Hitchens neglects to mention the role of doctors in the American holocaust. In the U.S., more than a million lives have been taken each year since Roe v. Wade, for a total now estimated at about 50 million. For doctors without scruples, this is certainly a much more efficient way of killing than car bombs.

Hardly the same thing, though you get points for trying. Abortion, no matter what your views about it, is not a holocaust, simply because doctors are not trying to eliminate any segment of the population. Abortions are provided to any woman who decides she wants one. For it to be a true holocaust, then women fitting a certain profile would be targeted, and those who seemed pregnant would be tricked or forced into having their babies aborted. Since this does not occur, then the holocaust analogy is simply wrong, and using that term labels you an ideologue. Really, you should read more Hitchens. He talks a lot about people just like you!

Oh, not the "american holocaust" bullshit again. Just because you have the strange idea that life begins at conception doesn't give you the right to use words like "holocaust". It cheapens the word. (Now you'll probably shout that you are being "persecuted" for your beliefs...).

Zygote:

Oh, not the "american holocaust" bullshit again. Just because you have the strange idea that life begins at conception doesn't give you the right to use words like "holocaust". It cheapens the word. (Now you'll probably shout that you are being "persecuted" for your beliefs...).

Just how do you go about claiming the right to determine what usage of a word is acceptable and what cheapens it?

I'm sure a NAZI, convinced in the subhumanity of the Jews, felt that calling what they did a holocaust cheapened the meaning of the word. Similarly, your denying the humanity of a segment of the population has nothing to do with whether or not it is a holocaust.

One thing Nazis did was to assert that The Vaterland had full rights to control the bodies of each of its citizens. Very similar to what anti-choice folks like you assert - that The Government has a right to compell a woman into involuntary servitude simply because she is fecund.

degsme:

One thing Nazis did was to assert that The Vaterland had full rights to control the bodies of each of its citizens. Very similar to what anti-choice folks like you assert - that The Government has a right to compell a woman into involuntary servitude simply because she is fecund.

No one is claiming the right to force women to get pregnant. All we are claiming is the right to force all people not to murder their fellow human beings, regardless of their age.

If we're going to discuss this, let's discuss it for real. Us pro-lifers are against abortion because it kills an innocent human being. Your right to control your own body does not include the right to kill someone else.

Ah but in the US The Government is limited in its actions by The Constitution. And yes, my right to control my own body DOES include the right to refuse the use of my body even if that means the death of someone else.

• The government cannot compell a parent to donate lifesaving blood to their child
• The government cannot compell a parent to donate their kidney to save a child's life

So how can The Government compell a woman to risk her life and health Involuntarily to donate her reproductive organs and her blood and digestive system to save a fetus' life?

It has nothing to do with whether the fetus is or is not a "human being" (which it isn't legally at all). It is purely an issue of whether The Government can compell a woman to involutarily be in servitude to the fetus.

Your arguement about "forcing to get pregnant" alludes to the followon arguement that the woman gave up her right to choice when she acted in a manner that could get her pregnant. This has two problems

1. it therefore allows any form of abortion as late in the term as desired, if the pregnancy is the result of rape or some other unchosen insemination
2. it argues that Involuntary Servitude is allowed as a consequence of "strict liability".

Now we know #2 is false. Involuntary Servitude is never a legally permissible consequence. And before you argue that parents have legal obligations to born children - the legal fact is that these are VOLUNTARY obligations. Because at any time the parent can legally surrender the privileges and associated obligations of parenthood by giving the child up to be a ward of the state.

Ah but what about parent owning child support. Again, the parent can be found civilly liable for child support, but THE GOVERNMENT cannot force the parent to actually work to pay that child support against the parent's will. Again, Involuntary Servitude (Am13) precludes this.

So unless you can find an example where Involuntary Servitude is allowed in the USA other than for explictly Constitutionally directed reasons (Militia clause, Am12, or criminal due process), and unless you are going to make pregnancy a felony - The Government simply has no right to regulate a fecund woman's body.

Sure you could theoretically limit any abortion procedure that physically touches the fetus - assuming you can pass an amendment that makes the fetus a person - but that still allows the woman to act in any manner that does not directly cross the placental boundary. That includes taking medicines that terminate blood or nutrition flow to her side of the placenta.

Then once the fetus is a hunk of rotting flesh, any procedure is available to save the woman's life from peritonitis.

Mind you, that effectively means that any abortion procedure is legal since this draconinan a limit endangers the life of a born human being - the host woman.

