Democratic National Convention

Amarante

Tue, Aug 09 2016, 11:19 pm

amother wrote:

Perhaps we share more common ground than we first realized (which is what I'd hoped to demonstrate Smile

As far as what concerns me personally, it is the attempt by the federal government to over-rule or legislate out of relevance, the states' laws. This was the real problem with Roe v. Wade imo.

That is the exact reason the Bill of Rights exists. The federal government protects important civil liberties to a certain standard.

Roe was decided based partly on the important right to privacy as embodied in the Bill of Rights.

it has been black letter constitutional law do for over a century that the Bill of Rights is fully applicable to state action. You can't have a system where important constitutional rights are determined by where one is lucky I'd unlucky enough to live although truth be told the right wing has done everything possible to limit constitutional rights where they can.

There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding of his our Federal system works in relation to constitutional rights. Up thread it was criticized as unde,oceanic and here someone is claiming the discredited states Trigg theory.

If the rights protected by the Bill of Rights were favored by the majority or the powerful, there wouldn't be a real need. They exist to protect unpopular onions or minority's rights. Jews should be very careful about anything that lessens rights of minirities.

Not that I am saying pro choice is unpopular as it is favored by a majority. However, there is a vociferous minority that has made it such a political red herring as these people tend to be one issue bloc voters.

Most people who are pro choice have other issues that are more or equally important to them until they feel that choice is unreal danger or a particularly asinine statement is made like claiming that there is no pregnancy possible for legitimate rape.

amother

Lilac

Tue, Aug 09 2016, 11:30 pm

marina wrote:

wow this thread went all over the place Smile

Sushilover & Lilac:

Quote:

Would you want to permit late-term abortions in the scenarios you described, even if it means that there will definitely also be moms who abort their healthy, late-term babies for conditions such as Down's Syndrome--or even no condition at all?

I fully accept that by allowing abortion for the women whose dire circumstances necessitate it, we also allow it for those who may - unfortunately and immorally - abort casually. I am fundamentally okay with this, because this conclusion reflects society's overall principle of allowing many bad people to do bad things for the sake of protecting that one good person.

For example: Both in American law and certainly in halacha, we care much much more about the rights of the innocent man who stands wrongfully accused than about the actual danger to society from the wicked criminal let free. We have so so many laws and halachos that specifically protect the alleged criminal at the expense of our overall safety.

In American law, for example, you cannot use evidence against a criminal if you unlawfully searched and found that evidence. In other words, you *must* let a serial killer free if the only evidence against him was unlawfully procured- even if the evidence proves 100% that he killed and will kill again.

Likewise in halacha, you cannot sentence a man to death unless there are literally two witnesses warning him at the time of the crime, and in that famous example, a guy chases another one into a cave and leaves with a bloody knife and a dead body, and there is no murder because there were no witnesses and no warning.

In both of those situations, we are literally allowing killers- people we well know to be incredible dangers to society - out on the street, for one reason only: to protect that very rare and unique creature- the innocent man standing unjustly accused. The vast vast vast majority of accused people are guilty, but our entire criminal justice system is tailored to shelter that one innocent man's rights- at the expense of our overall societal safety even.

Same here- yes, allowing abortion allows for the possibility that people will behave immorally and harm those who should not be harmed. But the rights of that one rape victim who should not be forced to carry and raise a severely disabled child - for me that outweighs the danger to society from the casual abortionists.

Thanks for taking the time to answer my question.

amother

Aubergine

Tue, Aug 09 2016, 11:41 pm

sushilover wrote:

Good question. I can actually write an article length post about that, but I'll try to keep it to the main points.
1)There is a significant minority of pro-lifers who believe 'punish the rapist, not the child' and their argument is sound. The act was vile but the child is innocent and should not die if there is no danger to the mother.
Others argue that the act of carrying the child would be so traumatic to some mothers that it should fall into the realm of causing harm to the mother and be an exception.
2) Rape cases can be compared to the violinist analogy Marina quoted . The mother was essentially "kidnapped" and forced to bear the child, so she cannot be compelled to continue to carry it. It doesn't mean that the child's life is worth less than the mother's. Just as the violinist's life is not worth less than yours.
3) Previously in this thread I've been accused of trying to force my moral principles on others. I have no such intentions.Morals are determined by religious values (generally unchanging) and by a majority of our culture (can change slowly).Leaving religion out of it, I simply believe that the majority of our culture values the life of the unborn. I believe that if fear were taken out of the equation(Women will die without our abortion rights!), most Americans would agree that a fetus is a person and deserves life except under extreme circumstances.

