Does Kermit deserve the death penalty for this?

[DinoDoc]

Since your entire thread is a troll, ....

50/50

[MichaeltheGreat]

So what's the non-troll 50?

[DinoDoc]

Is this crime really worthy of the death penalty given the value infant life usually gets from your side of the fence? I base that on the confused coverage the case has gotten regarding the morality of Kermit's actions they’ve taken to describing the babies he’s accused of murdering as “viable fetuses” (you've done this yourself in this thread) and in one story noting, drily, that “Abortions are typically performed in utero.”

[MichaeltheGreat]

"Viable fetus" is a medico-legal term. In utero, they're fetuses. Legally, there's an overlap between personhood as a legal concept and fetus as a state of embryonic development.

You asked when they become persons, and viability is the standard set by Roe. Performing an abortion on a seven month fetus (IIRC, one of his victims was about eight months) is murder, IMO, whether death happens in utero or after extraction (since it's not birth or C-section delivery), unless there is a very narrow medical exception of life of the women or significant risk of severe disability or injury.

In this case, what he had were essentially premature deliveries of yes, viable fetuses. Once outside the womb, the viable fetus is a neonate infant. IIRC (couldn't be arsed to read the article, but I read about this case a while ago) he used scissors to sever their spinal cords. That's a pretty callous and heinous way to commit infanticide, since the brain is aware of pain and death is relatively slow due to asphyxia.

As far as when to limit abortion on demand, I'm all for setting an earlier standard based on objective medical and biological criteria, but not back to the petri dish level, or even more ridiculous, conception, since conception occurs before implantation.

[MrFun]

For the first time ever, DD has found one sole issue with which is give-a-shit works.

[kentonio]

A group of GOP state lawmakers in North Dakota will protest new abortion restrictions on Monday at a Stand Up for Women rally in Bismarck, N.D., because they believe their fellow Republicans have gone too far.

"It's to say, hey, this isn't okay. We have stepped over the line," said state Rep. Kathy Hawken (R-Fargo) in a phone interview with The Huffington Post. "One of the key tenets of the Republican Party is personal responsibility. I'm personally pro-life, but I vote pro-choice, because you can't make that decision for anyone else. You just can't."

North Dakota recently passed the most restrictive abortion ban in the nation, which prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, and a bill preventing pregnant women from choosing abortion based on a fetal anomaly or genetic disorder. The state also has a "trigger ban," which would prohibit abortion entirely if Roe v. Wade were to be overturned.

Lawmakers are currently considering two "fetal personhood" measures that would effectively ban abortion in the state and complicate the legality of birth control, stem cell research and in vitro fertilization. Hawken said the personhood bills are so extreme that she and approximately 10 of her Republican colleagues in the state legislature -- both men and women -- were inspired to speak out in defense of women's rights.

"North Dakota hasn't even passed a primary seatbelt law, but we have the most invasive attack on womens health anywhere," she said. "I got a letter yesterday from a pharmacist who said, 'We don't want to be in jail because we prescribed something!' We're spending an inordinate amount of time on social or personal issues, however you want to put it, but we haven't done anything on property tax relief, higher education funding, fixing the roads. There are all kinds of other things we need to be doing besides this."

Voters have rejected fetal personhood bills in every other state where they've been proposed, including Mississippi, but the bill stands a strong chance of becoming law in North Dakota. The state Senate passed two personhood measures in February, and the House is expected to vote on them Friday.

Hawken said that as a strong fiscal conservative, she is worried that the state will spend millions of dollars that could be put to better use defending these laws in court. "They could fund my childcare bill with what we're going to spend on lawsuits," she said. "Can't we let Arkansas be the poster child for this? Why does it have to be us?"

Hawken said she has introduced bills during her 17 years in office that she considers to be "pro-life," such as a prenatal care for minors bill and a bill ensuring quality childcare for single moms, but those were rejected by her colleagues. "It seems like we want to get [babies] here," she said, "but we don't care if they're healthy once they get here. That's just bad policy."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...p_ref=politics

Because hey, the right to choose is clearly a position only held by folks who love killing babies.

[DinoDoc]

"Viable fetus" is a medico-legal term. In utero, they're fetuses. Legally, there's an overlap between personhood as a legal concept and fetus as a state of embryonic development.

Newborns that are delivered alive are usually described as babies by normal people, MtG. I realize that may drive home the morality of what the man has done for your side of the issue which is what makes it hard for you to say. I only asked you when they become persons after you decided to defend the rather ghoulish description of children without the good graces to die immediately as a fetus outside the womb.

After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? published by the Journal of Medical Ethics of all places.

[MOBIUS]

Why is it that people who are pro life are almost always pro guns and vice versa?

I can see a certain logic: being pro life helps maintain a steady production line of children for the people with guns to kill in schools across America...

[Krill]

4.1/10

[Sava]

I don't know any pro-choice people who support unrestricted abortion on demand right up to the point of childbirth.

I do.

Abortion is a medical procedure. I trust a medical professional's morals and ethics more than I do a politician's. Politicians shouldn't be in between a person and their doctor.

Government ought to promote policies that lead to reductions in the need for abortions rather than engage in draconian retributive judicial practices.

This particular doctor, as others have pointed out, is a psychopath. If these incidents are only going to occur as the result of some psychopathic person being in such a position... that to me is a victory. It's certainly no excuse to restrict rights for hypothetical late term abortions that simply are not happening on the scale that "pro-life" advocates would have you believe.

[Felch]

For the first time ever, DD has found one sole issue with which is give-a-shit works.

We're not all as comfortable with mothers killing their defenseless children as you are.

[Sava]

We're not all as comfortable with mothers killing their defenseless children as you are.

No. You prefer the newborns get shot in the head just so your hobby stays legal.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/article/Police-search-for-boy-suspects-in-Ga-baby-killing-4375946.php

[Jon Miller]

I do.

Abortion is a medical procedure. I trust a medical professional's morals and ethics more than I do a politician's. Politicians shouldn't be in between a person and their doctor.

Government ought to promote policies that lead to reductions in the need for abortions rather than engage in draconian retributive judicial practices.

This particular doctor, as others have pointed out, is a psychopath. If these incidents are only going to occur as the result of some psychopathic person being in such a position... that to me is a victory. It's certainly no excuse to restrict rights for hypothetical late term abortions that simply are not happening on the scale that "pro-life" advocates would have you believe.

Far fewer people get killed by guns then by automobiles.

Some hypothetical murders might take place, but that is the work of a few psychopaths, killings by guns simply are not happening at the scale that 'pro-life' advacoates would have you believe.

JM

[Jon Miller]

I do.

Abortion is a medical procedure. I trust a medical professional's morals and ethics more than I do a politician's. Politicians shouldn't be in between a person and their doctor.

Government ought to promote policies that lead to reductions in the need for abortions rather than engage in draconian retributive judicial practices.

This particular doctor, as others have pointed out, is a psychopath. If these incidents are only going to occur as the result of some psychopathic person being in such a position... that to me is a victory. It's certainly no excuse to restrict rights for hypothetical late term abortions that simply are not happening on the scale that "pro-life" advocates would have you believe.

Far fewer people get killed by guns then by automobiles.

Some hypothetical murders might take place, but that is the work of a few psychopaths, killings by guns simply are not happening at the scale that 'pro-life' advacoates would have you believe.

JM

[MOBIUS]

No. You prefer the newborns get shot in the head just so your hobby stays legal.

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/us/art...ng-4375946.php

See, this is my point exactly: Being pro life helps maintain a steady production line of children for the people with guns to kill in schools across America...