your reasoning is flawed and exhibits a basic misunderstanding of the american legal system. the examples you give are not applicable to this issue. the legal system in capital cases is based on "going with the doubt". in murder cases, even with a proponderance of evidence, if there is any doubt , the defendant must be let go. one has to prove a case beyond the shadow of a doubt. i apply this same reasoning in reaching my conclusions.
Oh, my reasoning is flawed, eh? Given your reasoning, and the fact that our legal system is based on the concept of innocent until proven guilty, prove that when an abortion takes place, a murder has occurred. You can't. You have to prove a fetus is human life first, and you can't do that. At best, you can get to a coin flip, as we have agreed it to be a 50/50 proposition. It "may" be a human life, it "may" not be. There is no direct evidence to offer proof of human life. It is just a theory without evidence, a belief, based on theory of soul, and human consciousness. The fallacy, is that there is an assumption by the "right to lifers" that a soul exists, which is has yet to be proved, and that the soul enters upon conception. These beliefs "may" be true, but in the absence of proof, they are just theory, and as such bear no weight as evidence, as the theories equally "may" be false. It may be true that the soul, if there is one (I personally believe there is one-but this is a legal discussion) enters 1 second before birth. Who knows? So, given the concept of guilt comes when all reasonable doubt has been removed, and given that you cannot make a case that is free of reasonable doubt, you lose. You have no way to remove reasonable doubt in a murder case. Case closed, abortion is legal.
1)You pre-suppose abortion is murder. That is at debate here. It is unclear that Daniel_M feels it is. He referred to killing in general. 2)Putting the baby up for adoption is a choice indeed. But that washes the father's hands of responsibility of raising the child. Is it unreasonable to ask a father who opposes abortion to take this responsibility? The point of the hypothetical is to examine it from within. 3)Unintended pregnancies result even in cases where reliable contraception is properly used and the woman and her partner are well aware of the potential for conception. That is one assumption in the hypothetical where Lundy is the daddy. Now before others jump in, give Lundy an opportunity to reply.
in the absense of proof, one way or the other, it would be insane to assume that a fetus is not a child. being that this assumption will result in murder but the other way it's life. what is so hard about understanding this ?? i am still waiting for a valid argument against my point. best, surfer
You still don't get it, do you? "May" be human life is not sufficient to come to a legal conclusion, as it is not evidence nor proof. In the absence of proof, one way or another, it is sane to rule not guilty. That is our legal system. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and you simply cannot prove a fetus is life beyond a reasonable doubt. You are ruling the act of abortion guilty because it "may" be murder. That goes against all principles of law. If we start to convict on the basis of "may" be guilty, then we have to take the position in law that one is guilty until proven innocent. Bad idea. Imagine if 100 people think you are a murder, yet have no evidence or proof that you are. Do we find you guilty on the basis of public opinion, or the basis of law and the concept of evidence? I for one hope our legal system maintains the current standards of innocent until proven guilty, and the requirement of guilt being proven via fact and evidence, not supposition and personal bias. If you really think about it legally, conceptually, and get off the fetus "may" be a human being, you might just see the danger of your thinking to human rights. Imagine a murder trial where there is no body, no forensic evidence, no proof, but because the defendant "may" be guilty due to some fairly weak circumstancial evidence, we convict him. It is your kind of thinking that is seen in fascist states, when changing concepts of the leader's own rules and ideas take precedent over evidence and law.
It would seem to me that if a women delivers a baby and walks away the baby will die. In fact, it would be my best guess that it would take the average child until about age 4 where he or she would have the thought process necessary to take care of themselves on the most rudimentary level. And that would be in a hunter gatherer environment. In an industrial nation that notion is not even close to being realistic. So at the end of the day does it really matter where life begins as much as it matters where life can be self-sustained? In America alone there are 100,000 adoptable children right now. The average age of one of these LIVES is 8. And most if not all have suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The likes of which most of us would never be able to recover from. But the reality is that children become a little less adoptable when they have a few cigarette scars on their backs. And I would take the pro-life movement a little more seriously if the number of adoptable children was zero. It is one thing to have the opinion that abortion is wrong. It is completely another to sacrifice a large portion of your life taking care of unwanted children. And I suspect that most people who have witnessed the suffering that children endure, on a personal level, are pro-choice. Because there are just not enough people willing to offer more than an OPINION.
It is possible, and fact as I am one who is against abortion, that you can be against something, yet also be against the government legislation of whether or not someone has the right to have an abortion. Most right to choose proponents I know, who think about matters deeply, believe abortion is wrong, yet would not deny a woman that decision to make on her own. It is difficult in a society to allow people to drink themselves to death, to have unprotected and dangerous sex, to blow all their money on gambling, to abuse members of their family, to immerse themselves in a life that is devoid of anything but greed and materialism.....yet the only thing worse would be denying them the freedom to act as they choose. Take out the arguments of soul, and religious based assessments, and I have yet to hear a clear and cogent argument that supports taking the right of choice away from the woman and how she deals with her own pregnancy.