Is an unborn baby a person ?

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This week the Irish Government is fighting in the Courts to maintain that an unborn baby is not a person.

The case has been bought by a pregnant lady who is about to be deported.She maintains that she cannot be deported because her unborn child (a person) has not been served with a deportation order.According to the law everyone who is deported must be served personally with a deportation order.

This in a country where abortion is illegal.

Do we need the wisdom of Solomon?

-- Chris (Chris@ireland.com), January 09, 2002

Answers

Chris, the notion of fetii as human beings is controversial around here and has been debated to the max many times.

As far as the case you are describing, it does seem ludicrous to insist that a deportation order must be served to a fetus, even in a country that legally recognizes the life of the unborn. What if the kid was one day old? Is the government obliged to "serve" papers to someone who does not yet even speak the language?

-- (lars@indy.net), January 09, 2002.


Chris:

It is my observation that the problem exists because the definition of a human being is an opinion and not the result of an exercise in factual investigation. Jews weren't human in Europe long before Hitler.

When one reaches the hoary edges of life or society, opinions become divided. The unborn and the murderers. This is a legal issue which must be described in laws. Nothing more and nothing less.

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), January 09, 2002.


Um, did you take a wrong turn? We're not allowed to talk about abortion on this board. Much, much too controversial. How DARE you!

-- (wrong@board.here), January 10, 2002.

Allowing the baby to be born in the country makes the baby a citizen? Could the baby be stripped of citizenship at birth and then deported with the mother? Could the state take custody of its new little citizen at birth and still deport the mother? Citizenship laws may be revised all over the world as political boundaries are redefined.

-- helen (judges@got.hard.things.to.decide), January 10, 2002.

I agree with Z that the status of an embryo or fetus as a "person" is mainly a legal fiction rather than a scientific determination, whichever position you take.

As Chris's article points out, taking the legal position that a fetus is an individual with individual rights can lead to amazingly strange legal complications. Another one that springs to mind is that death certificates would be required for every miscarriage or spontaneous abortion.

Could a pregnant woman enter places where minors aren't allowed without breaking the law? If she is murdered, is it a double homicide? If she carried triplets, is it four murders? What about claiming a fetus as a dependent on your income taxes? Also, the issues of granting citizenship get all tangled up, as helen pointed out already.

Dozens of things that run counter to common sense appear to follow that line of thinking. But there is a movement afoot in the US Congress to define a fetus as a person before the law, as a means to outlaw abortion. If it came to Bush, I believe he would sign it, too.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), January 10, 2002.



If she gets it held up in court long enough, the babe will be born and automatically be given citizenship. I was born in Munich, Germany whaich gave me the oppertunity to choose which country I wished to be a citizen in. My American citizenship was guarenteed because my Dad was in the USAF

-- Cherri (jessam5@home.com), January 10, 2002.

Nipper:

As a matter of fact, I believe there are numerous precedents in the US for finding in law that murder of a pregnant women is indeed a double homicide. Further, that unhappy prospective fathers pounding on the woman's belly with a rock has been found to be homicide as well. The law grinds in strange ways.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), January 10, 2002.


I posted this because it reminded me of something else that also made me quiver.The fact that the law has no mercy but yet has a spirit... which a citizen breaks at their peril.

-- Chris (ex revenue girl@ireland.com), January 11, 2002.

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