What's the endgame here? It's not clear from the article.
Assuming they're not suggesting that the fetus be removed from the mother, are they aiming to get the mother freed? Are they just aiming to have the mother temporarily moved to somewhere with better healthcare? Are they aiming to make a point about how fetal-personhood doesn't work with many aspects of the law?
"The petition by attorney William M. Norris says the “unborn child” is innocent and should be discharged from jail so it can receive proper care. That would require Harrell to be released until the child is born, the writ argues."
"Without proper care, though, Norris said he fears the fetus will be harmed before or during childbirth."
"In 2018, Brazil’s Supreme Court ruled that all pregnant defendants should be granted habeas corpus and allowed to await trial at home."
Makes enough sense to me. Or we could just provide world-class healthcare to inmates. Or just put prisons next to hospitals. Or make them the same thing.
Honestly the last time I was visiting someone in a hospital for an extended period it felt like a prison.
Not looking forward to eventually dying in one. Maybe they'll be full of backflipping atlas nurse robots by then...
It seems like most physicianing has already been automated, while continuing to run on top of skinjobs. I mean, 20 minute appointments where they haven't studied your previous history, don't engage with what you say except to explain it away, and just pick recommendations from a limited set of go-to options? Most pedagogical k-maps have more complexity.
"says the jail staff has endangered the fetus by refusing proper prenatal care and putting her in situations like the incident in the inmate transport van."
"That would require Harrell to be released until the child is born, the writ argues."
I'm inclined to believe that the lawyer really does have the child's best interest at heart, and anything they're asking for that helps the mother is really intended to help the child.
I think it's more of a sovereign citizen "hail Mary" type move to get her out of jail. Even in states that don't have a constitutional notion of "fetal personhood", a pregnant inmate is still entitled to adequate prenatal care, and that's the relief they should be seeking, not habeas corpus for the unborn child.
> I think it's more of a sovereign citizen "hail Mary" type move to get her out of jail.
It would only delay the inevitable by a few months at most, right? Trials regularly get delayed for years anyway, so they may as well delay her sentence for a few months.
Even if that worked, it would still only get her something like a 6-12 month reprieve. She's been convicted of murder, none of these ploys will get her out of going to prison eventually.
If it can be legally proved that the jail is incapable of providing adequate care (seems pretty likely, considering how terrible American prisons are generally), then they’re within their rights to enjoin the court for other remedies.
Time to see if the courts actually care about unborn personhood, as much as they’ve been crowing about abortion.
I mean, sunlight exposure, nutrients, prison violence... The fœtus is exposed to all of this, and more.
Tbh I don't care, except if she wants to carry the future baby to term.
Then you'll have a carrenced baby without mother contact during his first three months, probably fed with powdered milk that does not contain any antibodies. Nice start in the world.
Exactly. This feels similar to the type of "hail Mary" when a woman tried to argue that she should be allowed to drive in the carpool lane alone because she was pregnant and thus her fetus should count as an extra passenger. In that case, though, a judge agreed with her and her ticket was dismissed, and a bill was even filed in the TX House to explicitly allow pregnant women to use the carpool lane.
If you have to sue to get adequate prenatal care, then only pregnant inmates who know that will get said prenatal care.
If precedent is set that demands the fetus' legal innocence must be accounted for, this basically forces the legal system/corrections into a position where they have to make a move to really telegraph what is more important. That an innocent not be subjected to the penal system, or that the incarcerated are afforded the dignity of reasonable medical care, which then has to be factored into cost of incarceration. It'll also test the will around really upholding fetal rights once it starts manifesting in the form of $$$ required on the Government's part to pay for it's own externalities w.r.t. incarceration. This is actually a neat little wedge that'll get driven in between the social/fiscal conservatives in that the last thing the fiscal's want is more needs for entitlement funding, especially if it involves the incarcerated; all of which could be elided by ignoring the thorny issue of a fetus claim to personhood. Without that, the social conservatives lose a leg of their anti-abortion stool.
Either way, I can see the headlines/arguments now:
>Shit, 3 square meals a day, work, and government funded medical care, sign me up!
>Inmates get better care than law abiding citizens...
...Might even force everyone to realize this whole "no one can compete against a Medicare that can negotiate" is a sign of the retarded levels of inefficiency in the healthcare space so we can actually get some scrutiny on why the hell things are so janked in that department.
>Are they aiming to make a point about how fetal-personhood doesn't work with many aspects of the law?
Possibly. But the point has already been raised many times with regard to child-personhood and the courts have generally solved that by tailoring their precedents so narrowly as to not preclude future case by case decision making.
Sure, but this is a very specific case where you cannot really do that without being completely disingenuous (which to be clear, may be the outcome that happens).
You can very easily not send a child to jail (because they have full legal personhood), but right now this fetus is considered 'part of the mother' as it relates to incarceration.
Hard to argue that a fetus has some constitutional rights, but isn't subject to the Fourth Amendment.
