Fertilization-Assigned Personhood [FAP]

No, as usual you don’t get it. What does trying to establish a neurocognitive basis for fetal rights have to do with sentimentality? It’s a position that is consistent with how we determine the loss of personhood at death. Speaking of consistency, I guess we could apply a DF standard for death as well, where as soon as a patient goes on life support they loose their personhood, cause we don’t need no stinking EEGs.

Yet another misguided twist of a metaphor. The ovarian count was in regards to the assertion that fertilized eggs are a product of foreign invasion, or squatters as Bells likes to define them, when in reality they are the product of a natural citizen of the female body that has joined with the invited citizen from the body of a male partner. I advocate no rights to that union until it reaches a sufficient developmental stage of neurocognition later in pregnancy. So much for your ovarian personhood smear.

You should be thankful that anyone bothers to respond to your rants of redneck legislators attempting to collapse the skies above us. And it’s no longer surprising to see you and Bells frame responses to your blown smoke as trolling, and your own such responses as sincere discussion. It’s just tunnel vision in spades.

Current federal and state law in regards to abortion give women 20 weeks or greater before imposing restrictions on abortion, where FAP essentially takes that option away. As for your equal protection assertion, it’s not consistent with the relevant Constitutional language.

Equal protection implies that laws regarding like circumstance must be applied and addressed in an equal fashion. When federal law grants states the right to enforce child or fetal protection laws against violators, it applies equally to that specific class of violators. When men and women become parents, due to their relationship with children, their risk of becoming part of that violator class increases. Likewise, when pregnant women enter advance stages of pregnancy that are subject to legal sanctions by the state, they increase the risk of becoming part of a specific class of violator. It’s as if you’re trying to pretend that the state sees no legal distinction between pregnant women and those who aren’t, but we both know that federal law sees it otherwise.

 

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Actually according to a more recent CDC vital statistics report, there were 37 abortion related deaths in 2010 and 28 in 2011.

As for how far we’ve come medically, 7.2/100,000 in 1987 vs. 18.5/100,000 in 2013 isn’t what I would call progress in maternal healthcare in the US over the past 26 years. I would expect a similar trend in terms of late term abortion mortality. So does Planned Parenthood.

 

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The Functional Problems of Intellectual Dishonesty ... Or Is It Just Ignorance?

This part is exactly correct.

This is correct, but incomplete. So does that risk escalate for everyone else around that pregnant woman.

And under equal protection for zygotal personhood, the range of potential homicidal violations expands by orders of magnitude.

It is as if you're trying to pretend that Roe will have any relevance if FAP gets constitutional endorsement.

Furthermore—

"A woman would be in a similar position that she is now in regards to abortion regulation, only without the option of a period of unrestricted termination. Why does this simple fact have to be explained to you?"​

—you have failed to justify this ridiculous assertion. What option of unrestricted termination does she have now? And just how is it that access to hormonal or intrauterine birth control is illegal right now?

You made a completely incorrect assertion, and your attempt to justify it really makes no sense whatsoever.

After all, even without personhood, some states are arresting and charging women with crimes for having simple accidents, or being mentally ill.

And as has been noted already:

At least 38 of the 50 states across America have introduced foetal homicide laws that were intended to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from violent attacks by third parties – usually abusive male partners – but are increasingly being turned by renegade prosecutors against the women themselves.

South Carolina was one of the first states to introduce such a foetal homicide law. National Advocates for Pregnant Women has found only one case of a South Carolina man who assaulted a pregnant woman having been charged under its terms, and his conviction was eventually overturned. Yet the group estimates there have been up to 300 women arrested for their actions during pregnancy.

(Pilkington)​

And that's without FAP.

And I remember the fetal protection debate; it occurred in my youth, and yes, it's true, the abortion access folks knew this was coming. And they were called cruel and unfeeling and all sorts of things we also hear coming from people in this debate who are trying to give cover to the FAP movement.

