ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) (04/01/84)
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If a fetus is a human at the moment of conception, or sufficiently
human that its rights supersede those of its host, then where do
its legal rights stop? Should anyone conceived in the USA have the
right to citizenship? Civil suit? Class action? Inheritance?
Think about it. Even household pets have some legal standing.
There are two questions, too: Do you have full American rights after
you're born because you *WERE* a fetus in the US? Do you have these
rights while you *ARE* said fetus?
You pro-lifers love to argue that killing fetuses leads to Adolph
Hitler, so let's turn some of this "leads to" stuff around.
If the act of being born is legally irrelevant, then you can't be
arbitrary about the rights of these (what do you call them?)
"unborn children".
There are laws about child abuse, and extending them, as we'll have to
do, implies that pregnant women must be prohibited from doing anything
that would harm their fetuses. So, I must conclude that your failure
to point out such proscriptions in your anti-abortion agitation is a
political ploy, at the expense of the fetus no less. For shame!
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..ihnp4!ihuxq!ken *** ***pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (04/01/84)
Aren't you clouding the issue, Ken? Abortion has to do with whether or not the fetus has a right to live. We are talking about who may decide to take whose life, not whether the fetus can sue someone or which country they are a citizen of. As far as child abuse goes, there are two distictions: 1) enforcability and 2) determination of harm caused directly by the parent's actions. These are much easier in the case of born children than unborn. Paul Dubuc
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (04/02/84)
Currently we do not prohibit mothers from doing ``anything that would harm their child''. We do prohibit them from killing them, however. Citizenship is a matter which is decided by individual countries. Personally, I would like it if every person who wanted to be a citizen of any country (including the one that he was born in) had to apply for citizenship. This is not in order to reject any native-borners, but so that every citizen would have a real, concrete experience of *asking* to be a citizen. (it is easier to remember that you have responsibilities when you have explicitly asked for them.) I do not think that ``place of birth'' was settled on as a grounds for citizenship (in the countries which practice this -- some don't) because it was automatically assumed that life began there, merely *official* life (ie on paper -- what the bureacrats always want) began there, birth records being a very widespread phenomenon. There is no reason to change this if you like the system. Personally, I would prefer that the citizenship of the child defaults to that of the person (or group) who raised him, with multiple citizenships possible. Why we are at this we could tidy things up so that pregnant Americans abroad don't have to race home to have their kid just in case he or she might want to be President some day. -- Laura Creighton utzoo!laura "Capitalism is a lot of fun. If you aren't having fun, then you're not doing it right." -- toad terrific