Apparently jurors are willing to punish amature abortionists even though their accomplices are presently beyond the reach of the law.
LUFKIN, Texas -- A 19-year-old East Texas man faces a life prison sentence for causing his teenage girlfriend to miscarry twins, even though she wanted to end the pregnancy.Gerardo Flores was accused of causing the miscarriage by stepping on his girlfriend's stomach. He was prosecuted under the state's new fetal protection law.
Erica Basoria acknowledged asking Flores to help end her pregnancy. But the 17-year-old can't be prosecuted because of her legal right to abortion.
I wonder if this verdict will be upheld on appeal? Should it be? Are there any pro-choicers out there who agree with this verdict? The only injustice I see is that the mother is exempt from prosecution.
Robert Parks raises and good point and asks, where's PETA when you need them?
But, even if the twins aren't considered people, where's PETA when you need them? If they aren't human, there's no doubt to their animal nature. I highly doubt kicking and punching fall under "Ethical Treatment" by any stretch of the imagination. This is blatant, unjustified, "cruel and unusual punishment"!
La Shawn Barber makes a good observation and points out that fathers can't protect their children either.
When you reject moral absolutes, which apply to us all, in favor of satanic “relativism,” this is the result. An unborn baby is human only if his mother wants him or if the father kills him. He commits murder; she commits “choice.”If the father wants to save his baby’s life but the mother elects to have the unwanted foreign growth scraped from her womb, he’s out of luck. That’s the unsustainable, contradictory, insane, incomprehensible rationale behind legalize abortion.
Beaker thinks that Gerardo Flores was just in the wrong place.
I guess he should have beat her in the lobby of a Planned Parenthood Abortion Mill™.So let's see if I can make some sense of this. If the teenage girl kills her unborn twins, it's legal. If her boyfriend helps, with her full consent, he's put away for life. If a doctor (or any other member of Planned Parenthood) kills the unborn twins, with her consent, it's legal. If anyone kills the unborn twins without her consent, it's murder.
The babies were also in the wrong "place", in that identical babies who were located outside a womb would have had full legal protection. I can attack someone who invades my house and intends to hurt me, but if I invite a person in I can hardly complain about it later.
Bill Quick thinks the problem is that "social conservative lunatics" are writing laws.
This is the sort of insanity you end up with when social conservative lunatics start writing laws for the majority. Yes, yes, I know all about federalism. That doesn't prevent me from pointing out the idiotic outcomes federalism sometimes provides.
But a truly just system would have punished both killers, not just the man... and it's leftists who prevented that outcome, not rightists.
pro-choice perspective: this isn't murder, it's criminal negligance. As an unqualified member of the public, I'm not allowed to have a crack at surgery, no matter how fine my intentions are.
Biblically, abortion isn't murder (see Exodus 21:22-25). The penalty for inducing a miscarriage is a fine if the woman is unharmed, or according to what harm was done to the woman (ignoring the foetus' termination). Verses 12-15 of the same chapter give the death penalty for murder. So Jewish law has abortion has a significantly less serious crime than murder.
Animal rights strike me as irrelevent.
If a foetus does not have an unapposed right to be born, it makes sense that the mother's wishes have priority over the father's, since only the mother is unavoidably involved.
Did you read Exodus 21:22-25?
Abortion isn't harm? What is it then? A warm fuzzy feeling? I would also aregue with your meaning where it actually says if you hurt a woman to the point of premature birth, but the baby is fine, you are at the mercey of the husband and the judge. Then in verse 23 is specifically goes into if the child is harmed, being that the intial condition established the woman was already harmed and the pervious case specified that the baby was unharmed by premature birth. Its seems that the punishment under Jewish Law heavly relies on the affect on the baby of the harm cause to a woman.
Jez, I don't think you've done your research very well. Can I assume that you believe murder to be a sin? There is plenty of Biblical evidence to show God's position on life:
I don't intend to advance the idea that God was speaking specifically of childbirth in Isaih 66:9, because that verse is in the context of likening a quick and painless childbirth, to the quickness of the church being restored against man's popular opinion.
The reason I list it is because it, like the rest of the Bible, never fails to show the consistency of God.
If God would ask a rhetorical question pointing out the futility of conception and growth of a child in the womb, only to halt the delivery; if He would use that as part of an analogy to describe something else, then I think we know where He stands on killing unborn babies.
