause murders during their private parties should their numbers reach a critical mass.

What sort of evidence would you like? It's obvious that the more men who have in a riot the more likely the violence will escalate, and the more people in a protest the more likely it will become a riot. I'm not making an implicit allegation about the Bullers, because 1000 Bullers are somewhat impractical, but one only has to look at previous student riots to see that rioters are more violent the more of them there are. The point is not that the Bullers might cause a riot, but that the sort of person who enjoys being a Buller might enjoy rioting.

You're trying to create a straw man, you want me to claim the upper class is murderous and that's why the lower class is murderous. Sorry, I'm not pushing the point that far. For one thing, the Upper Class today are clever enough to know what fingerprints and CCTV is, well with a few notable exceptions this Summer.

And before we engage in another pointless side-debate, how does your last paragraph prove the way in which the rate of abortions rose amongst the lower class due to the moral degeneracy of the social elite?

I don't believe I said that. In fact I'm sure I didn't, I pointed to sexual immorality, but in this country abortion is, and has historically been, quite middle class. This is particularly true today, were it not we would not have anywhere near as many poor single teenage mothers, would we?

You are side-stepping the issue.

You are constantly moving the issue.

And I pose it to you now because I am tired of waiting for a cogent argument, that it would be a lot more logical, considering the history of the movement, to observe how in the past the widespread use of abortion amongst a lower class desperate to avoid poverty, morally desensitised by war and urban uprooting and ignorant of the plethora and efficiency of contraceptive methods (as many were in the ‘50s to ‘90s) actually influenced the young social elite into accepting abortion as norm even though they had the means to secure the upbringing of their children.

As I said, I don't see it as a lower class phenomenon and I don't recognise "morally desensitised by war and urban uprooting" as a particularly lower class penomenon either, at least in the UK.

Personally, that you are a textbook case of a person who was not yet seriously confronted by reality. This, of course, I presume and my opinion is subjective. I believe your frame of reference was established with your first post. No one denies that your argument needs to be dismissed only on factual grounds, but you should not be that worried the readers do not understand your Judeo-Christian cultural baggage

Just because I am a Christian does not mean I have "Judeo-Christian" baggage", whatever that means anyway; it's not like I have Augustinian sexual hangups or worry about my foreskin. I wasn't exactly raised Christian, after all.

As far as, "not yet seriously confronted by reality" that's rich coming from someone who is claims to be young and well educated from a foundation level, and probably had wealthy parents given that he was taught rhetoric in school.

I'm fed up now, so I'm going to go away and pray for forgiveness.

[Nowake]

I'm fed up now, so I'm going to go away and pray for forgiveness.

NO! Come back to us, we have cookies

Now where were we *shuffle shuffle* ah yes, Kralizec's post, he was pretty upset for a lack of feedback.

Simply put, I don't think that an embryo is a human being in any relevant sense of the word, and doesn't deserve to be protected by the law. For the later stages, somebody here (forgot who) suggested that awareness be a criterium, but that's a bit iffy - I'm not versed in developmental psychology, but IIRC even newborn infants are not even self-aware in the sense that they realize they're independent creatures, distinct from their mother and other humans. I hasten to add that I don't think that self-awareness should be a criterium (otherwise, post-natal abortions would be legal), I'm just pointing out that the mere presence of some neurological activity doesn't necessarily amount to much - I have no idea when the first brain cells begin to develop, but it sounds like an arbitrary criterium. Which is not to say that I have an idea where the cut-off point should be.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on two related subjects:
Wrongful birth: this term refers to legal cases where a pregnant woman consults a doctor, to see if the unborn child is in good health. The child actually has some serious genetic defect or some other health issue, but the doctor (through negligence) fails to detect this. The woman, thinking that everything is allright, gives birth to the child months later and is unpleasantly surprised, to say the least. She sues the doctor; the grounds being that he failed in his duty and the damages being the costs of raising a disabled child and/or emotional damage.
So, thoughts? I imagine that those opposed to abortion in generally would als oppose this one, but since it is legal, should the woman's claims be honoured?

