Spare the Fetus, Execute the Physician

[DavidV]

Two Texas laws, a fetal protection law and a law requiring parental consent before unmarried minors receive abortions, can now be used to bring capital murder charges against physicians who perform abortions under certain circumstances. In other words, some abortions are now punishable by death in Texas. Texas doctors who perform abortions without parental approval or after the third trimester could face capital murder charges because of a new law that takes effect this week, a prosecutors group says. The Texas District and County Attorneys Association has outlined that scenario in its new book updating the Texas penal code and in public presentations around the state. The group says such charges could occur under the new law because of the 2003 fetal protection law. Interviews with the Republican sponsors of these bills show two things: (1) that either this legal result is not intentional or, at least, no one...

http://ObjectivismOnline.com/blog/archives/000419.html

[softwareNerd]

There was a recent Michigan case where a girl got pregnant and she and her boyfriend wanted the baby aborted. They decided that he would hit her in the belly. It actually worked. The judge (in a preliminary hearing) decided that since the girl was a minor, she could not consent to the beating. The case is still to be decided.

[Felix]

Why can't these idiots just leave people alone? Why does everyone have to impose his own personal views on everyone else? It just makes me sick.

[OismForever]

Why can't these idiots just leave people alone? Why does everyone have to impose his own personal views on everyone else? It just makes me sick.

If a person has an abortion in the third trimester, then one could make a case to call it murder even by Objectvist standards. Because, in the third trimester a fetus is a viable entity with a self sustaining heartbeat and a consciousness.

O

[xavier]

If a person has an abortion in the third trimester, then one could make a case to call it murder even by Objectvist standards. Because, in the third trimester a fetus is a viable entity with a self sustaining heartbeat and a consciousness.

O

I disagree. Even with a heartbeat, and assuming a consciousness, which is dubious, the fetus is still 100% physically dependent on the mother. It does not gain human rights until the moment it is physically seperated from the mother.

A lenthy thread:

http://forum.ObjectivismOnline.com/index.php?showtopic=2741

[OismForever]

Remember we are talking about a fetus in the third trimester. There is no serious debate that a fetus has a consciousness and is viable at this state of a pregnancy. Under normal circumstances it is fully capable of surviving without the mother.

So being "physically seperated" is just a matter of semantics with no real ethical distinction. Since seperation is possible instead of destruction.

Ayn Rand said:

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a "right to life." A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable. ARL 12/1975

Notice she qualifies her abortion rights views as being limited to an "embryo", "protoplasm" and a pregnancy in "the first three months".

A fetus in the final trimester is a light year from this definition.

Edited September 24, 2005 by OismForever

[Felix]

Remember we are talking about a fetus in the third trimester. There is no serious debate that a fetus has a consciousness and is viable at this state of a pregnancy. Under normal circumstances it is fully capable of surviving without the mother.

So being "physically seperated" is just a matter of semantics with no real ethical distinction. Since seperation is possible instead of destruction.

Ayn Rand said:

Never mind the vicious nonsense of claiming that an embryo has a "right to life." A piece of protoplasm has no rights—and no life in the human sense of the term. One may argue about the later stages of a pregnancy, but the essential issue concerns only the first three months. To equate a potential with an actual, is vicious; to advocate the sacrifice of the latter to the former, is unspeakable. ARL 12/1975

Notice she qualifies her abortion rights views as being limited to an "embryo", "protoplasm" and a pregnancy in "the first three months".

A fetus in the final trimester is a light year from this definition.

I didn't know that. I thought it was just a bunch of cells. I'll take that back, then.

After all, I arrived here by preterm delivery myself.

[softwareNerd]

An update on the court-case mentioned above. The boy got a reasonable judge. He ended up with 2 years probation (no jail), $200 fine and 200 hours of "community service" working on something related to unwanted pregancies. Sure the case ought to have been thrown out completely, but compared to what he could have got from another judge, I'd say he got of lightly. After all this case was in Michigan, the state that imprisoned Dr. Kervokian for years because he helped people terminate their lives.

Edited September 30, 2005 by softwareNerd