Like I said, a judge will make the argument that the fetus' environment is the womb and by that definition, their circumstances have not changed by being in jail, but that feels thin?
> Like I said, a judge will make the argument that the fetus' environment is the womb
But then, a lawyer could argue that the mother's imprisonment affects the womb environment (bad food, bad medical care, constant high levels of stress). IANAL but that argument doesn't immediately seem ridiculous to me.
Endgame in my country is that pregnant women cannot be imprisoned for any reason, plus a couple of years post birth; we have cases where they get pregnant again and again until the prison sentence ends, so they never spend a day in prison.
It is used sometimes as a "get out of jail card" as a woman that is already in prison can get pregnant to get out.
In my country they just have a secure maternity ward with access to specialist care. After birth the child is allowed to live with it's mother inside a specially equipped prison. The child is in no legal sense detained as it is free to be sent to live with anyone else should the mother choose for someone else to raise the child.
Romania. I don't have official statistics, there were some news also mentioning it. I don't think anybody is counting it to avoid public rage.
About 10 years ago I read about 2 sisters that had 33 children in total, I don't remember what was the crime, just the county they lived in. Not all the kids were to avoid jail, only a few.
No, sentences are not served in parallel here, they are merged ("contopite") into a single one that is the longest plus a small extra that makes up for all others. For example 5 sentences of 5 years each are merged into one of ~ 6 years.
If fetal personhood made any sense at all, it would have been introduced at some point in the last 6000 years of human civilization, and not invented a couple of years ago by the Republicans. Arguments like this serve to highlight both the impracticality and the sheer goofiness of the idea.
For most of the last 6000 years we've been significantly constrained by medical technology. The philosophy has little room to develop when abortions are basically impossible to safely carry out, we have essentially no visibility into what is physically happening in embryonic development, and childbirth itself is ridiculously risky. It was within the last 250 that a Queen-to-be and fetal King-to-be both died in childbirth, substantially altering the line of succession of one of the richest and most powerful monarchies in history (Princess Charlotte dying in 1817).
I'm not advocating for or against, to be clear. Just pointing out why society wouldn't have been worrying too much about it as a whole - there weren't a lot of options for us to meaningfully intervene in the process and everyone died a lot anyway.
Sure but how many of those were ~guaranteed to only abort the pregnancy and not also kill or maim the woman?
I know there's lots of things you can do to cause an abortion throughout history, but as far as I know they mostly did it by poisoning the mother enough that she miscarried.
Pretty much every prior civilization dealt with this by making anyone who was a dependent into property from a legal perspective, maybe with an asterisk for "don't beat them too much". Once you stop doing that all sorts of edge cases start emerging.
Were non-child dependents (the elderly, the infirm) treated as property? Or as responsibilities (e.g. filial piety).
And children who were nobles in their own right (i.e. the heirs of their dead predecessor, such as child-kings) were not treated as property, merely as people who were temporarily subject to a regent.
Incredibly broad claim here that frankly I don't think a global view of history anywhere near supports. Either extremely narrow view of "prior civilization" or just straight ignorant. Even the concept of personal property isn't near universal!
> Slavery was already institutionalized by the time the first civilizations emerged (such as Sumer in Mesopotamia,[5] which dates back as far as 3500 BC). Slavery features in the Mesopotamian Code of Hammurabi (c. 1750 BC), which refers to it as an established institution.[6] Slavery was widespread in the ancient world in Europe, Asia, Middle East, and Africa.[7][8][4] It became less common throughout Europe during the Early Middle Ages, although it continued to be practiced in some areas. Both Christians and Muslims captured and enslaved each other during centuries of warfare in the Mediterranean and Europe.[9] Islamic slavery encompassed mainly Western and Central Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, India, and Europe from the 7th to the 20th century.
I'm curious as to the reasons people have for down-voting this comment.
I agree with the sentiment of your comment. Not only is the concept of property a recent construct, but so is binary gender, binary sexuality, and binary sex.
If sex wasn't historically seen as a binary the god Hermaphroditus would not have been a singular exception in his pantheon (created through the use of godly power).
The way people dress, behave, and who they have sex with are other matters entirely. And yes, those have long traditions of not being binary.
How were kids treated in Ancient Europe? The Ancient near east? Medieval Europe and the near east? What about ancient ancient China?
Specifics vary but generally speaking in all these cultures kids had rights on par with slaves, maybe with a little bit more protection from physical violence depending on the society and whoever the head of their household was had property rights over them. Women were generally treated a little better but not much. Only within the past couple hundred years did it stop being acceptable in the richest nations to sell a kid off as a quasi-indentured servant. Women were treated a little better but not much.
I'm sure there's some north American tribes that treated everyone much more equally but they are the exception not the rule.
