Arizona abortion law and personhood

Post Reply New Topic

Of course, some women are trying to conceive.

Generally speaking they don't seek abortions, and that's fine. Nobody should be forced to have an abortion they don't want.

Especially the unborn.

I'm unaware of any unborn getting pregnant, and in any case they aren't people and lack the desires that people possess.

Life is a precious gift that should be enjoyed by everybody. If a woman doesn't want her baby, she can give it up for adoption. Every baby is a gift, a Sweet Pea sent from the pea pod of Jesus.

So Jesus sometimes chooses to send such “gifts” to 10 year olds?

But what about the pregnancy and risks it causes? Sure if I could just pop a baby out without any physical or mental health risks then I'd be more open to the idea of keeping a pregnancy to term and giving it up for adoption.

But pregnancy is dangerous, maybe you aren't aware of all the health risks pregnancy can cause.

Pregnancy risks are waaaay exaggerated. Of course there are risks, of course giving birth is strenuous, extremely painful and mentally/emotionally distressing. But it's also the end of a natural process that begins when someone chooses to have sex. It's easy to justify aborting baby conceived through rape because a girl’s choice in the matter was disregarded. But consenting to sex by logical necessity implies consent to become pregnant since both partners must accept the risk it could happen. Not even birth control is 100% effective. Heck, even I got a woman pregnant while wearing a condom, so I know firsthand what the risks are. Birth control failures are known risk and no excuse. Your decision to have sex by consent is also consent to possible pregnancy. And given the risks...if the risks really were as life-threatening as we are led to believe, nobody’d be alive to discuss it. There are some 350,000 babies born every day. Doctors are exceptionally trained and hospitals well equipped for any birthing emergency. And historically, though infant and maternal mortality were much higher, healthy births have been the norm rather than the exception. There are few real reasons, virtually no justifications at all, for killing babies. Where there are exceptions are where there’d be a justification for killing any human being, and there being a real threat to the mother’s is perfectly understandable and reasonable.

So...little meaningful justification, little meaningful risk...

The problem with asserting a cost to a mother’s mental health is that's an absurd justification for pretty much anything. Negative experiences with public schools are not a justification for truancy. It doesn't justify keeping criminals out of prison. It rarely stops executions of condemned murderers. Concern for an enemy combatant’s mental preparedness for war doesn't stop a bullet. And you are NEVER allowed to kill another person for the sake of your mental state--good grief, if that were the case I might have shot up my school many years before Columbine. So the mental health excuse never works anywhere else, and it should never be used to justify killing babies.

You may not realize it, but you are actually outlining some good arguments FOR personhood at fertilization. Irresponsible, risky behavior leading to the conception of a human being without the baby’s consent--the mother and father SHOULD be compelled to give birth. A foster care system and a high demand for adoption that remove the burden of caring for unwanted children. Support systems both within families and communities that ease the burden of single motherhood. The usual justifications for abortion in the past are simply irrelevant now. Affordable care for low-income parents to receive doctor and hospital care to lower the risk to the mother and baby without having to worry about how to pay for it. And mental health not even a workable justification for ANYTHING. Maybe Arizona is on the right track after all.

Your ignorance speaks volumes - much, much more than your long-winded posts.

I choose to be thorough, something it sadly, though predictably lacking in opposing arguments. If pregnancy risks match their depictions by baby killers, none of us would even be alive.

That’s an over-exaggeration. Pregnancy can have significant physical and emotional effects on a person. This is just one factor among many why abortion should be legal.

Being passed over for pay raises and promotions can have significant physical and emotional effects on a person. This is just one factor among many why killing your boss should be legal.

Being called names on the playground can have significant physical and emotional effects on a person. This is just one factor among many why shooting up schools should be legal.

Judges and policymakers make decisions and pass legislation that can have significant physical and emotional effects on a person. This is just one factor among many why killing lawyers should be legal.

False equivalency and misrepresenting my argument. Two in one. Congrats.

I'm not sure how I misrepresented anything. I'm going to slightly paraphrase. I realize changing words can alter meaning, so I'm going to do my best to stay within the intent of our discussion:

Babies cause mental/emotional stress. Kill 'em.
Bullies cause mental/emotional stress. Kill 'em.
Politicians cause mental/emotional stress. Kill 'em.
Bosses cause mental/emotional stress. Kill 'em.

Or we can just condense all of these into a single phrase:
PEOPLE cause mental/emotional stress. Kill 'em all.

There is no false equivalency here. The problem with your assertion that if babies cause mental/emotional stress we can just kill them is it's incompatible with a worldview that values human life enough to protect it. If you can kill babies because they cause mental/emotional stress, then you can kill anyone for any reason given that they cause mental/emotional stress.

https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=407353
Just caught this WP thread out of the corner of my eye.

So...I'm not really surprised at all by this. First of all, it's rather predictable for the 9th circuit to undermine...pretty much any conservative agenda based purely on the basis of it being conservative. This is why I don't like the 9th circuit. It's not that the personhood law happens to be wrong and wrong for people and Arizona and perhaps the entire USA. It's that it's a conservative measure intended to save lives.

I agree with the outcome if this were to actually stick. I do think it's useful to have a legal definition of personhood that applies inside the womb. But to just say "personhood begins at fertilization" is going a bit far and places an undue burden on more people than just those concerned about what happens to embryos in a test tube.


Seriously, how far do we take this? Is it going to be a crime for a woman to have her period now because it means that she tried to conceive and it didn't take?

Aborting a collection of cells is not the same thing as killing a human.

There are many reasons why abortion should be legal. I stated that the physical and emotional effects of pregnancy for some people was just one of the factors at stake.

The reality is that even with the overturning of Roe vs. Wade I doubt that abortion is going away any time soon. If abortion wasn’t legal in my state and I wanted to have one, I would do a bit of traveling.

Nonsense, me and my boyfriend both have agreed we don't want any kids, so when we have sex we certainly are not consenting to having a baby. Hence why it's important to have abortion access so in the case of accidental pregnancy we can terminate it ASAP. Also, I suspect people who enjoy hook ups, generally don't want to have a baby with their casual sex partner.

Birth control failures are another reason abortion access is important, people shouldn't be punished with pregnancy or babies because their birth control failed.

Also, even if you think the risks are way exaggerated, they are still there, and people should not be forced to take those risks.