Abortion: Putting A Face On The Issue

My definition of "when God almighty has breathed the breath of life into it's nostrils" is none of your or the Government's business.

See how that works.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "productive"

Nonsense. Republicans can't win in 2008 without abortion as a wedge issue. Don't you understand Bush and his Bushbots don't care about abortion --it's a shiney dangly carrot they hang in front of your face.

If a thread is closed due to personal attacks, I think it would do good to point to those posts that caused the closing and state what rule was broken.

Just my opinion

Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Abortion Protesters
Tuesday, February 28, 2006


WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court dealt a setback Tuesday to abortion clinics in a two-decade-old legal fight over anti-abortion protests, ruling that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations.

The 8-0 decision ends a case that the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had kept alive despite a 2003 ruling by the high court that lifted a nationwide injunction on anti-abortion groups led by Joseph Scheidler and others.

Anti-abortion groups brought the appeal after the appellate court sought to determine whether the injunction could be supported by charges that protesters had made threats of violence.

Read the opinion by clicking here (provided by FindLaw).

In Tuesday's ruling, Justice Stephen Breyer said Congress did not intend to create "a freestanding physical violence offense" in the federal extortion law known as the Hobbs Act.

Instead, Breyer wrote, Congress chose to address violence outside abortion clinics in 1994 by passing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, which set parameters for such protests.

Social activists and the AFL-CIO had sided with abortion demonstrators in arguing that lawsuits and injunctions based on the federal extortion law could be used to thwart their efforts to change public policy or agitate for better wages and working conditions.

The legal battle began in 1986, when the National Organization for Women filed a class-action suit challenging tactics used by the Pro-Life Action Network to block women from entering abortion clinics.

NOW's legal strategy was novel at the time, relying on civil provisions of the 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which was used predominantly in criminal cases against organized crime. The lawsuit also relied on the Hobbs Act, a 55-year-old law banning extortion.

A federal judge issued a nationwide injunction against the anti-abortion protesters after a Chicago jury found in 1998 that demonstrators had engaged in a pattern of racketeering by interfering with clinic operations, menacing doctors, assaulting patients and damaging clinic property.

But the Supreme Court voided the injunction in 2003, ruling that the extortion law could not be used against the protesters because they had not illegally "obtained property" from women seeking to enter clinics to receive abortions.

Justice Samuel Alito did not participate in the decision.

The cases are Scheidler v. NOW, 04-1244, and Operation Rescue v. NOW, 04-1352.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,186278,00.html

The countdown has begun...

so?

Most of them would be your's, Kevn.

Which of my post would you say was a personal attack?

Are you kidding!? We still have national security, gay marriage, AND the first black and first female president all in one with Condi!!!!!!

-Kiamat Dusk
Condi '08

OMG --you actually think your Party will even let Condi run?

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Since I consider all of your posts to be one-sided attacks rather than actual conversation --I'd say all of'em.

A personal attack, or name calling, would be something like a personal insult aimed at someone. One-sided arguments for or against a position wouldn't apply.

Hmmm. Imteresting. So my moral judgement about what represents a personal attack shouldn't be used as a measure for what you are allowed or not allowed to do?

We'll see who's laughing when those monkeys are flying out of your ass!

-Kiamat Dusk

We use the dictionary to determine the meaning of words. Not your moral judgement.

Wikipedia says...

Generally, a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness the person's statement. It works on the reasoning that, by discrediting the source of a logical argument, namely the person making it, the argument itself can be weakened.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the attack is directed at the person making the claim and not the claim itself. The truth value of a claim is independent of the person making the claim. No matter how morally repugnant a person might be, he or she can still make true claims. For example:

Witness: "I saw X murder the shopkeeper."
Defense attorney: "Isn't it true that you are a convicted felon?"
On the other hand, illuminating real character flaws and inconsistencies in the position of an opponent are a vital part of the public political process and of the adversarial judicial process. Use of a personal attack in a logical argument constitutes a logical fallacy called ad hominem, a term that comes from a Latin phrase meaning "toward the man".

Post of the week

To be fair --I said pigs .

I like to think somewhere Ulrika is smiling.

We use the dictionary to determine the meaning of words. Not your moral judgement.

Wikipedia says...

Generally, a personal attack is committed when a person substitutes abusive remarks for evidence when examining another person's claims or comments. It is considered a personal attack when a person starts referencing a supposed flaw or weakness in an individual's personality, beliefs, lifestyle, convictions or principles, and use it as a debate tactic or as a means of avoiding discussion of the relevance or truthfulness the person's statement. It works on the reasoning that, by discrediting the source of a logical argument, namely the person making it, the argument itself can be weakened.

This line of "reasoning" is fallacious because the attack is directed at the person making the claim and not the claim itself. The truth value of a claim is independent of the person making the claim. No matter how morally repugnant a person might be, he or she can still make true claims. For example:

Witness: "I saw X murder the shopkeeper."
Defense attorney: "Isn't it true that you are a convicted felon?"
On the other hand, illuminating real character flaws and inconsistencies in the position of an opponent are a vital part of the public political process and of the adversarial judicial process. Use of a personal attack in a logical argument constitutes a logical fallacy called ad hominem, a term that comes from a Latin phrase meaning "toward the man

It's fun to speak over people. Do you like yams?

I do very much! Do you like fried Yucca?

Sure do! What's the over/under on him working it out finally?

My nightmares about the Wizard of Oz just went in a whole new direction.

ahhh --I see. So I might then wish to defer to an authority figure or expert in a given field to aid me in forming a more correct opinion on what constitutes "a personal attack", rather than just make up my own definition in contrast to most accepted definitions?

He didn't figure out yesterday's battle with ALICE, so I'm not betting on this one.