> Children were accorded some special rights both in the medieval canon law and in English court practice. They were not treated as chattels belonging to their parents. In punishing infanticide and providing orders to secure their adequate support, the courts even enforced the children’s claims against the parents themselves. It may be, therefore, that a time has actually existed when children were entirely without legal rights; but the late Middle Ages in England was not one of them. This being said, it is equally important to note that recognition of the rights of children was restricted when compared with any list a modem lawyer might compile
I'm not talking about how they were treated in humanitarian terms, but about whether they were considered property. These are obviously very entangled concepts but they are distinct.
And yes kids-as-property has been the norm, but again not close to universal. Many other conceptions of children have used. None of them necessarily leading to better overall treatment of children, but affecting people's understanding of the boundaries of rights and responsibilities around them. Which is the part that's relevant to this conversation.
To argue that children were not historically considered property requires a level of hair splitting that will necessarily be able to be turned right back around and used to argue that slaves and serfs in other contexts were not property.
>affecting people's understanding of the boundaries of rights and responsibilities around them.
Civilizations in ancient southern generally outlawed gratuitous violence toward enslaved or indentured people and/or obliged their owners to feed and cloth them. Does that make slaves not property?
In medieval and early modern central Europe landowners were legally responsible for productively working their land or a subset thereof (this was a large part of the legal doctrine used by the English settlers to justify taking of native lands). Does that make land not property?
(obviously the specifics of the above two examples vary by culture and exact time period but that's not the point.)
I'd be interested to see you cite a preindustrial civilization where kids are treated as second class citizens rather than de-facto property of either the individual or the tribe/state/other.
They are trying to make a fetus get the same rights as a person in an effort. It's an attempt to open up another front on the pro-life:pro choice front opening up.
Or it's an effort to show that a fetus is not automatically a person from conception.
I think almost every reasonable person would agree that any fetus who can survive outside a mother is a person, and that personhood starts at some point before that viability test; I think there is a lot of room to discuss a question of personhood in the first few weeks of development.
My personal view is that personhood requires a mind, and here on our physical earth, a mind requires a brain with some level of development. My personal view is that level of development is not reached in the first trimester. You are perfectly free to disagree with me on this! I am not trying to unduly influence anyone's point of view. I cannot say you are wrong if you disagree!
I would like to gently point out that there are facts in this discussion, but there are also opinions, deeply held beliefs and analysis. Only the facts can be fact checked. The opinions, beliefs and analysis require some kind of framework for discussion.
> I think almost every reasonable person would agree that any fetus who can survive outside a mother is a person
That's problematic right there. A child can't survive without any support until some years after birth, and the age at which a foetus can survive with support keeps getting younger due to technical advances. At some point fully artificial wombs will be able to allow a foetus to survive outside their mother from conception.
Deciding personhood based on our tech level doesn't seem very reasonable.
> My personal view is that personhood requires a mind
That seems more reasonable. Attainment of consciousness seems like a reasonable differentiator, but there's a difficulty is in establishing when that is.
Yes. I can't completely square the circle. There's a lot of undefined area, a lot of discomfort, but I am comfortable with my level of discomfort and ignorance for now.
---
I don't think a viability test or a theory of the mind is sufficient on it's own, I view them as lines of evidence. I am open to other lines of evidence. I also think that the unbroken chain of life that leads to a new baby is a miracle, whether you think of it as a divine miracle or a secular miracle.
At what point (precisely) does it become a person and gain rights? Does it have to have entirely exited the birth canal, or is it enough that the head has begun to be visible, or what?
Both these abortion-related takes are incredibly cynical. I know lawyers aren't people but even they might earnestly care about a pregnant woman and her fetus/child...
Yuck. Of all the comments I see, the ones from lawyers seem the most human and less misanthropic or so purposefully obtuse as to suggest one has no connection to society at all, etc, like I see from so many developers drooling over their edge-case applications of definitions as if the law was some sort of "whatever you can say goes" as opposed focusing on what actually makes sense.
> Frankly I think this situation is hilarious, pitting Republican's crime and punishment fever against their god fever.
It genuinely won't matter. Those thumping the anti choice, anti autonomy drum have not demonstrated the ability to feel shame for their hypocrisy -- at least I've never seen it over the last few decades.
It's very hard for the self to see hypocrisy when the subject is not falsifiable. In many faiths it is perceived to be sinful to question a divine plan or commandment. I was raised in such a faith. Hypocrisy does not enter into it, because their beliefs are consistent with divine commandments, not your analysis.
What could possibly be more hypocritical than your attempt at a rights-based argument while reserving rights to only some living beings? The lack of self-awareness is breathtaking.
You might be able to leverage that if you didn't stop at fertilized egg, but pushed that insanity to its logical conclusion, where no sperm can be wasted and women must always be pregnant because anything else is genocide of the not-yet-to-be-conceived. As it stands it's like a burn victim quadruple amputee pointing at someone merely homely and calling them too ugly to look at.
It's absolutely medieval that they habitually jail people awaiting trial. In civilized countries (for example Germany), detaining someone pending trial is the extreme exception that requires a very good reason.
I shudder to think of how many lives are destroyed by this evil practice. After even a month in jail, you've basically been rendered homeless and jobless. Not to mention losing your children if you can't find a guardian for them.
