Individuals Should Not Turn Personal Belief into Civil Law
I would never suggest that freedom should be taken away for those who think personhood begins earlier. Individuals should always be free to act on their religious or moral beliefs in such matters. But they should not be able to turn that personal belief—even a deeply held personal belief—into civil law.
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Where does law come from then? Deeply held beliefs that the majority hold become customary practices; customary practices become law...
Where else can law come from?
When life begins is a scientific fact, so an opinion poll really doesn't help that much. Inalienable rights means they can't be taken away, and as we all know that is not from the bible or from personal belief, but from our civil society 's founding document.
By the logic of Jon Obrien slavery, prostitution, women's rights, civil rights, etc. should not have been addressed by civil law either.
One more thing: As shown by all the different opinions tehre are in the pro-choice side about when does personhood begins -wich is a contraddiction in itself: personhood cannot begin because it is something that appears and develop througout time- there is a certainty that some of these concepts of personhood are wrong because this would mean that we cannot abide to a universal concept of man wich is the base of all our laws and is written in the UDHR. This means that as long as we accept abortion there is a certainty that we are killing at least some humans persons that because of someone's personal belief was not considered such. I cannot accept that we can't turn personal belief into law, but we can allow all kinds of contradictory personal beliefs to surely kill some innocent human persons.
This is absurd. Our laws are based upon the personal beliefs of the members of our society, past and present.
Pursuant to Mr. O'Brien's theory, laws against slavery, murder, theft, child abuse, incest, polygamy, rape, etc., are all invalid. There are people who believe those things are okay, so who are we to impose our beliefs upon them?
Thankfully, our society has not disintegrated to this level.
"But they should not be able to turn that personal belief—even a deeply held personal belief—into civil law."
Every civil law stems from some personal belief. This argument is absolutely foolish. People believe driving over 65 is dangerous and is made into a law. People believe murder is wrong so it's illegal. People believe stealing is wrong so there are laws. Get my drift? For what it's worth establishing when life begins will in no way solve the abortion issue.
In regards to "This argument is absolutely foolish." These were my thoughts EXACTLY
People love to try and take the moral high ground.
By declaring that, "their beliefs are facts". While
everyone else's are uncertain ideas, with no foundation in reality.
Belief is all we got Jon. Scientist regularly use the word in their writings. Science even admits, scientific FACTS aren't like, every day facts. They aren't absolutely certain.
So it is after all. Your belief verses someone else's.
Off topic but we are led to believe that human caused global warming is a fact and anyone who disagrees should be slapped down. :-)