When it comes to the morals of abortion for rape, I think that most of the people in our culture would feel it is our moral duty to make an exception for rape victims. (For the reasons I gave above and for many other reasons. )
I have like four more that I can think of right now which I'd be happy to list if anyone is interested. Somehow I have a feeling there are like 2 people reading this thread besides for us. LOL

If a fetus is equal to born being then there is no justification to terminate a pregnancy when the fetus's father is the rapist. The only justification is that a fetus does not have the same rights as one who is born.

If we go by this argument

"Others argue that the act of carrying the child would be so traumatic to some mothers that it should fall into the realm of causing harm to the mother and be an exception."

Then there are many reasons why a pregnancy can be traumatic to a woman and cause her harm and she should be able to terminate. Who gets to decide what is traumatic and can harm the pregnant woman, the gov't or the woman?

As long as your argument that a fetus is equal to one that is born then the traumatic argument regarding rape can't stand. Can you kill a person because someone else is traumatized by their existence? No, that is immoral. The only right there is to kill another human being is self defense, being traumatized does not fit into that category.

If one feels that it is justifiable for a woman to have an abortion because of rape or incest then I have to conclude that person really does not believe that a fetus has the same rights as one who is born. We would never justify killing a person because their father is a rapist.

Another of your points which contradict that you feel a fetus is equal to a born person.

Quoting you:

"most Americans would agree that a fetus is a person and deserves life except under extreme circumstances."

You are saying there are circumstances that a fetus doesn't deserve life. Do we say that about born people, no. You are again saying essentially a fetus is not equal to a born person.

amother

Lilac

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 1:11 am

Amarante wrote:

It was somewhat difficult to make sense of the various autocorrects in your post, but I'll try to respond.

I think your post actually hit upon one of the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives, and that is this: To what extent should the government have the power to control us? The issue of Big Govt vs Small Govt.

Yes, the Bill of Rights grants people specific individual liberties. States must honor these, and the federal government can find state laws unconstitutional if it feels the state laws fail to properly uphold these rights.

So, where exactly in the Bill of Rights does a woman have a protected right to an abortion?

The Bill of Rights grants people the right to privacy from unwanted searches and seizures, as well as from having soldiers camp out in your home.

The Supreme Court chose to broadly interpret this right as an over-arching right to privacy, and in that newly-interpreted right to privacy, women would be entitled to have abortions if they choose. And then, if states don't allow abortions, the states are violating this right to privacy that the Supreme Court just created out of its new interpretation of the Bill of Rights.

When the Supreme Court wishes to find that a "right" exists, it can also find it in the catch-all Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment.

As well, the legislative branch has the power to create and enforce legislation on any interpretations of the law set out by the Supreme Court.

So you can see how, the Supreme Court creating rights for individuals, actually results in a greater number of laws that serve to restrict and over-regulate our ability to self-govern at the state level.

This is what is meant by "judicial activism"--the Supreme Court creating individual rights not actually set forth in the constitution or the Bill of Rights. Justice Scalia was, and J. Thomas is, two of the Court's biggest opponents of this type of judicial reasoning.

Amarante wrote:

Jews should be very careful about anything that lessens rights of minirities.

Jews may get concerned when the inherent value of life itself seems to be disregarded. This type of reasoning doesn't tend to bode well for us.

Amarante wrote:

Not that I am saying pro choice is unpopular as it is favored by a majority. However, there is a vociferous minority that has made it such a political red herring as these people tend to be one issue bloc voters.

As stated upthread. The majority wants abortion with restrictions. The majority does not want healthy viable babies of healthy moms to be aborted willy-nilly.

Amarante wrote:

or a particularly asinine statement is made like claiming that there is no pregnancy possible for legitimate rape.

This is a straw man. The vast majority of pro-lifers think the comment was moronic.

sushilover

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 10:07 am

amother wrote:

One can claim self defense when killing someone for other reasons than your life being in danger. There is the Battered Woman defense where one can use the fact they were mentally abused to the point of trauma as a defense for murder.
Granted, the Battered Woman defense is a bit weak on its own. That's why I have several justifications for the rape exception, and put together you have a valid case to justify the murder.

amother wrote:

If one feels that it is justifiable for a woman to have an abortion because of rape or incest then I have to conclude that person really does not believe that a fetus has the same rights as one who is born. We would never justify killing a person because their father is a rapist.

That's true. The baby conceived through rape is no less of a person than any other child. But when the baby was forced onto the mother (see the violinist analogy), and is causing her severe mental trauma, it is within her rights to kill the child.

amother wrote:

Then there are many reasons why a pregnancy can be traumatic to a woman and cause her harm and she should be able to terminate. Who gets to decide what is traumatic and can harm the pregnant woman, the gov't or the woman?

