Colorado votes 'no' on whether all human beings are persons.

[joel]

In a democratic vote, Colorado overwhelmingly rejected the proposed Amendment 48 to their state constitution, 72% to 27%.
http://data.denverpost.com/election/results/amendment/2008/48-definition-of-person/
The amendment said,
"As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization."
Those provisions of the Colorado constitution relate to inalienable rights, equality of justice, and due process of law.
:sad:

[Dispen4ever]

"As used in sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution, the terms 'person' or 'persons' shall include any human being from the moment of fertilization."

Great language. Tragedy it didn't pass. Obama has already said that within his first two weeks he'll ask for pending legistlation to overturn all pro-life state laws on the books to be passed. What a grievous fate for the unborn and live births that survive abortion.

[familyof6]

I'm not sure I understand why anyone thought that would pass. Women who miscarry, or use birth control; would they then be considered murderers? Where do you draw the line?

[Kenny]

Uh, murder is intentional, wrongful killing. Miscarriages don’t fall into that category. And birth control (of most forms) prevents fertilization rather than destroys the embryo.

[Chocobear]

How typical. Once again, the members of the pro-choice movement have thrown logic and compassion right out the window.

[familyof6]

How typical. Once again, the members of the pro-choice movement have thrown logic and compassion right out the window.

I am not throwing logic out the window. Do you realize the scope of this? If a fertilized egg is a person, what's to stop a man from suing a woman for having a glass of wine while pregnant or listening to loud music? Yes, it sounds ridiculous. However, there are a lot of ridiculous people out there and I don't doubt for a second that someone would try this. What if a man is upset with his wife and she miscarries; what's to stop him from having her arrested for involuntary manslaughter? Nothing. Because, had this ridiculous amendment actually passed, that fertilized egg would have been a person. Thankfully, Colorado overwhelmingly voted against this. I can completely understand the pro-life point of view, but that's no excuse for going so far overboard. Trying to stop abortion is one thing; trying to define a newly fertilized egg as a person with the same inalienable rights and due process of law that we have....well, it's ridiculous.

http://www.denverpost.com/endorsements/ci_10524970

[familyof6]

Uh, murder is intentional, wrongful killing. Miscarriages don’t fall into that category. And birth control (of most forms) prevents fertilization rather than destroys the embryo.

Involuntary manslaughter is not usually intentional. (hence the word 'involuntary') Would it be ok for a woman to be charged with involuntary manslaughter for a miscarriage? Under this amendment, she will have killed a person. A person in this country has due process available to them. You don't think there's any way that this could be misused? Americans love to sue one another.

[joel]

If a fertilized egg is a person...
There is no such thing as a human fertilized egg, medically speaking. After fertilization both egg and sperm no longer exist. A new human (homo sapiens) organism has come to be, in the first stage of his/her life.

Contrary to the article you linked to, amendment 48 does fit with good science.



...what's to stop a man from suing a woman for having a glass of wine while pregnant or listening to loud music?
If an infant is a person, what's to stop a man from suing a woman for shaking their infant? Where does it end?



What if a man is upset with his wife and she miscarries; what's to stop him from having her arrested for involuntary manslaughter? Nothing.
What if an infant dies suddenly from an unknown cause (SIDS), and the man tries to have her arrested for manslaughter because he is upset with her? It would be the same thing. The police would not take up the case unless there were compelling evidence to suspect foul play.



Would it be ok for a woman to be charged with involuntary manslaughter for a miscarriage? Under this amendment, she will have killed a person. A person in this country has due process available to them.
Don't forget that the woman also has due process. My understanding is that involuntary manslaughter does not mean merely an accident. Someone can be killed in an accident and it not be involuntary manslaughter. And most miscarriages are not even an accident--i.e., most result not from any action of the mother, but from chemical imbalances. There would be no reason to even investigate into a miscarriage unless there was compelling evidence. My understanding is that involuntary manslaughter has a spectrum of severity. At the bottom of the scale is negligence, where it must be proven that a reasonable person would have forseen the injury and taken preventative measures. Recklessness is more serious, involving a knowingly exposing another to the risk of death (though without actual intent to kill). If a case ever does come before a court, it must judge the actual level of criminal liability that has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and rule accordingly.

Now, it would be absurd to define infants or older children (or anyone else) as not persons, for fear of accidentally killing them and being accused of criminal negligence. I see no difference for pre-born humans.

So, you have provided no sound reason to believe Colorado's proposed amendment was "overboard."

[Bill the Cat]

It was for more than stopping abortion. It was designed to stop embryonic stem cell research.

