Posts tagged laws

standingfast:

chocolatecoatedserialism replied to your post: Then why are you so against homosexuals getting married if that is what your bible teaches?

That’s an insulting reply and you know it. Be careful.

Why insulting?  I was just explaining how the current marriage laws don’t discriminate against anybody.

-Jo

Tiptoeing around language isn’t a reliable debate strategy, as I’ve demonstrated to you last time we had a discussion.

But that’s beside the point:
Not allowing two adult homosexuals of the same gender to marry each other isn’t discrimination against anybody, right? RIGHT?

Right.

fight-forlife:

opinionlizard:

fight-forlife:

Opinion Lizard: Who is a person?

fight-forlife:

Four things differentiate a human fetus from a newborn.  They’re easy to remember with the acronym SLED. 

Size and physical appearance: Larger, more attractive people do not have more rights than others.  The civil rights movement has       established beyond a doubt that discrimination based on physical attributes is wrong.

Level of development: In a democracy,  people do not lose rights simply because they lack the abilities possessed by others.

Environment: Fetuses within the womb can be killed, but those of the same age who are born prematurely receive full legal protection.  And yet, intuitively, we know that one’s status as a person does not change when they change locations. 

Degree of dependency: All children are dependent on caregivers, as are people with disabilities.  The idea that degree of dependency defines one’s value insults the equality of  these persons.

Are “persons” those who can sustain their lives independently?

This definition is inadequate because many human persons, such kidney dialysis patients, people with disabilities, and young children, require outside help to remain alive.

Are “persons” those who are part of society?

Humans who cannot communicate (or who choose not to, such as hermits) are still persons with rights.

Are unconscious humans merely “potential persons” without rights?

If this is so,  many individuals other than the unborn do not have the rights of a person either.  Newborn babies, people knocked unconscious, and coma victims should not be treated as persons.  They could,  if inconvenient circumstances arise, lose their right to life and be killed.

Source: http://secularprolife.org/files/person.pdf

Your forgetting one crucial detail that makes your entire argument crumble:
You are granted rights upon birth. Once you’re born, you are legally, without a doubt, a person, because you are no longer occupying the body of someone else and you’re fully using your own for body processes rather than theirs. 

Disabled people? Young children? Unconscious humans? People on dialasis and breathing machines? They’ve all been born. They’re all citizens. They all have rights.

An embryo has not been born, it’s still using it’s carrier for it’s body processes, most cannot survive without said carrier performing those body processes, and it’s not a citizen.

Actually, I do remember that it is only after we are born that we are “granted” rights. Hence I am questioning WHY it is so - why are fetuses in the womb not granted the same rights that born people are, considering that they are human persons as well?

You argue that it is only when someone is born that they are to be granted rights. What is birth? It is simply a change in location - from the womb to the crib. So it is location that determines whether we are people or not? It is location that determines whether we have a right to live or not? Does that really make sense to you? As mentioned above, by this flawed logic, a preemie would be granted rights while a fetus of identical age who is still in its mother’s womb would not be given any rights.

I believe that personhood and the rights of a person are intrinsic to a human being, not extrinsic. It is because someone is a human being that someone has rights, and not because someone is in a certain place that someone is “granted” rights.

Your reply is a little confusing organization-wise since you mixed it on the same reply plane as mine. When you reblog something, hitting the “as” button next to the header “Reblog Text Post” at the top, and then hitting the “as text” option will fix that problem next time c:

“What is birth? It is simply a change in location - from the womb to the crib”
Birth is much more than a location change.

Birth marks the moment that the fetus/infant starts performing it’s own body processes rather than having someone else do those things for them (breathing, digesting, extracting waste, etc).

Birth is also the time when the infant actually becomes an infant, and no longer resides inside another person’s body. In a sense, that’s “a change in location,” but it is a huge location change with much more to it than simply location change. Up until birth, that fetus had been residing inside someone else, someone else who has rights. You cannot have two people with rights occupying one body, so birth is the mark of the time when that hypothetical instance is not an issue, because the offspring is no longer residing inside the body of someone else, as such they get their own rights and then there is absolutely no doubt as to whether the infant is a person or not.

“It is location that determines whether we have a right to live or not? Does that really make sense to you?”
I can see where you’re coming from; see above.

“It is because someone is a human being that someone has rights, and not because someone is in a certain place that someone is “granted” rights.”
Being a human isn’t what grants rights- there’s much more to the human experience that simply being of the human race. There are important factors that portray to that experience, things like sentience/thought, capability to feel/experience emotion and pain, being established in your society, etc. This is why things like tumors are not considered people despite being human.
This is why an experience (such as birth) is what marks the beginning of a person being a person- birth is the time that we can know without a doubt that someone is a young person starting their human experience.

AH thanks for telling me about the as text thing! Never knew O: sorry for the organization problem earlier! <:

Yes you are right, birth is more than simply a location change. Guess I over-simplified it earlier. However, how does the fact that the baby is now able to perform its own bodily processes change its status as a human being with/without rights? Not every human being (even if they are born) is able to perform its own bodily processes without external aid (eg dialysis machine). Evidently, being able to perform your own bodily processes is not what definitively marks you as a human person with rights. Thus the fact that the baby is able to perform its own bodily processes independently is irrelevant to whether it should be granted rights or not.

