A bloody detail. There’s a big difference between allowing an expelled fetus to die in the course of an abortion by not providing extraordinary medical intervention to keep it alive, and active infanticide. In order to prosecute failure to preserve the life of the fetus expelled during abortion, you have to redefine abortion as infanticide. You assert that the location of death turns abortion into infanticide and makes it “evil, evil, evil” (as opposed to “evil”?). My point is that your rule is legalistic, arbitrary, disregards the intention of the participants, and ignores the process of childbirth as an introduction to human society.

I fully understand your antipathy. Please remember there are many fine people whom you admire who feel the same way, even though they don’t articulate these shocking arguments. Go ahead and get mad at me. All I’m saying is that there are people you feel warmly toward — maybe your own relatives, who might agree with some form of this position.

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“Obama likely voted it down in an effort to save the Illinois judiciary the work of striking down a poorly drafted law.” — Kiyoshi

Since the bill was well drafted this does not explain why Obama opposed it and later lied about his motivations. In fact, there exist perfectly logical reasons for Obama’s “Infanticide Lie”

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I stand corrected. The majority of the judiciary committee opposed it.

And refusing to stop the practice, is the same as supporting it. They had the chance to do the right thing, and they refused. That’s supporting it.

Nonesense.

I oppose wolves killing farmers’ livestock. But I would refuse to support a bill allowing farmers to kill wolves on sight.

By your logic, I must support the killing of livestock by wolves. But in reality, I don’t want the wolves to kill the livestock, I just want a better solution than the one offered.

I’m highly suspicious of the argument being used here because it sounds very much like the campaign ads that claimed Max Cleland opposed providing troops with body armor. That was a lie, and I suspect this is too. I get no hint from Obama that he would like to see babies die; therefore, there must be more to it.

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You are so far out of bounds it is breath taking.

You have just said that if a baby is completely out of the mother, it can be killed or allowed to die if the mother wanted to abort the fetus. You are condoning murder.

Worse, you are moving the bar on abortion to make infanticide not a crime.

Evil, evil, evil!

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Look to the second paragraph of #62. Both autistic children and politicians are legally defined as persons but because of limitations and age an autistic child may not be able to use his/her rights but he/she is not denied the same rights as a politician.

On a personal note I’ve worked with autistic children for several years, while most have unique personalities and communicative abilities, there are few autistic youths which had some characteristics which were very eerie and inhuman. this is not a rational judgment nor part of my argument rather a personal and emotive response to my contact with a minortiy of the autustic children I’ve worked with.

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So an autistic child is less of a person than a politician or actor.

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The practise of permently disenfranchising felons after they have served their time is counterproductive to their re-integration into society. This isn’t a whack job leftist position, the Economist also questions this practises. If you want to felons to participate in society you must restore their rights.

As for the mentally incompetent, they are not denied any rights rather they are unable to use them. If they acquire greater abilities or are able to regain their sanity, they will have the rights restored to them.

Both cases you raise also illustrate the grey area that exists when we enact individual rights and privileges yet limit them to certain individuals. The legal definition of persons is not a straight forward line favored by many in both sides of the debate. The notion that its human life and thus has the same rights as others ignores the very real reality of differing rights accorded to different ages, abilities and even past histories. The opposing notion that rights are only acquired after a proper wanted birth gives rise to a picture of a JP standing next to the doctor to bless the infant into instant legal person hood. The reality is much greyer.

Most certainly its the woman’s body and thus as an individual in modern western society she is accorded personal rights to it. However, as the fetus begins to acquire human traits that separate it from a mere primate we must accord some form of legal protection. Thus, we should look at is a specific human characteristics. Prior to any human characteristics, the fetus must be independently viable which brings us into the third trimester
and then we can discuss what is human. The top two in my mind are communicative ability and societal acceptance (not much different than Scroop I would think). Thus at some point in the third trimester, a balance between the woman’s rights and the rights of the fetus must begin. Its a delicate balance but one I think society as a whole can understand and should compromise at.

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NOBODY “supports killing a live-born child.” There must be a reason Obama, AND the majority of the Illinois state Senate, opposed a law addressing that issue that doesn’t equal supporting the practice.

There seems to be some confusion here. The bill in question was never voted on by the entire state Senate, because Obama, as chairman, never brought it up for vote. The judiciary committee vote was 6-4, along party lines. It was then refered to the Health committee, where Obama the chairman refused to bring it to vote, killing it.
I’m not sure what you’re talking about with your “majority of the Illinois State Senate opposed” thing. Could you clarify please?

And refusing to stop the practice, is the same as supporting it. They had the chance to do the right thing, and they refused. That’s supporting it.

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