That website doesn't load for me. What is the case cite for the Supreme Court?

Fixed it.

Bingo, were making some headway I think.

This is where your logic takes a jump. Before you come to this, you MUST keep in mind the ideology of the person who would have the abortion. You MUST respect that they believe its just a fertilized egg, and its the right of the carrier to do with it what they will. You have every right to despise abortion, but you have no right in trying to supplant your thoughts into law.

Your statement of "what about the rights of the unborn" come from your position that there really is a "unborn human" inside this person, a pro-life stance. Not a human rights stance.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...y_18_1.01.html

I've seen Bubba push a couple of these...

Problem is, you cannot make that argument in regards to partial-birth abortion since this involves basically a partial live-birth of a survivable infant in the last tri-mester who then has his/hers brains sucked out after the head is punctured with a pair of scissors (or whatever.) Yet this practice is vehemently defended by abortionists for fear that outlawing it would 'violate the civil rights' of the mother. So how do you reconcile this with your argument?

Bubba, you obviously have no idea how the Supreme Court works and what a holding is. In footnote 11 of Tarcaso v. Watkins, Justice Black, in a laundry list of non-theistic religions mentions "secular humanism." This is not a "holding" of the court and serves no precedental value. It is what is known as dictum. Your website tries to argue it is much more, but it is out to lunch on how law works.

The examples used to show secular humanism as a free exercise issue are laughable. One is by a DC court that dealt with a tax issue that is horribly misdescribed by your hack author (and is clearly an outlier). The conscientious objector cases are similarly misunderstood as religion cases.

The funny thing is that I've argued on this board (and Revrew may remember this) that instrumental rationality (which is different than secular humanism, but is even less "religous") is a faith-based religion. However, for purposes of the constitution, it is ridiculous to argue that secular humanists receive any constitional protection because of their religion. Quit arguing utter nonsense about law that you don't understand simply because you read it on an AOL member website.

Again, please join us in reality. PBA is an extremely rare procedure that is used almost exclusively in cases where the mother's life is threatened. The bill congress passed did NOT include any allowance for the health of the mother. Courts have struck down the bill because of the failure to have a mother's health exception, not because they believe PBA is a necessary or humane procedure. And the argument that the babies are viable when PBA is performed are not case-specific fact based.

I dont, partial birth abortion is illegal. The only single reason why it was every opposed in the first place is because it makes no provision for the mothers health. If a woman is at risk in a pregnancy, and the only chance to save her life is to have a last trimester abortion, she is not allowed that option anymore. She dies, the baby lives. no choice. That is the ONLY circumstance I would ever, ever even remotely consider being ok with a late trimester abortion.

Of course, there's no such proceedure as PBA. It's called dilation and extraction. Educate yourself on when a dilation and extraction procedure might be performed:

1st Trimester: D&Xs are not performed during the first three months of pregnancy, because there are better ways to perform abortions. There is no need to follow a D&X procedure, because the fetus' head quite small at this stage of gestation and can be quite easily removed from the woman's uterus.

2nd Trimester: D&Xs are very rarely performed in the late second trimester at a time in the pregnancy before the fetus is viable. These, like most abortions, are performed for a variety of reasons, including: She is not ready to have a baby for whatever reason and has delayed her decision to have an abortion into the second trimester. As mentioned above, 90% of abortions are done in the first trimester.
There are mental or physical health problems related to the pregnancy.
The fetus has been found to be dead, badly malformed, or suffering from a very serious genetic defect. This is often only detectable late in the second trimester.

3rd Trimester: They are also very rarely performed in late pregnancy. The most common justifications at that time are: The fetus is dead.
The fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would place the woman's life in severe danger.
The fetus is alive, but continued pregnancy would grievously damage the woman's health and/or disable her.
The fetus is so malformed that it can never gain consciousness and will die shortly after birth. Many which fall into this category have developed a very severe form of hydrocephalus.

In addition, some physicians violate their state medical association's regulations and perform elective D&X procedures - primarily on women who are suicidally depressed.

The physician is faced with two main alternatives at this late point in pregnancy:

a hysterotomy, which is similar to a Cesarean section, or
a D&X procedure

A midwifery web site quotes Dr. William F. Harrison, a diplomate of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He wrote that "approximately 1 in 2000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus while in the womb." About 5000 fetuses develop hydrocephalus each year in the U.S. This is not usually discovered until late in the second trimester. Some cases are not severe. After birth, shunts can be installed to relieve the excess fluid on the newborn's brain. A pre-natal method of removing the excess fluid is being experimentally evaluated.

