[quote]pat wrote:
[quote]BrianHanson wrote:
Pat,
I am not sure where your dog comes into this argument.
I don’t think the zygote is a lizard, I think it is a zygote made up of DNA and an egg and sperm.
I know this is difficult to accept, but the fact is that the lack of personhood has already been determined for zygotes. The law supports the belief that a zygote is not a human being, just human tissue, mother nature supports this as well, by eliminating at least 1 in 5 zygotes and early term pregnancies.
You say it is a person I say it is not, the law agrees with me, you may want to question the strength of your evidence. And just so you know, my wife and I are not in favor of abortion, but a bad argument (the one you guys have chosen) will never get the laws changed.
[/quote]
It’s not difficult to except. Your just flat fucking wrong, period. You are in ego preservation mode. You have no legs here, scientifically, morally, or otherwise.
The law agrees with you, really? Go punch a pregnant woman in the stomach hard enough to cause her to lose her child at any gestation period and see what you get charged with…It won’t be assault, it will be murder. Quite a few people are in jail for the murder of the unborn, see Scott Peterson who was convicted of double murder for his wife, and his unborn child.
There is no such thing as a human precursor, period. It simply doesn’t exist. Go ahead, show me your peer reviewed unbiased evidence that anything such as a human precursor exists…I know I am going to grow old waiting for it.
The animal references were merely to illustrate what you said makes a human, in fact makes no such thing at all. Lot’s of non human things have organs, sentience, sensation and thought. So to say that things that many living things have, make a human is flat incorrect.
It’s fun to watch your definitions of what humaness is fall completely apart like dried dog shit in a wind storm… Go on and let’s see your proof…
I rely on kneedragger for mine, I have nothing to add to his evidences…
See he is making claims and backing them up…You are making claims that have no backup what-so-ever. That’s a problem for your side.[/quote]
Pat,
If I punch a pregnant woman in 38 states ( and the fetus dies) I may be charged with murder depending on the stage of pregnancy, if I punch a pregnant woman (any degree of pregnancy) in 23 states and the zygote/fetus dies I may be charged with murder. That is a far cry from the blanket statement you proposed, and it is still a judgement call on the part of prosecutors, here are some of the gems brought about by fetal murder laws in just one state South Carolina:
To the best of our knowledge since 1984 only one man has been prosecuted and convicted of murder based on the recognition of fetal personhood. In contrast between 50 and 100 women in South Carolina have been arrested based on claims of fetal person hood. Women who gave birth to healthy babies, but nevertheless were deemed to have put those pregnancies at risk have been sentenced to jail terms for as long as 10 years. 4
A pregnant woman in South Carolina has been arrested because she was pregnant and used alcohol. 5
When a thirteen-year-old girl experienced a stillbirth her parents were arrested: One charge was for unlawful conduct to a childâ??because they had allegedly “failed to get proper care for the fetus.” 6
A woman who suffered a miscarriage was arrested and charged with homicide by child abuse. The prosecutor who admitted there was no evidence of drug use nevertheless insisted that the miscarriage was a “crime” that the woman had to take responsibility for. 7
Since South Carolina has declared that unborn children may be “protected” through the stateâ??s criminal laws, infant mortality in the state has increased for the first time in a decade." 8
The state has also seen a twenty percent increase in abandoned babies suggesting that women fearful of criminal punishment are leaving their babies rather than risk arrest. 9
citations at the end:
Is a zygote a human precursor:
“When the zygote divides, it gives rise to a pair of new cells. Does
the zygote survive its division? If it does, it is either one or
the other of the pair of cells to which it gives rise. (It cannot
be both, for one thing cannot become two things.) But since the two
cells to which it gives rise are exactly similar, we can have no
more reason to say that the zygote becomes this one than that it
becomes that one. Thus neither of the pair of child cells is the
proper successor to the parent zygote cell, i.e. neither is
identical to the parent. Conclusion: when the zygote divides, it
ceases to exist.”
That is a pretty nifty argument.
Humanness or personhood or human being is essentially the same, it is not merely life, but it includes a spark of humanity, evident in children, evident in late term fetuses, evident in the old, the insane, the disabled etc. It does not exist in a zygote, or a blastocyte, if you removed a persons brain and kept them “alive” (respiration, heartbeat) on a machine would you argue for the sanctity of their life? If so, why? If not, how are they different from a zygote, they are certainly bigger, and hairier, they have limbs and features, but they are missing something aren’t they?
I am not in ego preservation mode (I have been married for 17 years and have 2 kids, I have no ego left, just memories of one) and I am not changing my definition. Maybe you should change yours.
State v. Horne, 319 S.E.2d 703, 704 (S.C. 1984) (holding that pursuant to the court’s authority to expand crimes that existed at common law, it was creating prospectively a new crime of feticide in a case where a man brutally assaulted his pregnant girlfriend causing the death of the fetus. Because of the prospective application, the defendant was not subject to the new legal interpretation).
Whitner v. State 492 S.E.2d 777 (S.C. 1997), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 1857 (1998).
Audiotape of Oral Argument, State v. Ard, 505 S.E.2d 328 (S.C. 1998) (May 27, 1998)
Tolliver v. State, No. 90-CP-23-5178, Order (S.C. Ct. C.P. Greenville County Aug. 10, 1992) (addressing conviction of a woman whose healthy infant tested positive for exposure to cocaine and who after pleading guilty on charges of child abuse was sentenced to 10 years in jail.)
Melissa Manware, Infant Born Drunk: Intoxicated Mom is Facing Charges, The State (Columbia, S.C.), Sept. 24, 1998, at A1 (reporting that the woman was charged with unlawful conduct toward a child after going into labor while using alcohol).
Associated Press, Three people face charges in stillbirth, The Post and Courier, (Charleston, S.C.) (July 22, 1999) at 6-B.
Kathy Ropp, Mothers Charged with ‘Homicide by Child Abuse’ The Hory Independent Newspaper, (Conway, S. C.) Aug. 19, 1999
Infant Mortality on Rise in '97, Post & Courier (Charleston, S.C.), Feb. 19, 1999, at B1.
Associated Press, Discarded Children Increasing, Post & Courier (Charleston, S.C.) April 19, 1999.