Well if it's an abortion issue that's another story but still sounds like a miscarriage issue to me. Incidentally I do not support the USA offering abortion services to other countries because I don't feel we should intrude into someone's culture.





Well if it's an abortion issue that's another story but still sounds like a miscarriage issue to me. Incidentally I do not support the USA offering abortion services to other countries because I don't feel we should intrude into someone's culture.





I am told that the REAL issue is exactly as the UK Guardian explained it ...
(snip)Women's rights campaigners see the creeping criminalisation of pregnant women as a new front in the culture wars over abortion, in which conservative prosecutors are chipping away at hard-won freedoms by stretching protection laws to include fetuses(snip)
Several years ago, women's rights advocates supported the passage of new US laws which 'criminalized' the death of a fetus as a result of the violent act of a third party. The highly publicized 'headline' case involved some nut job who killed a pregnant woman being subsequently charged with TWO counts of murder. However, from a legal standpoint, if it is possible to charge someone with murdering an unborn fetus, an unintended consequence is that said fetus is being legally treated as something more than a 'blob of protoplasm'. And if said fetus is legally more than a 'blob of protoplasm', then how can the law distinguish between criminal acts committed by a 3rd party against a fetus, versus acts committed by the pregnant mother against the fetus, versus acts committed by an abortion clinic doctor against the fetus ?
Thus a Pandora's Box was opened regarding the issue of the actual legal status of a fetus under US law ( an issue that has never been officially ruled on ) , and the women's rights advocates need to find a way to slam that Pandora's Box shut before the 'legally protected fetus' issue 'swims upstream' to not only allow the investigation of causes for miscarriages with potential criminal charges being leveled against pregnant mothers who attempt suicide, who grossly abuse drugs etc., but also to the point of bringing the legality of some existing US abortion laws into question. Instead, they simply want the miscarriage investigations and any resulting prosecutions stopped ... thus avoiding an official ruling in the US legal status of a fetus ever having to be made.
Last edited by Melonie; 05-14-2014 at 03:11 PM.





^ i thought it had to do with how far along you are?





^^^ US abortion laws following Roe vs Wade did make use of medical 'trimesters' presented by the medical experts at the time. But this is not the same as legally deciding that the official status of a fetus is a 'blob of protoplasm' versus a 'person'. In contrast Sharia Law, pursuant to Islamic religious doctrine, considers a fetus to be a 'blob of protoplasm' until it receives a 'soul' at the 120 day mark, at which point it legally becomes a person. Under El Salvador Law, a fetus is considered to be a person from the moment of conception.
If a US court case were to be brought, and a US court ruling were to actually be made regarding the legal status of a US fetus, it would no longer be possible to both legally 'protect' a fetus in situations like an assault on a pregnant mother with resulting miscarriage, and also to legally allow abortions of a fetus, at the same stage of development. Beyond that, such a court ruling could bring existing 'protection of fetus' laws and existing abortion laws into question ... since both are inherently dependent of the legal status of a fetus being a 'person' versus a 'blob of protoplasm'.
Last edited by Melonie; 05-14-2014 at 03:39 PM.





It can be a slippery slope but to me there are differences. For example if a woman is pregnant and wants the baby to lose it is horrific. If someone causes them to lose it I can see them being able to sue for that.





^^^ granted that there are a huge number of 'common sense' based differences.
However, from a purely legal standpoint, causing an unborn 'person' to be ejected from the mother's body cannot result in a murder charge against an assailant without also resulting in a murder charge against a ( failed ) suicidal mother or against an abortion clinic doctor. From the same legal standpoint, causing a 'blob of protoplasm' to be removed from the mother's body by the 'harmful' actions of the mother, by the actions of an abortion clinic doctor etc. without legal penalties also prevents a murder charge from being leveled against an assailant who causes a pregnant woman to 'lose' her fetus.
Or put another way, America's laws are presently inconsistent in this regard ... and rely on the fact that no official decision regarding the legal status of a fetus has ever been made. If and when such an official decision is made, it will force American laws to become consistent. And that is precisely what women's rights groups, US mainstream media, etc. are attempting to prevent. In regard to your question, if an official 'blob of protoplasm' status was found to be the case ... which would be a necessity for miscarriages to not be investigated and for abortion on demand to remain available ... then an assailant causing a woman to 'lose' an unborn fetus would have to be legally treated in the same way as an assailant causing the woman to 'lose' a fingernail.
Also, in terms of 'slippery slope', besides criminal issues there are also 'civil' issues that would be affected if such an official decision were made. For example, right now ObamaCare and state laws authorize gov't contractors to perform 'home inspections' on pregnant women. Federal and state social programs exist to provide extra food, medical and other benefits to pregnant women. Both of these are predicated on the gov't having a responsibility to protect the 'health and welfare' of fetuses. If an official determination in favor of a 'blob of protoplasm' were to be made, it could remove the legal justification for both of these programs existing. On the flip side, if an official determination were to be made in favor of 'unborn person' to justify the continuation of social programs for pregnant women, this could also 'criminalize' abortion on demand.
Thus it's pretty obvious why women's rights groups and US mainstream media are trying to avoid an official determination of the legal status of a fetus from ever being made. And their 'fear' is that any direct opposition to US jurisdictions investigating miscarriages etc. could lead to a legal appeal by those US jurisdictions that could force an official court determination of the legal status of a fetus. Instead, they are arguably trying to 'shame' US jurisdictions who are now investigating the reasons behind miscarriages ( and potentially leveling charges against mothers who 'contributed' to the miscarriage ) to voluntarily stop their efforts ... by attempting to publically equate the US activities to the somewhat similar activities in the Central American countries.
Last edited by Melonie; 05-15-2014 at 07:09 AM.



