The positive thing about these threads is that is shows us who is who on here.
Yep, it also shows just who are the BIG GOVERNMENT statists here, Ayn Rand would be disappointed.
At what point in a pregnancy do you, or the government, have a legitimate "compelling interest" in the pregancy? Conception? Viability? Perhaps at the moment of "quickening"?
Is the baby a human? Yes. Is that human a distinct individual? Yes, as they have unique DNA. Therefore, the baby is a "person". Read the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the various laws concerning murder and self-defense. The answers you seek are right there.
If you are going to try to make a libertarian argument, please attempt to do so. It should be an interesting one as you twist around one individual being able to arbitrarily kill another for mere convenience.
I see you did not answer the direct question as too at what point the state or yourself has compelling interest, very telling. I will infer your answer is "conception" due to your mention of unique DNA.
Like it or not the Constitution and the Bill of Rights does not grant rights or citizenship until birth, nor does include those in the womb for enumeration and representation.
Lets look at history and English common law and the claim that abortion is murder.
The proposition that abortion cannot be homicide is reiterated by practically every major writer on English criminal law, from William Staunford and William Lambard in the sixteenth century, through Edward Coke and Matthew Hale in the seventeenth century, to William Hawkins and William Blackstone in the eighteenth century. Homicide was agreed to require the prior birth of the victim. Murder might be charged, according to Hale, if the woman on whom an abortion was performed died as a result. Murder also might be charged, according to Coke, if a botched abortion injured a fetus that afterwards was born alive and then died from its prenatal injuries. But where a fetus, even a quickened fetus, was killed in the womb, resulting in stillbirth, whatever the crime, it would not be homicide at common law.
Abortion was not always a crime. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, abortion of early pregnancy was legal under common law.[22] Abortions were illegal only after "quickening," the point at which a pregnant woman could feel the movements of the fetus (approximately the fourth month of pregnancy). The common law's attitude toward pregnancy and abortion was based on an understanding of pregnancy and human development as a process rather than an absolute moment.
If neither you or the State can demonstrate a compelling interest prior to the quickening, then any decision should be left up to individuals.
Your grasping at "citizenship" is a classic misreading of the Constitution (and law), and a misunderstanding of the rights guaranteed therein. The issue is not "citizenship", but whether the individual involved is a person within the jurisdiction of the United States. There can be no denial that a human with distinct, individual DNA is, in fact, a person. Go back and re-read those documents again with an understanding of "person" and not "citizen" being the issue.
Originally Posted by Mannlicher
America needs to understand that our troops are not 'disposable'. Each represents a family; Fathers, Mothers, Sons, Daughters, Cousins, Uncles, Aunts... Our Citizens are our most valuable treasure; we waste far too many.