Wrongful life: related to the above. The difference is that the now-mature child, or the parents on behalf of the child, sue the doctor for damages that the child itself has suffered. Usually, this will be the costs of living after reaching maturity, as the child will in all likelyhood never be able to hold a paying job. Such claims have been honoured in a number of countries; personally I think they're absurd. Simplified, the essence of civil torts is the premise that the claimant would have been better off if the defendent had acted in a correct matter. But if that had happened, the claimant (the disabled child) wouldn't have existed at all.
I know of one Dutch case at our supreme court where such a claim was honoured, naturally provoking a storm of controversy. As for the reasoning above (the child's existence versus his non-existence), the supreme court refused to even adress the argument. A similar claim has been accepted in France by their highest court years ago, but since then the French parliament has outlawed claims like this.

Yet I agree with your premise, so as you correctly point out, the first definitely presents grounds for trial.
The second is ethically problematic. Professionally, I would opine that it should be litigated under the argument that the child is simply a patient harmed by the medic's actions. However, the optimal solution, or at least the one preventing headaches, would be to my mind to always attempt to fold the case into the parents' wrongful birth lawsuit and basically demand for their damages to be calculated by taking into account the full life span of the human being they brought to life, seeing as it will always remain in their care.

[Nowake]

More from Mississippi, for the ones who still have to catch up:


The next front in the abortion wars: Birth control

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Mississippi debates a "Personhood" initiative that could ban the pill -- but ultimately aims at Roe v. Wade

