When is abortion - homicide, when is murder of a human not homicide?

rturner76 said:

You could say it is a "life form" the way a symbiote is alive. But it can't live on it's own until it can breathe. Until then, it's an Extention of the mother.

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Even after it’s born it can’t survive on its own and will still die if left unattended.

TLK Valentine said:

That was murder under a higher law... specifically, the world Court at Nuremberg...

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It was not murder under German law when the murders were committed. They were fully and scrupulously legal. Fastidious German propriety and all. The Nuremberg trials came after the war, when the victors decided that murder was murder and even retroactively no matter what wartime German law said.

The higher law you might be looking for is God's law. Many decide not to follow that.

Unfortunately for your analogy, the US recognizes no such higher law. We helped form the International Criminal Court, but we never signed on as members.

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The International Criminal Court only came into being in 2002.

BNR32FAN said:

You keep dodging the fact that a fetus can die. How can it die if it isn’t alive?

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I'm still developing, a bit every day. Am I only alive when I have stopped developing? Or is that the point where I'm dead?

I don't get this thing about a tiny human being not being alive. It makes zero biological sense to me. I don't know where these people that think so earned their degrees in biology.

rturner76 said:

Yes we are alive. We can breathe on our own

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So anything that cannot breath on it's own is dead? The guy on a respirator is dead?

rturner76 said:

They are near death but they have been given the breath of life and lost it.

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What if someone could live for years and years with a respirator? Such cases are real. Are they less alive than you are? Are they less human than you are?

TLK Valentine said:

That was murder under a higher law... specifically, the world Court at Nuremberg...

Unfortunately for your analogy, the US recognizes no such higher law. We helped form the International Criminal Court, but we never signed on as members.

Ironic, eh?

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If that is the case then are you suggesting that one couldn't call it murder until after the fact when in hindsight a Court decides that it is?

Additionally, what makes one law higher than another?

chevyontheriver said:

It was not murder under German law when the murders were committed. They were fully and scrupulously legal. Fastidious German propriety and all. The Nuremberg trials came after the war, when the victors decided that murder was murder and even retroactively no matter what wartime German law said.

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Indeed -- so in order for your analogy to work, someone is going to have to conquer the US (and every other nation where abortion is legal) and drag us all before the world court...

Any takers?

The higher law you might be looking for is God's law. Many decide not to follow that.

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I reject that law -- and you don't have the power to change my mind.

The International Criminal Court only came into being in 2002.

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Indeed -- and the US is not a member. We answer to no one.

chevyontheriver said:

I'm still developing, a bit every day. Am I only alive when I have stopped developing? Or is that the point where I'm dead?

I don't get this thing about a tiny human being not being alive. It makes zero biological sense to me. I don't know where these people that think so earned their degrees in biology.

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It’s nothing more than the refusal to accept reality because personal agendas are more important than admitting the truth. It’s unfortunate that this has become all to common in this day and age.

grasping the after wind said:

If that is the case then are you suggesting that one couldn't call it murder until after the fact when in hindsight a Court decides that it is?

Additionally, what makes one law higher than another?

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One can call it murder immediately if the killing was an illegal act. People are charged with murder before they are convicted in court.

I don’t know what you mean by “one law being higher than another”.

grasping the after wind said:

If that is the case then are you suggesting that one couldn't call it murder until after the fact when in hindsight a Court decides that it is?

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I'm suggesting no such thing. You can call it "murder" if you like -- you can call it an omelette if you like...

It's nice to have opinions, but what you don't have is the authority to make those opinions anything more than "nice"... like, for example, enforceable. Courts do have that authority.

Additionally, what makes one law higher than another?

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Well, in the context of WWII, superior firepower. One would hope we're in a more civilized age -- but in light of recent events, I'm skeptical.

grasping the after wind said:

Tell that to the Jews at Auchwitz.

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Can I tell it to Kyle Rittenhouse?

Are you then admitting that if abortion becomes illegal it will be murder and that in the past when it was illegal it was murder?

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What? That...makes no sense.

Should the government decree that removing one's appendix is murder would it then be murder? What other words are you gong to unilaterilally decimust we not use to describe an action unless the government gives us permission to use them?

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Welll, you are certainly murdering the concept here. If some government decided appendectomy was murder then they'd be completely changing the definition of the word,making this a very silly hypothetical.

Your argument is that government defines the word murder, and no one can look at a situation and call something murder if the government hasn't said it, was murder.

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By Jove I think he's getting it.

If that is the case than no Jew was murdered at Auschwitz

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What are you talking about? Some 30 people were convicted of murder for Auschwitz, just in Poland.

and no slave was murdered in Virginia for a time after the below referenced Act was put into force.

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That's correct. They also weren't guilty of any crime for enslaving them in the first place.

Because it wasn't illegal.

I do not allow the government to circumscribe my vocabulary fro me based upon some arbitrary truncation of the meaning of a word.

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Right, God came down and made you the sole definer of words, which isn't at all arbitrary, and I am required to just go along with that.

If I see someone intentionally killing another person I, I will call it murder even if a government says it is legal to do so and you tell me I am definitionally incorrect to do so.

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You can be as incorrect as you want in this regard. We both live in free countries.

TLK Valentine said:

Indeed -- so in order for your analogy to work, someone is going to have to conquer the US (and every other nation where abortion is legal) and drag us all before the world court...

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Nope. It works simply by recognizing that bad law is no excuse.

I reject that law -- and you don't have the power to change my mind.

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If you do not want to change your mind, and reject God's laws, I'm not the guy you have to worry about.

Indeed -- and the US is not a member. We answer to no one.

