According to Secular Pro-Life’s latest blog post,
A measure recently passed in Alabama provides representation to preborn babies in judicial bypass proceedings. Judicial bypass is a procedure, mandated by the Supreme Court, which allows a teenager to petition a judge for permission to have an abortion without the knowledge of her parents. The proceeding is a matter of life or death for the preborn child, making the need for representation obvious. . . . Those who are the least capable of defending themselves are, practically by definition, those who are most deserving of legal representation. The abortion lobby may not like it, but we must continue to speak for the voiceless.
I think the SPL author means that whenever a termination is sought, the need for representation of the unborn is no less obvious than when it is sought through judicial bypass in particular. If that’s what she means, I couldn’t agree more.
This is the first time I have been aware that in any US state, a few of the unborn actually are allowed representation before termination. Now I’m trying to find out whether any of the unborn have ever won their case, and if so, by what standards the judge spared their lives. The measure was “recently passed.”
© 2015
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Some future posts:
Life Panels
Evolution, and the Humanizing and Uplifting Effect on Society of a Commitment to the Unborn
A Trade-Off of a Sensitive Nature
Unborn Child-Protection Legislation, the Moral Health of Society, and the Role of the American Democratic Party
The Motivations of Aborting Parents
Why Remorse Comes too Late
The Kitchen-Ingredients Week-After Pill
Unwanted Babies and Overpopulation
The Woman as Slave?
Abortion and the Map of the World
I believe an attorney should represent a client’s interest in the way that the client sees the client’s interest. I don’t see that an attorney can know what the interest is of a living entity procreated by humans and located in a human womb. I don’t see that an attorney can know that such a living entity has an interest in life or death at all.
However, let’s assume that such an entity is at a particular point in its life; and, let’s further assume that this entity has a desire to live or to die. I don’t see that an attorney can know whether this entity a) wants to live or b) wants to die.
I don’t see that an attorney should defend this entity’s life because I don’t see that the attorney can know that this entity wants to live. I don’t see that an attorney can speak for this entity because I don’t see that the attorney can know what the entity wants to say, if anything.
******************** The following two sentences are not relevant to legal issues. Using a simplistic religious framework, I don’t see that we can know what God’s Will is. For a living entity procreated by humans and located in a human womb, I don’t see that we can know whether God’s Will is for this entity to live or to die. ********************
Thanks for your input.
Let me start with this: Suppose an adult you’re unacquainted with is lying injured and unconscious in a place where he is in danger. Or suppose she’s in a hospital in a coma, expected to recover fully in a few months, and some people want to pull the plug. The person doesn’t presently have an interest in life or death at all. But doesn’t morality require us to use a model under which the person can presently think, and wants to live?
I am pro-Choice. I am pro-Life. I don’t have an opinion on this matter. There’s plenty of blood on the tracks. I would say this debate can end only in consensus.
I agree that there will eventually be consensus. I think history moves in that way on social issues. In the US, slavery was a divisive issue for a long time, but now there is consensus.
I think that the eventual consensus will allow many abortions, but will not allow “choice.” That is, society will not abdicate its responsibility to protect the weakest and most helpless, and so will reserve the right to make the final decision.
As psychology professor Paul Bloom has said, “Good moral ideas can spread through the world in much the same way that good scientific ideas can, and once they are established, people marvel that they could ever have thought differently.”