[Kenny]

Involuntary manslaughter is not usually intentional. (hence the word 'involuntary')

That’s true. But involuntary manslaughter is also not murder.


Would it be ok for a woman to be charged with involuntary manslaughter for a miscarriage?

Maybe – if she took undue risks knowing that she was pregnant. I think it is appropriate to hold women accountable for things like drug use and alcohol abuse during pregnancy for example. But obviously a women shouldn’t be charged for a miscarriage if she doesn’t take undue risks, even if she also isn’t extremely cautious either.


You don't think there's any way that this could be misused? Americans love to sue one another.

I grant that you have a point there. It seems that either provisions would have to be made to keep the law from being abused or that the some other more targeted law should be put in place instead.

BTW, just so everyone knows where I’m coming from (but I won’t argue for it here on this forum), I don’t think that a newly fertilized embryo is a person or even an organism that is a member of our species (at that early stage, I don’t think that there is anything there that composes a single, well-individuated organism, but that there are only several loosely coordinated cells). I don’t think that there is a human organism present until about fourteen days into the gestation process (when the primitive streak forms, twinning is no longer biologically feasible, and cell specialization has begun to set in). But I will not defend that position in this forum and my belief that this is the case is based on tentative enough considerations that I still think that we should regard the embryo with a significant amount of cautionary respect, given the gravity of destroying it if it turns out that my view is wrong. It is the case, on my view, that every member of our species, from the earliest stages of his or her existence, is a person with a right to life

[Kenny]

It was for more than stopping abortion. It was designed to stop embryonic stem cell research.

Out of curiosity, then, why wasn’t the law more targeted to produce those specific results? It seems to me that familyof6 does have a point about the potential abuse of the law in question here. That’s the funny thing about laws sometimes – even if what they are intended to do is just, they sometimes have very bad unintended consequences. That is something that we need to take into consideration when we evaluate laws like this.

[themuzicman]

Involuntary manslaughter is not usually intentional. (hence the word 'involuntary') Would it be ok for a woman to be charged with involuntary manslaughter for a miscarriage? Under this amendment, she will have killed a person. A person in this country has due process available to them. You don't think there's any way that this could be misused? Americans love to sue one another.

No. Involuntary manslaughter requires that an individual knowingly create a dangerous situation, which resulted in the death of another person.

A miscarriage, short of some intentional act by a woman (or man) who knew she was pregnant, would not be IM.

MIchaek

[Kenny]

No. Involuntary manslaughter requires that an individual knowingly create a dangerous situation, which resulted in the death of another person.

A miscarriage, short of some intentional act by a woman (or man) who knew she was pregnant, would not be IM.

MIchaek

Yes, but we could imagine women being sued for undergoing fairly normal activities that still involve some negligible degree of elevated risk to the fetus (e.g. maybe something like doing some light aerobics early on in pregnancy). I’m not sure about how likely it is that women would be sued for such things, however. But if there is some likelihood of that, that is a reason not to pass the law.

[Faramir]

Yes, but we could imagine women being sued for undergoing fairly normal activities that still involve some negligible degree of elevated risk to the fetus (e.g. maybe something like doing some light aerobics early on in pregnancy). I’m not sure about how likely it is that women would be sued for such things, however. But if there is some likelihood of that, that is a reason not to pass the law.

I don't follow. We can imagine a Dr. being sued for the death of a patient, even if the Dr. did everything in her power to save said patient. Does that mean we should not pass medical malpractice laws?

[themuzicman]

Yes, but we could imagine women being sued for undergoing fairly normal activities that still involve some negligible degree of elevated risk to the fetus (e.g. maybe something like doing some light aerobics early on in pregnancy).

That's just silly. A civil suit requires culpability. (and the plantiff would have to establish that the action in question caused the miscarriage.. which is impossible, since most are spontaneous.)


I’m not sure about how likely it is that women would be sued for such things, however. But if there is some likelihood of that, that is a reason not to pass the law.

Someone driving down the road might fiddle with their radio and cause the death of another person, whose family might sue them for distracted driving. Thus, we shouldn't pass distracted driving laws?

That's just silly, too.

Michael

[Kenny]

I don't follow. We can imagine a Dr. being sued for the death of a patient, even if the Dr. did everything in her power to save said patient. Does that mean we should not pass medical malpractice laws?

No. But it would be a reason not to pass a certain law if it made it easier for doctors to be unjustly sued. It would be a reason; not necessarily one that wins out over other considerations, however. It could also be that, on balance, a law with some unintended negative consequences is still one that should be passed.

