"flipper" wrote in message
...
No, that's your obsession: that someone might 'figure out' what's
being discussed and have 'a certain reaction'.

From what you say, it sounds like you're a supporter of having "loaded"
(weasely? :-) ) definitions in your laws. That's not my preference, since
overall I don't really think it helps, but I'm sure that the type of
definition your prefer is not uncommon in many other laws too.

That's because their purpose is to tell another doctor how to perform
a particular procedure as it is currently practiced and not to define
the 'concept'.regardless of the procedure involved.

Not the textbooks I'm used to -- usually a concept is quite well-defined prior
to a discussion of procedures on how to implement the concept.

You, however, would object to saying "cell phone" because it might
evoke 'a certain reaction' and claim "assemblage of electronic
components" is 'just as weasely'.

I might object if, by, "cell phone" you really meant "any and all radios" and
would then counter that "assemblage of electronic components" was just as
weasely as "cell phone." :-)

Interestingly, since defining a cell phone precisely is actually somewhat
difficult, writing legislation that bans the seemingly simple concept of,
e.g., using cell phones while driving can end up have plenty of unexpected
consequences. If you read some of the ham radio sites, they'll occasionally
be upset that laws are written so generically that not only are cell phones
banned... but so are ham radios, police/fire/ambulance radios, etc. This
point again argues for trying to write laws in such a way as to make the
specific intent as clear as possible, which is often at odds with writing them
in such a way that so as to bias the reader in their reaction to it.

Laws are written by lawyers who don't give a tinker's dam what
something 'sounds like' or 'looks like'. Their obsession is in making
the legalism as bullet proof as possible so the next lawyer won't have
an easy time picking it apart, like with "what the meaning of is is."

Fair enough, I suppose. Perhaps the law you cited is more a reflection of a
society filled with overzealous lawyers than "common sense" people...

You cannot write a law making murder illegal without mentioning murder

Sure you can... you just talk about "killing" and "death" and a host of other
words instead. Using the term "murder" in a law is just there to make it
more compact when you feel that your average reader already knows what
"murder" is.

and, I'm sorry, but that's going to evoke 'a certain reaction' in some
people.

....which is something that I believe we should attempt to avoid whenever
possible. Leave the melodrama for the court room testimony and argument, not
in the letter of the law.

That is precisely the problem with weasel words, like "organic cell
mass," you can't figure out what the hell is meant and even if you
think you know you don't.

You're still don't seem to accept that my usage of the term "organic cell
mass" was done specifically to demonstrate something that would not be useful.

Go ahead and try to come up with something understandable that doesn't
evoke 'a certain reaction'.

That's a bit of a strawman... just because we can't write "perfectly" worded
laws that don't evoke emotional chain reactions is no reason not to attempt to
*minimize* the reactions.

The Pro life crowd, of course, argue that the time to be thinking of
'impacts' is before you create it.

So do the pro-choicers; I doubt you could find anyone from, e.g., Planned
Parenthood who'd say that having an abortion vs. not conceiving the child in
the first place would ever be a positive choice. So in that sense I expect
the pro-lifers and pro-choicers agree, but of course the debate comes into
play when, through immaturity (e.g., teens who "just didn't think" they'd get
pregant) or "accidents" (no birth control method is perfect) or circumstances
beyond their control (e.g., rape), if you conceive a child anyway, what are
the options?

They're certainly human
How do you know?

It's like porn -- you can't define it but you know it when you see it? :-)

There is no perfect definition of human, so I suppose you might find me a case
whether I'd be hard pressed to say whether or not the organic tissue mass in
front of me is human :-). However, personally I'd normally give those organic
tissue masses the benefit of the doubt... especially if they can perambulate
and grunt a bit, I guess... :-)

Well, before they collapse it's skull while killing it.

I suspect that most pro-choicers are in full agreement that, yes, a fetus is a
human... but that doesn't mean they don't want the option of killing it.

Nice amoral jumble of false equivalencies, like trying to equate
premeditated overt acts, such as a mass murderer, with guiltless
existence and the deliberate act of abortion is not "left to die."

I didn't say those things were equivalent; they're just various examples of
when we, as humans, actively kill other living entities (including fetuses).

I'm not sure your emphasis on trying to figure out a really good definition of
"human" helps that much in the abortion debate, because I expect you'd agree
that there are many instances where killing non-humans is morally wrong as
well... right?

---Joel