Thread: Liberals and Paul happy with gender based abortion.

Originally Posted by jviehe

What about a constitutional amendment. Thats a way to win.

Sure yeah that's a way to win...if you can get enough support and get it done. But it won't happen, hence why it hasn't. It just won't happen. Anytime Republicans do have a big majority in both Houses (like under Bush), they never actually meaningfully try to pass such an amendment, instead they are too busy with creating presciption drug benefit entitlements and finding ways to go to war without a Congressional declaration. So good luck with that. An Amendment would take years if not decades to get through the necessary State legislatures to pass; passing the Sanctity of Life Act would IMMEDIATELY strip the Supreme Court of its jurisdiction over abortion, thereby allowing States to IMMEDIATELY start saving lives. By the time an Amendment is passed tens of millions of fetuses will be dead.

Again Zonation hits it head on with truth.

Originally Posted by jviehe

Lets say abortion is illegal. As a practical excercise, how can you stop women from aborting fetus's? Since a fetus is grown from a womens body, is part of her body, and inside here body, does she have a say what is done with her body?

Even if you accept that it is "her" body, there are plenty of reasonable and upheld laws and statutes that forbid you from tampering with your own body.

Originally Posted by thanatos144

Again Zonation hits it head on with truth.

Again Zonation has his head up his ass.

Let's allow James Madison to correct that by giving a history lesson, once again:

“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce. ... The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives and liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement and prosperity of the State.”
― James Madison

Originally Posted by Disillusioned_1

I must have missed the part of the constitution which grants congress the right to have a federal bureaucracy complete with cubicles inside of a woman's vagina.

Where does the Federal Government then subsequently get the ability to afford every woman the right to abort anything growing in her that she feels like terminating?

So how does everybody feel about race based abortions? You can't really tell what race the child is from the ultra sound but if some white middle class or even fairly affluent housewife has an affair with her colored / dark skin pool boy and gets pregnant, is it okay to terminate because she realizes she will get busted by her husband when the child is born half cast? Acceptable?

Originally Posted by Chloe

Where does the Federal Government then subsequently get the ability to afford every woman the right to abort anything growing in her that she feels like terminating?

And this right here is the crux of the problem in a nutshell, what you just asked that is.

The Feds do not have the ability constitutionally to give you the "right" to abort your child (as abortion is certainly no "right" and the Federal government cannot "grant" you a right - as it can then take it away, all you have are "Natural Rights"), but it also cannot "take away" the "right" to abort, because such a right does not exist in the first place, because once again, the Feds cannot create or grant you rights because if that was the case, they could simply take them away. This is exactly what the Founders said and advocated: People have natural rights by virtue of being human and alive, they are not granted or given. There is no right to abortion and there is no way to take away a nonexistent right. Therefore, the Feds should just stay the hell out of the issue, in either direction, just leave it to the States as things of this nature were intended to be. Of course abortion based on gender or race or any other criteria is WRONG, hell ALL ABORTION IS WRONG. But you cannot get rid of abortion by making it a Federal issue anymore than you can legislate safety or morality at the Federal level, no more than you can make for instance drug laws an issue of the Federal government; the practice of abortion isn't just going to magically go away just because it becomes a Federal crime, just like drug use hasn't magically ended just because there is a "War on Drugs". With all of these social issues, they should just be left to the states, then we won't have to have the confusion you expressed in your post.

Originally Posted by ericams2786

The abortion debate is not winnable in its current form for several reasons:

Correct. We've tried this for several years and have gotten nowhere.

Originally Posted by ericams2786

1. The Supreme Court already usurped the Constitution in Roe v. Wade, using a power it is not granted in Article 3 to "interpret" a Right to Privacy that simply does not exist, at least not with regard to an issue like abortion that should clearly fall under the 10th Amendment. The only way to rectify this issue is to a.) wait until Roe v. Wade is overturned, which in all likelyhood it never will be or b.) allow the Congress to strip the Supreme Court of its power in abortion cases, thus nullifying Roe v. Wade. This can be done by passing legislation, however no one except Ron Paul and a handfull of people in Congress have ever tried this route, which is, in my opinion the easiest and quickest way to get rid of Roe v. Wade.

The problem with that is that it would require Marbury v. Madison to be overturned which is even less likely that getting Roe overturned.

Originally Posted by ericams2786

2. To accept the premise that abortion along gender lines is unacceptable and should be subject to a Federal law that creates a Federal crime, you are automatically accepting Roe v. Wade in that you are admitting abortions are allowed and SHOULD be allowed, but that it should not be based on abortion. Obviously the premise that the Federal government should and can deal with the abortion issue and that abortion is allowed comes BEFORE any premise dealing with gender-based abortion. Either ALL abortion is wrong or ALL abortion is allowed. There really isn't a difference, it's murder either way. If you say murder is ok, just not on the basis of gender, then you are automatically sanctioning murder, there is no way around it, you are simply putting restrictions on what kind or murder can occur or under what circumstances, but murder nonetheless can still occur, same with abortion. Without Roe v. Wade there would be no need for gender-based abortion laws (except at the State level - if abortion was legal in certain States and the issue became a problem). So, if you support a bill that says "I recognize abortion (murder) occurs, but I draw the line at gender based abortion (murder), you are simply putting restrictions on what kind of abortion can occur - not that abortion should not occur at all.