Dr. Freda Bush has a warm, motherly smile. In her office just outside Jackson, Miss., she smiles as she hands me a brochure that calls abortion the genocide of African-Americans, and again, sweetly, as she explains why an abortion ban should not include exceptions for rape or incest victims. The smile turns into a chuckle as she recounts what the daughter of one rape victim told her: “My momma says I’m a blessing. Now, she still don’t care for the guy who raped her! But she’s glad she let me live.”
Bush is smiling, too, in the video she made to support as restrictive an abortion ban as any state has voted on, Initiative 26, or the Personhood Amendment, which faces Mississippi voters on Nov. 8. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, or even if your father was a rapist!” she trills. But Initiative 26, which would change the definition of “person” in the Mississippi state Constitution to “include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning or the equivalent thereof,” is more than just an absolute ban on abortion and a barely veiled shot at Roe v. Wade — although it is both. By its own logic, the initiative would almost certainly ban common forms of birth control like the IUD and the morning-after pill, call into question the legality of the common birth-control pill, and even open the door to investigating women who have suffered miscarriages.
Personhood amendments were once considered too radical for the mainstream pro-life movement, but in the most conservative state in the country, with an energized, church-mobilized grass roots, Mississippi could well be the first state to pass one. Initiative 26 even has the state’s top Democrats behind it.
And in Bush, it even has a respectable medical face. Last month, Bush led a press conference of fellow gynecologists to try to refute the “scare tactics” of the opposition, which includes even the solidly conservative Mississippi State Medical Association. (The group feared 26 would “place in jeopardy a physician who tries to save a woman’s life.”) In one of several “Yes on 26″ videos in which she stars, Bush says unequivocally, “Amendment 26 will not ban contraception.”
But when we spoke, Bush was far less sure. And if her smiling face carries the day, the debate over even basic access to birth control could be heading to similar votes in every state legislature, and extremists have their dream case to take to a Supreme Court where the Roe majority teeters precariously.
- – - – - – - – - -
That’s partly because the Personhood movement hopes to do nothing less than reclassify everyday, routine birth control as abortion. The medical definition of pregnancy is when a fertilized egg successfully implants in the uterine wall. If this initiative passes, and fertilized eggs on their own have full legal rights, anything that could potentially block that implantation – something a woman’s body does naturally all the time – could be considered murder. Scientists say hormonal birth-control pills and the morning-after pill work primarily by preventing fertilization in the first place, but the outside possibility, never documented, that an egg could be fertilized anyway and blocked is enough for some pro-lifers.
Indeed, at least one pro-Personhood doctor in Mississippi, Beverly McMillan, refused to prescribe the pill before retiring last year, writing, “I painfully agree that birth control pills do in fact cause abortions.” Bush does prescribe the pill, but says, “There’s good science on both sides … I think there’s more science to support conception not occurring.” Given that the Personhood Amendment is so vague, I asked her, what would stop the alleged “good science” on one side from prevailing and banning even the pill?
Bush paused. “I could say that is not the intent,” she said. “I don’t have an answer for that particular [case], how it would be settled, but I do know this is simple.” Which part is simple? “The amendment is simple,” she said. “You can play the ‘what if’ game, but if you keep it simple, this is a person who deserves life.” What about the IUD, which she refuses to prescribe for moral reasons, and which McMillan told me the Personhood Amendment would ban? “I’m not the authority on what would and would not be banned.” No – Bush simply plays one on TV. And if her amendment passes, only condoms, diaphragms and natural family planning — the rhythm method – would be guaranteed in Mississippi.
Bush also says in the commercial that the amendment wouldn’t “criminalize mothers and investigate them when they have miscarriages.” And yet if the willful destruction of an embryo is a murder, then that makes a miscarried woman’s body a potential crime scene or child welfare investigation. What about women whose miscarriages were suspected to be deliberate or due to their own negligence? One Personhood opponent, Michelle Johansen, told me she wondered whether she could have been investigated for miscarrying a wanted, five-week pregnancy, because she rode a roller coaster. (Her doctor ultimately told her they were unrelated.)
The boilerplate Personhood response, echoed by both McMillan and Bush, is that no woman was prosecuted for miscarriage before Roe v. Wade, so why start now? Of course, there was no Personhood amendment at the time, nor much knowledge of embryonic development. And in countries with absolute abortion bans, like El Salvador, women are regularly investigated and jailed when found to have induced miscarriages.
Pressed, Bush said, “Look at the numbers of women who were injuring themselves [pre-Roe] in an attempt to have an abortion. It was not 53 million,” the estimated number of abortions since Roe v. Wade.
“I don’t have all the answers,” she said, “but those questions that are there do not justify allowing nine out of 10 of the abortions that are being done that are not for the hard cases,” she said.
But a Colorado-based Personhood activist, Ed Hanks, is more than willing to publicly take things to their logical conclusion. He wrote on the Personhood Mississippi Facebook page that after abortion is banned, “the penalties have to be the same [for a women as well as doctors], as they would have to intentionally commit a known felony in order to kill their child. Society isn’t comfortable with this yet because abortion has been ‘normalized’ — as the Personhood message penetrates, then society will understand why women need to be punished just as surely as they understand why there can be no exceptions for rape/incest.”
- – - – - – - – - -
Personhood represents an unapologetic and arguably more ideologically consistent form of the anti-choice movement. It aims squarely for Roe v. Wade by seizing on language from former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun – the author of the Roe decision — during the hearings that the case would “collapse” if “this suggestion of personhood is established … for the fetus.”