Everybody knew this was the score thirty years ago. And the anti-abortion people willfully lied.

Part of the problem, Capracus, is that you don't seem to understand what you're dealing with when it comes to the laws. Such as the Turducken Principle:

"According to your Dry Foot Policy, personhood is attained through the act of umbilical severance, by that logic it would be rescinded through umbilical reattachment."​

That's not how human rights work. And, specifically, that's not how rights work in the United States of America, unless you are willing to assert that a doctor committing medical malpractice, assault and battery, potentially murdering a newborn, and savaging a woman's body construes some viable semblance of due process.

And this is a common problem: As you, Billvon, and others point to Roe for support, you seem to forget that constitutionally sanctioned FAP will erase that Supreme Court decision. The Court refused to establish personhood in Roe. Review section VI of the Opinion of the Court for the Court's historical review, section IX.A for the Court's consideration of Equal Protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, and IX.B ¶2 for the Court's refusal to establish personhood:

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.​

Constitutionally-empowered FAP will resolve that issue statutorily. Roe will no longer apply.

And while it is apparent that some agents of the state will take liberties with the Constitution, and some courts will grant them that leeway, to the one it's not supposed to be that way. Look what happens in criminal law; the courts will often allow sleights of law to pass because it makes things too complicated for law enforcement to throw people in jail. And as the Founders' discussion went, some complained that provisions in the Bill of Rights would make it difficult to prosecute people; I believe it was George Mason who responded, "It's supposed to be difficult."

So what is this about? Is FAP really just about restricting abortion access and getting rid of hormonal and intrauterine contraception? That is, is it really just about restricting women? Go back and review Billvon's argument from eighteen months ago, the climax of which is linked in the topic post. In a desperate attempt to argue that the implications of zygotal personhood would not include negligent homicide charges for everyday human foibles, he came down to asserting that the rational thing to do is ignore the Constitution; furthermore, in this thread he backs that argument with Roe, apparently oblivious to what constitutionally empowered FAP will do to that decision. That is to say, it is ridiculous, stupid, and utterly dishonest to refer to extant law to explain what happens when that extant law is stricken.

And the preceding sentence applies to your argument, too. You do not get to rely on Roe to explain what happens if Roe is stricken.
____________________

Notes:

Pilkington, Ed. "Outcry in America as pregnant women who lose babies face murder charges". The Guardian. June 24, 2011. TheGuardian.com. May 30, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

Blackmun, Harry. "Opinion of the Court". Roe v. Wade. Supreme Court of the United States of America. January 22, 1973. Law.Cornell.edu. May 30, 2014. http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113#writing-USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO

 

The "what now?" what now

Tiassa tells us above that arguing the legal frames of a decision not even taken, let alone made law, is "flaccid". Now, I think that was a little insulting to your position, but he does have a certain reasonability in the point he makes: how exactly shall I provide evidence of a proposition that is not law yet, nor may ever be?

And who are you?

What in the hell is that supposed to mean? To what are you referring? What is it you're now claiming I'm claiming?

Aw, those personal slurs make you seem so mature, Bells. I'm sure your ex-co-workers don't look down on you because of them as they read this forum.

There is so much wrong with that paragraph that I'm actually going to have to fisk it, itself, to try and illustrate to you what you're doing here. I get that you're all rage-y and all that, but it's not an excuse.

As a supposed lawyer, you should probably understand the difficulties in providing counter-evidence against a proposition (a biologically-derived ethical limit to abortion rights) that is not actually in practice anywhere, let alone being proposed. I have to ask at this point: do you know what you've been arguing against? What is it you wish me to provide evidence of, exactly? The correct implementation of a law that does not currently exist? Does that seem even slightly insane to you, as a demand?

See above.

What exactly am I meant to have ignored here? Riffle through your comments and tell me what it is I've ignored, and in context of this discussion.