[Faramir]

No. But it would be a reason not to pass a certain law if it made it easier for doctors to be unjustly sued. It would be a reason; not necessarily one that wins out over other considerations, however. It could also be that, on balance, a law with some unintended negative consequences is still one that should be passed.
Fair enough.

[Kenny]

That's just silly.

Maybe. I grant that I’m not very familiar with how the relevant laws work or what the relevant stages of due process are in these cases. I do think it is important to think through these things when we asses laws like this, however.


A civil suit requires culpability. (and the plantiff would have to establish that the action in question caused the miscarriage.. which is impossible, since most are spontaneous.)

If such conditions really would prevent the sort of bad lawsuits in question, then that does seem to cut against familyof6’s argument. Personally speaking, I just don’t know whether that’s the case or not. I’m not saying that familyof6’s argument succeeds; I am saying that the sort of considerations she brings up are important ones to think about.


Someone driving down the road might fiddle with their radio and cause the death of another person, whose family might sue them for distracted driving. Thus, we shouldn't pass distracted driving laws?

No, we should. But if we had reason to believe that the way such a law was written made it likely that people would be sued unjustly in a large number of cases, or would make people fearful of being sued in ways that unduly restricted their freedom, that would be a consideration in favor of either not passing the law in question or rewriting it so that it is more targeted.

[themuzicman]

And you really think that women who miscarry would be sued in a large number of cases?

[Kenny]

And you really think that women who miscarry would be sued in a large number of cases?

I don't know. But even there being a significant enough probability that such lawsuits would occur would have the effect of unduly restricting pregnant women’s' freedom for fear of being sued. Again, I'm not saying that fo6's argument succeeds. I am saying that the sorts of considerations it raises are considerations that we should be sensitive to. A lot of people think that pro-lifers care only for the fetus and nothing for the freedom of the mother. We don’t want to prove them right by not being sensitive to these sorts of things.

[joel]

I grant that you have a point there. It seems that either provisions would have to be made to keep the law from being abused or that the some other more targeted law should be put in place instead.

If the current law can be abused is such ways, then we already have this problem (regardless of amedment 48), e.g., with the death of infants (or anyone else for that matter).


Yes, but we could imagine women being sued for undergoing fairly normal activities that still involve some negligible degree of elevated risk to the fetus (e.g. maybe something like doing some light aerobics early on in pregnancy). I’m not sure about how likely it is that women would be sued for such things, however. But if there is some likelihood of that, that is a reason not to pass the law.
As I said before, at the very least it has to be shown that a reasonable person would know that such-and-such activity would be life-threatening to the baby, and thus would not do it. Otherwise it is not criminal negligence.

If there would be a problem in this area, it lies with existing legislation (and thus should be fixed regardless), not with amendment 48.

[Kenny]

If the current law can be abused is such ways, then we already have this problem (regardless of amedment 48), e.g., with the death of infants (or anyone else for that matter).

There might be a bigger problem in this case, however, since the fetus is attached to the mother’s body. So it may be that if such a law were passed, pregnant women could be unjustly sued for undergoing rather low risk activities that pertain to the exercise of their own bodies. I do think it is reasonable for us to expect pregnant women not to undergo high risk activities that might damage the fetus (drug use, alcohol abuse, etc.), but it would not be reasonable to expect pregnant women to restrict their freedom to such an extent that they never do anything that poses even a negligible risk to the fetus.

Even if such lawsuits would fail to succeed, the very threat of them might pose an undue restriction on the freedom of pregnant women.


As I said before, at the very least it has to be shown that a reasonable person would know that such-and-such activity would be life-threatening to the baby, and thus would not do it. Otherwise it is not criminal negligence.

If the law were such that it did properly screen out unjust lawsuits against pregnant women, then I think that fo6’s argument fails. Maybe it does. I don’t know. I think that is something we should think about.


If there would be a problem in this area, it lies with existing legislation (and thus should be fixed regardless), not with amendment 48.

Yes, but when we pass laws, we need to consider all the consequences that they will have, including how they will interact with existing legislation. Sometimes it is a reason not to pass a good law because other bad laws haven’t been changed yet and it would interact with those laws in problematic way. Or, at the very least, it is a reason for rewording the law or adding provisions to it.

[themuzicman]

if it's really a problem, they'll pass a law that says that a woman cannot be held civilly liable for a spontaneous abortion.

[Kenny]

if it's really a problem, they'll pass a law that says that a woman cannot be held civilly liable for a spontaneous abortion.