Similar ballot measures have failed twice in Colorado, where an evangelical pastor and a Catholic lawyer started the Personhood movement, but Mississippi is no Colorado. It’s the most conservative state in the nation. Planned Parenthood (which doesn’t even provide abortions in its one clinic here) and the ACLU are dirty words. Where there were once seven abortion clinics in the state, the one remaining flies in a doctor from out of state. As for supporting life, Mississippi’s infant mortality rate is the worst of any state in the nation. It also has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy nationwide, alongside a child welfare system that remains dangerously broken.)
Even so, if Initiative 26 passes, it would embolden similar efforts in Ohio, South Dakota, Florida and other states, currently trying to get a Personhood amendment on the ballot in 2012. And though there have been no reliable public polls, insiders on both sides believe it is headed for approval. “This thing will pass if people don’t understand what it really means,” says Oxford-based attorney and Initiative 26 opponent Forrest Jenkins. The Personhood movement “can either convince people that birth control is abortion or they can convince people that it’s not really true and we’re just being silly.” (Indeed, when I asked one college student who described himself as pro-life about the birth-control implications, he said, “I thought that was just gossip.”) Unfortunately for opponents, talking about sweeping and nuanced implications takes a lot more words than “stop killing babies.”
Mindful of anti-abortion sentiment in the state, even the local pro-choice opposition has taken to referring to all these implications – like banning birth-control pills — as “unintended consequences” of the initiative. But as my conversations in Mississippi with pro-Initiative 26 doctors made clear, for many Personhood supporters, these effects are anything but unintended. They’re part of the plan.
- – - – - – - – - -
I had barely arrived in Mississippi when I was declared a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” by the grass-roots wing of the movement. Les Riley, the self-described “tractor salesman with 10 kids and no money” who got Personhood on the ballot, stopped responding to my messages, so I’d posted interview requests on the Personhood Mississippi Facebook page, disclosing that I was pro-choice but committed to giving them a fair hearing.
“This is just a reminder of some of the ‘Neutral and Fair’ mainstream media that are trying to lure us into debate, argument, and confrontation,” Wiley S. Pinkerton wrote on the same page, not long after. “They are coming to this site hoping to catch us without the full armor of God.”
Of course, even if I’d wanted to, the chances of catching any of them without “the armor of God” seemed remote. The Personhood movement in Mississippi is openly theocratic. Riley has written that “for years, the pro-life movement and the religious right has allowed the charge [of being “religiously motivated”] to make them run for cover. I think we should embrace it.” Riley, in fact, had already enthusiastically embraced Christian secessionist and neo-Confederate groups as part of his coalition. (The national media play his personal history received by the time of my visit this month might explain some of the hostility to the press.)
Last summer, a more mainstream face, Brad Prewitt – a lobbyist and former high-level staffer for U.S. Sen. Thad Cochran – took over the campaign at the request of the American Family Association, which, like Prewitt, is based in Tupelo. (Riley continues to actively campaign, though he isn’t listed on the official Yes on 26 site. Prewitt promised an interview several times, but never came through.) Prewitt, too, publicly described the conceptual origin of Personhood being “the Bible, Genesis,” and declared, “Mississippi is still a God-fearing state.”
At several public forums organized by the secretary of state to discuss ballot initiatives, resident Scott Murray’s statement was typical: “I know there is an issue with pregnancies, unmarried pregnancies, but I tell you the greatest prevention is God, and we’ve got to return to God.” So was Stephen Hannabass’ assertion that “we’ve got to repent. We’ve got to come before God and beg for mercy for our state and for our country.”
There are women in the Personhood movement too, of course. In Tupelo, two of them thanked the men who were “created to be protectors” and who “are to speak out for the women and children.” Another, who said she wished the law had protected her from her own choice to have an abortion at 18, took a more practical tack: “Yes, it’s going to cost us money, but you know what? Have we thought about the cost it’s already costing the state from the ladies who are hurting themselves and the babies and the hurts?”
- – - – - – - – - -
But is there mercy for women facing life-threatening pregnancies – specifically ectopic pregnancies, which are never viable and can seriously threaten a woman’s life? In countries with absolute abortion bans and in many Catholic hospitals, doctors often have to wait to operate until fetal death or until there is a rupture, increasing the risks to the mother and baby.
As for cases where a woman has to choose between pursuing treatment for a life-threatening illness and her pregnancy, McMillan said, “I like to think about them as a graph. You have health going up and down, you have time nine months going this way. Here’s the mother’s health going down, down, down over those nine months of pregnancy. Here’s the baby’s chance of survival going up, up, up over that nine months. What I pray to recognize is that when those two lines intersect. That’s not the time for an abortion but for a planned early delivery.” I pointed out that, say, cancer tended to involve far less predictability than she described. “It’s a medical wisdom thing. You try your best,” the doctor replied.
The Yes on 26 site speaks of “saving both lives” as if it’s an unequivocal setup in which doctors can just pick both. “You can’t write a law that takes into account all of the amazing range within pregnancies,” responds Randall Hines, a Jackson doctor who opposes the initiative. “That’s why physicians have to counsel patients given the best evidence that they have.”
Prewitt has also frequently proclaimed that in-vitro fertilization, which gave him his two sons, won’t be banned under the measure. But Hines, one of only three doctors who do IVF in the state, told me, “It’s conceivable that with this same amendment, some IVF practices would be illegal,” adding, “I’ve heard a variety of opinions and they all sound bad.”
This, too, is seen as simple by the Personhood crowd, whose understanding of the actual science is, well, simplistic. Alex Strahan, who described himself as Personhood’s Southern field director (he’s not currently listed on the site), said at the Tupelo hearing, “If you harvest 10 eggs and you implant three and you throw away the other seven, you’re aborting seven children. You’re aborting seven humans. You’re killing seven humans. So do it the right way and don’t kill children.”
