Scott Peterson Trial: Is He Guilty?

[Kerrie]

Yes, and the justice system that they create.

Notice that I didn't use the term "women", the ones who are really affected ultimately by these laws.

Nonetheless, it remains a fact that, in light of Roe v. Wade, the supreme court and law of the land do consider the fetus to be a 'non-person mass of cells.' This is a legal fact that does not take your feelings into consideration.

Yes, however, abortions can only be done in the first trimester, not when the baby is 6 months gestational age. Did you know this? I am in my second trimester, I would be turned away at this point from an abortion clinic if I were to seek one.

You can name a pet rock if you want. That doesn't change its legal status.

I just thought it was a little bit contradicting on your references. Connor would have been able to live at the point of his mother's murder with hardly any health issues.

Why not? It's the best analogy I can come up with, as it is the only other widespread case where an entire class of humans were considered to be non-persons by the US legal system. I suppose there are other limited cases. Humans that are on death row are clearly limited in their personhood, as they no longer have the rights to life and liberty prescribed to ordinary citizens. Humans that are permanently comatose are probably not considered person, though I may be wrong about that.

Define legal system a little more clearly? There are all sorts of cases where comatose people are involved with the legal system at the moment. At any rate, I can hardly consider my unborn child anything of a slave, but more of an opportunity of life.

I agree that doing so is a crime; it just isn't murder. Murder is not defined as taking away a mother's right to carry her child to term. Murder is defined as intentionally ending the life of a person that has the right to life. A fetus is not considered by the legal system to be such a person with such a right. The law contradicts itself.

I think the law is actually in a state of change due to some of these instances, thus making the laws more contradictory currently over this. That is why there are judges however to interpret the law under individual circumstances. In Texas last month, Lisa Underwood (7 months pregnant) and her 7 year old son Jayden were slain by the father of Lisa's unborn baby. He was not charged with 3 murders, only 2. There isn't any push either to charge him with a third murder, thus that tells me that the laws work differently according to who is interpreting them.

To make it clear as clear can be (hopefully), I personally would hope that the killing of a fetus would be considered murder, and that a fetus would be considered a person with the right to not be killed. It should have this right, and the taking away of this right should be murder, regardless of who is doing the killing.

I would agree up to the point of who is doing the killing at what stage of the pregnancy. The mother should have the choice up until the 2nd trimester, anytime after that is beginning to cross a line of killing a sentient being.

However, I also want to make it clear that my personal feelings in this matter are not relevant. This is an academic discussion and I would hope that we can make the distinction between the way the legal system actually operates and the way that we personally feel it should operate.

There are times that the legal system is influenced from how we as a society feel it should operate...take the example of Kerry's law here in Oregon that most likely will be passed.