I'm afraid I'll have to double-dog dare you to illustrate how this mountain of evidence proves me 'wrong'. You don't even seem to know what it is that I'm arguing for, although I've explained it innumerable times. Let me ask this another way: in what way can my proposition, which has not yet been tested anywhere, be proven either right or wrong? Above, you demand evidence that it be 'proven right'. How can there be evidence of the correct and ethical application of a law that does not exist? Here you insist that I am 'absolutely wrong', as if you knew what those words meant. How can an untested and even unproposed legal proposition be "proven" wrong by any evidence? Are you slowly coming round to what I'm asking here? Are you beginning to get why this new line of yours makes no sense whatsoever?

That response made absolutely no sense in light of my comment; current abortion deadlines exist. Define how you mean this: do you mean it as a proposition, or extant in the courts, or what, exactly? None of what you're writing makes any sense. It's as though I said "Imagine a brick of the following dimensions..." and you leaped in to scream "That brick doesn't exist!" Of course it doesn't exist in fact; it's a proposition. Are you feeling quite all right?

Which ones, when and under what circumstances, Binary Bells? Don't spout off again, just be honest and specify which ones.

Ermm.... you remember that the 4th post is tying my position to personhood and PAF, yes? And that I haven't argued any of the above? So why are you trying to dun me with this?

I could certainly propose a reasonable biological deadline, and I tentatively suggested 27 weeks earlier on because of the viability issue. Now, if this is what you're requesting, then I have to infer that your mounds of 'evidence' must be dismissed, because they would have nothing to do with such a question. Before you flip out: what exactly are they evidence of? The violations of existing law? Okay... so what do they have to do with my proposition, which is not law, nor even a bill? Explain yourself.

So male opinions are invited if they're her relatives? Her father, brothers, uncles, husband? Anyway, people make all kinds of social decisions without being related to those directly or indirectly affected.

Now you're trying to cover blatant sexism with insults. Good plan!

Op - we're getting somewhere now. Up to what point is it the woman's right to decide? I'll have your opinion out in plain text, if I must chase it 'round the Horn, and 'round the Norway maelstrom, and 'round Perdition's flames before I give it up!

Oh, but it is.

You have certainly not filled 16 pages with your demands for me to accept your false dilemma and just "go from there", sorry. That is a nonsense. If you want to condition the argument in that way, you need to demonstrate the following and in the following order:

1) Why is personhood necessary to establish abortion limits? What jurisdictions currently use this term in their definitions? What ones do not?

2) Why, if personhood were granted to an individual at my bright line of individual competence (viability, neural rigour, etc), would that extend to PAF, as you insist it does?​

Ah - I see you have abandoned your stance about fair play here. I should complain to the other moderator on this thread who is opposing my view? He might judge fairly, but I think he has an agenda here also, and so I've done a little differently.

Would disagree with me how? Here's my post:

How could anything you just posted disagree with that? It's like you're trying to tell me that a fish disagrees with a bicycle.

 

I've suggested a couple legal arguments already, since this is the sine qua non of the issue for you. Your argument is the imperialist one: control equals control. When a fetus is no longer critically reliant on the mother, why does the location matter, particularly?

Answered dozens of times, directly and indirectly. Irrelevant.

It would be better to turn the question on yourself. As it stands now, it would be as easy and fair to ask why it is you hate fetuses so much. What is DF accomplishing, save as a negated platform on the other side of an extremist balancing act - at best.

 

Stating the Obvious

Because the mother is a person, too.

I know you like to forget that, Geoff, but really, man. A woman is not a Bokanovsky vessel. She is a person.

Cite. Because we do have one answer on record suggesting that the loss of hormonal and intrauterine birth control would be an insignificant change:

"A woman would be in a similar position that she is now in regards to abortion regulation, only without the option of a period of unrestricted termination."​

And when we add in that ridiculous assertion of "the option of a period of unrestricted termination" that doesn't actually exist, the problem is either extraordinary ignorance of the issue or extraordinary dishonesty.

So cite these dozens of answsers, please. And I'll even take a baker's dozen to justify the plural.