I guarantee you that even in Germany, someone that has been charged with second degree murder will absolutely go to jail while awaiting for their trial.
It's definitely a _possible_ thing, but it's not very common (as I stated before).
It's even right there in the statute that there are degrees of curfew, required supervision, house arrest, etc based on the likelihood of the accused interfering with the investigation or absconding (which, once again, is rare). There are also cases where someone is deemed likely to commit another violent offense, but this is VERY rare.
The point is that in such civilized countries, the legal system does everything it can to not interfere with someone's life, even when they are accused of a serious crime like murder. Most accused rarely see more than a few hours behind bars before trial, if that.
accused murderers. Until they've been found guilty, they have right to liberty. The only exceptions are when they are deemed likely to abscond, interfere with the investigation, or commit another violent offense. The bar to decide this is VERY high and requires a judge to sign off on it (and so it's rare for it to happen). Also, judges are not elected, so you don't get judges with axes to grind or constituents to keep happy.
I realize that it's different in America, where the accusation is enough by itself (you even publish their names, which is just insane considering the ensuing destruction of their reputations).
This is not even 3% less than the US which have 23.3%. It's also a worse percentage than Serbia, Slovakia, Turkey, Romania, Sudan, Algeria, Oman, and many more.
Germany is not even in the top 25% of countries (out of 208) for pre-trial detainees.
No, civilized countries do not let suspected murderers go free and escape into the wild before their trial. Doing so would be incompatible with civilization
I believe the lawyer is actually making a habeus corpus claim as the fetus hasn’t been charged with a crime. The facts about not receiving proper care are just additional information about the damage the allegedly illegal detainment is causing
Wouldn't this logic implicate all (non-incarcerated) mothers in kidnapping?
We have no evidence that the fetus prefers being out of jail to being in jail. Maybe it doesn't want to go to the grocery store, or take a car ride. The mother is making those choices, and it's not clear that her choices align with the fetus more than the state's.
I don’t think the state has any sort of legal standing or precedent to detain people under the argument “they might like it”, but I suppose they could try it in court
> The fetus as a person cannot act on its rights / communicate that it wants to go elsewhere.
I'm wondering, what about people with physical or developmental disabilities, they are often affected similarly, don't they still have the same rights?
I've always thought a pregnant woman who doesn't want the baby should have the sheriff serve an eviction notice. When the fetus fails to vacate then bring a court case to force the eviction.
Of course it's ludicrous, bit think of all of the case law that could be generated that should, if there is any logic to law at all, prevent reproductive restrictions.
The presence of birth control and abortion options makes it clear that this is not true. Even in the US that Supreme Court ruling didn’t deny the usage of abortions or birth control, just denied the right to abortions
Just because some people kill their children, that does not make killing children morally acceptable. (I have no objection to birth control that prevents conception.)
Doesn’t really change the fact that the conservatives to bearing children is separate from consenting to sex, I should have been more clear that I was highlighting the existence of tools that would only exist if the two events could be separate
They literally can in that you can consent to sex and not consent to carrying a child.
You are making a moral judgement on what they _should_ do, but the two events are separate. If they were not, then there wouldn’t need to be any legislating or moralizing about carrying the child to term
I agree that it is subject to moral judgements but that doesn’t make two distinct events explicitly coupled. You’re even conceding the point by needing to describe the two events with different terms.
I am being pedantic here but you are factually incorrect in saying that consenting to one is consenting to the other as a factual statement when the two events can be separated.
If you go to the restaurant, and you order a meal, and the waiter brings you your meal—then implicitly, you have consented to paying for your order. The events "you order food", "waiter brings food", and "you pay for food" are physically separate, but in terms of consent they are not separate.
And the rapist should pay a very steep price in such cases, to punish them for forcing that on a woman. Castration and lifetime imprisonment should be the minimum penalty for such a horrible crime. In addition, society and the state should provide all the support possible to the victim. But the baby doesn't deserve to die for his father's sins; one innocent body violated is more than enough!
Maybe some consistency? You are anti abortion because you view it at murder but then you are for adding on additional punishment to people for what seems like vengeances sake, castrating someone in case they “misbehave” while in custody seems pretty medieval
I am against harming innocent people who have done nothing wrong. I am willing to harm guilty people who have committed horrible crimes, if it futhers the goal of protecting innocents.
These cases are not comparable. You can't know what is on a website until after you visit it; but you should know the potential consequences of sex in advance, and can't plead ignorance.
> You can't know what is on a website until after you visit it
You can most certainly know that a website could have a banner which says "by entering you consent to buying all products". You're aware beforehand of the danger - why should you be able to escape the consequences? If you don't want the danger, don't use the internet, right?
Do you know what the child will be like before you have sex? What if they turn out to be the kind of person who says that if you consent to sex you consent to bearing a child? That seems equivalent to purchasing a lemon in my view.