However, some cases are much more serious. "It is not unusual for the fetal head to be as large as 50 centimeters (nearly 20 inches) in diameter and may contain...close to two gallons of cerebrospinal fluid." In comparison, the average adult skull is about 7 to 8 inches in diameter. A fetus with severe hydrocephalus is alive, but as a newborn cannot live for long; it cannot achieve consciousness. The physician may elect to perform a D&X by draining off the fluid from the brain area, collapsing the fetal skull and withdrawing the dead fetus. Or, he might elect to perform a type of caesarian section. The former kills a fetus before birth; the latter allows the newborn to die after birth, on its own. A caesarian section is a major operation. It does expose the woman to a greatly increased chance of infection. It "poses its own dangers to a woman and any future pregnancies." Allowing a woman to continue in labor with a severely hydrocephalic fetus is not an option; an attempted vaginal delivery would kill her and the fetus.

This website argues that 'evolution' is a core belief of secular humanism. It is no more a core belief of SH than the Earth revolving around the sun is a core belief of SH. Evolution is science, not faith-based. It's whole establishment clause discussion emanates from this, which pretty much invalidates the entire argument.

Well, this is interesting. First you tear me up because I'm not a lawyer so I don't know as much about the legal holdings of the court than you do, then you turn around and use complete, undocumented opinion to justify your position on abortion. My understanding is that the procedure is used fairly often (one clinic and doctor actually specializes in it, was in the news recently about something or other) and the 'health of the mother' is pretty pliable to having the abortion done in the first place by the doctor doing it.

You may have more training in the law than I do, but your two examples here just show you as another run-of-the-mill partisan picking and choosing arguments to bolster your own pre-conceived beliefs (as many would say about me.) Sorry, nothing special in your analysis at all, or noteworthy. In fact, in the second case its just a regurgitation of liberal talking points without facts to back them up, the very thing I get criticized for all the time.

Oh that's right! The clinic in question was in the news because Indiana legislatures or something wanted to see in how many cases the 'health of the mother' was actually the issue...wanted nameless examples to use as 'data' in crafting legislation on abortion...but surprise surprise surprise the clinic refused to release the date even though patients names would not be attached to the case files. What were they hiding?

I posted a large amount of factual information above on this same issue. Either you chose to ignore it or you can't understand it. So either you're ignorant or just plain stupid. Or perhaps both...

Here ya go Bubba, from the CDC for 2000, 1% of all abortions in the US were in the last trimester.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwr...s/s212a1t6.gif

fairly often eh?

Why all the unknowns? Some medical clinics and doctors don't know when the last trimester begins?

Sticks and stones, the typical liberal responses, again no surprises here. Some of your 'data' is just semantics, calling it something else other than partial-birth abortion.

And even a smaller percentage would be PBA's. But don't let the facts get in the way, Bubba.

I'm sorry, you were answering why so many are classified as 'unknown" for semester of the abortion? What is the source of your 'facts'?

No, I'm using the proper medical term. And what about the rest of the data? Conveniently ignoring it just like everything else that doesn't fit your view of the world? I guess it must look awful small with those blinders on...

A small percentage is unknown - what is your point? They were probably due to unknown dates of conception that were too close to call on the trimester. The source is the freakin' CDC - are they more liberal propoganda.

I don't know why I bother - you ignore all of Blackie's info; you ignore any data; and just try to divert the conversation to some new, ambiguous point that has little effect on the major point that YOU ARE WRONG.

He can't consider the data. He can't admit he's wrong. It would force him to rethink his entire view of the world. And that scares him. So he'd rather just make inane statement after inane statement to try to justify his position to himself.

The "unknown" is what the CDC could not determine, insufficient data I suspect. I doubt every single abortion in this country is reported to the CDC with every detail attached. Go ahead and count the unknowns as PBA for all i care, its still a minuscule number. You seem to think a woman would just choose to have a late term abortion, just for the heck of it. The vast majority of late term abortions were done to save the womans life. But dont worry, women can now die and the baby can live, just like ya want it.

So far weve debunked every angle youve thrown at us, next?

Me neither.

