Not exactly. There are principles of self-defense which arise.
Also, you can discuss violation of rights without committing any infraction of law -- that's called freedom of speech.
When I said this:
"to punish any and all persons who contributed or counselled any violation of the person's rights to LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS."
...I was referring to the idea of counselling to commit an offense. I understand that just shooting the breeze is not illegal.
It's true that anyone who performed an abortion except to save the life of the mother would be committing murder. I don't see that this would end civilization -- this has been the law at many times in history, and I don't see civilization having ended.
A great number of civilizations have ended for a great number of reasons. You could perhaps refresh my memory of criminal Statutes, Codes, or Acts in North America that have ever identified abortion as murder, and have set forth in the appropriate sections and subsections exactly what the penalty for the murder of an embryo is? My concern is with the civilization whose most distinguishing and defining characteristics are the recognition of the individual Rights of people, and their observance and protection under a rational and uniform law. The civilization which you and I are familiar with.
Please give me examples of the kinds of behavior which you think upholding the personhood of the embryo would lead to which would end civilization
Well, I will do that. But first let me say that I think it is hardly necessary or mete for me to defend such a tenuous and fragile idea as civilization. If I were to bet on a proposition where there were an infinite number of losing turns that a rabbit could take through the woods; and sucess, therefore, meant avoiding every single one of those losing turns, and if the woods itself was infinite--then I guess I would bet on the death of the rabbit.
But in any case, my comment about civilization was not an argument. It was a comment placed alongside of a general argument about abortion issues. The point of the comment was mainly to superlatively express my disdain for the kind of blindness and arrogance that woulod even consider that making embryos into citizens could be done without social upheaval and destruction, and as I implied-the probable end of the civilization as best exemplified by the American experiment in human rights.
Obviously I am not going to change my comment into an argument. It would be an argument with a focus impossible to define, and incapable of agreement; and it would sacrifice the legitimate pursuit of practical knowledge, to schoolyard antics that are more suited to those whom can claim legitimate use of the grounds.
It was a comment which I believe was true, but my focus is on examining the possible consequences of embryos being included as persons in the Bill of Rights. Sharing opinions and imagination in such a way could be mutually instructive, whereas attempting to make this information fit an ulterior condition is fruitless and unprofitable. Attempting to define "civilization" in Western culture; attempting to objectify the subjective opinions as to when civilization is destroyed, compromized, or merely being stimulated: no. I am not going to get into that. I will, however, share the very information that motivated my comment, and which I believed (and do believe) to justify my comment. I am not about to defend my comment as a THEORY or as an ARGUMENT--it was neither.
Now, I cannot ever see (under normal circumstances), the possibility of embryos being granted citizenship. I believe that if this eventuality ever came to pass, it could not possibly be under the current system of a democratic republic with separation of church and state. Rather, it would have to occur under a dictatorship of some sort, presumably under some religious power. It might occur as the aftermath to some other social upheaval such as nuclear or biological warfare where the survivors come under the sway of a religious priesthood and go quickly insane. In any case, the very fact of such an outcome would indicate (to my mind) that the kind of civilization I have an interst in, would already be non existent.
It is fair to ask why I believe that making embryos citizens would not be something that could have any expectation of success under the current democratic Republic. The answer is fairly straightforward. Almost half the women in America will have an abortion by the time they are 45. It strains the credulity to think that those woman could ever be persuaded to vote against their best interests and to accept the consequences of unsafe abortions coupled with prison terms for murder if caught.
It could never happen. IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. But let us pretend that the people of America have temporarily gone insane, and it is now the law. Embryos are persons. They have all the rights under the Bill of Rights that are enjoyed by any other persons. The majority of homes will be disfunctional as the mothers will often be in jail. Because of the fact that the procurement of abortions is VERY UNEQUALLY represented in both ethnic and economic demographics, there will be widespread racial hatred as certain groups get way over represented in the prison population. The economic cost to society of prosecuting, defending, and institutionalizing so many of its women from all age groups would be enormous. Presumably a huge number of men would also be incarcerated for aiding and abetting. Those citizens footing the bill would hate those who were not. Everybody would hate everybody else for some reason or another--for color, for circumstance, for nothing. The social costs of enforcing the law, the resentments and racial hatreds based on those costs, the underground activity, the calcutta like atmosphere of starving diseased children abandoned by teenage mothers forced by fear of prison to birthing babies they could not care for, wizened old religious crones blessing them and stepping over them, all the riches and brightest getting out of the country, NOBODY coming into it--emaciated bodies with sunken eyes staring blankly at some religious picture of a man with a beard and long nails. America the beautiful, where every embryo has all the protective rights of every other citizen--but no money to pay for them.
Could this happen in your America? Of course not. And neither could an embryo EVER become a citizen--not unless civilization had already collapsed under some insane religious dictatorship.
Now please don't pull on your knee highs for this. You don't need to disagree with everything I say, and God will not hate your guts if you feel like smiling and having a little fun
A smudge of yolk, a citizen--only in America. "Tickets for two please--leaving the country. My weight? Oh--120 lbs. My daughter? Oh, I'm not sure. About 13 grams. No, I don't need return tickets. I will be spending some time with, uh....relatives." |
