From: ahk@chinet.com
BTR1701 wrote:
>Feb 14, 2026 at 11:38:29 PM PST, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>BTR1701 wrote:
>>>Feb 14, 2026 at 7:29:18 PM PST, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>BTR1701 wrote:
>>>>>Feb 14, 2026 at 6:01:40 PM PST, Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>>>Rhino wrote:
>>>>>>>2026-02-14 4:30 p.m., Adam H. Kerman wrote:
>>>>>>>>A lawyer commenting repeated my line that a woman who spontaneously
>>>>>>>>aborts in the first month or two of pregnancy can be charged with
>>>>>>>>murder. This has massive implications for the clinical treatment of
>>>>>>>>women in ordinary and extraordinary circumstances.
>>>>>>>>The wall of separation between church and state has been breached.
>>>>>>>>https://apnews.com/article/puerto-rico-923-governor-sign
d-law-pregnancies-9d2f1fb895a17511a920cc42d480668e
>>>>>>>I think you could make a case for that breach to have happened in
>>>>>>>Roe v. Wade. The Supremes essentially drew a dividing line saying
>>>>>>>abortion was fine at such-and-such a point in the gestation cycle;
>>>>>>>the Puerto Rico decision just moved the line.
>>>>>>I'm not seeing your point. Blackman was criticized at the time for both
>>>>>>the arbitrary time ranges, which were not based on landmarks in
>>>>>>gestation, and his notion of when viability might occur, which he just
>>>>>>made up. Viability was a moving target anyway, given advances in
>>>>>>technology.
>>>>>>Where's the religion?
>>>>>>The arguments didn't change the centuries-old legal concept that human
>>>>>>life begins with a live birth. In probate law, a yet to be born child
>>>>>>does not inherit from the father if the father died between conception
>>>>>>and birth.
>>>>>>That human life begins at conception is a religious concept.
>>>>>It can be but it doesn't have to be based on religion.
>>>>Where else can it come from?
>>>Science.
>>During gestation, we go through periods in which we resemble the form of
>>other species as they gestate. Takes quite a while to become discretely
>>human. Human life begins at birth doesn't sound scientific at all.
>The point is, the legislature is free to decide that it is based on
>the criteria I mentioned below. Religion and supernaturalism is not
>necessary. And resembling something is not the same as being that
>thing. No matter what the fetus looks like at any given moment, it's
>made up of human DNA. It's never actually anything but human.
I still think this is a matter of belief and not science. An embryo having
human DNA is a characteristic but not a determining factor. The entire
gstational cycle contributes all the rest of the human characteristics.
DNA is exposed to hormones and proteins that activate or deactivate
genes at appropriate times else things go terribly wrong.
I accept what you are saying legally but not philosophically, and I
actually agree with Rhino that there are underlying religious beliefs at
play. Even with overt religious statements by a bill's sponsors and its
supporters, it's not an unconstitutional Establishment nor free exercise
conflict if the motives aren't explicitly stated.
In my state, Good Friday had been a public holiday in law till a state
judge ruled it to be an Establishment violation.
Blue laws that list the types of businesses that must not pursue
commercial activities as a religious infraction upon the Lord's Day are
unconstitutional, but laws making Sunday commerce illegal without an
explict religious statement are not a free exercise infringement.
So let's turn this around. A mother or her doctor or both do not believe
that human life begins at birth. They have a free exercise right to so
believe. Now, a definition in the criminal code that human life begins
at conception should undergo a strict scrutiny analysis.
Does the state have an interest in promoting foetal life in a way that's
superior to the mother's life and health? Could the mother win in court,
although there's no way to win so that she can receive the necessary
emergency procedure on a timely basis.
>>>. . .
>>People who push for this are either religious themselves or are trying
>>to score points with those who are religious. I'm calling a spade a
>>spade.
>You can call it whatever you like and you may even be right but imputing
>religion into a law merely because some of the people who voted for it are
>religious is not how 1st Amendment law works.
I accept that. I am well aware. I am still ascribing bad motive.
>>>>Human life with live birth was being practical. Common law was not
>>>>implementing religious belief about when
>>>>the soul enters.
>>>Who said anything about souls?
>>Isn't that why abortions are murder?
> You'll have to ask people who believe in souls.
I'm a Jew. Try to figure out what we believe and you get one rabbi had a
debate ten centuries ago and became convinced of this, then a century
and a half later, the conclusion after another debate was something
else.
All I know about Catholic belief is portrayal of Gothic horror in movies
and my friends telling me personal horror stories of what the nuns did
to them as religious indoctrination.
>I don't think abortion is murder because of souls the same way I don't
>believe souls are the reason it's murder when full-grown adults are the
>victims of homicide.
Just because Puerto Rico has defined when human life begins and
therefore whether the crime of murder was committed prior to birth have
you changed what you already believe?
And if you haven't, doesn't that make it a matter of opinion and not
criminal law because of your personal right of free exercise, separate
from the state's power to draft such a law?
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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