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unborn victims of violence act
willtravel,
A). The definition for person that you listed defined a person as "n. 1) a human being". You then said "The American legal term is either homo sapiens (derived from definition 1)"
Where is this derived? Is that your derivation? The law dictionary does not provide any information on the term "homo sapiens". By the way, the complete taxonomic term for modern mankind is "homo sapiens sapiens".
B) Regarding the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, someone once asked me “if killing an unborn baby by accident is manslaughter, what is killing it on purpose?" This person implies that intent should be relevant.
But, this act is predicated on the notion that the mother alone has the right to determine the fate of the fetus. Under the law, a fetus has no rights because a fetus is not recognized as a person. To underscore the rights of the mother, specific provisions of the Act prevent prosecution of the mother in any case, even if the mother survives a suicide attempt, but the fetus does not.
What one person calls "hypocrisy" with respect to intent in this kind of case, is more properly called "arbitrary" with respect to personhood. In order to resolve the controversy surrounding abortion, it will be necessary for us to reach consensus about what it means to be a person.
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"If you aren't confused, you haven't been paying attention."
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