/thread

Please abort this thread.

It is terrible that governance has been handed over to a supreme court.

If democratic institutions in the US functioned an national referendum on this issue could happen. People could decide instead of political appointees ( for life ) whose decisions affect millions (for good or for ill, though i feel the US supreme court has been very progressive, and often the most effective force in US politics, usually you want a position which is appointed like this to be apolitical - the point of appoInting them for life is that they are not worrying about the next election, and this not easily corrupted)

Why national referendum is a bad idea --- Trump campaign

The same voters would participate in both. :)

Why a national referendum is a good idea. People get to discuss the issue and be part of the decision making process - if the debate happens to go one way or the other, they feel they have had their say.

Unlike when the supreme court makes a decision - where only 9 people get to have a say.

Now, if you want to discuss the problem with Trump's campaign, and how money = speech means 1 vote per dollar instead of 1 vote per person.... well that's another issue you might want to reform.

That said, i see no reason why you can't effectively govern on a state-by-state basis. Place an outright ban out of state spending, and get individual states to vote for their own state constitutions to protect rights (to choice/life)

"Now, if you want to discuss the problem with Trump's campaign, and how money = speech "

Um, what?

"That said, i see no reason why you can't effectively govern on a state-by-state basis."
Right, the Supreme Court also shouldn't have forced public schools to let African American students in with Brown v Board, or forced Virginia to stop persecuting interracial couples with Loving v Virginia. These things can only be left up to the states!

@TrPadro, the supreme court determined that for the purposes of free speech, money equal speech; and this peoPle should be free to spend it on political campaigns without restrictiOn.

This undermines democracy. The idea of one person, one vote; which is the cornerstone of democracy, is replaced with a system where the number of $s you can spend determines how much of a say you can have.

Other countries limit campaign spending. Control what can be said, sometimes to an extreme degree. But all in the name of 'fairness' and 'balance'. It may not be ideal (Ireland had a referendum recently, and equal time had to be given to both sides of the arguement, which disproportionately gave extra voice to the tiny % of people who opposed gay marriage)

Though i would still argue this was a good thing, because we had a massive public debate. And while many of my LGBT friends expressed a lot of pain and anger at hearing their lives and rights being discussed and often dismissed in this public manner - it was rather traumatic and several people said 'fuck this country, i'm leaving' - the result was that many LGBT 'allies' were woken up about homophobic discrimination in Ireland and got angry enough to go campaign; the resulting outcry of joy from the LGBT community was amazing. (Even if marriage equality in some ways represents conformity with the traditional status quo institutions and thus in some ways undermines the original queer movement's political goals; this is nevertheless seen as a great victory - queer people feeling more comfortable holding hands in public with their partners, as reported widely, is a great positive result of this debate)

Well, let's put it to a popular vote whether orthaic has any rights or is a second class citizen who doesn't deserve to have any rights, like say a right to vote or a right to speak in this forum

All in favor of strippig orthaic of all rights and having the mods put him on permamute, please say aye

I vote aye

Nay ;)

Also, speaking on forum is not a right. It is a priviledge affords us by the mods, and it comes with a responcibility.

That said, i entirely agree that voting on someone's rights is sick. But i was given the choice by my state, so i had to use it; not voting would have been measurably worse.

My point is that having a conversation and then voting can change thigs for the better - in a way which imposing laws can't necessarily ever achieve.

The Supreme Court doesn't impose laws, it interprets them. Roe v Wade was an interpretation that there was a right to privacy in the constitution based on parts of the Bill of Rights, though the term itself was not expressed.

If the people want, they can amend the US Constitution. It takes work, but it's the best way to change things if the people really wanted it.

The point, Orthaic, is that fundamental rights are not up for a vote. The structure of the US constitution is such that there are some things that the majority is not allowed to touch with the power of government, no matter how much they want to. Mob rule is what gave us Jim Crow and segregation and today, it'd probably ban the practice of Islam. Democracy is useful in most circumstances, but the constitution is founded on a concept of a limited democracy that can only govern in some areas, but cannot circumscribe certain areas. As it happens, the democracy cannot commandeer people's bodies based on hokey religious theories and force women to give birth against their will. To do so is a violation of several different rights and is well outside the proper scope of government.

Conversation is a great thing, but the fact is that when such a large chunk of the US population is pretty divorced from reality and in the thrall of various bizzarre notions, rational debate, well, that isn't our strong suit. I wouldn't trust the American people with anything more dangerous with a string, frankly.

Democracy can do lots of screwy things until enforced by the government to change it.

Segregation is still being argued to this day with affirmative action cases over jobs and housing, plus admission to universities. If a company doesn't actively post a job opening, then they can hire anyone they want without "discriminating." Texas universities are going through the courts over how their affirmative action system is being manipulated to bring in the minorities that are acceptable.