In such cases, the rapist should be held fully responsible, and punished severely for his horrible crime (at minimum, life in prison + castration + child support). And additionally, society and the state should provide all support possible to the victim and her child. But one innocent life violated is more than enough!
Either a fetus is a human being, or it is not. Either murder is wrong, or it is not. We could have a nuanced discussion on, for example, societal pressures that drive people to abortion; but the central question is not "nuanced" at all.
An adult human being cannot subject you to the imposition of using your body as a life support vessel for nine months.
Either you have the right to your body, or you don't. We could have a nuanced discussion on how far your obligations go to be made to use your body to support the life of another person (You could probably be cut up into enough organs to save the lives of four or five people, after all), but the central question is not "nuanced" at all.
The child "subjects" its mother to exactly nothing. It is an innocent babe, incapable of such things. There are two possibilities here:
- The mother made the conscious decision to have sex, while fully aware, in advance, that her action could result in a child being dependent on her for survival. To kill the child, would be to punish an innocent human so that the mother can escape the consequences of her decisions.
- The mother is a victim of rape. In this case, the rapist should face severe punishment for his heinous crime (life in prison and castration at minimum). In addition, the society and state should do everything possible to support the victim and her child. But killing the child for the sins of the father would simply add more evil to an already tragic situation. The child does not deserve to die for his father's sins; one human life violated is more than enough!
If my actions were the cause of you needing a kidney, then yes I would owe you one.
When you do an action, you are responsible for the consequence of the action you performed. The innocent bystander who had no role in performing the action, should not have to suffer the consequences.
> If my actions were the cause of you needing a kidney, then yes I would owe you one.
That's a much weaker argument than the one you were making a few hours ago. Here, I thought that you were making the argument that murder is an unconditional wrong, and putting your body autonomy above providing life-saving aid for me is murder.
No, my argument is "murder is an unconditional wrong, and putting your body autonomy above providing life-saving aid for me, given that your actions are the cause of me needing that life-saving aid, is murder." For example, if you stab someone, and then they bleed out because you refused them a blood transfusion (that they only need because you stabbed them), that's murder.
More generally, while it's true that you can't murder purely through inaction, all abortion requires performing an action.
Same way that you should probably be restricted from using me as a personal blood bank for nine months. I understand that you'll die without transfusions, but that's your problem, not mine.
It's not murder to not support you, just like it's not murder when the grocery store refuses to feed me for free, or when you refuse to open your house to me as a place I can live in, or when a doctor refuses to treat me, or when a prospective organ donor doesn't want to give up a kidney.
There are a few situations where this support can be compelled in our society, but we place an incredibly high bar on doing so, and an even higher one when it comes to questions of body autonomy.
If a child is conceived, it is not a usurper, it is the most innocent party involved. When people have sex, they risk conceiving a child. This new human being is created in the woman's body, the place designed to host it. So unlike my hooking up to your bloodstream, the baby's dependence on you is perfectly natural. The two things aren't equivalent. I have no claim to you (plus you probably aren't responsible for my condition - not that the child is dying, nota bene). Besides, can you kill an infant in your home so that you don't have to feed them before foster care can take them?
I support your choice to abstain from sex. I do not support your choice to end the life of your child just so that you don't have to provide for them. To deliberately cause death of an innocent human being is not a right. Unless the child acts with an intention to kill the parent, the parent may not use deadly means against them (Disclaimer: Even in self defense, one must not act with the intention to kill - see the principle of double effect)
This feels similar to "the mother didn't kill the kid; the hot car did". If the state is forcing the woman to stay in a situation which is dangerous to the fetus, surely the woman which is forced to carry it to term is not responsible for the situation itself?
> the state is forcing the woman to stay in a situation which is dangerous to the fetus
Woman actions led to her being imprisoned, why are you blaming the state all of a sudden? State just executes the rules that she knew in advance.
If she were to gamble away all her possessions in a casino, would you say that casino is responsible for taking away the resources necessary to support the child, and therefore should be punished?
> Woman actions led to her being imprisoned, why are you blaming the state all of a sudden?
I might have missed it, but what law is there that crimes shall be punished by being put into a situation which might kill your unborn fetus?
Her actions led to her being imprisoned. The state led to her being imprisoned in a dangerous situation. She is NOT responsible for the situation being dangerous, ONLY the state is.
It being dangerous for the fetus seems like a separate issue she should be suing the prison about. Particularly since this is an 8-month fetus that's entirely capable of surviving outside her body were she to give birth immediately.
If you had a rare blood type and a disease that required daily transfusions, and the only donor was in prison for murder, should that murderer be released so you can stay alive without having to enter a prison?
The thing with unborn babies is that you don't know for certain whether or not they can survive until they do.
Following the compulsory blood donation logic (presumably happening in a universe where someone could survive daily blood transfusions), why not just cut out all babies as soon as they're statistically likely to survive outside of their mothers? Why should a woman have any say in how long an unborn child gestates within them if it's not medically and scientifically required? Surely the cost of cesarean recovery is less than the potential risk and damage of allowing women to decide to give birth naturally?