Well, practically speaking, secular humanism is treated as a religion which deserves free exercise protection. It is NOT, however, treated as a religion for establishment clause review. In Tarcaso you had an atheist who refused to swear an oath. The Court ruled he had a free exercise right not to be forced to swear an oath to a religion he did not believe in. It was based more on free exercise than establishment.

This also comes in under Frazee v. Illinois Dept of Employment, where a guy who says he considers Sunday to be his day of rest, but is not a believer in an organized religion, is given free exercise protection.

After all, free exercise rights is only given to religious beliefs and atheists, secular humanists, etc, have had their free exercise rights protected.


Oh, and I learned this in a law school class, btw, not an AOL Member site ;).

Pretty much exactly what I was trying to say before coffee kicked in this morning. We live in a world where teachers are afraid to say Merry Christmas, which is weird considering that Christmas really doesn't have any religious significance anymore.

Me neither.

Though it could be argued that Christmas never really ever was a religious holiday until very recently. (Below is a thread on the artificiality of Kwanzaa that eventually morphed into a discussion on the artificiality of Christmas).

http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/for...ad.php?t=33504

Well theologically speaking it is (today) an incredibly important holiday for Christians. And it is the biggest day on our (secular/national) social calendar. So, either way, it's a little odd that our public schools are afraid to acknowledge it.

By the way, I worked for the CDC in 1999-2000 doing stastics while I was a grad student in Atlanta and I can tell you that the reason why these are unknows are pretty well stated above. I did not work directly on the abortion numbers (I did mostly parasitology data) but I know the drill.

1. Not all conception dates are available.
2. Thes data are not always kept.
3. Records get lost, destroyed, whatever.
4. Submission of these data is not a law.
5. Many clinics are not easily accessible as they are scared of people like you strapping bombs to themselves in an effort to cleanse society.

You can go on believing that the secular, liberal CDC is hiding late-term abortion data in the "unknown category" because they want to hide that extra 1% or whatever, but it's just a statistical innaccuracy to include these in any other category and they don't want to lead people to believe they are hiding data.

Even though Christmas has been co-opted so heavily by our consumer-driven culture into becoming a very secular holiday, it's still associated with Christianity. For those that are not Christian, a specific focus on on Christmas at that time of year is an unneccessary marginalization of their belief system. I don't think any public school teacher should be afraid to use the word Christmas or to talk about it, but they should also be conscious of acknowledging other religious holidays at that time of year and giving some time to them as well, and I don't see why it should be so bad to have them wish students "Happy Holidays" so that no students are marginalized.

More gist for the mill, based on liberal myths and lies no less. People like me strapping bombs to myself to 'cleanse' society? Straight out of hollywood. Fact is, 5 abortion bombs in the last 10 years, none (that's zero) within the last 5 years. I believe the guy they just caught for the Atlanta/abortion clinic bombings was responsible for more than one of these so...your pool of crazies with bombs strapped on is pretty thin. Much more dangerous and likely to get killed by you driving home from your happy hour some night.

As far as the 'unknowns', your right...its not required by law. Why not? Well, because when some such as the Indiana legislature want to get the late-term abortion info to check on the liberal manta of 'only if the life of the mother is in danger' then the clinics just refuse to cooperate and issue the data. Very strange, you'd think that they would want this data out there to support their claims in the first place. As long as they don't keep records/data and share them with govt and public they deserve to be under suspicion. Talking specifically of life-of-the-mother issues concerning late-term abortions.

It is a government holiday - does anybody seriously think it should not be?

Yes, the ACLU. But then they are defending NAMBLA in a civil trial in Massachussets also.

Well, here's a surprise. George Soros gives alot of money to the ACLU. Talk about coming full circle.http://www.polianna.com/2004/12/17.OREILLY.ACLU.shtm

I never said the crazies succeed, I just said the fear of it is quite prominent. Getting these data is quite an amazing task. And IIRC, didn't the Indiana people want patient info as well? I seem to remember, I think maybe it was the midwest, they were trying to force clinics to turn over all that info, including patient identities so they could "compile numbers" or something.

Besides, so let's just say only 1% of late-term abortions is related to the health of the mother...why wouldn't you put in a provision just in case since despite how ignorant anyone must be, it's definitely a possibility. And why should clinics/hospitals be under suspiscion...laws were created to allow them to keep certain information/data from the government. You know, the government conservatives always say during elections should stay out of citizens' personal lives.