The best chance of an in-vitro pregnancy involves a winnowing process, starting with harvesting eggs and ideally ending in a fertilized egg implanting, and embryos are usually frozen in the process. Using all of the fertilized eggs at once could result in a dangerous multiple pregnancy, or if fewer are used, a very low chance of success. Some Personhood people even want to do away with freezing embryos, because roughly half of the embryos don’t survive it. Hines says of these strategies, “We would lower the overall pregnancy rate and we would often fail.” He says several patients have called frantically asking what to do about their frozen embryos. “These people who say that they’re all about the sanctity of life are creating great anxiety for women who are already desperate to have children,” Hines says. Personhood advocates, including Prewitt, have also suggested couples give leftover embryos, if there are any, up for “adoption” by another family.
- – - – - – - – - -
So how did something so radical get on the ballot in a state where such initiatives are rare? Prewitt has admitted that he didn’t even sign the initial petition to get Personhood on the ballot, which was filed in February. That’s not particularly surprising; until Riley got close to, then exceeded, the 90,000 needed signatures, his cause was considered marginal and dangerous by many mainstream pro-lifers.
Personhood hadn’t just failed in Colorado; it had also helped elect a pro-choice Democrat to the Senate, according to that state’s Republican Party chair. (Michael Bennet had run ads saying opponent and Personhood supporter Ken Buck wanted to ban birth control, and by the time Buck backed off it was too late; Bennet won by dint of independent women.) Florida’s Catholic bishops opposed it as strategically unsound. (Mississippi’s Catholic brass followed.) And it was just plain weird – there was its Coloradan leader (who also declined comment), darkly warning of a future of human-animal and human-robot hybrids unless Personhood amendments were broadly accepted.
It was the American Family Association endorsement that put media muscle behind the movement in Mississippi, with email blasts, radio PSAs and interviews, promotions on its own website, and combined with the grass-roots energy, the state’s anti-choice groups took notice. Suddenly, people who had previously focused on incremental change – parental consent laws, waiting periods, ultrasound laws – were ecstatically heralding an end of the “murders.” Mike Huckabee keynoted a fundraiser and even presumed GOP front-runner Mitt Romney to endorse the concept on his show. (It’s unclear if Romney knew what he was getting into.)
The state’s tiny pro-choice contingent was stunned by Personhood’s success. It didn’t help that a legal challenge mounted, and eventually lost, by the ACLU and Planned Parenthood delayed the official opposition. The Personhood coalition had been busy organizing – getting churches on board, showing up at every gun show, county fair and flea market telling people it would save babies — for months. But the opposition coalition, known as Mississippi for Healthy Families, waited until a state Supreme Court decision a month ago kept the initiative on the ballot. Before that, says Stan Flint, the managing partner of Southern Strategies who’s advising them, “People wouldn’t pull out a checkbook.”
They could expect no help from local Democrats. The party’s current candidate for governor, Johnny Dupree, who would be the first black statewide official since Reconstruction, supports Personhood. (Republican candidate Phil Bryant embraced Personhood early on, and co-chairs Yes on 26.) Only one of Mississippi’s legislators, Deborah Dawkins, has come out against the measure, telling the Huffington Post that her fellow Democrats “are at a different place in their life, they’ve got to have a job.”
Just how much Personhood has succeeded in moving the goalposts was clear at a recent gubernatorial debate. Dupree said he had concerns about rape and incest victims and the impact on birth control. “But I’m answering the question and voting on the question based on what was asked in the initiative,” he said. “That initiative says, ‘Where do you believe life begins?’ I believe life begins at conception.”
Cristen Hemmins, an anti-26 activist and survivor of a brutal carjacking, rape and shooting, told me she’d gotten a call from Dupree after repeatedly contacting his office. Dupree reiterated that he opposes abortion but thought there should be some provisions for rape and incest victims. Moreover, he said, his daughter had had an ectopic pregnancy and eventually had a child through IVF, both situations potentially impacted by Personhood.
“I said, ‘I don’t understand, if you’re for all these things … why are you voting yes?’” Hemmins recalled. “[Dupree] said, ‘I’m starting to see that there are issues …I’ve said I’m going to vote yes and it’s too late to go back on it now. It’d destroy me politically.’”
I tried to confirm those quotes with Dupree; he did not return calls to his cellphone.
But Democratic candidates aren’t the only ones who are scared. As one anti-Personhood woman angrily put it in a community forum in Cleveland, Miss., I attended last week, “They are counting on us being so afraid of being ostracized in our communities.”
Personhood advocates say all these ambiguities can be hashed out later by the Legislature – quite the small government line, leaving some room for the opposition to use conservative rhetoric.
“We feel it’s the greatest invasion of government into private family matters in the nation’s history,” says Flint. “We’re in a half a billion dollar budget hole. We don’t need ludicrous lawsuits about dangerously extreme constitutional amendments.” Anti-26 phone bankers have cited the possibility of higher taxes to pay for all of those lawsuits, criminal enforcements and presumed new additions to the Medicaid rolls.
Internal polling showed the initiative had overwhelming support among the state’s voters – until they heard the opposition messaging. “It’s the largest movement on numbers I’ve seen, in terms of the undecideds. It reverses the position,” says Flint. A straightforward abortion ban, he said, would have been tougher to beat. “They’ve given us all the ammunition we need to defeat it.”
Personhood could represent the most audaciously successful reframing of the national abortion debate yet – in which pro-choicers have to fight over whether forms of birth control are abortion, as opposed to ensuring a woman’s right and access to reproductive choice. But even in Mississippi, allowing the fringe to drive the antiabortion movement could represent the point where it overplays its hand.
If it’s the latter, the best hope for defeating Personhood in Mississippi lies in the hands of people like the stammering middle-aged man I saw rise at the same community forum. The room was full of indignant pro-choicers, but he described himself as a minister opposed to abortion. “I’m disturbed by this initiative,” he volunteered. “In the name of something that pro-life people like myself think is good – stopping abortions – we’ve designed this thing that is horrible, or has the potential to be horrible.
“I do have a concern about the broadness of this and the way that it says things,” he went on. “And I tell you, it’s almost like it’s not true. It’s like they come in — I don’t like people coming through back doors. And I think I’m more honest than that as a preacher. I hope I am.”