One might argue that there are many reasons why a mother would be traumatized when carrying a child (child with disabilities, the pregnancy affecting her livelihood, etc.). I would counter that, besides for the fact that baby was not forced onto the mother (in the violinist analogy, she 'plugged' herself in by having consensual ssex), the trauma would have to be extreme and "universally" accepted as such (I.e. by a moral majority).
There are several reasons why someone could legally commit murder. We don't say, "Leave the government out of it-This is between me and my conscience!"

amother wrote:

Another of your points which contradict that you feel a fetus is equal to a born person.

Quoting you:

"most Americans would agree that a fetus is a person and deserves life except under extreme circumstances."

You are saying there are circumstances that a fetus doesn't deserve life. Do we say that about born people, no. You are again saying essentially a fetus is not equal to a born person.

Incorrect. I would say that about a born person because there are some circumstances when you may kill another person. A "rodef" does not necessarily mean some evil person who is trying to stab you. A drowning man who is dragging you down is allowed to be killed. He is equal to you. Your life is not worth more than his. He deserves life except under extreme circumstances.

Right now our courts say that a woman's right to privacy trumps the baby's right to life. If you feel that an unborn child is less human than it will be in a few months-there's not much I can tell you. But again, most Americans do not believe that. We need moral laws that protect both the mother and child.

amother

Aubergine

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 11:29 am

sushilover wrote:

I believe a fetus is a human being but I also believe if abortion was banned women's health would be severely harmed. I am making a choice between the lesser of two evils

Of course there are circumstances when sadly a person can be killed but you are not using the same standard to decide this for a fetus vs a born person. This is why I conclude that you don't really believe that they are equal.

I get you, I used to think like you but then I looked into the facts. I abhor abortion but because we can't predict every circumstance we can't legislate. However if there were better education, better contraception and more support for mothers abortions can be reduced to only necessary ones. The pro life movement doesn't want that. They want to prosecute mothers.

Do you hear pro life candidates talking about better child care, laws that will help mothers on the job or in school so they can take care of their children properly. Is Marc Rubio in the Senate right now working on a plan to eradicate Zika?

Bottom line there is so much that can be done to prevent abortions without changing the abortion law. If the money and effort were put there we would see tremendous progress. Instead we spend money on legislation trying to get around Roe V Wade and the court cases that follow. Those millions could be spent on actually saving real lives. In my opinion it is all about politics and power and not about babies being born alive.

sushilover

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 12:26 pm

amother wrote:

I believe a fetus is a human being but I also believe if abortion was banned women's health would be severely harmed. I am making a choice between the lesser of two evils

Like I said, most people are pro-choice because of fear. I think that instead of saying it's too scary..what if.. we should face the issues head on as a country and come to a conclusion based on the moral beliefs that the majority hold. The majority of this country believe it is moral to kill the baby when the mother's health is compromised. In fact the majority believe that it is also moral to kill a nonviable fetus! If the 'pro-life" faction disagrees, tough! Our values are based on a majority.
(For example, I don't believe it is moral to kill a deformed fetus. But if I am clearly overruled then obviously the law would have to go against my personal moral beliefs.)

amother wrote:

Of course there are circumstances when sadly a person can be killed but you are not using the same standard to decide this for a fetus vs a born person. This is why I conclude that you don't really believe that they are equal.

In what way am I not using the same standards? There are not a lot of things to compare pregnancy to, but I think I explained my position well enough through the violinist analogy.

amother wrote:

I get you, I used to think like you but then I looked into the facts. I abhor abortion but because we can't predict every circumstance we can't legislate. However if there were better education, better contraception and more support for mothers abortions can be reduced to only necessary ones. The pro life movement doesn't want that. They want to prosecute mothers.

I don't think that's true. When you look at Ireland women are rarely prosecuted, (instead often demand to be prosecuted in order to publicize their cause) and when they are, they are given light sentences with their circumstances taken into account (most publicized story I could find was a women given a suspended sentence. She'll never actually go to prison.)
It's safe to assume that in America , if we could actually have this discussion, our laws would probably be a lot more lenient.

amother wrote:

Do you hear pro life candidates talking about better child care, laws that will help mothers on the job or in school so they can take care of their children properly. Is Marc Rubio in the Senate right now working on a plan to eradicate Zika?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06.....?_r=0
YES! The only reason Rubio's remark about abortion for zika virus came up was because he was discussing the Republican bill to fight the virus which was blocked by Democrats!

amother wrote:

Bottom line there is so much that can be done to prevent abortions without changing the abortion law. If the money and effort were put there we would see tremendous progress. Instead we spend money on legislation trying to get around Roe V Wade and the court cases that follow. Those millions could be spent on actually saving real lives. In my opinion it is all about politics and power and not about babies being born alive.

