Can Roe v Wade be overturned?

[Angra Mainyu]

I can appreciate the viewpoint that personal anatomy be respected and that government should leave people alone. But this notion that a fetus is not a person is just bizarre. A monstrous lapse in morality so as not to cede an argument.

Do you have an argument for that semantic claim?
The word "person" (like nearly every other) in colloquial speech gets its meaning by usage. Why do you think people use the word "person" in a way that includes fetuses? Would you include also embryos?

In any case, I'd say it's not morally relevant: if the English word "person" were such that, say, human embryos were in its referent, that would not give good reasons to think it's immoral to kill embryos for research (for example). Rather, that would give an example in which it's not immoral to kill persons for research.

Now, many people believe it's relevant because they believe that fetuses, or embryos, etc., have the sort of property that makes it immoral to kill human adults (for example) for research, or not to have to pay for their expenses, etc. But they do not seem to have a good case.

 

[Half-Life]

He created you, though.

Great. I can show you in the Bible where it provides instructions for causing an abortion but no passage that says that an abortion is murder. Or was that what the Bible was getting at when it prohibited male masturbation? Maybe I'm missing the exact passage that says that as soon as an egg is fertilized, it is equivalent to a person? Or is it at implantation? Or at quickening?

Or do you really care, so long as men decide?

This whole thing about "men deciding" is bizarre to me. Plenty of women are pro-life. A lot of pro-choice men say, "Men should stay out of the choice of a woman to do what she wants with her body. We don't have a uterus. We don't know what it's like."

So, men think they shouldn't get involved in the decision because they don't have a uterus. So, why then do they support pro-choice? If men don't have a uterus, they shouldn't have an opinion EITHER WAY, not just one way.

 

[lpetrich]

"The only moral abortion is my abortion" with lots of anecdotes from abortion providers about abortion opponents who get abortions for themselves. They may consider it baby killing, but they seem to be willing to become baby killers themselves.

 

[Elixir]

The most bizarre notion is that the next person you see is worth no more than an unrecognizable blob of protoplasm smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.

The so-called pro-lifers who call such things "unborn babies" obviously have self worth issues.

 

[laughing dog]

He created you, though.

Great. I can show you in the Bible where it provides instructions for causing an abortion but no passage that says that an abortion is murder. Or was that what the Bible was getting at when it prohibited male masturbation? Maybe I'm missing the exact passage that says that as soon as an egg is fertilized, it is equivalent to a person? Or is it at implantation? Or at quickening?

Or do you really care, so long as men decide?

This whole thing about "men deciding" is bizarre to me. Plenty of women are pro-life. A lot of pro-choice men say, "Men should stay out of the choice of a woman to do what she wants with her body. We don't have a uterus. We don't know what it's like."

So, men think they shouldn't get involved in the decision because they don't have a uterus. So, why then do they support pro-choice? If men don't have a uterus, they shouldn't have an opinion EITHER WAY, not just one way.

Logically, being anti-abortion means restricting the health choices of women. A consequence of being anti-abortion is forcing pregnant females (some of whom are still legally children)to give birth. That is forcing women to do something with their uterus.
Logically, being pro-choice means legally permitting a wide range of health options for females. No one is forced to do anything. So a man who is pro-choice is not forcing a woman to do anything with her uterus. So they are not getting involved in the whatever choice a woman (or child) makes unless the woman (or child) wishes them to do so.
Logically, your argument has no merit.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

He created you, though.

Great. I can show you in the Bible where it provides instructions for causing an abortion but no passage that says that an abortion is murder. Or was that what the Bible was getting at when it prohibited male masturbation? Maybe I'm missing the exact passage that says that as soon as an egg is fertilized, it is equivalent to a person? Or is it at implantation? Or at quickening?

Or do you really care, so long as men decide?

This whole thing about "men deciding" is bizarre to me. Plenty of women are pro-life. A lot of pro-choice men say, "Men should stay out of the choice of a woman to do what she wants with her body. We don't have a uterus. We don't know what it's like."

So, men think they shouldn't get involved in the decision because they don't have a uterus. So, why then do they support pro-choice? If men don't have a uterus, they shouldn't have an opinion EITHER WAY, not just one way.

The reality is more men than women are anti-choice. It's a means of controlling women.

 

[lpetrich]

There are some antiabortion women who are antiabortion enough to become antiabortion activists. I recall that sociologist Kristin Luker did a study of activists on both sides, and she found that some female antiabortion activists objected to abortion because they considered it a rejection of motherhood. That seems like a very bad reason, but that was their reason.

Blue States Are Finally Worried About Abortion — And They're Doing Something About It – VICE News

Missouri could become the only state in the country without an abortion provider this summer, if a state agency agrees to uphold a decision to strip Planned Parenthood of St. Louis of its license to provide abortions.

But just 20 minutes and one state line away lies another abortion clinic, one that’s free to operate because it exists in a parallel universe where abortion is far less regulated — a universe called Illinois.

Weeks after Missouri passed a law that could ban abortion as early as eight weeks into a pregnancy, Illinois Governor J.P. Pritzker signed a landmark bill declaring that its inhabitants have a “fundamental right” to abortion. The bill also repeals two old, unenforced pieces of legislation that criminalized the procedure and could have limited access if Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide, were overturned.

"Today, we proudly proclaim that in this state, we trust women," Pritzker said at the signing.

Abortion Groups Are Raising Record Amounts Since Alabama’s Ban – VICE News

“Because of this fear of what’s going to happen to Roe, a lot of blue-state legislators are sort of going back to their statute books and realizing that there are some laws on the books that they don’t like when it comes to abortion,” said Mary Ziegler, a professor at Florida State University College of Law who’s written two books on abortion law. “Before, I don’t think they really ever worried about it as much because nothing was gonna happen. Roe was sort of there as the floor.”

Several states have repealed such laws and otherwise affirmed their acceptance of abortion. Some states now get around the Hyde Amendment by offering financing for abortions for low-income women.

It seems to me that the Hyde Amendment is like the Missouri Compromise of the early 19th cy., a compromise that eventually frayed apart.

There is another abortion-slavery similarity. In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act as part of the Compromise of 1850 between northern and southern states. There was an earlier Fugitive Slave Act, from 1783, but the 1850 one was stronger, and it mandated that northerners help southerners catch slaves. This brought the slavery issue close to home for northerners, provoking them into stronger opposition to the "slave power" of the South.