Mississippi, Personhood and the future of the anti-abortion movement

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A burgeoning effort among anti-abortion advocates to amend state constitutions to define life as beginning at conception. Such an amendment could outlaw abortion and may hinder access to birth control or in vitro fertilization.
So far though, no personhood amendment has gotten very close to becoming law. Many don’t get enough signatures to land a ballot initiative, and those that do have failed by double-digit margins. But Carmon thinks that may change when Mississippi votes on a new personhood amendment, Initiative 26, next week. “In the most conservative state in the country, with an energized, church-mobilized grass roots, Mississippi could well be the first state to pass one,” she writes.One key thing Carmon picked up on in her piece is the relatively fringe role the idea of personhood has played within the anti-abortion movement. I covered the personhood movement for Newsweek in 2008, when Colorado was the first-ever state to vote on such an amendment. The whole campaign was organized by an energetic 21-year-old named Kristi Burton. The anti-abortion establishment, however, was none too thrilled with it. Here’s whatI wrote back then:

Burton has not received much support for Amendment 48 from her most natural allies—the country's major pro-life groups. Heavyweights like National Right to Life and Americans United for Life are not backing it. "There are other ways to protect human life that we focus on because we believe they are the most effective," says Clark Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life. Although pro-life leaders generally agree with Burton that life begins at fertilization, they fear a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade would ultimately be slapped down by the Supreme Court—still at least one vote shy of an anti-Roe majority—setting back the movement. "The established pro-life movement feels … we should stop trying to overturn Roe because the time isn't right," says Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative public-interest firm that has advised Amendment 48. "Then there is this huge grassroots movement saying it's immoral not to try and save innocent lives."