Your described scenario is not comparable, since the issue is not that the woman doesn't want to be in prison, it's that she fears her fetus will die, which seems well-reasoned (not even mentioning the potential damage done to her in said process).
So if we make your scenario comparable, and there is a good probability I might die during one of my visits - then yes, I definitely would like the option not to enter the prison for said process, and it seems incredibly cruel to force both the prisoner and his blood to stay in the prison, and to force me to get my transfusions there. Why can there not be any accomodations made?
> It being dangerous for the fetus seems like a separate issue she should be suing the prison about.
I can't stress enough what a strange and uncaring attitude this is. Here you have the state forcing somebody to be in prison, and the prison is in terrible conditions. Why is it not the states fault that she is put into those conditions? Why should she have to sue the prison for this? Florida is forcing her to be in those conditions, specifically both in prison and pregnant. Why is she responsible for ensuring she doesn't suffer conditions where her unborn child might die?
I can't stress enough what a strange and uncaring attitude this is. Here you have the state forcing somebody to be in prison, and the prison is in terrible conditions. Why is it not the states fault that she is put into those conditions? Why should she have to sue the prison for this? Florida is forcing her to be in those conditions, specifically both in prison and pregnant. Why is she responsible for ensuring she doesn't suffer conditions where her unborn child might die?
This is entirely correct, but it's related to conditions inside the prison, not whether she should be released from it. Of course she should get to see a doctor, and get her prenatal vitamins, etc. I even agree that since the prison is unable or unwilling to give her the proper medical care, she should be moved to a different, even a non-prison, facility to receive that care. But it has fuck-all to do with any sort of "improperly incarcerating a fetus".
> But it has fuck-all to do with any sort of "improperly incarcerating a fetus".
If you're putting the focus on "improperly incarcerating a fetus" instead of "improperly incarcerating a fetus", I can see how it would have fuck-all to do. But since it's a willfully negative reading I don't see why you'd do so. Consider that other countries do what the lawyer is asking for - allowing pregnant people to serve prison sentences from their homes. Why is it so incredibly ridiculous to you to even entertain this thought, even though it would help in this situation (by saving the fetus' live)?
Why is it so incredibly ridiculous to you to even entertain this thought, even though it would help in this situation (by saving the fetus' live)?
It isn't ridiculous to me. Even if it was, it wouldn't matter, because that isn't the topic. The title is "Florida lawyer argues pregnant inmate’s fetus is being illegally detained." My position is that argument is ridiculous, not that the woman in question doesn't deserve competent medical care regardless of what circumstances are necessary to achieve it.
Legal interactions can be as interesting as complicated code pathways to me, at least. And given this is now new legal grounds given rulings in the past year, it’ll be interesting to see how the novel laws and court cases interact
> They can't claim a fucking fetus is a person and then not give it rights.
Of course they can, we do it all the time. Children, for example, are people and they have very limited rights (especially in the area of freedom of movement).
> Children do have rights. Some of them are restricted.
Exactly, therefore the claim in OP that "They can't claim a fucking fetus is a person and then not give it rights." isn't really sound. Our legal systems already claim that some beings (children in this example) are persons but that they aren't entitled to the full range of rights that adults enjoy.
Please do note that I'm not trying to argue any related issues (such as the legality of abortions), just that claim made by OP.
If the child would die without the parent you would. Maybe not for petty crimes, but if the parent is a murderer they need to be in prison. If they are in prison, the fetus needs to be in prison to escape death.
No, we don't do that. Most children would die without some kind of care, but we don't put them in prison if their parents are criminals. We make sure they are cared for by someone else.
(The systems for that are in terrible shape too, but that's a separate issue.)
Rights come with responsibility. If you can fend for yourself then you can probably do as you please even as a child. However if you need someone to feed you and protect you then surely you concede some rights.
I am pro-life from conception, and believe the "fucking fetus" to be a human being with dignity and worth.
The physical location of the mother doesn't make any difference to the child's rights. The baby is stuck inside the mother's womb either way. However, if the police are preventing the mother and her child from receiving needed medical care, that is a violation of the child's rights! The lawyers are right to complain in such a case.
The stress of being in jail has a negative impact on the fetuses development. It's shameful that we aren't prioritizing the well being of the next generation. It's also against the state's interest to do anything that would hurt their future taxable income.
Possibly. Unfortunately, the state has to balance that risk against the risk that the murderer mother may commit additional crimes if freed. There is no perfect solution
It is difficult to square that statement with "pro-life from conception" as mentioned earlier. On the one hand you recognize the need for nuance, and in the other case not.
The life of the child is valuable. The lives of people on the street (which would be endangered by letting a suspected murderer go free) are also valuable. We should do all we can to protect as many lives as we can. (I can accept abortion when the life of the mother is at risk.)
Here's the issue. If a fetus is a person, that person has the rights granted to them by the constitution. This includes:
* Right to an attorney to represent it and its needs. (6th Amendment)
* And the right to bring a Habeas Corpus suit before the court.