The moralistic admonitions of an alleged scientist with your reading comprehension deficiencies aren't exactly convincing, you know.

 

Really. Odd that the prolife crowd is wasting so much energy on the distinction, then - if the innocent little embryo gains nothing by it. Apparently they have a different expectation.

What do think the odds are of them being right, and you being wrong, about that? In real life USA, I mean.

And thus gradually lost - by the woman - as the fertilized egg becomes a two week embryo, etc. When does her right of self-defense vanish, in your opinion?

Sure they do. What rights would any person doing to someone what a developing embryo is doing have in the face of that person's rights of self-defense? That is why they are denied to the woman, when States ban abortions.

That example does not exist yet in the US - the assailant kills an embryo or fetus, not a legal person, which is why a special law is necessary in those States. The ordinary laws against killing people do not cover the situation - although they do cover the murder of persons under 21, automatically, without special provision.

The regular laws against murdering people would cover the murder of an embryo, if the embryo were a person - right? And manslaughter, of course. Contributing to a miscarriage then becomes a felony crime.

No, it isn't. We are debating the consequences of its being created.

There is no "right to drive". There is no explicit "right to vote". Free speech is often curbed for the incarcerated or hospitalized. Are you sure you have thought the situation through?

You have been handed several examples of women being jailed and otherwise legally persecuted based on their being pregnant, even under the current less rigorous and comprehensive legal status of their fetus. That tends to interfere with driving, voting, talking to people of one's choice, no?

Do you have some reason for saying that is "incorrect"? I don't see how one can avoid the normal legal registration of a person's death. And whether other places have US laws and Constitutional rights and so forth is hardly relevant.

 

Is your Freudian slip showing?

My emphasis. You know, I think this constitutes a breakthrough: “too”. Your own language betrays an appreciation that with two lives in focus, maybe a balance would be preferable to dominance? Too Freudian?

Then it should be easy to find evidence of how I don’t care about the woman when I repeatedly state that the woman’s health is primary. Balerion makes the same point here. I appreciate that it takes more time to read than just assassinate your opponent’s character. After all, you have… that busy blog to run.

Read.

I answered that very question even in the post you’re responding to. Surely you couldn’t have missed it; you took the time to slander my character on the very basis of that response! Must I offer you your other false dilemma? You seem to be enamoured of binary choices.

Is this a kind of Used Cars Gambit? I’ve never seen anyone try that before, but I confess I did like the movie. Note, though: it was the bad guy that tried that one. Food for thought. (Dozens of “answsers”?)

Now, if you’re really interested in it, read the complete responses to your complaints that no one is addressing the OP and you’ll find these. I link one of Balerion’s above and several below. This being yet another answer to your demand, and with you eagerly monitoring this conversation for citations, I have to admit that I’m very interested to see on what grounds you’re now going to pretend that the OP hasn’t been answered. Will you pretend you didn’t see this part of the post, or just omit it from your response? Is that even possible at this stage? Can you abandon your main line of argument at this point: that is, that the OP hasn’t been answered? That I doubt: 16 pages is not written for nothing. You might be able to gain some traction by further dissecting down the original false dilemma, which I’ve seen done with some success, at times.

Instead of all this you could have just asked what I meant by “irrelevant”. You know: what do you mean ‘irrrelevant’, Geoff? Is this some kind of woman-hating thing etc. There are ripe opportunities for those with retractable values.