The Colorado ballot initiative went on to fail by a 40-point margin, but similar initiatives began popping up in other states. And when Carmon traveled to Mississippi, she found much greater enthusiasm for personhood activism, noting that some Democrats there had come to endorse it. Perhaps an even more telling sign of personhood tiptoeing into the mainstream is its recent endorsement by presidential contender Mitt Romney. He told told Fox News he would “absolutely” support a constitutional amendment defining life as beginning at conception.Still, its hard to argue that personhood has become part of the mainstream anti-abortion agenda. Most major groups in the movement are still skittish about the strategy. When I attended the National Right to Life Committee’s state strategy conference this year, there was no mention of personhood: The group was more focused on late-term abortion bans and ending insurance coverage for the procedure. Americans United for Life, the country’s oldest anti-abortion group, provides states advocates with dozens of model laws to use in their legislatures. But it has not written a model law to define life as beginning at conception.The Mississippi vote next week will be a key one to watch for the personhood movement. If it passes, it could very well draw a Supreme Court challenge on the issue while forcing anti-abortion advocates to figure out where it fits into their movement. But if a personhood amendment can’t pass in Mississippi, it could draw more questions about whether this could succeed anywhere.

[classical_hero]

There is no legal framework to be considered under international law. The is no "right" for abortion under international law.
http://www.sanjosearticles.com/

Article 1. As a matter of scientific fact a new human life begins at conception.

Article 2. Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.

Article 3. From conception each unborn child is by nature a human being.

Article 4. All human beings, as members of the human family, are entitled to recognition of their inherent dignity and to protection of their inalienable human rights. This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments.

Article 5. There exists no right to abortion under international law, either by way of treaty obligation or under customary international law. No United Nations treaty can accurately be cited as establishing or recognizing a right to abortion.

Article 6. The Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) and other treaty monitoring bodies have directed governments to change their laws on abortion. These bodies have explicitly or implicitly interpreted the treaties to which they are subject as including a right to abortion.

Treaty monitoring bodies have no authority, either under the treaties that created them or under general international law, to interpret these treaties in ways that create new state obligations or that alter the substance of the treaties.

Accordingly, any such body that interprets a treaty to include a right to abortion acts beyond its authority and contrary to its mandate. Suchultra vires acts do not create any legal obligations for states parties to the treaty, nor should states accept them as contributing to the formation of new customary international law.

Article 7. Assertions by international agencies or non-governmental actors that abortion is a human right are false and should be rejected.

There is no international legal obligation to provide access to abortion based on any ground, including but not limited to health, privacy or sexual autonomy, or non-discrimination.

Article 8. Under basic principles of treaty interpretation in international law, consistent with the obligations of good faith and pacta sunt servanda, and in the exercise of their responsibility to defend the lives of their people, states may and should invoke treaty provisions guaranteeing the right to life as encompassing a state responsibility to protect the unborn child from abortion.

Article 9. Governments and members of society should ensure that national laws and policies protect the human right to life from conception. They should also reject and condemn pressure to adopt laws that legalize or depenalize abortion.

Treaty monitoring bodies, United Nations agencies and officers, regional and national courts, and others should desist from implicit or explicit assertions of a right to abortion based upon international law.

When such false assertions are made, or pressures exerted, member states should demand accountability from the United Nations system.

Providers of development aid should not promote or fund abortions. They should not make aid conditional on a recipient’s acceptance of abortion.

International maternal and child health care funding and programs should ensure a healthy outcome of pregnancy for both mother and child and should help mothers welcome new life in all circumstances.


We — human rights lawyers and advocates, scholars, elected officials, diplomats, and medical and international policy experts — hereby affirm these Articles.
San Jose, Costa Rica
March 25, 2011

[a completely inoffensive name]

There is no legal framework to be considered under international law. The is no "right" for abortion under international law.
http://www.sanjosearticles.com/

Because we all need to listen to Costa Rica?

[Papewaio]

I'm not even sure of the validity of Article 1 let alone the rest. Seems to overstep a few sovereignty issues on the rest of the articles as most countries core laws trump treaty obligations ie Consitution equivalent.

The so called scientific consensus must be very narrowly defined to a subset of science in both type, geographic location and meme embedded background. Because I'm pretty sure in most first world secular countries it is quite far from being a consensus.

[Lemur]

Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.

Talk to any biologist and you will see how utterly wrong this statement is. "Life" is a slippery term. Is a virus alive? If so, why? Is a fire alive? If not, why? Fire shares many characteristics of "life" as we understand it, and I think you will find excluding fire from the list of living organisms a very tricky bit of business.

