Originally posted by flyingaround
Just so you know, your condescension is misplaced, as I likely have forgotten more about constitutional jurisprudence than you will ever know.
Interesting how your so superior to all. Obviously (per. you) your vastly above the members of the U.S. Supreme Court (what do they know right?) , and myself, in regard to intellectual thought as to be liken unto a God.
Seriously... try a Philosophy 101 course. MOST of what we are delving into here is covered first couple weeks. You, being so tremendously smart, (although you seem to be a tad. forgetfull) will have no problem with the course, and MIGHT be better equipped for this discussion.
I'll go slow this time... k? Wouldn't want you to forget any more constitutional jurisprudence.
The fact that some have made "viability" the main issue with respect to abortion is of little moment. Some? OMG this is one of the hotest debated arguments, and viability is one of the (if not the) MAIN issues in the abortion debate. Essentially your saying that the vast multitude of better minds on this planet (dunno which one your on), who have hotly debated this issue counts as SOME in your book. Amazing! Please do just a LITTLE bit of research on this topic. It has been covered in countless books, articles, and journals by many far greater men and women than you or I. Oh wait. I'm so calloused, what was I thinking. That would cause you to lose some more jurisprudence. You can just Google it.
What 5 of 9 that wear black robes and sit in Washington, D.C. think is important means even less.
Incredible. I refer you back to my what planet ref. Good to know your so above the law as to consider the Supreme Court trivial.
my question remains: why is viability the sine qua non of life?
ok..i'll take this one. (not that i havn't covered it, quite well i might add, already twice)
Is a fetus a human until it can exist seprate from the woman. Or better even (must respect your superior knowledge and understanding here) take the fetus out of it. If I bake a cake, and instead of letting it cook for an hour, I pull it out at 20 min. Is it a cake? Viability is reached when a "thing" becomes that which it will be. Until it reaches that point, it isn't. Until it cooks for an hour, it's just a bunch of batter, not a cake. Until a fetus can exist outside the womb, it has not become a human. That is the argument of viablity re. abortion. If it is not a human, it is not murder.
If one cannot test viability until the child is outside the womb and given a chance to survive on its own, it's not much good as a test of whether or not an abortion should be permitted, is it?
This was a joke right? Seriously, it's not even well thought out. We know when a fetus is viable, because that comes up fairly often. Pre-mature births are not uncommon, nor are accidents etc. that cause labor, or emergency deliveries rare. Due to advances in medical technology (please see prev. post. mr. forgotten more than) we can push the point of fetal viability closer to the beginning of the pregnancy. So we have a pretty good idea at which stage of fetal development we are able to keep it alive outside of the womb.
If you think that whether or not an unborn child/fetus is "alive" depends on the current state of medical technology, where one happens to be located in the world, or what year it is, you've gone over the edge, as far as I'm concerned.
Ref. back to my Philo 101 suggestion. Perspective should also be covered. What was considered viable 30yrs ago, is different from today. Why? Perspective. At 28 weeks a fetus was considered viable. Then we gained medical knowledge, and it was 27. Then 25 and so on. It's all hand in hand. Some day, (as was prev. covered AHEM) conception will be considered viable.
First of all, I edited out the inappropriate comment in my post before you posted this, and as I wrote there, I'm sorry for having written it. Really, I am.
Second, have you actually read Roe? In it, the majority claims that there are three choices for when life begins--conception, viability, and birth--and admits that it cannot, indeed won't even try, to decide which of those three view is correct. It sidesteps the issue by claiming that the unborn child's "potential life" is enough to ultimately countervail the latent "right to privacy" in the penumbra of the 14th Amendment's guarantee of substantive due process (another concept, like the right of privacy, that the Court invented). Aside from the considerable question of whether that analysis is flawed, the more fundamental point is that if there is, as the Court admits, a possibility that life begins at conception, mustn't we protect that possiblity by erring on the side of caution? Shouldn't the Court have excluded that possiblity in order to justify its holding? We make the state prove that someone is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt before sending him to jail for six months. If there is a non-neglible possiblity that he is innocent, he walks. Shouldn't similar reasoning apply here, given the dire consequence of being wrong? It certainly seems so to me.
Third, I don't know what you think isn't even well thought out. I know from personal experience that even after a baby is born at 25-26 weeks, the doctor cannot tell whether it is viable until it actually lives or dies. He certainly could not have made that determination in utero. Medicine, obviously, is not an exact science. And even if it were true that we have a "pretty good idea," since when is that a solid enough basis to decide to terminate that which may be a life?
And, finally, I actually do understand the argument re: viability. I just don't buy it. Here it is in the words of the Roe Court:
With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling" point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful life outside the mother's womb.
I'm sorry, but I just don't find that compelling.
In any event, if you're willing to analogize an unborn child to a half-baked cake, there really is no point in continuing this "discussion" (which, with the admitted indiscretion of my edited-out comment, I tried to maintain at a civil level).