1) So you believe that an unborn baby is not a "real life"?
2) All this is changing the topic. The fact is that most of us believe that unborn babies have a right to live. If you are scared that backing pro-lifers would harm women, I ask you to look at their positions. Back someone who agrees with you. You will find that there are many who do.

sushilover

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 12:33 pm

Let me try one more analogy:
Suppose the Supreme Court decided that battered spouses should be legally able to kill their abusive spouses.
Most people would say "Wait. Let's have some limitations on this! Let's make rules about how and when it could happen. Is verbal abuse enough of a justification? What about a just plain annoying spouse who makes you miserable without realizing it?"

But the pro-choice faction would yell back "There are people in danger every day because of their spouses! Any legislation is just an excuse to harm the poor women being terribly abused!"

People might be scared that if they back the pro-life segment of our country, it might lead to the deaths of battered women who would now have no way to defend themselves in any situation.
Others would say that we should be focusing our efforts in education people and giving shalom bayis classes and then women won't need to kill their abusive husbands .
Still others would say, I don't believe that the pro-lifers really care about the lives of the innocent men who might be killed . It's all about power and politics and not about life.
At the end of the day, none of that should stop moral people from saying that killing abusive spouses should be done only under extreme circumstances. We can deal with the other concerns as well. But we can't make it legal to randomly kill spouses in the country. We need moral laws and restrictions.

marina

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 1:20 pm

Quote:

I think your post actually hit upon one of the fundamental differences between liberals and conservatives, and that is this: To what extent should the government have the power to control us? The issue of Big Govt vs Small Govt.

Yes, the Bill of Rights grants people specific individual liberties. States must honor these, and the federal government can find state laws unconstitutional if it feels the state laws fail to properly uphold these rights.

So, where exactly in the Bill of Rights does a woman have a protected right to an abortion?

The Bill of Rights grants people the right to privacy from unwanted searches and seizures, as well as from having soldiers camp out in your home.

The Supreme Court chose to broadly interpret this right as an over-arching right to privacy, and in that newly-interpreted right to privacy, women would be entitled to have abortions if they choose. And then, if states don't allow abortions, the states are violating this right to I privacy that the Supreme Court just created out of its new interpretation of the Bill of Rights.

When the Supreme Court wishes to find that a "right" exists, it can also find it in the catch-all Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment.

As well, the legislative branch has the power to create and enforce legislation on any interpretations of the law set out by the Supreme Court.

So you can see how, the Supreme Court creating rights for individuals, actually results in a greater number of laws that serve to restrict and over-regulate our ability to self-govern at the state level.

This is what is meant by "judicial activism"--the Supreme Court creating individual rights not actually set forth in the constitution or the Bill of Rights. Justice Scalia was, and J. Thomas is, two of the Court's biggest opponents of this type of judicial reasoning.

1. Roe v Wade was decided based on the 14th Amendment general concept that the government should not interfere with personal liberty and the 9th Amendment, not the 4th Amendment.

This analysis is also one of the reasons birth control was allowed for married women (and eventually all women) in Griswold v Connecticut. Do you think that state legislation criminalizing birth control - even for married people - would interfere with our personal liberty? What, in your view, are personal liberties that neither state nor federal government should interfere with, if any? Do you think people should be able to marry others of different races or can the government interfere and criminalize that as well? What are the contours of the right to privacy as part of our personal liberty that our Constitution should protect, if any?

2. When the Supreme Court bars a law as unconstitutional, it prevents states and the federal government from creating laws interfering with people's lives. It limits the role of government in our lives. This is actually the very opposite of your argument. For example, with abortion and birth control, state and the federal government do not have to create laws allowing abortion or birth control as a result of the Supreme Court's decisions- they instead refrain from creating laws criminalizing those choices.

That, in fact, is the entire point of the Bill of Rights. It is a limitation on government- it is not, as commonly assumed, a recitation of rights that the citizens have. It explains what the government cannot do to you and in what circumstances. So in Griswold v Connecticut, the Court explained that the Constitution bars the government from interfering in women's birth control decisions. And in Roe v Wade, the Court explained that the government is barred from interfering with women's abortions- BUT ONLY UNTIL THE POINT OF VIABILITY. After that point, the Court said, the state governments can interfere (assuming an exception is made for health), and in fact- most states do interfere. They also try to interfere earlier with more and more laws for the first and second trimesters, but this is exactly what the Supreme Court did not want. More laws from the states interfering with very early pregnancies.

