The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

So? I do not care what they MIGHT become in the future. I am discussing what they are NOW.

We do not, for example, lock people up for crimes we think they MIGHT commit. Your rights in that regard are GENERALLY based on the present and your past, not your probable future.

The simple fact is the rock, and the fetus, are not those things NOW. So why should they be given rights NOW?



Which still leaves my point unaddressed. A person being euthanized has, at some point in the past, been allocated rights. Including a right to life.

The question is WHEN and WHY did that occur.

I have explored that question myself, at great length, through biology and philosophy and morality and ethics. And I see NO reason to think the event happens on or before week 16 of fetal gestation.

If you are aware of an argument I missed, then you have the potential to change my entire outlook on abortion at the click of your fingers. Which I would do without hesitation, embarrassment, or reluctance.

If you discovered a small malignant tumor would you ignore it because it is not a threat NOW or would you seek treatment because it has the POTENTIAL to kill you in the future?

Are we to disregard the future in moral discussions of other issues like climate change? I'm alright Jack, no floods here.

How about your criteria for the discovery of life on Mars? What constitutes life on Mars?

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

There is that claim again. That women "are being criminalised", because of the 8th amendment. Who, when, where?
More women are criminalised for abortion related offences in England than in the Republic of Ireland.

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You seem entirely ignorant of the reality of the 8th Amendment - I respectfully suggest you educate yourself.

From here:

In this State, the 2013 Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act repealed section 58 of the 1861 Act, replacing it with a prison sentence of up to 14 years for anyone unlawfully procuring an abortion here.
Anyone who helps a woman or girl to unlawfully procure an abortion can face a similar sentence.

Here:

It is illegal to procure an abortion in Ireland outside of the circumstances specified in the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013.

Here:

You can get it here in the State, you can also get 14 years for procuring it, for taking it and for helping yourself to have an abortion at home.

Here:

People who procure an abortion in the State risk 14 years imprisonment.

If you need more information I suggest you use Google - plenty available.[/quote]

With respect I think that it is you who are entirely ignorant of the 8th amendment and it's criminalising effect.
Do you think someone can be jailed for breaking the 8th amendment?

You posted 4, yes 4 links which don't show anyone who was been criminalised by abortion law in Ireland.
The poster I was replying to said women were "being criminalised", not had the potential to be criminalised.

If someone told me breakfast was "being served" in the dining room and there wasn't a sausage in sight I would rightfully conclude they were mistaken.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

If you discovered a small malignant tumor would you ignore it because it is not a threat NOW

No because I am not ignorant of basic medical science and I know such a tumor IS a threat NOW. The clue is in the word "malignant".

But you are not getting the point I was conveying. I am not advocating ignoring everything about the future. That would be ridiculous.

But when it comes to affording moral and ethical concern to an entity that is in front of me, I need a basis to do so. And "it might be sentient some day" is just a statement that tells me it is not NOW. I do not see allocating rights NOW to something that MIGHT one day qualify for them as being coherent. Just as incoherent as me saying you should have no rights NOW because in all likelihood you will be long dead in the future. Why would I allocate it on the basis of potential rather than remove it on the basis of potential. Makes no sense to me.

And that is just in isolation. But the fetus is not in isolation. It is inside a moral agent for whom we SHOULD have moral and ethical concern.

So not only do I see no reason to give a fetus rights, I certainly do not see any reason to give it rights that over ride the right of choice of the mother.

....... wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

You cannot provide one example of anyone criminalised as a result of the 8th amendment.

How about a deal,

Pro choice posters stop dismissing late term abortions as irrelevant because they rarely happen and I will stop dismissing the emotive 14 year jail term argument because it NEVER happens.

Also the POTENTIAL life of the unborn has been dismissed by repealers while the POTENTIAL imprisonment of those procuring abortions is highlighted. To me this is hypocrisy and double standards.

I also find it interesting that whenever difficult questions are asked pro choicers fret about the thread being shut down, despite us directly discussing the 8th amendment as in the thread title.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Also the POTENTIAL life of the unborn has been dismissed by repealers while the POTENTIAL imprisonment of those procuring abortions is highlighted. To me this is hypocrisy and double standards.