Better, I would think, to add such provisions to the proposed law rather than passing it and then hoping that other laws will be passed later on.

[themuzicman]

It's a constitutional amendment. You don't put all of those details in there. It just mucks things up. Let the constitution specify the principles, and let the legislature have the flexibility to work out the details.

You don't really want to codify the little stuff in such a way that another constitutional ballot has to be passed to change it, do you?

Michael

[Kenny]

It's a constitutional amendment. You don't put all of those details in there. It just mucks things up. Let the constitution specify the principles, and let the legislature have the flexibility to work out the details.

In that case, then, I suppose it’s a matter of how likely the right kinds of legislative protections would be put in place.


You don't really want to codify the little stuff in such a way that another constitutional ballot has to be passed to change it, do you?

That’s a good point too. The provisions themselves might have unforeseen and unintended consequences, and for that reason we might not want to write them into the constitution. On the other hand, if the right legislation isn’t very likely to be put in place, perhaps that is a risk worth taking. There’s a sort of expected utility calculation involved here.

[themuzicman]

As dumb as politicians tend to be, I think there are enough of them who looked at that legislation and were already drawing up contingencies to protect women from being abused with it.

[Kenny]

As dumb as politicians tend to be, I think there are enough of them who looked at that legislation and were already drawing up contingencies to protect women from being abused with it.

If that's true, then it may be that complaints about likely abuse were overblown.

[themuzicman]

The usual pro-choice fear mongering. Nothing more.

[Kenny]

The usual pro-choice fear mongering. Nothing more.

Maybe. But I do think it is important for us to be sensitive to the sorts of considerations that fof6 brought up nonetheless. Whether those considerations were weighty enough to make any difference in this case is different from the question of whether we should be sensitive to them.

I think it is important for those of us who are pro-life to act in a reflective way rather than in a reactive way. That way, if our opponents themselves are reactive, it is us who have gained the high ground.

[joel]

. So it may be that if such a law were passed, pregnant women could be unjustly sued for undergoing rather low risk activities...

Again, if the activity does not include high risk of death to the baby that any reasonable person would recognize and avoid, then it does not qualify even as the lowest level of criminal negligence.



I do think it is reasonable for us to expect pregnant women not to undergo high risk activities that might damage the fetus (drug use, alcohol abuse, etc.), but it would not be reasonable to expect pregnant women to restrict their freedom to such an extent that they never do anything that poses even a negligible risk to the fetus.

Agreed, but our current laws (e.g., involuntary manslaughter) don't do that.



Even if such lawsuits would fail to succeed, the very threat of them might pose an undue restriction on the freedom of pregnant women.

The only reason there would be a reasonable threat of them (such that it causes reasonable fear) is if it were common that such lawsuits succeed. (Especially since the would-be defendant can counter-sue)

[Darth Executor]

I'm not sure I understand why anyone thought that would pass. Women who miscarry, or use birth control; would they then be considered murderers? Where do you draw the line?

This is only a dilemma to pro-choicers because they have no higher brain function.

[auggybendoggy]

If a fertalized egg is problematic than at what point is it not an egg?

This is a serious question. Is there a place in time where it is not considered an egg?

If at that point, is it a "person"?

Aug

[Kenny]

It’s probably a vague matter as to when the egg ceases to exist. How you view the matter will depend on what theory of vagueness you adopt, but on my own view, there is a time when it is neither definitively true nor definitively false that the sperm and egg still exist (I think that the law of bivalence fails at borderline cases of vagueness).

[auggybendoggy]

Kenny,
I guess how does the law treat this question?

Law is black and white so at what point according to state laws (use colorado state law as an example) when is the egg not an egg?

Aug

[Kenny]

Kenny,
I guess how does the law treat this question?

Law is black and white so at what point according to state laws (use colorado state law as an example) when is the egg not an egg?

Aug

I would think that, as far as the law is concerned, conception happens so fast that it doesn’t matter.

[joel]

If a fertalized egg is problematic than at what point is it not an egg?

As I said before, there's no such thing as a fertilized egg.
"note O'Rahilly's statement that the use of terms such as "ovum" and "egg" — which would include the term "fertilized egg" — is scientifically incorrect, has no objective correlate in reality, and is therefore very misleading — especially in these present discussions. Thus these terms themselves would qualify as "scientific" myths. The commonly used term, "fertilized egg," is especially very misleading, since there is really no longer an egg (or oocyte) once fertilization has begun. What is being called a "fertilized egg" is not an egg of any sort; it is a human being."

http://l4l.org/library/mythfact.html