Again, this is the very opposite of your position.

3. Judicial activism is tightly intertwined with the concept of originalism, which is basically that the Constitution is like the Torah- cannot be changed and we need to analyze all questions as if we were the original framers. Many people do not agree with that perspective. In fact, that perspective makes things very complicated, because there are many things we care about as a society that the framers would never have cared about, including, for example, drug use. The framers would not have cared if someone grew pot or smoked cocaine, but we still legislate against it.

4. Another complicating factor is that the Constitution really does not want a lot of legislation and every single federal law can only be passed under specific powers that the Constitution grants the legislature. And if a law doesn't fit the specific power, the Court will strike it down as unconstitutional. A recent example was Obamacare- the discussion was really about whether the legislature could pass this as part of the Taxing Power or if it didn't fit.

Justice Thomas, in the Court's partial birth abortion decision, was very clear that this ban was pushed through by the federal legislature under the wrong Power and if anyone had presented this argument to the Court he would have voted with the other side. It was a 5-4 decision, so just saying.

Last edited by marina on Wed, Aug 10 2016, 1:46 pm; edited 2 times in total

sushilover

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 1:20 pm

And to those of you saying that it is not a black and white issue- I agree.
But you'll find more diversity of opinion on the right than on the left on this issue.

Many politicians on the left believe in no restrictions to abortion ever.They believe that the government must fund abortions and any bill about reproductive health which does not also fund planned parenthood must be blocked (see the article above about the Zika bill).
Debbie Wasserman Schultz when asked about aborting a viable baby: "I support letting women and their doctors make this decision without government getting involved. Period. End of story."(most of us would agree that this is insanely extreme!)
Sanders said the same.
Others (like Clinton) believe that there can be limitations only in the third trimester.
That's the extent of diversity of opinion you'll find there. (We used to have some democrats who least were apposed to public funding of abortion. But they have mostly changed their minds since Obama signed the Hyde Amendment executive order.)

When you look at the right, you'll find all different schools of thought -
From the insanely extreme Todd Akins (legitimate rape comment), to Chris Christie who would ban abortion after 20 weeks WITH exceptions, all the way to Mitt Romney who supported a woman's right to choose, and did not support a federal ban on abortion- wanting to leave it to the states to decide because it is such a divisive subject. There are even several Republican politicians who are firmly pro-abortion but simply appose public funding of abortion.

Saying that Democrats would treat the unborn as nothing more than a mass of tissue, would be far more accurate than saying Republicans would ban abortion in all circumstances.

marina

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 1:40 pm

Quote:

The majority of this country believe it is moral to kill the baby when the mother's health is compromised. In fact the majority believe that it is also moral to kill a nonviable fetus! If the 'pro-life" faction disagrees, tough! Our values are based on a majority.

This is a thorny discussion- not at all clear.

I strongly believe that our legislation should not be based on a majority vote. This example has already been raised here- bris milah. A city's residents (or even a country's citizens) decide that bris milah is yucky, so they ban it? No- the Constitution should protect us from that ( Tyranny of the Majority).

That's why I don't think a poll of what Americans think about abortion is relevant.

At the same time, from a general global psychological perspective, morality is always shaped by developing social norms. A consistent majority will ultimately create a new social norm for morality, which will inevitably influence legislation and Constitutional decisions.

However, this usually goes only one way --> more tolerance. So our American norms used to be Black People = Yucky. Gay People = Yucky. Interracial Marriage = Super Yucky. Gay Marriage = Super Yucky Grossy Gross. Women = stay in kitchen, make me food.

Now,the majority has changed norms and so all of us - including many religious groups - have changed or are changing perspectives on all of the above. This change has been towards more tolerance than less tolerance.

So I don't really see people on a large scale becoming more intolerant of bris Milah. The new social norms generally travel towards more tolerance.

Trump's rhetoric, however, really threatens those shifts. People are more and more comfortable with greater levels of intolerance and maybe the social norms will shift again.

Amarante

Wed, Aug 10 2016, 1:52 pm

amother wrote:

Sushilover posted that she opposes the kinds of programs that would help the born.

Most right wingers also are inconsistent in that they typically oppose funding for Planned Parenthood or other programs that provide low cost birth control for women.

The Republicans recessed without providing adequate funding to eradicate or control Zika mosquito. President Obama requested funding based on recommendations of CDC BUT republicans would not pass it. Inevitably mosquitoes will certainly fly to ever expanding areas. My understanding is that the Zika mosquito can be eradicated only through fairly labor intensive inspection since it has well adapted to human environment and breeds in th smallest amounts of water.