Well I personally have not discussed what is or is not criminal, let alone dismissed it. But I would point out that the potential life is just that..... a potential. Whereas when one is talking about potential imprisonment in some context or other one is likely therefore talking about something that is currently ACTUALLY a crime, which is not a potential.

So I am not seeing any hypocrisy or double standards there. one is a potential, the other is a current actual.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

I also find it interesting that whenever difficult questions are asked pro choicers fret about the thread being shut down, despite us directly discussing the 8th amendment as in the thread title.

Again as a pro choice person I have not fretted about any such thing myself on here. So be wary as you might come across as sweeping the brush a little two wide.

But since you bring it up, I am personally.... interested.... with how boards will choose to deal with the coming string of threads I expect the abortion debate to generate in the coming months. Will they shut it down? Merge it into a mega thread? Engage in extreme or no moderating?

I would be genuinely surprised if it is not a hot topic in the back rooms of the mod team as we speak.

The Legend Of Kira wrote: »

whoever vandalised this van is not doing their side any favours.

That would, possibly, depend on which "side" the vandal in question is on? I would certainly not assume it either way when we see, as we likely will, such "attacks" on the posters and properties of BOTH sides.

Birdie Num Num wrote: »

Apologies as I am just new to this thread and just stubbled across your post but you really are mixing someone else's words around there to suit your angle.

If you say so, but having just joined the thread you might not be aware that the practice of declaring someone is doing something (mixing words, being dishonest, or whatever) without THEN showing how and where and why you think they are doing it........... is so common a move that I doubt anyone is fooled by it any more. I am not m ixing someone else's words solely because you have waltzed in and declared it to be so.

But I see nothing inaccurate in what I said, so do help me out with your thinking here.

When one is discussing the POTENTIAL life of a fetus, in the sense of "human life" or "person hood" then one is doing just that.......... discussing a potential.

If however one is discussing the potential that they might be imprisoned for a crime, then they are likely discussing an ACTUAL crime that is CURRENTLY in the legal doctrines. That is not a potential, that is something that is actual, current, and real.

Quite a difference, doncha think?

captbarnacles wrote: »

The discussion was mainly her trying to convince me abortions at 8 months plus happen all the time in England

In that situation I would have said "This could indeed be compelling, would you mind coming back with official statistics on how often that happens, broken down preferably into how many of those abortions happened purely by choice and how many happened due to actual medical necessity".

Trust me, she would not have come back with the numbers or any official sources.

captbarnacles wrote: »

Both said they would imprison a suicidal girl if she wanted to go to England

So they would advocate stopping someone from doing something pretty much legal, by themselves committing a highly actionable offence punishable quite heavily by law? Yeah that makes sense. Shame we can not test it with a volunteer actor who could wander into their path somehow and suggest to them she was in fact the very girl they described. Be interesting to see if they actually would stage a kidnap or if they are, as I somewhat suspect, all bluster and talk.

Amazing how many people on the opposite side of arguments to me want to imprison young girls though. At one point I possessed a relatively large quantity of catholic crackers.

During this period I received quite a large number of emails from Catholics. And quite a few of them said the same thing in a number of ways to the effect of "How would you like it if I was going around kidnapping your daughter or little sister".

Not withstanding how poor a comparison that is to me possessing a cracker that was FREELY given to me.............. it is weird to me how the minds of these people go so quickly to a combination of kidnap, and small girls.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

With respect I think that it is you who are entirely ignorant of the 8th amendment and it's criminalising effect.
Do you think someone can be jailed for breaking the 8th amendment?

You posted 4, yes 4 links which don't show anyone who was been criminalised by abortion law in Ireland.
The poster I was replying to said women were "being criminalised", not had the potential to be criminalised.

You appear to misunderstand the meaning of the word criminalise. It doesn't mean that someone has been prosecuted. It means that an activity is illegal and that someone engaging in that activity is breaking the law and can be prosecuted.

It's similar to how our laws on sexual activity between men are regarded as criminalising gay men. To the point that the change in the laws are referred to as homosexuality being decriminalised, even though no one had been charged under those laws for decades at that point.

So, to answer your question above (Do you think someone can be jailed for breaking the 8th amendment?), yes they can, and the fact that they can means they are being criminalised, even if no one has even been charged for breaking that law.