Robin, please remember that the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision which upheld slavery was also a 7-2 decision. The Plessy v Ferguson Supreme Court decision was a 7-1 vote. That horrible decision upheld segregation. Therefore, we know historically that sweeping votes do not indicate correct votes. The issue of abortion is a human rights issue – just as the two cases cited above. Genetically a unique human life begins at the moment of conception.
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth, Harvard University Medical School: “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive…. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception…. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”
Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being. We as a society do not allow the taking of innocent life in any other context. Human beings have an inalienable right to life. The Declaration of Independence asserts: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The 14th Amendment to the Constitution reaffirms the right to “life, liberty, or property”.
…All human beings should be supported and protected. The position of valuing one human life over another is the very basis of oppression throughout the world. Every human life has intrinsic value. When we start to put people in categories, we all eventually are put at risk.
Robin, please consider the body autonomy of the unborn child. The unborn baby is a separate body – a separate human. As a human being she has certain inalienable rights – the right to life being one of them. The woman’s right to body autonomy is best exercised before she and her partner have created another living human being.
We should not punish women who find themselves in an unintended pregnancy. We should provide a full generous spectrum of resources. Neither should we punish the unborn human by ending its life. Respectfully, there are two bodies and two humans involved.
Emily, regarding your premise that those standing up to protect human beings are intrusive and coercive, isn’t the act of abortion an ultimate violation and violence against another human being?
Also, we as human beings have not only the right but the responsibility to protect the vulnerable. Mahatma Ghandi said, “the true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members.”
Festus, the constitution is very clear that each person has a Right to Life. Slavery once divided our nation upon state lines. That fundamental division regarding the value of black people was wrong. So now this system of valuing human life differently from state to state is wrong.
Our nation’s body of law is all about establishing universal, objective human rights. Our human rights should be protected on the objective basis of humanity. A person is a human and a human is a person. Every human life has intrinsic value. When we start to put people in categories, we all eventually are put at risk.
Nancy, thank you for your thoughts. Respectfully, the definition of human life is a scientific, biological issue. At fertilization, all 46 chromosomes scientifically identifying the being as a human being are in place. The fetus is a biologically unique human being – genetically separate from their mother or father.
So, this is also a civic issue. The FIRST right enumerated in our Declaration of Independence is the Right to Life. That foundational right is reaffirmed in our Constitution and throughout our nation’s body of law….
Rob, human beings have an inalienable right to life explicitly stated in the Declaration of Independence and the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Each human life begins at conception. The fusion of the egg and sperm creates a being with its own unique set of DNA — separate from that of its mother or father. That unique human needs only time and nourishment to continue its journey along the same continuum of life we are all on. There are about 2,363 innocent American lives lost to abortion every day. We as a society do not allow the taking of an innocent life in any other context.