Talk:Born alive rule

Untitled
Planned Parenthood of New Jersey v. Farmer (2000) and held that an infant's legal rights depended upon the intention of the mother regardless of the physical position of the infant. If a mother intended to abort her pregnancy and the child survived the abortion attempt, then the Farmer decision suggested that the child had no right to medical care because the mother was not seeking to give birth in the first place

http://www.find-health-articles.com/rec_pub_16477733-planned-parenthood-central-new-jersey-v-farmer.htm

http://www.answers.com/topic/born-alive-infants-protection-act

--OxAO (talk) 02:48, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

I have good reasons for my edits.
The previous introduction incorrectly identified the basis for the born alive rule. The rule did not rest on insufficient medical knowledge as to when the fetus was alive. This was traditionally considered to be the point of quickening. As you can see from my contributions to the History section, which I have properly sourced, this was not a medical question but a philosophical one: what exactly is a human being/person. I have provided a brief history of the legal concept.

Hence, the claim that "recent scientific findings have overturned the rule" is incorrect, as these findings do not address the basic question: when can we say that the fetus has become a reasonable person. Currently, science cannot answer that question. Science does have something to say about the physiology of consciousness as it develops in the fetus. I will be introducing that material to the Today section.

I will also be re-introducing material reflecting the Canadian interpretation of the born alive rule, as well as some material on the British interpretation. This is an international forum.Ermadog (talk) 05:59, 30 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Aren't you jumping the gun a bit by going into philosophy rather then the actual law? while there may be good grounds to make the case, brain activity and Conscious thought does not automatically grate legal personhood (hell corporations have be awarded it). Most Judicial systems(even ones where abortion is banned or outlawed) do not recognize human foetuses as people. This may or may not change over time with better technology and understanding of fetal development, by that is the law at the moment. To bring up the natural human conscious is off topic unless they is any serious talk about changing the definition of personhood around these factors in legal circles. User:Joeyjojo
 * The specific edits referred to in the comments to which you are responding were citations of references backing up the claim, made in the introduction, that Canadian courts had upheld the born alive rule in case law. How exactly can you call that "going into philosophy rather than the actual law?" The affirmation of the born alive rule was in the actual cases cited.
 * "To bring up the natural human consciousness" is not only not off topic, it goes directly to the substance of the born alive rule, unless you can find some way to make "reasonable creature" mean "a biologically alive creature". The meaning of the term "reasonable creature" can be traced via Aquinas and Augustine, directly to Aristotle (and others) who discussed the "rational soul" as the "animating principle" that turns a vegetative fetus into a human being.
 * If you use any multi-dictionary such as alphaDictionary and plug in the term "person", you will find a number of listings from several legal sources. Please consult these, especially Bouvier's Law Dictionary, before attempting to lecture me on the meaning of the term person in legal circles.--Ermadog (talk) 02:22, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Proposal for new page
I have found myself repeatedly adding the same material to several different pages in the abortion project, usually under the history subsections of these pages. At the suggestion of RexxS, I have decided to start a new wikipage, History of Abortion Law (tentative title). This would allow a reduction of the currently unwieldy size of some of the already existing pages, as we can then reduce the history subsections to a smaller summarization, with a link to the new page. The rough draft is residing here: User:Ermadog/Abortion history.

As this is only a rough draft, I do not want any direct editing of this page at this time. Instead, please add contributions to the discussion page. Please look over the following material. most of which will be incorporated into the new page, before suggesting additional material:


 * Abortion debate - some "rights talk" is relevant to the "history of abortion law debate"
 * Beginning of human personhood also Overview and Fetal Personhood in Law
 * Born alive rule
 * History of abortion also, some points in the social history section.
 * Abortion Law

Any discussion of the direction of this project should be made on my talk page, under the category "Your addition to Abortion"

Anyone finding better quality references or citations is welcome to post them to the discussion page. I'll find a way to incorporate them, even if I have to relegate them to a Notes section. In particular, I am looking for material on abortion law and relevant philosophy from the ancient East, as well as from the Persian Vedas. Corrections to my brief discussion of Hinduism and Buddhism are welcome. Particularly, where exactly in the Vedas can the doctrine of reincarnation be found? I have heard it is of fairly late vintage.

Anyone finding history subsections in any other abortion page not listed here, please post links to my discussion page.

I expect to have a good first draft available in a few days. Until then, I keep a current copy of the current page on my hard drive. Any editing at all at this stage will be treated as vandalism. I will delete the whole page and replace it with my copy. Once I publish it to Wikipedia, of course, the standard rules of editing apply.Ermadog (talk) 00:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

This page has now been published as "History of Abortion Law Debate".Ermadog (talk) 09:21, 8 October 2010 (UTC)