McCain Wasn't in a Cone of SilenceFollow

It's kinda relevant to the issue as it pertains to US politics. In a nutshell the Supreme Court ruled back in 1973 that a woman's right to privacy (specifically as it pertains to her own body and her control over it) gave her a constitutional right to have an abortion, making laws outlawing them illegal.

It gets murkier though, because the court set up a kind of sliding scale of when an abortion could be performed under various conditions (specifically how far along in the pregnancy) and for various reasons. There are a number of problems with the ruling, including the obvious argument that by setting up such a strictly defined set of "guidelines" the court effectively legislated from the bench. There are additional problems with regard to the scope of the decision in relation to the scope of the case before them, but it would require a much more in depth examination to really get into that.


The ruling is "murky" because the underlying assumption of a "right" was used to make the ruling, but isn't clearly present in the sliding portion of it. It is implied though. The presumption is that the developing child must gain rights over time that eventually overtake those of the mother. Otherwise, there would be no reason not to simply rule that any limitation on abortion should be illegal. If you have a right to control your own body, and there's no other countering right involved, there should be no limit on that control.

In other words, even in the decision, the right to an abortion is not absolute. It's balanced by a presumed right for the child to live. This is why the question asked of Obama is relevant. Over time, those leading the pro-choice side of the debate have increasingly ignored the rights of the child and focused entirely on the rights of the mother. This goes beyond even the ruling itself (which, as I've stated was itself far reaching), and is also relevant because when asked about the child's rights, Obama turned the question into a statement about the mother's rights. It shows that he's firmly in that camp in terms of how he thinks about the abortion issue.



Kinda irrelevant though. No one's debating that. The significant fact here is that Obama was unwilling to even acknowledge that an unborn child has *any* rights at *any* point during a pregnancy. Which is a position that most US citizens, even many of us on the pro-choice side, don't agree with.

Did I say soldiers? I was referring to the executive branch (read: Bush administration) giving orders to those soldiers. So quick to draw the "zomg military basher" card, we are.

I grew up on an army base. Me bashing the military would be me bashing my childhood, both my parents, the parents of all my childhood friends, the hospital I was born in, and the hospital my dad died in.

(Yes, my bumper sticker says "Support our troops! Bring them home!")



No wonder you don't think a woman has any right to determine her reproductive destiny. Your opinion of women in general is so low, you don't even give them the benefit of the doubt.

There are Cultural Things Afoot here that you obviously do not comprehend, but I surmise that that level of discourse is above your capabilities.

Edited, Aug 20th 2008 8:46pm by catwho

Wait... we're not letting our athletes leave the Olympics if they want to? Do we have them court-martialed?

That's sad