That isn't how the law in any society works. For example, dangerous driving is illegal, despite the fact that in most cases one cannot prove that any harm has been caused to anyone. Firing a gun on the street with your eyes closed is another example. In each case, the perpetrator is viewed as a criminal because they were "reckless" or "negligent" in putting other people's lives at risk to an unacceptable degree. Any rational system of law can apply the same criteria to abortion - if one aborts too early, then one is being reckless or negligent about the possibility that one is killing a living individual. Just because this cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be murder/manslaughter, does not mean that it cannot be a criminal offence.
There are standards of reasonableness, rules of conduct, and laws, upon which peace officers apply their understanding of those standards to enforce them. They arrest people who fail to meet those standards, then those standards and the peace officer's interpretation are tested in a court of law. The responsibility for conviction would rest on the testimony of the police officer who arrested the person and charged him with dangerous driving. The arrested person is assumed innocent, even though arrested and charged. A good attorney can get most people off on these subjective charges, though few will spend the money, or can afford the level of attorney who can demonstrate the arresting officer to be in the wrong. They simply pay the ticket. When it comes to abortion, the standards of what constitutes human life is the key question, still unanswered with medical and scientific certainty. When is it wrong to abort, is the question at hand. I provided what I believe is a reasonable criteria for this decision of what is a reasonable abortion to be deemed legal, and what would not be reasonable. Passing laws to enforce those standards seems right to me, knowing that the standards, like all laws, are subject to change if science can be more specific in the gray areas. Where there is medical uncertainty and a lack of scientific fact as to what constitutes human life, a compromise must be struck between the woman's rights and the rights of what would be considered a human being not out of the womb....with the very slightest of edge to the woman's right to choose during the compromised decision which lacks the certainty of scientific facts.
BTW Mav, Still no anwer from you regarding the frozen and now thawing fertilized human eggs... Tick..tick...tick... JB
Life beginning at conception is not quite an accurate description. The sperm and the egg prior to conception are both alive, and represent biological entities. The question is whether a legal individual exists at conception, the supreme court says no taking its cue from medicine, and whether philosophically, logically, socially, legally, medically, and psychologically we can accord personhood to a fertilized egg. If we can, and one is reasonalbe, then one must oppose abortion. If we can't, and one is reasonable, then one can support abortion, but is not forced to.
No, the eggs themselves are not an individual. And you are also talking about before conception. I am talking only after conception takes place. So if I go to a sperm bank and have my sperm frozen and then it's thrown out, no, that is not murder. If it was, I think we would all be in trouble. LOL. My argument only starts at conception.
Well, that is my whole question to you. Did murder or illegal detention occur? I'm just trying to determine in a lab situation when you feel that "protected human life" (my term) begins. I'm guessing from your position that you could have an egg in one vial and sperm in another and leave them both on the lab counter until next week (to die) with no guilt. However, as your last act on friday if you dropped them both into the petri dish, walked away and let them go at it for the weekend (then to die before Monday), now you would be guilt ridden to the grave. If that is your position, that's fine -- just wanting to confirm. I wouldn't find that position flawed(for you), just quite interesting. JB