Is that the catch?

In the lawful defense of said person

If a woman is choosing to have a legal abortion... is killing the doctor in lawful defense?


The only way I could see this bill giving the green light to offing abortion docs is if abortion was illegal.

Are we going to have a new legal debate in some states as to whether a legal abortion can or does cause great personal injury?

isnt it the womans choice to have an abortion?

I dont think anyone is forced to have an abortion.

Roe vs Wade makes this south dakota think moot. especially since Federal law trumps state law. though i dont think there is anything in the state law that makes it legal to kill abortion doctors.

I think the whole thing is much ado about nothing. I got the article on a newsfeed on my Facebook rewgarding the Tea Party's designs to set back the rights and progress of women in this country-not sure I'm buying this inclusion. As always, I'll ask my liberal friends who may be taking the headlines at face value to explain the bill to me

Probably best for me to move on, I stopped coming into this Politics section a few years back, this conversation seems quite civil, however.

If the situation is reversed, and the boyfriend wants the baby but the woman doesn't, the boyfriend (would-be father) has the option of not driving his girlfriend to the abortion clinic. :rolleyes: So much for the equality of male/female parenthood.

You're correct in that a currently legal act cannot be a felony of course. At least not at the same level of law. Federally legal may or may not have a bearing on the State, County or Local definitions. The law is peculiar that way. You can try a guy for murder (like O.J), find him innocent of the murder, but yet win a wrongful death civil lawsuit for the same set of events you found him innocent of criminally.

You obviously didn't "brush up." The Brazilian government doesn't allow abortion (or "murder," as you say) and they still have tons of abortions every year.

The "back alley" is not some catchphrase. Outlawing abortion does not stop it. It just makes it more dangerous. So you're not really accomplishing anything by outlawing abortion, unless the accomplishment you're seeking is putting women in a more dangerous situation when they have an unwanted pregnancy. A woman desperate to end a pregnancy she doesn't want will find a way, even if it's illegal and she does so at a much greater risk to herself.

Outlaw abortion and sure, you'll get some extra babies. And you'll also get a bunch of extra dead women. Not a trade-off I'm thrilled about taking, but you might be different.

I hesitate to speak to the Dakota bill, I can see the concern from those who are pro-choice, the wording can be taken a couple ways and it's not unreasonable that some nut job will read it as giving him/her open season on abortion providers even though that is clearly not the intent. I am troubled by the suggestion that sterilizing folks is an answer. It takes me back to the 60's and a song written by Phil Ochs, "Here's To The State Of Mississippi" in which he touches on the immorality of forced sterilization. I thought that was an idea who's time had come and (thankfully) gone with the success of the civil rights movement...guess not. There is no question that a lot of folks are simply not ready to be parents due to a variety of reasons (immaturity, drug use, ignorance of basics and a variety of mental health/character issues) but who would make that decision? How can one justify punishing folks for what may happen in the future? No, the answer, as always lies in increased education, greater access to drug treatment/ mental health/ basic health facilities along with certain basic cultural changes...and that won't happen over night. One thing for sure, trying to balance budgets by denying the above to those who need them most won't result in a positive result.

Well, I'll be more careful of my flippant use of language. I'm not really suggesting forced sterilization, though a concerted effort to provide education and encouragement for vasectomies and tubal ligations -that, I'm all for.
And this:
No, the answer, as always lies in increased education, greater access to drug treatment/ mental health/ basic health facilities along with certain basic cultural changes...and that won't happen over night. One thing for sure, trying to balance budgets by denying the above to those who need them most won't result in a positive result.

That, too, I can agree with

Please don't take my post as a personal attack, I was responding to the general discussion and didn't mean to single anyone out.

Outlawing anything does not stop it. What's your point? That without perfect enforcement no law is worth having?

Gun control, for instance, penalizes legal gun owners, makes them defenseless, yet the criminal who buys his guns illegally is unaffected.

We still have drunk drivers despite repeated attempts to lower blood alcohol limits, adding sobriety checkpoints, and presumed guilt if a breathalyzer is refused.

We still have rampant prostitution even though it is illegal everywhere but in a couple places in Nevada.

And you speak of unwanted pregnancy as if it's as inevitable as the law of gravity, yet you credit those having an abortion as having weighed some huge "choice".

So people are too weak or unthinking to avoid getting unwillingly pregnant, yet these same people are so brilliant as to make a perfectly informed decision regarding if or when to kill their offspring?

No one is killing any offspring becuase they are not offspring until they are born.