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We will eventually answer to God.

chevyontheriver said:

Nope. It works simply by recognizing that bad law is no excuse.

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Except it's not a bad law.

If you do not want to change your mind, and reject God's laws, I'm not the guy you have to worry about.

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Nobody is.

We will eventually answer to God.

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Speak for yourself.

TLK Valentine said:

Except it's not a bad law.

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Roe v Wade was spectacularly bad law, incoherently decided. Casey came up with a whole different basis for continuing abortion because the Roe argument was so bad. And Casey relies on justice Kennedy's odd rationale about finding one's own reality. That would have been laughed at by everybody if not for him being the deciding vote. It's bad law whether you like the outcome or not.

chevyontheriver said:

I could, for a short time, perhaps manage to keep them alive. Why would I be charged with murder unless I tampered with the electricity and caused it to go out? Are they human if they can't breathe on their own? When do they stop being human?

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For the same reason you want to call a person who has an abortion a murderer. If a woman doesn't want to "breathe" for her unborn child or doesn't want to "eat" for her unborn child, etc. then it isn't murder -- using the standard you are using for the person who can't breathe on their own who you have to assist.

Yes, for most of human history, a person who could not breathe on their own would die. We've changed in the last century or so, developing machines that breathe for them. Never have we forced other people to do their breathing for them long term -- nor do you appear to be in favor of such laws. It isn't murder, if you are involved in an accident that causes a person to stop breathing but can be saved with medical treatment, to keep breathing for them until help arrives -- even if the accident is your fault.

Your issue is that your examples aren't equal. If we could put fetuses in a machine and bring them to term, like we do with the person on a respirator, then the point would be equal. I'd even concede the point if a fetus could be removed and then connected to a new "mother."

The other flaw is you claim a baby isn't independent but that isn't true -- it is independent of the mother. Yes, the baby still needs to be fed and otherwise cared for, it will die if no one cares for it. Yet that doesn't have to be the mother -- most people can do it and, and frequently do (fathers or in the case of abortion).

It was the basis of my point, that went over your head -- is it murder if a person can't breath (such as electrical failure) and you don't keep them alive? That is what you are telling the person who has an abortion -- if they stop breathing for the fetus (by disconnecting the fetus from their body) then you believe it is murder.

And don't get me wrong, I'm not making any claims about abortion -- there are various good moral arguments that can be made from both sides. We should work to lower the number of abortions (legal or illegal). My issue is that your argument was flawed and is hurting you in this thread more than helping.

SimplyMe said:

For the same reason you want to call a person who has an abortion a murderer. If a woman doesn't want to "breathe" for her unborn child or doesn't want to "eat" for her unborn child, etc. then it isn't murder -- using the standard you are using for the person who can't breathe on their own who you have to assist.

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I read your quote of Martin Luther King and I wondered how the violence of abortion has not caused a spiral of violence. One who doesn't want to breathe for their unborn child could hold their breath (for a little while anyhow) OR kill the unborn child. That seems to be what you are approving of. Much different than not breathing for the unborn child.

It was the basis of my point, that went over your head -- is it murder if a person can't breath (such as electrical failure) and you don't keep them alive? That is what you are telling the person who has an abortion -- if they stop breathing for the fetus (by disconnecting the fetus from their body) then you believe it is murder.

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There happens to be a difference between 1.) mouth to mouth breathing for as long as one can manage and 2.) the violence of killing an unborn child. One is a reluctant failure to save and the other is a deliberate act of violence. Your illustration compares apples and giraffes. What would MLK do? Stop breathing as some kind of euphemism for abortion?

chevyontheriver said:

Roe v Wade was spectacularly bad law, incoherently decided. Casey came up with a whole different basis for continuing abortion because the Roe argument was so bad. And Casey relies on justice Kennedy's odd rationale about finding one's own reality. That would have been laughed at by everybody if not for him being the deciding vote. It's bad law whether you like the outcome or not.

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You have your opinion, I have mine, the court has theirs.

chevyontheriver said:

I read your quote of Martin Luther King and I wondered how the violence of abortion has not caused a spiral of violence. One who doesn't want to breathe for their unborn child could hold their breath (for a little while anyhow) OR kill the unborn child. That seems to be what you are approving of. Much different than not breathing for the unborn child.

There happens to be a difference between 1.) mouth to mouth breathing for as long as one can manage and 2.) the violence of killing an unborn child. One is a reluctant failure to save and the other is a deliberate act of violence. Your illustration compares apples and giraffes. What would MLK do? Stop breathing as some kind of euphemism for abortion?

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Is there are reason you are trying to make this about me? I had no thoughts of mouth to mouth -- I was actually originally thinking of one of the "bags" that has a mask that fits over the nose and mouth, that you squeeze to get air into the lungs.

My sole point, again, was the logic of your example and how it didn't work. Even with the person who can't breathe, if the machine fails then you can have any number of people manually breathe for him until you can get a working respirator to do it mechanically. In the case of a fetus, only the mother can "breathe" for the fetus; meaning the two examples aren't comparable.

As for "violence," a large number of abortions do not require "violence" -- the fact you feel you need to use emotionally charged words also tends to weaken your argument. For example, many women are now using an "abortion pill" which manipulate a woman's natural processes.

I'm not trying to argue for abortion -- as I said, we need to take steps to limit abortion. I'm merely pointing out that your argument is illogical and is not helping your "cause" of making abortion illegal.

TLK Valentine said:

You have your opinion, I have mine, the court has theirs.

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What will you say if the court undoes Roe and Casey? Same thing?

SimplyMe said:

meaning the two examples aren't comparable.

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Agreed. I would have never tried to compare the two.