Originally posted by DoctorScribbles Bit difficult to argue the opposite side when it's illegal to leave a baby in a closed garage with the car running.
Thanks foir the trite example, but I think you're missing my point... how can you punish someone for (potentially) putting a foetus/embryo/unborn baby at risk, when it is perfectly legal (in my country at least) to have that foetus/pregnancy/baby aborted/terminated/killed?
(Your closed garage example refers, I'm assuming, to a baby that has been born...)
Surely you need to argue the case for the law to be changed so that abortion is illegal FIRST, before you can start thinking about illegalising smoking/drinking/drug-taking while being pregnant?
Surely you need to argue the case for the law to be changed so that abortion is illegal FIRST, before you can start thinking about illegalising smoking/drinking/drug-taking while being pregnant?
I'm not sure.
I regret that I don't recall well bbarr's timeline of personhood and rights violations. I think that would be a useful framework for analyziing this issue. Under my vague recollection of that model, it could conceivably be the case that harming a fetus only becomes a violation of a person's rights once the fetus is born. That is, as long as the mother intends to abort the fetus, if she smokes she has not violated any person's rights. However if the mother bears the child, then one could conceivably say that that person's rights have been violated. Hopefully the Most Holy will clarify that framework for us.
According Neo-Kantian personhood theory a pregnant woman can smoke, drink, use drugs to her heart's delight, let scientists perform medical experimentation on the child and damage her child anyway she wants, as long as this behaviour is followed by a "permissable" abortion [of course using the necessary painkillers when killing the child (?&*#@!)]. According to Neo-Kantian personhood theory an unborn child doesn't have any rights as a person until it reaches the age of six months in utero.
Nowhere in the United States or the world this Neo-Kantian theory is being accepted or practised. Therefore discusssing it merely has a theoretical value, not a practical one.
In my view personhood and the corresponding rights to live and to be protected from abuse of any kind, starts at conception.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles http://www.hhs.gov/surgeongeneral/pressreleases/sg02222005.html
It is your opinion that the U.S. Surgeon General is acting upon faith alone when he issues the following statements?
"Based on the current, best science available we now know the following:
* Alcohol consumed during pregnancy increases the risk of alcohol related birth de ...[text shortened]... ohol exposure are lifelong.
* Alcohol-related birth defects are completely preventable."
Technically yes. He did not observe the tests and studies himself. He has to believe all the studies and reports to be reasonably correct even though he may have no direct knowledge that they are. So yes, it is indeed a matter of faith. Faith in words written by mere men. Same faith that 99% hold to some degree or another in text books, reports, and the words of other people.
It's not like he has the knowledge given to him by God. 😉
That being said, I agree with his assessment, and believe it is correct even though my medical knowledge is much poorer that the SG's.
Originally posted by DoctorScribbles However if the mother bears the child, then one could conceivably say that that person's rights have been violated. Hopefully the Most Holy will clarify that framework for us.
You may well be correct. Would make an interesting court case, a child born with mental or physical defects suing her mother a few years later for assaulting her body before she was born.
The moral and ethical dichotomy has got me stumped. I hope you're right about Him upstairs.
Which leads on to an entirely new thread about the nature of the soul, and when it comes into being. Fertilisation? X weeks into pregnancy? Birth? Some time after birth?
Questions I certainly don't have the answers to... 😕
Originally posted by ivanhoe A pregnant woman can smoke, drink and use drugs to her heart's delight and damage her child anyway she wants, as long as this behaviour is followed by a "permissable" abortion.
Das ist was Vater Benedict wurde sagen? Ich denke nicht so.
Pregnant Smokers and Drinkers
25 Apr '05 23:07
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