Abortion rights are disappearing by new state laws that restrict clinics and doctors so it can be done in fewer places. The goal is to eliminate it entirely by making it impossible to meet the restrictions. Eventually only the rich will be able to afford to go somewhere that it can be done. The rest will have to give birth or go back to illegal methods.

All it takes is a judge to decide that a person is making the "wrong" medical or legal decision and a person's rights can be taken away. Call a person mentally ill and they lose all legal rights until they can get the judge's decision overturned.

This seems to be a very one-sided argument. Modern sonograms and other techniques show that babies in the womb are not some indistinct mass of tissue, but living, breathing (yes, breathing, although not air), human beings. An aborted baby who didn't die recently testified in front of Congress. At what point does a woman's right to control her body overpower the baby's even more fundamental right to life?

An aborted baby testified? Astonishing, if it were true. Babies don't typically do much testifying, and abortions don't typically involve babies, but fetuses. But that aside, there are a bunch of arguments here. First, of course, is that you don't seem to show a lot of understanding of biology. Certainly, a clump of cells is no more a person than a cancerous tumor is, and for the vast majority of cases, that is what we are dealing with (unless it is one of these situations where the health of the mother is at stake, where one can't help but notice anti-choice people seem to seriously dismiss the importance of the life of the mother, which shows just how "pro-life" they are.) However, show me any other context where one person is forced by law to take actions to support and keep another person alive or be thrown in jail. Show me any other context where a persons body is basically taken over by the state in order to force services be rendered to someone else. We abolished slavery in the US some time ago, you know.

How many months into pregnancy are you talking, Mujus? Surely a human zygote is not alive. At what point does it become alive?

It's alive, just not a fully formed human yet. Unless you're going with the religious "life begins at conception" mumbo jumbo, there's a long ways to go.

Are you saying that a zygote is alive, but that life does not begin at conception?

i always find this fact interesting.... most likely 50% of pregnancies end in miscarriages. a lot of these occur without the woman even realizing it -- my point is that some of us seem to attach "life" to something like some holy designations, when the reality is that the universe seems to have its own criteria about how special these lives are. I witnessed a miscarriage recently, and it was really hard for me to fathom that what I saw and experienced was the death of a human. The end of life, sure, but more of a loss of potential rather than the loss of a soul. Life is a nebulous thing, and we humans with out brains and thoughts seem to want to assign more meaning to it then there actually might be.

*with OUR brains and thoughts....sorry typo. not meaning to imply some of you don't have brains or thoughts.

An aborted baby testified? @ ogion

Well yes actually that, while not strictly grammatically correct is true. Here is a site that you might find interesting, if you have even a little of an open mind:

http://www.theabortionsurvivors.com/survivor-testimonies/

@ ishirkmywork

Well yes there is always that argument which refers to the 21 week foetus in one hospital wing undergoing surgical abortion, while its contemporary in another wing is a neonate in an incubator. What an obscenity! Watch this if you have an open mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tzMV9OmvY

@TrPrado, I refer you to this for an answer to your question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53tzMV9OmvY

i have an open mind....how did that video address anything I wrote? i am aware that there is a human body inside the uterus that grows and develops -- I've seen it happen in person several times, and I've seen the successful end result, and a not so successful result. My point was about the concept of life, and perhaps we assign too much meaning to it in some circumstances, forgetting that we are just as much "alive" as a fish or a dog, or broccoli for that matter.
Much anti-abortion sentiment comes from a religious place, and a belief that from conception a fetus has a "soul." My point was that if this is the case, and a god is deciding these things, and there are this many miscarriages that occur naturally, that must be a pretty bloodthirsty god.

Also, that doesn't answer any of the questions I've asked :)

Ogion, yes, the baby testified to Congress, after she grew up. But comparing a baby in the womb to a cancerous tumor is not valid. At five weeks of pregnancy the baby's brain and spinal cord are already visible--not fully formed, but active. http://www.babycentre.co.uk/v1027475/inside-pregnancy-weeks-1-9-video And at nine weeks, the baby looks very much like it will look when it's born. That's not a mass of cancerous tissue. And you wanted another example of when a person is not free to do anything they want to their own body? Suicide is illegal in most states, so there's one. But consider the suicide of a conjoined twin that would also kill the other twin. I doubt there's a law especially for that, but I'm pretty sure you would agree that killing your twin just because you wanted to commit suicide yourself would be wrong.

Prado, of course a zygote is alive. I think you mean to ask when it receives the protections afforded to a human being (because after all, killing a chicken is rarely illegal). Humans are different. And that's a very good question--some people say when it's able to live if born. That would be sometime before five months of pregnancy. Others say from the moment of conception it is a human, which is supported by the Bible in Jeremiah 1:5 among other places: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you...."