All of those things, guns, drunk driving -- those harm real, living people. I just have a very hard time understanding the thinking that values the "rights" of a hypothetical human being with no ability to survive, no functioning (or formed to the point of being productive) organs over the rights of a sentient, living human being not being forced to be an incubator for 9 months against her will.

But I respect a woman's ability to make her own choices about her own body, and would never be so presumptuous as to think I should have any say over what someone else does with their own body. And yes, that includes the choice to be sexually active, potentially resulting in pregnancy if birth control fails, etc, and believing that the choice to be sexually active does not deny you the later choice to not carry to term a pregnancy that could be dangerous, unwanted, a child you can't afford to take good care of, or any of the other numerous reasons a woman might choose abortion.

The argument about abortion, no matter what words are used, is an awful lot more about women than it is about babies, and controlling their bodies and controlling their choices. I don't want anyone telling me what to do with my body, so it only stands to reason that I should shut up and MYOFB about what a woman, going through something I will NEVER go through in my life, should do with her body.

The thing I'm most hopeful about, and still have a good feeling about, is that this fantasy of yours where any woman who feels inclined to use her vagina for anything is then automatically indebted to be an incubator for some ball of DNA against her will, is unlikely to become the law of the land.

That is the entire issue is it not? Those who believe life begins at conception can never accept legalized abortion while those who see life beginning at birth must in good faith support a woman's right to choose. That is the basis for the debate and until/unless science can provide a absolute answer, the debate will continue.

google: south dakota nebraska murder abortion

And you'll get lots of hits.

What is omitted from this debate is when, during the pregnancy, abortions are legally permitted to be performed.

Watched another vet "pinch a twin" this morning in a pregnant TB mare. I did not tell him he was "murdering" a horse.

Yet if you believe life begins at conception you would see that as murder!

A Latin word for offspring is "fetus".

Quite correct.

I believe life is a continuum, as sperm and ova are alive, and no, I do NOT see that as murder. Neither do I see 1-2 month human abortions as murder, and I have seen several aborted (spontaneously) 2-month-old fetuses in my life.

The conceptus is an aggregation of rather undifferentiated cells, not yet developed, not yet capable of going forward in development independent of the mother's body.

The whole problem is: it's not just her body. Her body is all the cells having her DNA. The cells having different DNA is another person. Yes, dependent and growing, but another person nonetheless.

Many of us think it is much more about the baby. That's the whole point of this butchery, is it not? We're not talking about plastic surgery here.

Interesting point: why do people feel a sense of loss when there is a spontaneous miscarriage? Isn't it because they feel a death has occurred?

And what is done to prevent those undifferentiated cells from developing? You know, the cells whose DNA doesn't match the woman's? Killing them.

Plenty of sane, rational lawyers - political persuasion immaterial - say it opens a wide hole to do exactly that.

Clearly a husband could murder the doctor performing an abortion on his wife.

Precisely. It is literally government forcing women to have babies. It is government overreach in it's most terrible form.

Fixed that for you.

not according to this law or the law of the land. I think its quite easy to see, even if the wording might be a small bit confusing. They are clearly protecting a pregnant woman or her relative from prosecution if they kill someone who is attacking her womb illegally.

You are deliberately using inflammatory false equivalency terms - "a person" "butchery" "murder".

Try making your argument using more realistic descriptors.

Having never had a miscarriage, I cannot speak for what other people feel. I'm sure that people that want a baby are unhappy to lose the pregnancy at such an early stage of development, (as they are unhappy about not being able to get pregnant) but nature aborts plenty of pregnancies for it's own reasons.

What is that supposed to mean? I don't understand what you are trying to say.

(and btw, read up on maternal mitochondrial DNA before you commit ever more to your argument regarding cells that are not "her" DNA)

You have shifted the conversation away from the subject, to talking about developing feti.

The conversation, however, is constitutional and legal: it is about your desire to control the lives of people you don't even know, and your desire to have the government of the United States force women to have babies. That is not legal in this country.

See Brian's posts.

That's a difference of opinion.

Those who believe life begins at conception also believe abortion is a murderous act.

The uniqueness of the DNA indicates the presence of a unique individual at whatever state of development. That does not depend on any one organ or biological structure, as many of us also don't believe in euthanasia for the elderly. The functioning or non-functioning of any one organ does not grant or deprive one of "person" status. The first artificial heart recipient, Barney Clark, did not cease to be a human being when his heart was removed and replaced with the Jarvik-7. People with brain damage or special mental challenges are not less of a person. Nor are people who have lost limbs. With the case of a developing human being there is also the fact that, left alone, they will grow and enhance into having all those parts and ablilties, and that's really what the pro-abortion people want to prevent: the responsibility of caring for and raising their child.

