Current Events > The USA: "An unborn fetus is a person and therefore must be protected"

(+) Yeah! (+)

Also the USA:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/8/3/AAbtL8AADY3b.jpg

Lets not conflate a dependent and a living person, please.

Pro-life is kinda dumb, but we dont have to use dumb arguments as a rebuttal.

Pretty sure the federal government never said the statement in the topic title.

If the pregnancy's health depends on additional funds being spent from a person's income then it should count as a dependent.

GranQroppoop posted...

If the pregnancy's health depends on additional funds being spent from a person's income then it should count as a dependent.

Thank you

cuttin_in_farm posted...

Pro-life is kinda dumb, but we dont have to use dumb arguments as a rebuttal.

To be fair, dumb shit is all they can comprehend. It's unironically probably the best argument possible.

also if a man assaults a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage he should be charged with second degree murder

Your kid needs a SSN to be declared a dependent, which requires a birth certificate.

cuttin_in_farm posted...

Lets not conflate a dependent and a living person, please.

You can't claim anything other than a living person.

Questionmarktarius posted...

Your kid needs a SSN to be declared a dependent, which requires a birth certificate.

True. But the argument being made here is that if we assume life starts at conception (and thus abortion is legally murder), then that unborn "life" should also legally be declared a U.S. citizen and thus, the parents should be able to claim them as a dependent.

Obviously the notion of that is ridiculous. But that's basically what conservatives are arguing.

ButteryMales posted...

You can't claim anything other than a living person.

But not everything you cant claim is a nonliving person.

Sackgurl posted...

also if a man assaults a pregnant woman and she suffers a miscarriage he should be charged with second degree murder

Uhh... he is?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unborn_Victims_of_Violence_Act

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-212) is a United States law that recognizes an embryo or fetus in utero as a legal victim, if they are injured or killed during the commission of any of over 60 listed federal crimes of violence. The law defines "child in utero" as "a member of the species Homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb.

cuttin_in_farm posted...

But not everything you cant claim is a nonliving person.

Everything you can't claim is not a person. Things aren't people.

cuttin_in_farm posted...

But not everything you cant claim is a nonliving person.

Not really relevant though, since you CAN claim children and Republicans are making the argument that a fetus is a child, and thus abortion is the murder of a child.

If we accept that to be the truth, then we must also accept that parents should be able to claim them as dependents. Anything else is just arbitrarily taking away and granting rights based on personal agenda.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

Not really relevant though, since you CAN claim children

Bro, cmon. Ive seen you post better than this.

A dependent has nothing to do with being alive or not.

I also dunno why the hell what you claim on taxes is being associated with pro-lifers.

ButteryMales posted...

Everything you can't claim is not a person. Things aren't people.

You cant claim an adult who is financially responsible for themselves.

What the heck are you smoking with the Everything you cant claim isnt a person?

Unless you are including claiming yourself?

cuttin_in_farm posted...

You cant claim an adult who is financially responsible for themselves.

What the heck are you smoking with the Everything you cant claim isnt a person?

Unless you are including claiming yourself?

When talking about persons the proper grammar is everyone. Everyone you can claim is a person.

I mean....

If it weren't for how "trendy" everyone's thinking is, I would see this very differently. I'm looking 2 years, 3 years down the road here.

Idc if its a person or not and arguing about it is semantics and a distraction

Person or not if something is growing inside my body I have the right to remove whether my government approves or not.

Fuck SCOTUS and all you authoritarian scumbags.

RchHomieQuanChi posted...

True. But the argument being made here is that if we assume life starts at conception (and thus abortion is legally murder), then that unborn "life" should also legally be declared a U.S. citizen and thus, the parents should be able to claim them as a dependent.

Obviously the notion of that is ridiculous. But that's basically what conservatives are arguing.

This is like dunking on a kiddie hope and thinking you won the Superbowl.

The IRS doesn't recognize an unborn child as a dependent. A dependent is a specific financial term in the United States tax code which has many stipulations, It doesn't make any claims about whether a fetus is a person or not, but it does specify that the child needs to be born alive during the taxable year.

That isn't the same thing as saying, "An unborn child isn't a person and therefore can't be claimed as an dependent".

SSJPurple posted...

Idc if its a person or not and arguing about it is semantics and a distraction

Person or not if something is growing inside my body I have the right to remove whether my government approves or not.

Fuck SCOTUS and all you authoritarian scumbags.

The semantics matter a lot because if it is a person, you get it outside of your body, and it dies you'd be just as legally culpible for negligent homicide as if you actually gave birth and just didn't feed your baby. You have a right to remove something inside your body, but there are also things you are legally required to do for your child.

The semantics are, quite literally, all that matters here in terms of law because personhood confers legal protections.

EDIT: FYI I'm pro choice, so don't interpret what I said above as defense of abortion bans. Just trying to highlight why those kinds of semantic arguments matter.

cuttin_in_farm posted...

Bro, cmon. Ive seen you post better than this.

A dependent has nothing to do with being alive or not.

