Should Individual US States Determine Who is a Human Being?

[Wandering Monk]

Engendered by the Roe debate. If an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a pregnancy, should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Statism for human rights is stupid. If you find yourself agreeing with those Republicans that think things like gay marriage, interracial cohabitation, women's rights, should be a state decision then I will think 100% less of them as a person, and probably steer far clear of them in my life.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Statism for human rights is stupid. If you find yourself agreeing with those Republicans that think things like gay marriage, interracial cohabitation, women's rights, should be a state decision then I will think 100% less of them as a person, and probably steer far clear of them in my life.

Who decides who has human rights? Isn't is some government entity at some level?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Engendered by the Roe debate. If an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a pregnancy, should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

Why would the one follow from the other?

There's already quite a bit of variation from state to state about whether "X is a human being" implies "you don't have the right to kill X."

Certainly in any "Castle Doctrine" state, I would think it's a no-brainer that anyone occupying your uterus without your consent should be able to be removed with deadly force, just like if they were in your home without your consent.

 

[viole]

Engendered by the Roe debate. If an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a pregnancy, should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

I think that an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a (human) pregnancy. That is just a biological truism. Since any DNA scan would confirm that.

So, the question is: where is morality applicable? At the DNA level, or to another level? Is humanity important per se, or is another characteristic than humans have, important?

Ciao

- viole

 

[Wandering Monk]

Why would the one follow from the other?

There's already quite a bit of variation from state to state about whether "X is a human being" implies "you don't have the right to kill X."

Certainly in any "Castle Doctrine" state, I would think it's a no-brainer that anyone occupying your uterus without your consent should be able to be removed with deadly force, just like if they were in your home without your consent.

The leaked SCOTUS decision on Roe throws the question back to the states. Do defenders of states rights then defend the states right to permit abortion?

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Who decides who has human rights? Isn't is some government entity at some level?

In my opinion human rights are humanistic principals. Governments don't make human rights, they just choose to adopt or not adopt them. You can talk about human rights as they are applied to local law, but local law does not decide human rights, which is has an ethics, not legal basis.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The leaked SCOTUS decision on Roe throws the question back to the states. Do defenders of states rights then defend the states right to permit abortion?

In my experience, people who say that they care about "states rights" are often hypocrites, so I expect that they won't.

 

[Wandering Monk]

I think that an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a (human) pregnancy. That is just a biological truism. Since any DNA scan would confirm that.

So, the question is: where is morality applicable? At the DNA level, or to another level?

Ciao

- viole

You didn't really answer the question though: should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

 

[Wandering Monk]

but local law does not decide human rights, which is has an ethics, not legal basis.

So there is not necessarily a legal basis for protecting human rights at a local level, just an ethical one? Am I understanding you correctly?

 

[Nakosis]

Engendered by the Roe debate. If an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a pregnancy, should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

Unless the US congress says otherwise.

 

[viole]

You didn't really answer the question though: should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

I hope you indulge me, since I am not sure what you mean with individual states vs. whatever is supposed to be more than the sum of them.

In case of the former, then individual states are like any other nation on earth.

In that case they have the legal right to permit, or forbid, whatever they want. There is no objective morality they need to follow. Ergo, There is no supernatural mandate to discriminate between what they can do, or not.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Nakosis]

So there is not necessarily a legal basis for protecting human rights at a local level, just an ethical one? Am I understanding you correctly?

Yes, imo except that ethics is in the mind of the beholder.

IOW, ethics is not a universal base.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

So there is not necessarily a legal basis for protecting human rights at a local level, just an ethical one? Am I understanding you correctly?

Legal basis for human rights are tenuous. Ethical basis for human rights less so.
But anyone who thinks laws are ethical because they're laws are also people I would avoid like the plague.

My reason for being pro choice has nothing to do with it being legal and everything to do with it being ethical. Which, yes, means I won't observe any law which makes it illegal. Would definitely start a new Code Name Jane group.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Unless the US congress says otherwise.

That would suggest that human rights come from the government. Is that acceptable? Didn't work out too well during the French Revolution.

 

[Valjean]

Who decides who has human rights? Isn't is some government entity at some level?

"Rights" is an abstract, moral concept. They're God-given or an artifact of Nature. A state might allow or forbid them, but they can't alter them.

"Human Being" I'd equate to the biological category of Homo sapiens, which is pretty broad. Not all humans/H sapiens have the same natural rights.
I see 'rights' as more connected to personhood than species.

 

[Nakosis]

That would suggest that human rights come from the government. Is that acceptable? Didn't work out too well during the French Revolution.

Enforcement comes from the government. Where else would it come from?

Without enforcement, there is no right.

A right is only as good as the ability to enforce it.

The revolutionaries decided to create and enforce their own set of rights.
Governments topple, viva la government.

 

[Estro Felino]

Secularly, it is a women's rights issue. To use their own free will to decide whether to become a mother or not.
So the secular Republic cannot deprive a woman from this free will.

Nevertheless it can try to remind women that sex implies responsibility and that abortion is not a birth control pill.
The latter just prevents you from ovulating, so it stops any life from being formed in the uterus.
Abortion is not something which is pleasant for the woman's psyche.

 

[Wandering Monk]

Enforcement comes from the government. Where else would it come from?

Without enforcement, there is no right.

A right is only as good as the ability to enforce it.

The revolutionaries decided to create and enforce their own set of rights.
Governments topple, viva la government.

Tenuous

 

[Father Heathen]

Engendered by the Roe debate. If an unborn child is a human being at any stage in a pregnancy, should individual states have a legal right to permit abortion?

Freedom, rights, equality, and justice should be upheld consistently throughout the entire country.