Chris BENOIT Week 10-Discussion Board Chapter 9

Question

Reply to student answer with your opinion 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

My views on when life begins is when there is an official heart beat. When this tiny little cell transforms into a living thing inside that woman, and it has a heart beat. That is when the life begins of any living thing. Abortion is such a controversial thing in our society today. Some people think its wrong, some people think its at times a right thing to do. Pro-life and Pro-choice is the two different sides of abortion. If you are pro-life, you are opposing abortion and you believe it should never happen. Pro-choice is the opposite, you believe that everyone should have a choice or not at an abortion.

Abortion is a conflict with this society because of the different opinions. It conflicts with my opinion because when there is a heart beat, I feel as if you should not be able to get an abortion. There are so many different types of situations that go along with abortions though. If one person is raped, they might not want that kid. But at what point do you say, I am going to get an abortion. Do it as fast as you can instead of waiting until it forms and you have a heart beat. I believe if you are at a young age, you learn to accept that you messed up. I believe taking the easy way out with an abortion makes you look like a coward in your teenage years. You messed up, now deal with it.

Life ends when there is no heart beat left in that humans body. If you are on life support, I consider that still alive. As you are on life support I know that is not much of a life. But you are still living and you have a heart beat. For criminal law purposes, you should be held accountable for taking someones life. If someone is on life support, its sad to say but I imagine they do not have the highest chancing of surviving. If you die from complications, then that person should be held accountable for their actions

Answer 1

Legally, in Roe v. Wade, the argument was the right to privacy. Even some supporters of pro choice find that basis a little weak, legally. The Supreme Court referred to the 4th Amendment and a "penumbra" a shadow that it cast, creating a woman's right to privacy. Clearly, for originalists or textual interpretation of the 4th Amendment and Bill of Rights, there is no right to an abortion. Still the pro choicers support abortion on other grounds, perhaps the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The right to live is a major part of the "right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." But there's some conflict between the unborn's right to life and the woman's liberty and pursuit of happiness as well as the woman's right to privacy.

Still, if a woman killed a new born baby in the "privacy" of her bedroom or at the advice of a medical doctor, telling her there were major birth defects, today that would be murder, even though the new born baby is virtually the same in all respects to the fetus just before birth.

A real "right to choose" does seem to require informed consent, including telling the woman the more current state of science as to the fetus' status, heart beat, ability to feel pain and other relevant factors. We should have laws protecting the fetus from pain, at least as much as we have laws against animal abuse banning inflicting pain on animals.

Another factor in a real "right to choose" is informing the prospective mother that adoption is an alternative. If she doesn't want the child, due to rape, financial problems, incest or other reasons, she could just put the baby up for adoption. We federally fund abortion, so to equalize the choice, maybe we should finance adoption including pay for the birth and related expenses.

Men seem more interested in a woman's right to choose than many women. Men want to avoid child support for 18 years, and abortion is far cheaper. If men are paying for the abortion that seems like an undue influence, a bribe to influence unfairly the woman's right to choose. Maybe more enforcement of the state and Attorney General tracking down deadbeat dads to pay child support would help the woman more fairly choose, knowing the baby would be less of a financial burden. She'd get welfare if needed, and the state would go after the father to get reimbursed.

There's also the aspect of childless couples seeking to adopt and a major shortage of children in the US to be adopted. So these couples go overseas to "buy" babies, from China, Russia, Central America and other places, paying upwards of $30,000+. Meanwhile, a similar transaction in the US would be considered "baby selling" and a crime. Yet, if a mother in the US knew she could sell her baby for $30,000 that would be viewed more favorably than doing an abortion. With the right financial incentives, the "right to choose" could lean more towards adoptions than abortions. While also keeping more money in the US economy than going overseas.