Legal Concerns
Mar. 25th, 2004 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewbearThere have been some... unusual laws passed recently:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040326/ap_on_go_co/fetus_rights_8
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040324/ap_on_fe_st/genital_piercings_1
I'm not sure what's going through the heads on these lawmakers, but these are (in my mind) rather frightening steps against personal rights, privacy rights and common sense.
I have very mixed feelings about the whole "fetal rights" issue. It too quickly degenerates into "conception is the start of life! no it isn't!" style arguments, which in turn quickly degenerate into "it's against the bible and god!" arguments, despite the fact that the Bible was writen/compiled *many* centuries before modern birth control devices/processes were invented. Personally, I feel that, for legal purposes, a fetus can be considered an "unborn child" when it could viably exist outside the womb. Prior to that it's *technically* a weird tumor that we get emotional about. But putting it into law that a fetus is a separate person from the mother at *any* point in the pregnancy is a very slippery slope. The best compromise that I can think of would be for fetuses (foetae?) to *not* be considered another person (no extra manslaughter/murder charges, sorry), but that these kind of violent crimes against a pregnant woman *would* carry higher penalties. I admit that I don't know how well that would work, but it's the best compromise I can think of.
Now for the genital piercing thing: it's misogynistic, plain and simple. The law is couched in terms of being against "female genital mutilation", which I could agree with, if it weren't so *very* biased against adult women. As I understand it, the current law applies to every female human in Georgia: infant, girl, and adult. As it applies to children under the age of majority (18 in Georgia, I think), I'm all for it. As it applies to women OVER the age of majority, who are presumably DESIRING these procedures (piercing, clitoral circumcision, whatever), it's establishing a blatantly discriminatory law. You see, these "genital mutilation" stipulations don't apply to males in any way, shape, or form. Guess it's bad to circumcise a baby girl but perfectly okay to circumcise a baby boy. Hypocrites.
\sigh\
All in all, I'm getting really worried about the growing regressive trend in American politics.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20040326/ap_on_go_co/fetus_rights_8
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040324/ap_on_fe_st/genital_piercings_1
I'm not sure what's going through the heads on these lawmakers, but these are (in my mind) rather frightening steps against personal rights, privacy rights and common sense.
I have very mixed feelings about the whole "fetal rights" issue. It too quickly degenerates into "conception is the start of life! no it isn't!" style arguments, which in turn quickly degenerate into "it's against the bible and god!" arguments, despite the fact that the Bible was writen/compiled *many* centuries before modern birth control devices/processes were invented. Personally, I feel that, for legal purposes, a fetus can be considered an "unborn child" when it could viably exist outside the womb. Prior to that it's *technically* a weird tumor that we get emotional about. But putting it into law that a fetus is a separate person from the mother at *any* point in the pregnancy is a very slippery slope. The best compromise that I can think of would be for fetuses (foetae?) to *not* be considered another person (no extra manslaughter/murder charges, sorry), but that these kind of violent crimes against a pregnant woman *would* carry higher penalties. I admit that I don't know how well that would work, but it's the best compromise I can think of.
Now for the genital piercing thing: it's misogynistic, plain and simple. The law is couched in terms of being against "female genital mutilation", which I could agree with, if it weren't so *very* biased against adult women. As I understand it, the current law applies to every female human in Georgia: infant, girl, and adult. As it applies to children under the age of majority (18 in Georgia, I think), I'm all for it. As it applies to women OVER the age of majority, who are presumably DESIRING these procedures (piercing, clitoral circumcision, whatever), it's establishing a blatantly discriminatory law. You see, these "genital mutilation" stipulations don't apply to males in any way, shape, or form. Guess it's bad to circumcise a baby girl but perfectly okay to circumcise a baby boy. Hypocrites.
\sigh\
All in all, I'm getting really worried about the growing regressive trend in American politics.