Biology does not care, because biology is not political. Scientists recognize that the border between alive/not-alive is broad, gray, and difficult. Politicians and partisans want a nice, clear line that does not exist in science. So your article, which appeals to authority, is appealing in an incorrect and deceptive manner.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Talk to any biologist and you will see how utterly wrong this statement is. "Life" is a slippery term. Is a virus alive? If so, why? Is a fire alive? If not, why? Fire shares many characteristics of "life" as we understand it, and I think you will find excluding fire from the list of living organisms a very tricky bit of business.Biology does not care, because biology is not political. Scientists recognize that the border between alive/not-alive is broad, gray, and difficult. Politicians and partisans want a nice, clear line that does not exist in science. So your article, which appeals to authority, is appealing in an incorrect and deceptive manner.

I just want to say thank you Lemur for saying what I wanted to say but in a much better way than I could have.

[Kralizec]

I wasn't really upset or anything, just curious about everyone's thoughts on the subject. I referred to my post in case anyone missed it.

Yet I agree with your premise, so as you correctly point out, the first definitely presents grounds for trial.
The second is ethically problematic. Professionally, I would opine that it should be litigated under the argument that the child is simply a patient harmed by the medic's actions. However, the optimal solution, or at least the one preventing headaches, would be to my mind to always attempt to fold the case into the parents' wrongful birth lawsuit and basically demand for their damages to be calculated by taking into account the full life span of the human being they brought to life, seeing as it will always remain in their care.

I have no issues with the first case (wrongful birth). My objections against the second (wrongful life) have more to do with the way the decisions are framed than ethics (allthough the implied reasoning is ethically unsound). I suspect that the real reasoning in the Dutch precedent is that, as you say, parents will feel emotionally obligated to care for these disabled children long after they've reached maturity. The courts thus seek to reimburse the parents' costs and efforts which are to be made. However, the claim was made on behalf of the child, and therefore the discussion is about wether the child can be said to have suffered because of the doctor's mistake.
Clearly the only logical way you can argue that the child has suffered because of the mistake is to argue that, for the child, non-existance is preferable to the life he has. The Dutch courts refused to go this route and simply evaded the issue by using bogus reasoning. However, if I recall correctly, France specifically banned "wrongful life" claims because the unspoken reason is implied in the verdict - that is, honouring damage claims on behalf of the child implies that said child would have been better off if he had never existed, no matter how much the courts may deny this reasoning. Another factor the French parliament took into account before they decided on the matter was that France (and western democracies in general) have social services which can give disabled people like this the care they need. I've never actually read the French literature on the subject directly, maybe I'll dig it up when I have the time.

Article 1. As a matter of scientific fact a new human life begins at conception.

Article 2. Each human life is a continuum that begins at conception and advances in stages until death. Science gives different names to these stages, including zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, child, adolescent and adult. This does not change the scientific consensus that at all points of development each individual is a living member of the human species.

Article 3. From conception each unborn child is by nature a human being.

Article 4. All human beings, as members of the human family, are entitled to recognition of their inherent dignity and to protection of their inalienable human rights. This is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other international instruments.

There's no logical link between points 1-3 and point 4. "Human being" in the biological sense of the word is not necessarily the same concept as "human" (as in, an individual) in various treaties.

As the site mentions, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says in article 6 that every human being has an inherent right to life. I've seen it been used by pro-lifers to argue that abortion is illegal under international law before. However, if you read the entire article, it's clear that the article was aimed at the death penalty, which it explicitly mentions. It says something about (not) executing pregnant women, but nothing about abortion as such. If it had, lots of countries would simply have refused to sign it.

1. Every human being has the inherent right to life. This right shall be protected by law. No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life.

2. In countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes in accordance with the law in force at the time of the commission of the crime and not contrary to the provisions of the present Covenant and to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This penalty can only be carried out pursuant to a final judgement rendered by a competent court.

3. When deprivation of life constitutes the crime of genocide, it is understood that nothing in this article shall authorize any State Party to the present Covenant to derogate in any way from any obligation assumed under the provisions of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

4. Anyone sentenced to death shall have the right to seek pardon or commutation of the sentence. Amnesty, pardon or commutation of the sentence of death may be granted in all cases.

5. Sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age and shall not be carried out on pregnant women.

6. Nothing in this article shall be invoked to delay or to prevent the abolition of capital punishment by any State Party to the present Covenant.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Ball is in your court hiro de classico