Here’s some of those links. I guess this means you’ll be switching to the “real world” herring now? Note: some of them even contain responses from you regarding the OP proposition. Gah! How to explain?

http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3194906&viewfull=1#post3194906
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3194910&viewfull=1#post3194910
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3190981&viewfull=1#post3190981
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3191192&viewfull=1#post3191192
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3195036&viewfull=1#post3195036
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3195086&viewfull=1#post3195086
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3195274&viewfull=1#post3195274
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...sonhood-quot&p=3157669&viewfull=1#post3157669
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...theists-quot&p=3188920&viewfull=1#post3188920
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3195354&viewfull=1#post3195354
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...rsonhood-FAP&p=3195358&viewfull=1#post3195358
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...theists-quot&p=3189786&viewfull=1#post3189786
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread...theists-quot&p=3189860&viewfull=1#post3189860

Question: when you and Bells talk about the personhood of the fetus, and how DF means that it is up to the woman to decide what happens to her body, where in any of that are these mitigations that you claim would keep a woman from aborting right up until delivery? You get very sniffy when someone inquires a bit too closely about that, but don’t explain where you consider this ethical limit to exist. Then you veer off and talk about DF as a Devil’s Advocate point… yet reassert two central elements: i) it’s up to the woman to decide if she should have an abortion, and ii) DF is a “bright line” for asserting personhood, which you consider essential to a discussion of rights. I keep looking for these statements by you two on reasonable mitigations to prevent abuse, and I don’t find them. Why is that? Why is it that neither one of you will lay out your exact set of limitations? You keep claiming that it’s a misrepresentation to say that such rights would go right up to conception and, in your defense, I don’t think even you two could possibly mean for it to be applied right up to the day of conception. So where are your limits, then? Specify the ethical limitations you’d put down for abortion rights. I’m interested to see these.

Er, this from a specialist in logical fallacy and intellectual disjunct? Oh my, I really have been told off now.

 

And you would have to be on of the most vile "people" I have ever seen pass through these "halls." You are an atrocious human being.

 

Lots of things are rare, Bells. It's not an argument not to have legislation.

There's that sexist term again. Purty. So now I'm restricting and dominating them, eh? Words mean things, Bells. And there's the thing: what are the motivations of that 1%? How can we know? For reference, the murder rate in Australia is a lot lower than that, yet there are laws against murder.

Don't blame me because you missed out on your big catch there, chief.

 

I wouldn't bother Bal. She's just not worth it. And her argument is just the same old points recycled every few posts when it seems like you might have forgotten them.

 

Look, a laissez-faire system with no abuse!

You're asking for laissez-faire on abortion - the mother's choice, alone, with no limits that you deem important enough to mention. Since LTA occurs in about 1% of all abortion cases, and since this is actually greater than the murder rate even in Australia, these things seem quite comparable in frequency. Your argument, I am essentially forced to remind you, was:

Hence the frequentist rebuttal. Capiche?

'More' restrictions? How is that, exactly? Specify WRT my argument, please. This is one of the core 'misunderstandings' you have about the issue.

Oh, so you think there can't be any abuse; that it's not possible. Well some of the reasons reported earlier in this thread seem a bit ethically specious to me, Bells. Do you have any links, studies, etc. in that support your claim above that there is no abuse in third term? Can you link some of this information?

So I take it there will be no apology forthcoming. Well, that's no surprise, given the source. Still, it's better than outright libel, I guess.

Well, you can't honestly believe anyone thinks that your opinion is either informed or relevant, Bells. That's the failure of Western sociality: the freedom to say anything that pops into your head, regardless of accuracy. Now, back to the question again:

Please illustrate where I am restricting or 'dominating' women. I mean, I'm dominating the argument, I guess, but that's not at all the same thing.

Nice grammar. Do you even know what you're responding to now?

 

Do you know what statistics are? You said that because it was rare, no law was needed. Murder is even rarer. Do we need no laws against murder? Don't you care about murder victims?

Whereas you favour no restrictions at all?

I regret that the cherry-picked examples are not particularly pertinent, since you deliberately selected them. The second one is just reassertion of old evidence, which is trolling, again.

Not with cherry-picked examples, no, I should imagine not. I see you deliberately ignored the evidence that I posted about possible avenues for abuse. Shocker.

Oh, so you support no laws or restrictions, then.

Aw. Poor malevolent thing. Is Geoffrey being mean to you again?

Not nearly as long as I've been waiting for you to back up your opinion.