And I am familiar with what the procedures are, especially the "partial birth" variety, and if that's not butchery, I don't know what would qualify.

?? The wording isn't confusing at all - it says right there, the husband can kill someone trying to harm his wifes baby.

It doesn't limit in any way who that person could be.

The point is indeed that the intended consequences of a law are not presumed to be the only possible consequences, dependent upon the wording.

In other words, you write a law to do one thing, but there is very frequently unintended (or indeed intended) consequences that are permitted by the wording.

Again - why is this change being added to the current law? Hum?

yes on the first statement but they can not legally, according to this law, murder laws, roe vs wade, etc, murder an abortion doctor and recieve no punishment! The husband can kill an armed robber who shoots his wife in the stomach therefor killing his unborn baby.

and i believe it is added to the current law to protect a woman from prosecution if someone beats or harms her womb in an illegal manner. currently the law does not protect someone who kills because they fear for the life of their unborn child.

if abortion was Illegal, than I can see people thinking "okay we can justify killing an abortion doctor". than again, if abortion was illegal, in theory, there would not be abortion doctors.

Nonsense. Medicine doesn't use those terms, those words are inappropriate to the subject matter. Those words murder butchery baby (when discussing an aggregate of 8 dividing cells, calling it a "baby"? ) are used only by those trying to inflame passions against abortion.

Many do, but not everyone does. I don't.

Then why are you not calling in-vitro fertilization clinics murder centers? At least be consistent with that argument.

Many people who choose to terminate a pregnancy think long and hard about the lifetime commitment to raising a child. Which is why they choose abortion.

If those words regarding care and raising were true, the anti-abortion crowd would be eagerly financing the care and raising of those children they forced into birth, offering classes on child rearing help, etc. They most certainly do not. In fact, the majority actively support defunding of those programs.

Then you realize that "partial birth abortions" are indeed extremely rare, most certainly not what we are talking about when we talk about elective abortion, and not permitted in most jurisdictions.

Wrong. It is not "controlling" other people to outlaw murdering someone in utero.

Women who are pregnant have babies. The brilliant solution by the warped people who came up with it is to kill the baby before it can be delivered. THAT is the issue.

The facts surrounding fetal development give evidence that the cells/tissue/organs being destroyed do not belong exclusively to the would-be mother. Genetically half hers, and half the father's, as all of us are, it is not simply what a woman chooses to do "with her body" technically. If it was just her body, she'd be able to get pregnant with nobody's help. She might have been born pregnant. It's absurd.

That is simply language the pro-abortion crowd uses to shout people down or stop any further thought or deliberation on this issue, because, since 1973, they have the decision they wanted from the Supreme Court. Further debate does them no good, and they are fearful that if points like mine are made that enough people agree with, eventually a future Supreme Court may reverse the decision.

Yes, we know eggs and sperm combine to form mammals. BTW, though, the DNA each cell contains is more the mothers contribution, not 50-50 - again, see mitochondrial maternal DNA ;)

So if you want to make an argument about who has control of a fertilized egg, based upon DNA contribution, the mother wins. She also owns the incubator and chemicals necessary to sustain that egg.

Why does ova and sperm combining give the government the right to force a woman to bear a baby? That argument addresses only the interests of the sperm contributor. The government still has nothing to do with it.

Yes, you use the terms murder butcher baby, the pro-choice, anti-government takeover of woman's bodies to force births crowd uses those words.

I wish more of the anti-abortion crowd, who care so much about developing fetuses, would give a damn after those babies start breathing oxygen, and for the duration of their lives.

Joey - I certainly respect your beliefs and passion about the issue of abortion, and you are welcome and free, in this country, to legally continue to pursue your goals regarding changing the law reference legal control of it.

What about this point? Is it controlling to no longer allow a murder of this sort to take place?

And I do appreciate that Riot. I'm glad that my passion on the subject was received in the spirit it's given.

And I have to agree with a previous post that this was probably as civil of a conversation as I've heard or participated in on the subject.

When I do use strong terminology, I'm trying to drive the point home and I'm not consciously trying to amplify it for shock value. It's just the way I see it.

As a philosphical point: A murder in a closed, soundproof room with no witnesses is still a murder.

That is your belief, unfortunately it is not scientific proof. One thing is for sure the process which begins at conception will evolve eventually into a birth if not interrupted. We lack the knowledge necessary to say at what point in that process life begins.

Here's a link to the Nebraska bill giving the thumbs up to abortion causers murder:
http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov/F...ntro/LB232.pdf