re: #7 dangerman-call me sandy, not a drink named Steve

ima have to re-up this from below

for me, that’s always been the core - the slope of the trajectory from a fertilized egg (or even before) to a born child is gradual with no discernible point at which personhood can be objectively identified, so when does a single discrete constitutionally protected life “begin”?

for the religious right, personhood got pushed further and further back to the beginning

for me there is no right to life. there is the right to a chance at life.

there is still a test / hurdle that must be passed - birth/delivery. and for the most part we don’t punish the caretakers if the hurdle is not crossed successfully

but make no mistake - this is the only time in the course of ‘a life’ where one must pass (through) a physical process or test to garner additional rights.
“turning” 18 or 21 is not the same as surviving the birthing process.

So *any* point at which a constitutionally protected human life/ person is defined is somewhat arbitrary because there is no dispassionate objective point. it ‘could be’ a fertilized egg. it ‘could be’ who has survived the birth process.

i see the right’s arguments as irrelevant. it’s a religious argument. not a scientific argument. Nor a legal one.
“personhood” is a legal argument. not a scientific argument. nor a religious one.

im fine with an agreed upon arbitrary legal place - as long as everybody recognizes that it is that, not some “religiously justified” legal place

Good comment, worth the re-upping. But I continued downstairs. I’ll leave it there, and answer a different little part of your comment.

but make no mistake - this is the only time in the course of ‘a life’ where one must pass (through) a physical process or test to garner additional rights.
“turning” 18 or 21 is not the same as surviving the birthing process.

Before I turned 18, I was totally set against the idea of state-sanctioned compulsory attendance at school, until graduation or the attainment of the age where they couldn’t keep you any more. I haven’t ‘gotten over it’, like they said I would. They said I was privileged, or what ever words were used for the concept at the time. ‘Compulsory education benefits the poor most of all’, they said. I had plenty of better ideas for benefiting the poor, involving no compulsion.

Should I take this one downstairs, too?