"flipper" wrote in message
...
There is noting "weasel word" about "living fetus."
You might not like the term -- "weasel word" -- and I'd grant you that it's
not the ideal example based on how Wikipedia defines it, but regardless of
which term you want to use, the repetitive use of the term "living fetus" in
the law's phrasing is -- IMO -- clearly meant to evoke a specific emotional
response from the reader rather than simply trying to define what a
partial-birth abortion is. For a comparison, I'm willing to bet that
medical texts describing and defining the procedure don't read at all like
the law you cited does. Hopefully you'd accept that -- while nothing
written is ever 100% objective -- textbooks on
engineering/science/medicine/etc. at least *attempt* to be so. Those
writing laws may or may not be required to even make that attempt (it's
well-known that how you word a proposal has a significant influence on
peoples' reaction to it).
while your
"organic cell mass" is precisely the thing you claim, "weasel words,"
in an attempt to obfuscate.
Yes, exactly, that was my point!
No, that was not your point
My point really was that "organic cell mass" is "just as weasely" as "living
fetus." I may have communicated this so poorly that it wasn't obvious, but
I'm telling you the truth here.
Living fetus is appropriate and well understood while "organic cell
mass" is meaningless B.S.
IMO both are inappropriate.
Here, again, we see your over riding concern that someone might
"figure out' what's being discussed and have 'a certain reaction'.
In a debate where the goal is to create a law, I'm a strong advocate of
trying to remove as much *emotional* reaction as possible. I don't think
there's anything to be "figured out" -- surely it's clear to everyone that
performing an abortion kills a living entity (a "living fetus" if you like),
and the question is whether or not (or when) that entity deserves legal
protection such that killing it would be illegal. It's a difficult issue
since it's hard to get away from attempting to define what is human and what
isn't (many people get a little uncomfortable when it's pointed out that at
a biological level "being human" is not all that horribly special in the
grand scheme of things) as well as the recognition that what happens to the
fetus has a huge impact on many people (obviously the mother and father, and
these days even grandparents often figure they have a say).
On the other hand, the 'Pro life' crowd have a prima facie case with
DNA being a reliable test for 'human being' in other matters so it's
at least a reasonable argument for them to claim it's valid here as
well, including for a, so called, "organic cell mass,"
But surely no one argues that just because some cell mass contains human DNA
in it it deserves legal protection, do they? Cancerous tumors still contain
plenty of human DNA, after all...
Are you suggesting the mentally retarded are not human and have no
rights?
They're certainly human and by definition they have all the rights that any
other human does. (...one salient point being that,
AFAIK, no country
claims humans have the right not be killed or left to die 100% of the
time... there are always "strings" attached, such as not being a mass
murderer, not requiring huge amounts of other peoples' resources to keep you
alive and, yes, in some places, having actually been born or at least gotten
2/3 of the way there or whatever.)
Why not a 'deformed' X year old if the
'deformity' is what makes it 'ok'? After all, the X year old is just
an "organic cell mass" too.
You're again demonstrating my original thesis, that biology alone isn't
enough to decide whether or not abortion is OK.
I rather think we're in violent agreement about many things here...
I don't know whether it is or not because
Trust me, it takes a number of weeks after conception until a beating heart
has developed; women who use "day after" pills (...on the day after...)
don't stop any beating hearts.
---Joel