Another thing: why is it that we cannot have 2 people with rights occupying one body? Take a look at conjoined twins, for instance. I know its not exactly the same thing, but there are conjoined twins who share the same body, but that doesn’t make them any less than 2 different people with rights.

I agree that there is a whole lot more to the human experience than just being, well, a Homo sapiens. But is the ability to take part in this so-called “human experience” what marks you as a person with rights? People in a vegetative state are, for all intents and purposes, not “sentient” or capable of thought or emotion. Some people have a disorder that prevents them from feeling physical pain. Some people are cut off from society or live as hermits. Some cannot relate or interact with other people. And yet these do not make them any less human. Clearly, then, experiencing the “human experience” is not something that gives you human rights. It is in being a Homo sapiens that you have human rights. And in being a Homo sapiens, you are constantly growing a developing from zygote to fetus to infant to child to adult, slowly and slowly increasing your capacity for logical thought and reasoning, for emotions, for contributing to society. Human rights is not a result of the human experience; rather, human rights and human experience are both results of simply being human.

A tumor is not considered a human, but it is not because they cannot feel pain or emotion or cannot think. It is because they are, biologically, not new organisms. A fetus on the other hand is, biologically, a new organism with a brand new unique genetic code formed by the fusion of haploid gametes, with the capability to develop and, when it is more developed, reproduce. That is new life. A tumor is not new life. Hence a tumor is not considered a human person.

(Infants are, btw, unable to “think” or establish themselves in society either - much like a late-term fetus. Why do you draw the line at birth, then, when late-term fetuses and infants have the same ability - or rather, lack thereof - to engage in the human experience? As I’ve said above, being able to perform its own bodily processes cannot, logically, be a factor in deciding whether someone should have rights or not.)

“how does the fact that the baby is now able to perform its own bodily processes change its status as a human being with/without rights?”
I was mentioning out how a newborn now being able to perform it’s own body function on it’s own is a reason how birth is more than “a location change.” Being bodily independent isn’t an argument regarding who is and what isn’t a person though, sorry for the confusion.

 As I said earlier, you cannot have two people with rights occupying one body. Birth (being born) is an event that auto-qualifies someone as being a person with rights, because then they are no longer residing inside the body of someone else.

“Not every human being (even if they are born) is able to perform its own bodily processes without external aid (eg dialysis machine)”
People on a dialysis machine have been born and are not occupying someone else’s body. They have their own rights.

“Evidently, being able to perform your own bodily processes is not what definitively marks you as a human person with rights.”
Yep. That’s what I said at the beginning of this post.

“why is it that we cannot have 2 people with rights occupying one body?”
The main reason why two people with rights cannot occupy the same body is that the carrier/pregnant person would eventually violate the embryo’s rights in some way shape or form, or vice versa. This would then be affecting what the pregnant person can do in their life. For example, medications that can affect a pregnancy, simply being a in a loud environment, having sex despite a minor being present, etc etc. There would be all kinds of laws and inaccuracies going around that frankly I shouldn’t even have to elaborate on because they’re that painfully obvious.
Another example:
If both the carrier and the embryo had rights, should there be a medical condition that would risk the mother’s health/life, getting an abortion would not be allowed because it would be infringing on the embryo’s rights.

At I’ve stated before: you do not get rights (as a citizen) until birth. If embryos and fetuses were granted rights before birth, this would be a huge issue regarding citizen ships in relation to the pregnant person’s location, especially if they’re raveling, it’s a high-risk pregnancy that could miscarry, or if the pregnant person is planning a location change anywhere in the future. It would very hard to keep track of something like this, and it’s not practical.

“Take a look at conjoined twins…there are conjoined twins who share the same body, but that doesn’t make them any less than 2 different people with rights.”
Conjoined twins aren’t residing inside of each other or inside of someone else. They’re connected, but they’re two people with separate bodies/heads (or whatever else depending on the situation). The physical relationship conjoined twins share is very different compared to the relationship an embryo/pregnant person share.
Also, when there is a case of one twin living at the expense of the other, the option to remove the poor-doing twin (in these kinds of scenarios) is an option for treatment.

I bring up the topic of a parasitic twin (which is different from a conjoined twin). Should the non-parasitic twin not be allowed to get rid of the parasitic twin after birth, even though the parasitic twin can essentially still be an embryo with fixed organs and such?

“A tumor is not considered a human…because they are, biologically, not new organisms”
I cannot make sense of this argument. A tumor is an uncontrolled growth, of which a body cannot control. It’s new in the respects of a genetic mutation that occurred during cell division, a mutation that allows continued growth. In a sense, it is a new organism, because though it is human, it resulted from a genetic hiccup and did not fully copy like it was supposed to.

“Infants are, btw, unable to “think”
I’m sorry, but no.
”Not sentient” does not mean “cannot think”
This isn’t something I should even have to cite a source for.

“Infants are, btw, unable to …  establish themselves in society”
They’re born in hospitals, they get birth certificates, and their parents show them off. They’re established in their environment, meaning their presence as a born, living person is known. They don’t have to do the establishing themselves to be established.

I feel the need to mention that you cannot claim a pregnancy on your taxes. There is a reason for this.

“Why do you draw the line at birth, then, when late-term fetuses and infants have the same ability - or rather, lack thereof - to engage in the human experience?”
1) late term abortions are illegal, mostly for this reason.
2). if you’re in a womb, you’re not participating in “the human experience” just yet.