Psalm 51:5 - Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Conception is the beginning of life, according to David. He could not have been sinful prior to being human. I have a hard time accepting that God would be partial to outwardly sinful individuals outside of the womb, against the more innocent baby inside. Does not God always lift up the small, weak, and poor, the ultimate of which an unborn child may be considered?
pirate: yes, I read it and I got the impression that harm referred to the expectant mother. This is not an unusual interpretation. If the harm refers to the baby, then "a tooth for a tooth" etc. doesn't make sense: foetuses and babies don't have teeth; also any harm to the mother is overlooked, which doesn't speak well of Jewish attitudes to women.
Some of the controversy over this passage apparently goes back to a loose bit of translation from Hebrew to Greek (in the Greek, "harm" was read as "form", which certainly would imply that Moses is talking about the foetus). By the time people could look at the Hebrew again, the Church's position on abortion was established, and hardly required scriptural backing.
Jim: it's hardly conclusive. Sure, one is woven in the womb, but weaving takes time -- so it doesn't mean that one is fully woven from the moment of conception onwards. And in spontaneous miscarriage, god does quite often shut the womb. The truth is the bible doesn't give clear instructions about abortion... I think exodus 21 comes closest.
Harm to the mother isn't over looked. It specifically says if she is harmed, gives premature birth and the baby is fine the punishment for the person doing the harm is decieded by her husband and a judge. To me that isn't overlooking the harm to the woman, unless of course the husband decides to do nothing for what ever reason from it was an accident to she should of shut her mouth. It then goes into the case where the harm on the mother cause harm to the baby in premature birth as a separate case, but it prioritizes the punishment for injury to the baby leading one to conclude that the life of a child is of a higher value. If the life of a baby has that much value then one would be making a giagantic leap to say then abortion is okay.
Harm to the mother is settled with a fine, while an unborn baby gets full eye-for-an-eye justice. Seems like odd priorities to me.
Anyway, that is tangential. As far as I can tell, the Greek supports your interpretation, the earlier Hebrew supports mine.
Where does it say the harm to the mother is a fine? "he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman's husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges determine." It says its up to her husband and a judge, really quite similar to pressing charges now, except there would be more parties involved and quite possibly a jury deciding how to punish the harm done to the mother. The baby had manditory punishments for harming it suggesting that there is some societal standard of protecting offspring.
To be clear what exactly should the Hebrew say, that doesn't imply that Moses was talking about a child being harmed and punishment for that?
Many translations use the word "fine", pretty much all of them use the word "pay". Either way the mother does not get lex talionis automatically. (Anthropologically, I find it much more likely that Jewish society would value a fertile adult woman over a foetus or infant who is quite likely to die before reaching maturity...) Also, what was the survival rate for premature births so many thousands of years ago? Was there much need for hard distinctions between premature babies and abortions/miscarries?
See my earlier comment about "form" and "harm". It is only the reliance on the few people who understood Hebrew by the early church that has set the orthodox position on abortion. I understand your reading of it now that you've pointed it out, but honestly my natural interpretation of the verses is as I pointed out. Surely you can admit the ambiguity?
Also note that rabbinic commentators have not considered the possibility of a live-birth rendering of exodus 21.
You keep ignoring the simple fact that what determines how the punishment is enacted depends on what happenes to the child after premature birth is induced by the harm caused to the mother. So their is a distinction between a child that is premature that lives and one that dies or is injured. Its really quite sel evident that it places a high value on life, of course this passage doesn't cover the harm leading to the death of the mother, which would be punished accordingly from passages elsewhere. Abortion doesn't meet the qualifiers of the passage regarding two men fighting, but it does cause harm to the woman and it does cause premature birth (in many pieces) that leads to the death of the child. The punishment enacted on the person doing the harm when the baby survives is based on the husband & judges quantification of the harm, when the child is harmed the punishment is equivalent to the harm done to the child. Your 'natural interpetation' is more of a attempt to explain away the fact the Bible does specify punishments for participation in actions that lead to the death of a unborn child.
Plus considering the Bible's position on the taking of innocent human life you really think all the sudden Moses would make a 180 on it for 5 verses?
pirate, i'm comparing our interpretations of the passage. That involves holding two ideas in your head at once. I haven't accepted your interpretation as true, and I respect that you haven't accepted mine either. Reread the conversation with this in mind. I haven't "ignored the simple fact" -- I haven't credited it with the status of "fact", but I have referred to it when I talk about your interpretation. I haven't ignored your view.
I'm an honest person, and when I say "honestly my natural interpretation of the verses", I can only ask that you believe me. We could question each others' political motives all day long, but let's cut the prattle and be honest with each other, ok?
The bible's position on protecting innocents (the form of your statement belies your political prejudices btw -- are you really certain you are above interpreting the bible to the benefit of your pet causes?) is a little unclear, for example I am permitted to beat my slave right up to the point of death (if she survives two days, then all's well, since after all she is my property). (also exodus 21)