In short the argument is going to go like this:
Jail is a dangerous place. If the mother is killed, likely the fetus/person will be killed as well. Hence the Habeas plea.
I think if you are at all serious about fetuses attaining personhood status (with all the rights and privileges thereof), you would want the court to do something to protect the life of the fetus here, even if the court can't separate the mother from the fetus.
> I think if you are at all serious about fetuses attaining personhood status (with all the rights and privileges thereof), you would want the court to do something to protect the life of the fetus here, even if the court can't separate the mother from the fetus.
100%. The mother should be kept in good conditions, isolated from other inmates that might harm her child, with adequate medical care.
> The physical location of the mother doesn't make any difference to the child
Preposterous. Sleep, diet, activities, even socializing all impact the development of a fetus. These are the domains of choice to which free people are entitled, none of which are freely available in a cell.
It's not just "medical care" to which we're entitled. Even sunlight must be an option.
The state has to balance the interest that the child has in receiving adequate care, with the interest that outside society has in not having murderers walking freely in the street. Ideally, the state would provide the best care that it can inside the jail/prison.
Being accused of murder can lead to detainment, which naturally bears the risk of temporarily detaining innocent people. That's the tradeoff society has agreed to.
On the carpool lane case—the woman and her child are two different people, but combined they occupy only one of the car's seats, and the latter is more relevant to the purpose of HOV lanes.
Personhood shouldn't be the only requirement to count towards HOV lane usage. For example, there's no disagreement in https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/04/end-of-the-roa... that there's enough people in the car, but that behavior is absolutely abusing the HOV lane.
I see no problem with pregnant women using the carpool lane. I certainly don't want them stuck on the freeway if they have to pee.
Really, I see it the same as any parent transporting their own kids. The real point of the carpool lane is to reduce the number of cars on the road by having multiple adults who are able to drive share a vehicle. Nonetheless we already make exceptions for other passengers who can't drive.
This doesn't make sense. A fetus doesn't have the capacity for autonomy or freedom of movement _yet_. Denying it life is not the same as acknowledging that it's currently confined out of biological necessity! It's dishonest to guarantee the 'right' to hear music to a deaf person who doesn't have the capacity to hear. The right doesn't make sense in the context, such a right would be nonsensical. However, the fetus does have the capacity to live, and to be born. A right to life makes sense.
That doesn't seem any different to claiming that if a fetus is not a person according to the opposing sides logic, then there is no point in listening to their further arguments about detainment.
Really, it's ridiculous logic from both sides, I don't see where one side has an argument that is not conflicted by that sides previous assertions.
The term 'conservative' is pretty broad, so for sure some will not identify with this. But I know more than a few that would, after carefully considering the implications of the claim, affirm it to be pretty accurate. They're actually okay with it.
We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines and using HN for flamewar and ideological battle. Those things aren't allowed here, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are.
If it were just a matter of one thread I'd post a warning instead of a ban, but you've been making a habit of it in other threads and that's not cool at all.
This not the gotcha you think it is, for two reasons:
First, the mother is 8 months pregnant - there is virtually no developed country that allows abortion this late in the pregnancy. Unless you are for abortion right up to the point of birth, you are in the same dilemma as the pro-life people you rail against.
Second, for this to be a real legal issue you would need to demonstrate some sort of damages to the child. If the unborn child is safe and receiving adequate care, how are his rights materially affected by his mother being in jail? His amount of liberty is precisely what it was before.
> First, the mother is 8 months pregnant - there is virtually no developed country that allows abortion this late in the pregnancy.
You may be surprised to know that there are in fact several US States that allow abortion all the way up to birth with zero restrictions:[1] Alaska, Colorado, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont and of course D.C.
Nobody carries a fetus for 8 months and then decides to abort on a whim. Nobody. They only do it if it is medically necessary. Each late-term abortion is a very hard decision between patient and doctor. And it is rare.
Denying necessary medical intervention is cruel and harmful. Patient and doctor should be left to it, as nothing about that decision gets better by getting the law involved as well. Big government is not helpful in this case.
You know all of this. This is the substance of Mr Buttigieg 's comments in 2019
Perhaps you didn't see what post I was replying to, but it would help in order to understand the context. The OP said "there is virtually no developed country that allows abortion this late in the pregnancy" and this is a common misunderstanding about abortion law, particularly in the US. Almost every single person that learns there are a number of states that allow elective (i.e. non-medically necessary) abortion up to the moment of birth, are blown away and don't believe it. But it's true.
Most people believe that if the life of the mother is in danger at any point, abortion should be available. Not everyone, but the vast majority. Most people believe that there needs to be a cut off at some point (generally after viability, but this varies) where non-medically necessary abortions should not be legal. If you take a poll of 100 people, how many would support a non-medically necessary abortion at 8 months? Not many. So then the question is, why are there states with zero restrictions that late in term?