I also dunno why the hell what you claim on taxes is being associated with pro-lifers.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that according to Republicans, a fetus is a living thing in the same way that a child is, and as such, deserves the same basic protections from "murder" (abortion) that a child would get. There are many living things that you cannot claim as a dependent. That is true. But the thing is that biological underaged children are people you can almost always claim as dependents. Whether a fetus is alive or not isn't the important part. It's the fact that they're now being considered as children (under Republican logic).

So if we take all of that to be a fact, the counterargument here is this: if Republicans want fetuses to be protected as though they were children under U.S. law, why should parents then not be allowed to claim them as dependents like they would children, since classifying them as children would make them fit the legal definition of what a dependent is.

s0nicfan posted...

The semantics matter a lot because if it is a person, you get it outside of your body, and it dies you'd be just as legally culpible for negligent homicide as if you actually gave birth and just didn't feed your baby. You have a right to remove something inside your body, but there are also things you are legally required to do for your child.

The semantics are, quite literally, all that matters here in terms of law because personhood confers legal protections.

EDIT: FYI I'm pro choice, so don't interpret what I said above as defense of abortion bans. Just trying to highlight why those kinds of semantic arguments matter.

Thats why you kill it before it comes out

Questionmarktarius posted...

Your kid needs a SSN to be declared a dependent, which requires a birth certifica

Questionmarktarius posted...

Your kid needs a SSN to be declared a dependent, which requires a birth certificate.

The fetus person doesn't have a SSN.
A serious offense.
Pull the fetus out and imprison it.

SSJPurple posted...

Thats why you kill it before it comes out

But then again: the exact point at which it becomes a person matters here, which gets back to why defining personhood is so central to this whole situation. Part of the problem is that the government never wanted to take the re-election risk of defining personhood which is why we have this weird arbitrary standard. "A fetus isn't a person unless it dies to an external injury unless that injury is at the request of the mother. We also recognize that in the third trimester it could conceivably survive as a child, so we won't allow non-emergency abortions in that period, but we still won't call it a person until it's removed even though it's protected by the original Roe decision based on viability of potential personhood because then we'd have to declare late-term emergency abortions as justified homicide which then opens up a giant can of worms around braindead coma patients and assisted suicide."

It's a giant mess.

Also, your child does not need to have a SSN to be declared a dependent. If your child is born alive then dies before it gets a SSN it can still be declared a dependent for that year.

Eh if it was up to me it wouldnt matter.

If its inside the woman and she doesnt want it there then ggs, abortion time.

All the people who have an issue with abortions are still free to not get them.

You don't need to do these semantic legalese gotchas to make an argument for reproductive rights. Not least because the people you're ostensibly trying to convince simply won't care.

Republicans are taking the stupidest take in all history life begins at conception the bible says life begins at first breath

Ving_Rhames posted...

To be fair, dumb shit is all they can comprehend. It's unironically probably the best argument possible.

They would just respond with something like taxes are theft and the IRS should be abolished.

So responding to their dumb arguments with other dumb arguments would not work out in our favor.

CADE FOSTER posted...

Republicans are taking the stupidest take in all history life begins at conception the bible says life begins at first breath

Lets not give any credibility to that dumbass book please.

Antifar posted...

You don't need to do these semantic legalese gotchas to make an argument for reproductive rights. Not least because the people you're ostensibly trying to convince simply won't care.

I'm of the opinion there's only good things that come from creating clear, concise, consistent and legally defensible/justifiable definitions of things when it comes to rights. When you're sloppy with these things you get "black people are 3/5 of a person" or, in this case, "abortion is murder."

I'm not doing this to convince people who won't be convinced. I'm doing this because any well informed person should be doing this with regards to all opinions they believe in, because that's precisely what separates rational adults with defensible stances on controversial issues and people who just scream at other people until one of them caves.

SSJPurple posted...

Lets not give any credibility to that dumbass book please.

hey fuck that they claim to be religous let them argue why they go against it

s0nicfan posted...

I'm of the opinion there's only good things that come from creating clear, concise, consistent and legally defensible/justifiable definitions of things when it comes to rights. When you're sloppy with these things you get "black people are 3/5 of a person" or, in this case, "abortion is murder."

I'm not doing this to convince people who won't be convinced. I'm doing this because any well informed person should be doing this with regards to all opinions they believe in, because that's precisely what separates rational adults with defensible stances on controversial issues and people who just scream at other people until one of them caves.

Yeah. I'm with you on this one. In these cases, the semantics are extremely important since they define what legal protections a person/thing/whatever you want to call it should or shouldn't have.

As a black man, I'm well aware of the fact that us not being considered as "people" set all sorts of legal precedent and justification for us to be enslaved, stripped of rights, murdered, etc., Obviously under corrupt regimes (such as this one), legal classifications don't really matter and the government is gonna do whatever the fuck they want. But at least being able to come to a well-informed consensus will give us a baseline by which to consider certain laws just or unfair. I have no illusions about Republicans or their voters acting in good faith. But at least people like us will be able to consensually agree that slavery is bad because it strips a person of their bodily autonomy.

Whether a fetus is a person or not is a crucial element to the abortion debate (at least on a surface level) because it defines what legal protections a fetus has, the legal consequences the parents may face for aborting one and whether or not the parents should receive government assistance for their unborn child.

I'll also add in that not clearly defining what does and doesn't count as a thing is how we end up with laws being misinterpreted.