Sorry, you don't have a Constitutional leg to stand on.

degsme:

Ah but in the US The Government is limited in its actions by The Constitution. And yes, my right to control my own body DOES include the right to refuse the use of my body even if that means the death of someone else.

• The government cannot compel a parent to donate lifesaving blood to their child
• The government cannot compel a parent to donate their kidney to save a child's life

This is a specious argument. In the examples you've cited above, I would have to "do something" to save a life. In addition, in your examples we are talking about an illness or other defect. In the case of a pregnancy, the woman is not sick; there is nothing medically wrong; there is no defect. The woman doesn't have to "do something" for the pregnancy to proceed to full term. Indeed, she has to "do something" to terminate the pregnancy.

Your right to swing your hand ends where my nose begins.

degsme, let me see if I am understanding you correctly. Are you saying that the unborn fetus IS a human being, but the mother is legally and morally allowed to kill it if she decides she wants to anyway?

If that is your opinion, you and I have nothing to say to each other. You are a morally reprehensible monster.

Ah yes name calling. You can't support a logical and constitutional rubrik so you name call.

Typical conservative.

And no, what I am saying is that THE GOVERNMENT has no Constitutional basis for regulating a woman's reproductive organs no matter what the consequences.

The same applies if THE GOVERNMENT believes, but cannot prove to the level of a warrant, that a kidnapper has their victim buried in a box in the basement.

The moral reprehensibility of allowing agovernment to abuse the rights of its citizens has historically proven to be an immutable consequence of giving government unfettered power over its citizens "in the name of safety".

Benjamin Franklin said it best

Those who would sacrifice any of our precious liberties for a temporary measure of security, deserve neither liberty nor security.

Nope those aren't specious at all. They are real life cases and circumstances.

In the case of pregnancy, the host woman's life and health are at greater risk if she continues the pregnancy to term than if she aborts. How is that medically and factually different than getting a flu shot ?

And a woman does have to DO something to keep the pregnancy from terminating. She has to eat food at a level above her normal needs. If a woman doesn't eat enough the body spontaneously ejects the fetus.

So there very clearly is a set of positive acts that a woman has to engage in to successfully carry the fetus to term. If she just sits down and goes on a 2 week water only diet, she will be fine, and the pregnancy will be over.

The woman's nose begins at her uterine wall. Your right to compell her to donate her uterus to a fetus doesn't Constitutionally exist.

degsme:

Ah yes name calling. You can't support a logical and constitutional rubrik so you name call.

Typical conservative.

And no, what I am saying is that THE GOVERNMENT has no Constitutional basis for regulating a woman's reproductive organs no matter what the consequences.

The same applies if THE GOVERNMENT believes, but cannot prove to the level of a warrant, that a kidnapper has their victim buried in a box in the basement.

The moral reprehensibility of allowing agovernment to abuse the rights of its citizens has historically proven to be an immutable consequence of giving government unfettered power over its citizens "in the name of safety".

Benjamin Franklin said it best

Those who would sacrifice any of our precious liberties for a temporary measure of security, deserve neither liberty nor security.

And yet you avoid my question. Why is that?

Do you believe that the fetus is a human being and that the mother can kill him anyway if she so desires?

It is a simple question. I would appreciate it if you anwered it.

Why is it considered just to allow involuntary servitude in those two exceptions? Why wouldn't it be just to expand to one more exception?

The Constitution isn't as protective of your body as you think it is. First off, law enforcement officials are already entitled to seize your blood against your will (see Schmerber and its progeny).

Under current law, your body is treated as something other than property. But that's not a Constitutionally determined issue (the definitions of property are state law matters). If a State declared your interest in physical integrity to be a property interest, then it should Constitutionally be able to seize your blood or your kidney as long as it complied with the "Takings Clause" of the Fifth Amendment.

Surely, it's possible the Supremes would look askance at such a practice. But, there's nothing inherent in the Constitution to prevent the state from seizing your blood, marrow, or even surplus organs in the interests of saving lives.

How about the 4th, 13th, and 14th Amendments?

Anyway, a non-viable fetus is not a human being, so removing it is not murder, which is roughly defined as killing another human being.

60-80% of all natually conceived embryos fail to implant in the woman's uterus and are flushed out during the menstural cycle. This would make God the largest murderer of unborn children if you believe life begins at conception.

Fortunatrely, most people understand that destroying a fertilized egg or an embryo is not the same as murder, and that forcing a woman to carry every pregnancy to term would simply turn her into a vessel for the government.