^fully agreed
This is also why I'm against any "fetus protection" efforts. My "official" view is that it's a blob until it comes out and breathes on its own, as stated above.
This being said, my real view, uncoloured by the desire to avoid encroachment into women's rights, could possibly be that the fetus is a person, but that the mother's right to dispose of her body as she pleases is a superior right, in all circumstances, bar none. I suppose that this could allow for "fetus protection" laws, though I wouldn't like them anyway, because they would create messy situations where the mother's consent or lack thereof would make the difference between murder or non-murder, and I don't believe in the concept of consent to murder. Thus, on this basis, and perhaps accepting that a fetus is a person, I still don't think that it should be a legally-protected one, save as an appendage of the mother (as stated above, I would see a beating on the mother leading to a miscarriage as an aggravating factor in sentencing, is all).
I suppose that there could also be oddball cases of a brain-dead expectant mother, where I might consider the fetus' rights. I don't think that such cases are common enough to merit serious consideration at a legislative level. If I were a judge in such a case, AND ABSENT THE MOTHER'S KNOWN REQUEST OTHERWISE, I'd probably issue a "no unplug" injunction while I consider the case, then decide that it is pointless to rule on it post-birth, and just avoid the issue entirely. They just don't happen enough to be dealt with in any other way.





i feel like it should be a matter of how far along you are. since you will be very hard pressed to find a doctor who will give you an abortion after the second or third trimester ( unless its a serious health issue), the baby should then be viewed as a person and it should be a murder charge for kicking a pregnant woman.




These last few comments are exactly my train of thought.
Pretty much everyone I know is 'anti abortion'. No one wants one, it is always an unfortunate event. At the end of the day, these exact events, these 'fertility police' are the reason why we cannot allow the right to abortion be overly restricted.
As Melonie points out, these contradictory laws are a huge problem. IMHO it stems from this current political climate of extreme selfishness and immaturity. While I usually level these criticisms at the right wing, the left has its share of 'it feels good to me' laws. Fetal protection laws are frequently bipartisan, but the right knows exactly what it wants of them.
At the end of the day, people have to accept that there things in the world that they cannot control, that they cannot effectively punish even if they can identify a wrongdoer and leave it at that. It is immature politics to try to make every possible sin illegal.
The so called religious people trying to make abortion illegal, trying to make your job illegal, are trying to legislate morality.
Look, when you make something illegal, it ceases to be about morality. You do things that are moral out of personal conviction that it is right, not because the force of law compels you. The famous Dan Quayle quote regarding his daughter and hoping she would make the right 'decision' Yes, it is a decision, sometimes you just have to let people make decisions, even when you do not agree with the outcome.
Last edited by oldster; 05-21-2014 at 09:01 AM.





^ i'm totally lost on what exactly you mean?