As to your claim that "nobody" would abort that late in term unless medically necessary, we know that is categorically false. Hundreds of already born children are murdered by their parents every single year in the US, so it's inexcusable to give them legal cover to do it prior to birth when the child is viable.
What is the difference between an elective abortion at 8 months and just smothering the baby after its born?
> Most people believe that if the life of the mother is in danger at any point, abortion should be available
This may be true, but "should". the law can and does differ.
But agreed, it should be a medical decision only, as to if it's necessary.
> we know that is categorically false. Hundreds of already born children are murdered by their parents
That's not the same thing at all, so you haven't given any evidence of falsehood of the statement at hand here, you've just tried to equate something else.
You're right, they're not the same thing. I would imagine killing an infant yourself after it's born is a lot harder (and actually murder) than having a non-medically necessary later term abortion. And yet hundreds of women do it every year. If you think "literally nobody" has a non-medically necessary late term abortion, then you need to provide some evidence to back up such an absurd statement. It's legal in all those states for a reason.
If you say that it happens, you provide proof that it does: that's the way round that proof works. Do not shift the burden of proof. "prove the absence" is a well-known absurdity in general.
Your imaginings about infanticide are uninteresting, and I think wrong, but it also seems that you would rather pick nits about this insane comparison, so no.
> Nobody carries a fetus for 8 months and then decides to abort on a whim. Nobody.
I don't think that's literally true, but irrelevant. I, and most pro-life people I know support medical necessity as a valid exception to an otherwise general prohibition. Again, also irrelevant.
The question is, do you support the right to non-medically necessary abortions at 8 months, or not?
If you don't, then you are implicitly stating that the child has a right to life, and thus you are in the same (supposed) dilemma posed by this article as pro-life people.
> I don't think that's literally true, but irrelevant
What our disingenuous friend is ignoring is that if someone wanted to be rid of a fetus, why on earth would they wait 8 long hard months? Why endure late pregnancy for no reason? It would be easier to end it at 5 months, easier still at 3. And easier before then.
What exactly do you think of Mr Buttigieg 's comments above? He does mention this.
> I support medical necessity as a valid exception to an otherwise general prohibition.
> The question is, do you support the right to non-medically necessary abortions at 8 months, or not?
I think that this is a decision between patient and doctor, and nobody else. My ignorant view is not wanted, yours neither and especially not the law's. if you claim "medical necessity as a valid exception" then you actually don't disagree much.
As I said above: "Patient and doctor should be left to it, as nothing about that decision gets better by getting the law involved as well. Big government is not helpful in this case."
This whole point doesn't even make sense. If there's no doctor or other qualified medic involved in the process, then by definition it's backstreet, outside of any medical or legal control and the question is moot.
Perhaps you're not aware of what a medically necessary abortion is then? It's precipitated when the pregnancy is causing a medical complication that is putting the life of the mother in danger. Just going to see an abortion doctor because you want to abort, does not make it medically necessary.
It's very concrete. There is a huge difference between an elective abortion and a medically necessary one. You're conflating the two because "a doctor performs it".
My statement is simply that there is no reason not to prohibit elective abortions after some point in the pregnancy. Typically this is at viability, which is around 24 weeks. If you claim no woman would ever get an elective abortion at 8 months then I would imagine you also believe no women would ever get an elective abortion after 6 months (ie 24 weeks, the point of viability). Therefore there is no reason not to restrict elective abortions after that point.
> There is a huge difference between an elective abortion and a medically necessary one. You're conflating the two because "a doctor performs it".
And a doctor, decides what's medically necessary, and decides to perform it or not. This is daft semantic hairsplitting, again. Stupid word games, not a productive debate.
> Therefore there is no reason not to restrict elective abortions after that point.
Ans also no reason _to_ restrict them. Which makes the whole statement quite pointless. But we don't bias in favour of excessive pointless laws and government intrusion on private matters, now do we?
You don't get direct answers because your questions do not come across as seeking clarity, just a) "gotchas" and b) going down garden paths.
> And a doctor, decides what's medically necessary, and decides to perform it or not.
Yup, and if a doctor deems than an abortion is not medically necessary, the woman can still have one anyway. Which makes it elective. Elective abortions are the ones we're discussing.
> Ans also no reason _to_ restrict them.
Why shouldn't we restrict them? If it's late enough in term that the child is viable, and there is no threat to the life of the mother, then why should that type of abortion be legal?
How is an elective abortion at 32 weeks any different from killing an infant?
I am well aware, which is why I used the qualifier of "virtually".
And yes, technically if you support abortion without restriction that you avoid the dilemma presented in this article, but then you have arguably much bigger ethical dilemmas to work through, which is why support for such policies is outside the norm for those who are pro-choice.
Assuming they're not suggesting that the fetus be removed from the mother, are they aiming to get the mother freed? Are they just aiming to have the mother temporarily moved to somewhere with better healthcare? Are they aiming to make a point about how fetal-personhood doesn't work with many aspects of the law?