The pro life movement has given up a lot for not pushing abortions in the second and third terms by not forcing the issue and making the pro abortionists defend their extreme positions…particularly on third term abortions.

You have to have a starting point of agreement and abortions being illegal after the first trimester is the START….WE win that and than we work on the rest……oh and that health of the mother issue MUST have to include a second opinion from two doctors NOT a one of them being an abortionist nor a shrink….ie DR TILLER THE BABY KILLER!

The reason I call the “Health of the mother” claim a canard is because of the legal games that have been played with that term by defining it to mean Mom might be depressed if she let’s her child live!

But for the sake of argument I’ll try a different tack to make my point.

Instead of when life begins we need a definition…of “born” as it is recognized in the Constitution since that term is used to determine when a person is covered by the Constitution and entitled to life, liberty and property.

I am not arguing that life does not begin at conception…I personally believe it does and my ultimate goal is to have that fact legally codified and constitutional protections of a child extended to that point…my argument is simply a way to quantify when a person becomes a person and when the rights guaranteed under the Constitution apply to that person.

I would contend and believe the point could be litigated and a legal premise be built upon the proposition that regardless of religious belief or ideology, that a person becomes a person at the point when that person has a consciousness.

The only quantifiable way I know to prove a consciousness is being able to measure brain activity so at the very least a person is “born” in a Constitutional sense at the point when a measurable consciousness can be proven by measuring brain activity.

I also contend that one citizen’s right to choose to live a certain way or make a certain decision, or take a certain action ends when that decision, action, or choice interferes or otherwise restricts the Constitutional rights of another citizen protected by the Constitution. This is a principle that is nearly universally recognized by the most liberal and libertarian persons in our society.

Given all these facts taken in their entirety, I would contend…and believe it could be legally recognized in a court of law that “born” as used by the Constitution to determine Constitutional protection begins when a consciousness can be proven and that would be when brainwaves are measured at week 6. Given the legally recognized concept that one person’s rights end when the exorcise of those rights impose undue hardship on the rights of another…then the rights of a mother to terminate her pregnancy end when that choice imposes a death sentence on a person with a beating heart and a consciousness as demonstrated by measurable brain activity.

Which is not to say that I do not agree that there is a Right to privacy, I absolutely do.

But the problem with (much of) the left is that the only circumstances in which they believe that privacy is okay is when it involves Thingy.

Your livelihood? Nope, the state has a compelling interest. Feeding wheat that you grew on your land with your seed and your water to your horses? Nope, Interstate Commerce. Teaching Young Earth Creationism to your children? Child abuse! The State needs to get involved! Oh, it involves Thingy? Well, that’s nobody’s business but your own.

But the problem with (much of) the Right is that “Community Standards” isn’t that much better a response to the problem. I’ve argued with people on this very board over whether Lawrence v. Texas was “Judicial Activism”. Seriously. People have argued that if Texans want to make sodomy between two guys illegal and arrest them and throw them in prison (presumably sodomy-free prison) that Texas has every Right to do so. And that’s not getting into whether Texas has the right to say “you can’t go on birth control” to women if it’s put to a vote and that’s what the community says (like it could before Griswold).

Meanwhile, both sides seem to be having an auction of privacy rights in order for the one side to ban abortion and the other in order to keep it.

Could you give me a handful of examples?

If you don’t want to say “we should arrest doctors and take them to court”, something like “we should handle abortion the way that South Korea does” would work for me.

We agree that abortion is bad.

Which brings us to the “so now what?” question… and, of course, the “and then after that?” question.

The rhetoric used by both sides doesn’t really seem to match up with what they think ought to be done.

The pro-choice side argues as if the slightest restriction on partial-birth abortion on demand is the first step with the second step being the repeal of Griswold vs. Connecticut.

The pro-life side argues with one side of its mouth that abortion is murder… while with the other saying that OF COURSE the mother should not be prosecuted if it comes out that she attempted to procure one (or, heaven forbid, actually got one). Why, that’s troll talk to even ask about whether people hiring an assassin should be subject to law enforcement.

Any discussion of “should we compromise, just a little?” on either side of the debate is met with sneering at best and, meanwhile, the state of affairs (which pretty much everybody agrees is bad) continues without looking like anything is going to change.

I’ve heard rumors that a couple of justices have been thinking about retiring but didn’t want Bush to pick the replacements… well, we’ll see what happens with Obama’s picks and whether that changes the format of the debate any.

Maybe if the Republicans just keep doing what they have been doing to this point only harder, things will be different this time.

In addition, we have seen numerous efforts to extend that decision into areas that we currently refer to as “infanticide”. In other words, why limit the power of the government to define the time line for human rights just because the unborn child is now born. For example, medical personnel withholding care of a child who survives an abortion. There are also several high profile academics who have published repeatedly on the subject.

Bottom line, we’ve already done the deed. What the right-to-life movement is trying to do is put the genie back in the bottle.

Their argument of course is that is not enough to constitute a “person” under law. Therefore, it is irrelevant to whether that child is deserving of rights. A few go a step further and say a woman’s right not to be pregnant overrides the child’s rights.

Legal death is not really comparable here for two reasons. First, it requires permanence. Second, all the various means used to determine death are not able to be used on each and every unborn child.

Biology defines life though, and from that, the law does too. That’s not sufficient though for defining who gets what rights.

More later.

So now we just need to hammer out how much power we want government officials to have so that they will better be able to prevent folks from procuring an abortion.

How much information should they need before a judge would agree that the law gives him grounds to grant the police a warrant, for example?

That said, at the State level, I certainly would not support a blanket ban on abortion, and I’m not much on “father’s” rights except in the context of a legal marriage. The sperm donor to an unmarried teenage girl has no rights as far as I’m concerned. For that matter, the teenaged girl’s rights are pretty limited in comparison to her parents’ rights.

To my mind, this right of self-defense is equally inalienable, as the mother’s life may not be alienated either, so she can exercise her right to self defense.

Now I well know that the health and life exceptions have been badly abused by the providers, but that doesn’t alter the fundamental point.

The reason why is that in this instance there is absolutely no guilt on the part of the life that would be ended.

Of course, I see the real debate as one of “how much power do you want the government to have to investigate these homicides?”

Or, to put a finer point on it, how much power do you want Obama appointees to have?