And I don't drive home from happy hour, no point in driving anywhere in Boston...I don't even know why I still have my car :mad:

from the creators of Bubba's site

We have worked hard to create this website, and we're still working on it. If you feel you have been helped by our work, remember that "the laborer is worthy of his hire" (Luke 10:7).

a little biased?

How did this thread turn into a debate on abortion? Personally, I think this thread should have turned into a discussion about Bubba's absolutely absurd and offensive comment on the first page:
"I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see that Mr. Soros actually has quite a fan-club amongst the anti-faith-based crowd.”

he ignored my questions about the right and Clearchannel...I see he ignores a lot actually.

Btw, the Pastor that kicked out the Dems resigned today, if anyone cares ;).

Way to not read what he really wrote. He wrote the facists are those who push their beliefs on others.

Reading this, I'm wondering how amusing it would be if Bubba's kid ends up being a gay liberal - wonder how that would work out.

He ignored my questions about the vast left wing conspiracy that conspired in the sixties to hide Thomas Jefferson's love of Christ :rolleyes:

I see Bubba has attempted to shift the discussion again because he hopelessly lost every part so far. And I agree, I won't bother anymore. I told myself to stay out of politics threads, but I'm dumb and can't even listen to myself.

I was responding to:


Seems like we're all in agreement that according to the Bill of Rights, you can't march down the street in a parade celebrating Jesus because the street is public property...

The problem with this thread (and, in general, the internet) is I can't tell who's being sarcastic or not. Does anybody really think the Bill of Rights forbids this? :eek:

I'm half sarcastic and half serious. Let me rephrase my point a bit:

The argument was being made that the Christian Right in this country feels under attack, because there are many places / times we are not allowed to be Christian, because being Christian makes other people feel uncomfortable. Flasch brought up the eminently reasonable point of being uncomfortable when forced prayer was used in school.

Then the whole bit about Christian's not being allowed to march in a parade shouting Jesus came up. Since any Christian display on public land is considered a violation of Church and State (nativity scenes and Ten Commandments in a Courthouse were two examples cited by myself), I'm simply making the point that it's not unreasonable for Christians to be worried about doing ANY Christian activity on ANY public land without fear of the community being sued over it.

Ok. This I'm curious about. How can secular humanism be protected under the free exercise clause when it has no predictable set of beliefs. If I argue the meals in prison are inconsistent with a secular humanist diet, how would anyone be able to argue either way. If I argue that the use of marijuana is part of secular humanist rituals, is there a free exercise issue? If I say secular humanism is about gay rights (as Bubba seems to believe), does that mean anti-gay laws are a free exercise violation? I think the answers to all of the above questions is that there is no free exercise claim. What I've seen from Bubba's list of cases on the AOL website is that conscientious objectors don't have to be of a particular religion (and so they are assumed to be secular humanists), but I don't see that as the same as recognizing secular humanism as a religion across the board. Your case seems to be another anomoly where the court doesn't want to judge sincerity of belief. I just can't believe they would really extend this principle.

And if Bubba really wants to argue that secular humanism is a religion for purposes of the law, beware of the thousands of free exercise lawsuits coming that will ensure gay marriage is protected, public sex acts are allowed, and affirmative action is always legal (just as it is within churches).

You may be half-sarcastic and half-serious, but it's an absurd example. The Bill of Rights specifially allows the speech your speaking of. The only reason that Christians wouldn't be allowed to march in a parade is if NO groups are allowed to march in a parade. What's illegal is if Christian groups are allowed to but the KKK isn't.

As for "not allowed to be Christian", I'd like an example.

The trend is also strongly against limiting Christian displays on public lands. Several circuits have ruled and allowed the ten commandments to be in parks and even by the state capitol. St. Cronin is wrong on the law on this one.

I think your are vastly underestimating the reasons why church and state must be kept seperate. It is not simply to make sure we do not hurt each other's feelings. Separation of church and state is the only thing that can guarantee religious and philosophical freedom. Christians are as free as anyone else in this country to use their personal means to promote their religion. The idea that they, the majority religion in this country, are being repressed by not being able to display a nativity scene in public is laughable. I sometimes wonder what a religious right member would think of separation of church and state if he/she was living in the Taliban's Afghanistan. Is putting the ten commandments up in a courthouse as bad as throwing acid in the face of girls who don't cover their faces? Of course not, but the line must be drawn somewhere, and there is zero harm done in drawing it at zero tolerance.

Where did this non-sequiter come from?

I have no problem with Christmas being a government holiday.