Although the Declaration is irrelevant to this discussion, please show me the evidence upon which this assertion is based.

Please show me where this unalienable right is codified in our Constitution.

If you read my entire post, you'll know that I consider abortion morally dubious at best, but Constitutionally there is no way to parse 'unalienable' rights (even if you assume the verbage of the Declaration is or should be incorporated by reference in the Constitution, which it isn't).  I'm exploring the Constitutional dimensions of the problem, you're espousing the religious dimensions, putting words in my mouth in the process.  I'll say it again - there can be no legal resolution of the issue which will be universally accepted.  It is fundamentally a moral & ethical conundrum which the pregnant (or potentially pregnant) woman must decide for herself.  Your argument is one that can & should be made to an individual, but that I believe can't be forced upon a society.

Daiwa:

I have a couple of arguments against your comment above.  First of all, the preamble of the US Constitution is anyone should have to read to be against abortion on demand. 

The US Constitution doesn't tell We the People what are rights are, it tells the Federal Government what authority it has to act  in running the country.

Dredd Scott and Roe vs. Wade were two decisions that were based solely on bigotry and denying human beings their rights based on their physical appearance.  Neither have any Constitutional basis, nor can they be justified by the Constitution.

Can anyone read "secure the blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" and justify abortion on demand?  Abortion is killing an otherwise healthy human being.  30 years ago it might have been possible to define a fetus as other than human, but today, biological science proves a fetus inside a woman can't be anything other than a human being.

Of course, we still live in a society where bigotry and prejudice supercede logic and fact.  We haven't really progressed beyond slavery, we just redefined whose rights we can arbitrarily dismiss.

People say that the woman's right to choose is paramount over the fetus's life.  I ask anyone using that argument, what healthy part of anyone's body can they demand a doctor remove simply because they ask?  There are a few of course, but the law and ethics of the medical profession ban the arbitrary removal of many organs if they are healthy.  Which means it can't be argued that it is a right.

There are those who argue that "the fetus us just part of the woman's body".  This can't be argued using facts either.  Not a single cell or tissue of the woman is shared with the fetus.  The woman and the fetus have DNA that identifies them each as separate people.  No part of the mother regulates any part of the fetal metabolism.  The fetal metabolism is regulated completely by the fetus itself.

So, as I said before, no part of the US Constitution can be used to justify abortion on demand as a "right", nor can any part of it be used to argue for killing a healthy fetus.  Biological science can't be used to justify any of the arguments made for abortion on demand.  It is simply a political issue that should be left on the scrapheap of history like its horrific cousin, slavery.

PS, I use the term "abortion on demand" because there are medical justifications for removal of a fetus, even if it means killing it to do so.

Lula posts:

I thought  I did saying :

The evidence is common sense and a child's knowledge. Without life, (being born) one cannot have liberty. Without life one certainly cannot pursue happiness. One needs liberty to pursue happiness (think Communist China if you need an example).

Lula posts:

PARATED POSTS:

Indeed, imo, your post #17 is irrefutable.   Here's one for you!

You're arguing against positions I haven't taken, Ted.

From Webster's -

Posterity

1. The race that proceeds from a progenitor; offspring to the furthest generation; the aggreggate number of persons who are descended from an ancestor of a generation; descendants; - contrasted with ancestry; as, the posterity of Abraham.

2. Succeeding generations; future times.

I don't believe the language of the preamble means quite what you've taken it to mean.  And I don't believe that the preamble carries any more 'jurisprudential' weight than the Declaration.  The Bill of Rights, on the other hand...

From a Constitutional perspective, it doesn't really matter whether you believe life begins at the moment of conception (as I do, BTW) or not.  You still have the conundrum of having to make a moral/ethical decision about which individual's (fetus's or mother's) 'unalienable' rights are 'alienable' after all.  I happen to agree that there is no part of the Constitution that can be used to 'justify' 'abortion on demand' - I just also believe there is no part of the Constitution that can be used to justify making it illegal.  The Sixth Commandment, on the other hand...

lula - what sort of 'evidence' is that?  That is simply your assertion.  You are welcome to make that argument on a religious or moral level, but that is not evidence that the language of the Declaration is incorporated by reference in the Constitution or that the unalienable rights mentioned in the Declaration were enumerated in order of priority.  That's a 'because I say so' answer.

And you inadvertently attributed my comments to el-duderino by mistake.

See post #19.  No post is 'irrefutable'.

Daiwa:  Sorry I misunderstood what you meant, and your position.

Actually there is no connundrum here either.   Existing standards of medical care already address the question in rules of Triage.  In a situation where two or more patients require lifesaving medical procedures, you save the one with the best chances of survival first.

In almost every case, it would be the mother.

The thing is, this rule of triage only applies in cases where two or more patients require lifesaving treatment.  Lifesaving treatment is also well defined and not subject to open interpretation. 

The only reason the waters are muddied is there are too many people who say that it should be a medical issue, but insist on arguing it as a purely political one. 

Lula posts:

DAIWA POSTS:

Granted. You point is welll made and well taken....nevertheless, what I said is true and indisiputable...we can't have the other two if we aren't allowed our unalienable right to be born. You can't have one without the one that preceeds it. Simple as that.

I know....Sorry about that! It was late when I  thought of it long after I had turned my computer off for the night!