Why Fred Thompson can’t win
Fred Thompson has come out with his view on abortion and it is one that will bother both sides. He doesn’t support a national ban preventing abortion, which will push the extremists in the pro-life wing of the Republican party. He also believes that it shouldn’t be a federal issue, which would upset those who vote pro-choice. If you alienate both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the abortion argument, I find it hard to believe that you could win the White House.
Of course, Matt Lewis (on town hall) asked a very silly question.
Furthermore, if one believes life begins at conception, as Thompson says he now does, then he also believes abortion is murder. Why wouldn’t the 14th Amendment then apply to the unborn?
The fourteenth amendment states:
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (emphasis mine)
Clearly the 14th amendment does not apply to the unborn. The unborn are not born (duh), are not naturalized, and do not meet the legal definition of “person”. If the unborn where legal “people” they would have social security numbers or some other form of identification that could be placed on them, and you would be able to write off your embryos on your taxes.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:29 am
So then, by your reasoning, undocumented aliens can be deprived of life without due process, because they do not meet the legal definition of “person” - they can not have a SS# or be written off as a dependent on someone’s taxes?
January 26th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
On what grounds do you claim that undocumented aliens do not fit the legal definition of a person?
You clearly missed part of the statement about SSN when I stated “or some other form of identification that could be placed on them”.
Clearly an undocumented alien COULD have some form of identification placed on them. The fact that they ARE undocumented does not mean that they cannot be documented in the future.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I was certainly not claiming that undocumented aliens do not fit the legal definition of a person - I believe they do, and are therefore entitled to both due process and equal protection under Article XIV Section 1. But you are right, I did miss the other part of your statement.
However, my point is that I don’t believe Matt’s question is “very silly.” On the one hand, I don’t know for sure whether human life begins at conception - that seems to be a religious question. On the other hand, I do know that personhood begins prior to birth - that is a scientific, medical, and legal question. In a legal dictionary, “person” is defined as “n. 1) a human being.” (http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/person). In Merriam-Webster, person is defined “1: human individual” (http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=person). Human is then defined as “1: of, relating to, or characteristic of humans 2: consisting of humans 3 a: having human form or attributes”.
We know that prior to birth, an unborn baby has “human form and attributes” - fingerprints, brain waves, heartbeats, und unique DNA - and that they are genetically (scientifically) human beings. While you may not think they are “human enough” to be “worthy” of the equal protection and due process to which all persons (not just citizens) are entitled, it is anything but a silly question - and certainly not a VERY silly question.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:25 am
It goes back to the whole “if the unborn where persons” statement that I made. If the law where to treat the unborn as persons, it would have to have some sort of identification that could be attributed to it. We would be able to declare our created embryos on our taxes. So obviously the embryo/fetus is not a “legal person”, even if varying attributes of a person can be used to describe it as it develops.
Now, the discussion of whether the unborn are worthy of those same protections would be another discussion to have. However, as a basis of the law as it exists now, the unborn could not be covered by the 14th amendment because it is neither a citizen or a legal person.