 

The bright line

Let's try this again. I know it's futile, but it is a kind of exercise in writing. You cite repeatedly that only 1% of all abortions are in the third trimester; you use this to argue that abortion should be up to the woman alone. Thus you argue for no abortion laws protecting fetuses, which you consider dipsosable, in the third trimester. However, even this low frequency is not an excuse to have no legal protection for fetuses. The murder rate, in comparison, is much less than 1%. So should we correspondingly have no laws against murder? After all, it happens so rarely. Who would really want to murder another human being? Surely anyone contemplating such an extreme act must have a really good reason? So why not then have no laws against murder either. I mean, it's so rare. Are you getting the parallel yet? I've asked this before: is English not your first language? This would explain a few things.

Why are you advocating restrictions on abortion? What restrictions could possibly make it safer? Do you want women to die, Bells? No? Then why are you advocating restrictions on abortion?

Now, more seriously: all right, you say you want no restrictions on abortion. This then means you really do favour a "dry foot" policy all along, so that abortion may take place at any point. But you've been telling me this is a misrepresentation. Really?

No, you never have. You've never stopped the screed and explained exactly what you mean by your support for DF. The above indicates that you support DF at all points, since you state

Restrictions to access, no I do not favour it.​

So you want a laissez-faire system, precisely as I inferred pages and pages ago, and have trolled your way around telling us that I've been misrepresenting you, when in fact this is your exact opinion. And it's heinous. It's not a Devil's Advocate argument - which I'm forced to conclude you don't really grasp either - and it isn't a talking point of any kind. It's your actual opinion, as I called earlier. There was some noise a few pages back about 'no mother wanting to abort past 33 weeks' or something, but it was phrased so weaselly that it didn't read as a statement of your opinion, giving you room to slither around. I thought at the time come on, Geoff: thinking that even at this stage of the game is pretty damn cynical but apparently I was right all along. Would you like now to back down from this position?

No: what I'm doing isn't trolling in any sense whatsoever. What you are doing is trolling; false assertions about character, misrepresentation, false dilemma, reification, repeated assertion without proof, character assassination, intellectual disjunct. The thread is rife with it. If you want me to leave, we'll press on on the administration front. I'll contact the remaining admins and see if it's all right that I'm allowed to express my opinion, and if it's okay that you're allowed to try and run me off.

I'll post it again and maybe this time you'll learn to click a link. There's a very handy stepwise process that some poster took the time to write out above; I'm not sure why it's helpful but I think that in your case it might be. Here's that link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_termination_of_pregnancy

Bells, have you ever been diagnosed with a narcissism complex? You keep coming back to this position that if something isn't all about you, or doesn't agree with you, that the other person is somehow trying to abduct the argument for the sake of the ego. I'm sure your insomnia really does have nothing to do with me, but this meme runs through a lot of your comments.

These links have nothing to do with a biologically determined limitation to abortion rights with medical primacy for the mother. Instead, they're just examples of violations of existing laws - either in spirit or overtly - or of the medical requirement for LTA. Neither of these things conflict in any way with my synthesis. They have, literally, nothing to say in this discussion. If you genuinely understand my direction here, they just constitute flak which is intermixed with the libel and personal abuse of other posts or in the same post. If you genuinely don't understand my direction here and think they apply... then that's just sad.

I infer that all your 'evidence' is that any kind of limitation on abortion is bad. Your position then is that of a "dry foot" limitation, which is to say no limitation at all, essentially. If you think your position is different, now's your chance to explain how it is different.

I've heard these threats before when you've been caught out badly. Here's the thing: I don't troll. You do. And you mix it with character attacks, illogic, and childish behaviour. I have no idea whether the mods are cowed by your behaviour or not, but I expect some do have enough spine to object. Oh, and I warn you that any attacks on me or my family outside the forums will be subject to legal action. I don't know if that was your intent or not, but you do like to keep things vague. I don't, as you've seen.