From a legal standpoint, this is exactly how Sharia Law operates in this regard. Up to the 120 day mark, a fetus is considered to be a 'blob of protoplasm', that can be freely 'dealt with' as the mother or anyone else chooses. Beyond 120 days, a fetus is considered to be a 'person' ... and thus entitled to full legal protections ( including prohibition of abortions, attempts by the mother to 'rid herself' of the fetus, etc. ). The possible complications for western countries are that, to be consistent with this legal definition, all social programs aiding pregnant mothers could not start until 120 days into the pregnancy, all 'abortion' efforts would have to cease after 120 days ( save those which would protect the life of the pregnant mother ), murder charges could be leveled against an attacker or an abortion doctor or a pregnant mother who contributes to the fetus 'dying' after 120 days, etc.i feel like it should be a matter of how far along you are. since you will be very hard pressed to find a doctor who will give you an abortion after the second or third trimester ( unless its a serious health issue), the baby should then be viewed as a person and it should be a murder charge for kicking a pregnant woman.
Again, where the US and other western countries are concerned, women's rights groups want to have it ( and currently DO have it ) 'both ways'. They want social benefits to begin at day one, but abortion 'rights' to continue until the baby cries. They want murder charges leveled against an attacker who causes the 'death' of a fetus, while similar charges are not to be leveled against the pregnant mother or abortion doctors who cause the 'death' of a fetus. As stated earlier, this is extremely inconsistent from a legal standpoint, since legally speaking a fetus cannot be a 'blob of protoplasm' for one purpose ( i.e. abortion at will ) but a legally protected 'person' for a different purpose ( social benefits, murder charges against an attacker ), at the same time. Were an official US legal ruling to ever be made regarding the legal status of a fetus, all of these activities would be forced to change to establish consistency a la Sharia Law.
This is the arguable reason that women's rights groups do NOT want the legal question regarding US status of the fetus officially asked or answered by US courts. And this is the arguable reason that they, with the help of mainstream media, are mounting an extra-legal 'shaming' campaign based on attempting to equate miscarriage investigation and enforcement activities in Central American countries with miscarriage investigation and enforcement activities in the US ... rather than challenging the 'legality' of the US investigation and enforcement efforts.
Last edited by Melonie; 05-21-2014 at 07:14 AM.









ok re read it, think i kind of understand what you meant.
yeah melonie, good point..i would hope that a lot of abortions aren't performed on babies who are about to be born though, ( unless its because of the life/health of the mother) i thought that was pretty much just not done anymore?





well, obviously ...
also
and describes the mechanism by which the particular abortion doctor 'skirted' various state laws to perform late term abortions with little risk of discovery.
Again, in terms of my personal view, to each his own. However, from a factual standpoint, late term abortions are happening in the USA. Granted that mainstream media coverage of such incidents is very low key even when charges have been brought against the abortion doctor, such that most Americans remain unaware. The Gosnell case has far and away received more publicity than any other case ... and even then it was mostly covered by just one particular news network.
Arguably, the publicity surrounding the Gosnell case also served as the catalyst for recent heightened state and local efforts to investigate miscarriages. And, arguably, the topic of this thread is an 'indirect' effort by US women's rights groups to stop those heightened state and local efforts.
Last edited by Melonie; 05-21-2014 at 12:54 PM.
Melonie, I think you make a really incisive point about the US having an inconsistent attitude towards "anti-woman" countries. For example, compare El Salvador, a poor third world country in the global south to Saudi Arabia, which is overflowing with oil money. Saudi Arabia has, in effect, the worst gender apartheid in the world. However, since they have such a high standard of living and are willing to be one of our few allies in the Middle East, we totally overlook their misogyny. It's preposterous and very classist.
And yeah simone, abortions cannot legally be performed in the US after the fetus is viable, unless it has an catastrophic, severely debilitating disease or poses a risk to the mother's health. So fortunately there's no such thing as abortions on healthy, vibrant fetus-babies a month or two from delivery.
Also, I would argue that the US does have a consistent legal framework on fetuses as decided by Roe. Roe gives individual women the right to decide whether or not the embryo or fetus growing in her body should be considered a person. This is why "viability" is the turning point for abortion access. When the fetus can survive without the mother's body, she doesn't have the right to terminate what has become a human life.
This doesn't mean that some people won't disagree and try to push back the point of viability. For example, "fetal heartbeat" laws attempt to give an embryo viability as early as 7 weeks, when obviously an embryo is not capable of surviving outside the womb that early. See also attempted legislation and rhetoric that completely disregard the biological concept of viability and give all embryos metaphysical viability as "potential people."
The legal responsibility of the mother to be the sole arbiter of fetal personhood is why you have varying reactions to the loss of pregnancy. A woman who has decided her embryo or later, fetus, is a person is understandably going to be upset and want legal recourse if someone causes her to miscarry, which she will logically experience as the death of her child. It follows that her view on the fetus would not change regardless of its viability, since she has considered it her child all along. However, if another woman has decided the embryo or fetus prior to viability is "unwanted" then she will need access to medical care to terminate the pregnancy, which is also her legal right.
I see no inconsistencies in abortion access coexisting with laws enabling mothers to prosecute others for harming their unborn child. I also think it is logical to potentially prosecute mothers of unborn, viable children who behaved in such an irresponsible manner as to cause them harm. However, and this is a huge however! -- While I think it's logical I don't think it's a good idea to prosecute -- for example, neither the fetus nor the expecting mother/meth addict are helped by sending her to jail after her drug use harms a viable fetus. Furthermore, I would say that discerning the cause of a lost pregnancy can be so obscure as to be unreasonably difficult to prosecute, although many deaths are confusing in this matter. There is not always a clear cause behind every death.
What the legal framework boils down to is giving the rights and responsibilities to the mother and her bodily integrity. The status of the fetus itself only comes into play after viability, when the mother's body is no longer strictly necessary.
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