I understand where you are coming from but if we accept that abortions under Roe are constitutional (as they are, at present) then this act would also mean that restrictions on abortion are also Constitutional.....which would be a win...an important win as I'll get to below.

Originally Posted by ericams2786

3. The only way to realistically "win" the war on this issue is to get the Feds out of it - completely. The majority of the States would probably ban abortion, at least in some form (especially in the South and other socially conservative areas), so in the long run, you will save millions of lives by doing that, then by "waiting" for Roe v. Wade to be overturned - because it will not be, just like it hasn't yet - it's just not going to happen. Meanwhile, millions of fetuses are killed by the eugenic design of the Progressives, hurting minority (and mostly black) populations the most.

Yes. The ultimate goal is to get the feds out of issues such as abortion and marriage.

Now, going back to my previous comment, if PRENDA passed it would either be accepted as a reasonable restriction on a current civil right or it would be opposed on constitutional grounds. If the former then it would set the precedent for further reasonable restrictions which, in lieu of flat out overturning of Roe would be a desirable outcome. If the latter then the opposition must come up with a justification for why such a restriction is unconstitutional and that opens the door for a full blown reversal not only of Roe but also of the Civil Rights Act and a ton of other stuff.....which would, again, be a win.

This may sound like a cop-out but my main reason for being pro-choice is that I'm uneasy with the idea that I somehow know what's better for a prospective mother than she does. It's a deeply personal matter and should remain as such.

Originally Posted by PeterUK75

This may sound like a cop-out but my main reason for being pro-choice is that I'm uneasy with the idea that I somehow know what's better for a prospective mother than she does. It's a deeply personal matter and should remain as such.

If bringing a child to term isn't in the prospective mother's best interest then maybe she should be abstaining from the one single act in existence that causes pregnancy.

I like to kick a person when they're down as much as the next guy but I don't particularly like the idea of children being punished for their parents' irresponsibility. With that said I think it's clear that the more we legitimize bad behavior the more bad behavior we're going to get. I personally think we should make life so miserable for anyone who engages in sex outside of a stable and permanent, financially secure relationship that people wear iron underwear until they find themselves in one.

I also think we should make both marriage and divorce harder to obtain.

Originally Posted by Wagner

If bringing a child to term isn't in the prospective mother's best interest then maybe she should be abstaining from the one single act in existence that causes pregnancy.

I like to kick a person when they're down as much as the next guy but I don't particularly like the idea of children being punished for their parents' irresponsibility. With that said I think it's clear that the more we legitimize bad behavior the more bad behavior we're going to get. I personally think we should make life so miserable for anyone who engages in sex outside of a stable and permanent, financially secure relationship that people wear iron underwear until they find themselves in one.

I also think we should make both marriage and divorce harder to obtain.

I'm not into making life miserable for most people (there are some!) but there is no doubt that people need to be more responsible for their actions and one of the ways we can do that is to remove some of the cushion we have designed to make failure to be responsible less painful.

Originally Posted by lutherf

I'm not into making life miserable for most people (there are some!) but there is no doubt that people need to be more responsible for their actions and one of the ways we can do that is to remove some of the cushion we have designed to make failure to be responsible less painful.

I was being facetious about kicking a man when he is down and I'm acutely aware that people, particularly those who are not at fault, will suffer in the short term but I believe it is imperative that we promote a stable, married family life. I believe that alone will promote a far better life for people in the long run than anything else we can do. I'm aware of numerous studies which conclude children from stable, two parent families perform better in basically every aspect of life than the alternative and unaware of any which concludes the opposite.

Societal incentives should flow towards better behavior.

There was a time when we didn't have to deal with this issue because the stigma of having a child out of wedlock was enough to keep a woman's legs crossed till marriage but that has long since passed. There was an Op-Ed in, I believe, the Washington Post a few days ago on how right Dan Quayle was to take on single-parent families, specifically Murphy Brown, and he was right. We have gradually allowed out of wedlock families to gain complete acceptance in society and now nearly 1/2 of all children born from mothers under 30 are out of wedlock. Children in these families do do significantly worse in life than their counterparts. I don't want to see people miserable but we need to put an end to this before it's 60 or 75% of children being born out of wedlock.

Originally Posted by Wagner

I was being facetious about kicking a man when he is down and I'm acutely aware that people, particularly those who are not at fault, will suffer in the short term but I believe it is imperative that we promote a stable, married family life. I believe that alone will promote a far better life for people in the long run than anything else we can do. I'm aware of numerous studies which conclude children from stable, two parent families perform better in basically every aspect of life than the alternative and unaware of any which concludes the opposite.

Societal incentives should flow towards better behavior.

There was a time when we didn't have to deal with this issue because the stigma of having a child out of wedlock was enough to keep a woman's legs crossed till marriage but that has long since passed. There was an Op-Ed in, I believe, the Washington Post a few days ago on how right Dan Quayle was to take on single-parent families, specifically Murphy Brown, and he was right. We have gradually allowed out of wedlock families to gain complete acceptance in society and now nearly 1/2 of all children born from mothers under 30 are out of wedlock. Children in these families do do significantly worse in life than their counterparts. I don't want to see people miserable but we need to put an end to this before it's 60 or 75% of children being born out of wedlock.

I'll certainly agree with that. When I was in High School I only knew of one girl who got pregnant and the only reason I knew is because I knew her brother and stopped at his house one day and there she was with a baby! He hadn't said anything and I had been under the impression that she had just moved away. Today....hell, they have day care at some schools.