Representative Lynn writes (in her efforts to promote the 10th Amendment):
The letter states: “The federal government seeks to control the salaries of those employed by private business, to change the provisions of private contracts, to nationalize banks, insurers and auto manufacturers, and to dictate to every person in the land what his or her medical choices will be.” [emphasis mine]
Really, Lynn. Really?
Are you opposed to government dictating medical choices for women because it’s wrong or because you State legislators don’t want the competition?
Tiny Cat Pants 
Yep, they’re all about personal liberty and responsibility…except when it comes to abortion. Grown women can’t be trusted to decide to have a perfectly legal medical procedure, when they think it’s the right thing for their health, career or family.
But understand, they see absolutely no irony or humor in using pro-choice language to advance their position. It’s just like when Michelle Bachmann said a few weeks ago that she wanted to keep the government off her body, or when Sarah Palin vigorously defended Bristol’s right to privacy and right to make her own decisions. And everyone who works for Planned Parenthood has a story about a one-time picketer ending up in the clinic herself, or having to bring her daughter in.
They see absolutely no problem with the government making those decisions for other women–you know, the sluts who use abortion as a form of birth control. But THEIR set of circumstances will ALWAYS be different. For the government to tell them–grownup, enlightened, responsible women–what to do would OF COURSE be unconstitutional.
Besides, if abortion were ever outlawed altogether, those wealthy or well-connected conservative women will always be able to find a way around it if need be.
OH
MY
GOD
They have no shame.
The 10th amendment reserves those rights to the states and the citizens so her objection to the federal government usurping states authority may be correct.
As to the comments above why do you think the federal government will keep your right to an abortion and not the states?
I do not think the states dictate what medical choices you have as much as the proposed federal legislation does
Nice try at a derail, but no. You are purposefully missing the point… She is claiming that she’s trying to protect women’s health care choices while actively trying HERSELF to limit them. Try again please?
Disagree she is against the federal government making the choices. Auntie B is more on target that she objects to the competition since this is a usurpation of states authority.
States control the insurance regulations in their states from premium to coverages. So in that states do regulate. They generally do not limit but sometimes mandate more than is wanted so premiums go up.
The post did not indicate she was limiting choices that is your inference without any written evidence.
I also read the article and it all about the federal government taking powers it does not have and that are reserved to the states and citizens. So it is very much a 10th amendment issue.
No, Tasha, we have plenty of evidence about the choices Rep. Lynn wants to limit.
Since I do not know this Rep.Lynn person then present the evidence. It was not in the article that was linked.
Tasha, look up her views on restricting abortion.
Helpful hint: Tennessee “susan lynn” abortion on google yields 14,700 hits.
If an unborn child is not a human being and has no rights, then your criticism is well-founded.
If an unborn child is a human being and has rights, then Susan Lynn is not being inconsistent or hypocritical.
“having rights” is not synonymous with “is a human being”. lots of human beings have no rights, and some things that aren’t human have at least some rights. so, really, whether a fetus is a human being or not is totally beside the point; the issue is entirely about what, if any, rights feti should have.
“lots of human beings have no rights”
Can you give me an example?
XIV:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
As they haven’t met the standards set by the 14th Amendment, fetuses aren’t citizens.
well, for some examples, there’s the folks locked up in Guantanamo. you tell me what manner of rights we’re allowing them to have.
Texas recently executed an innocent man (well, one that we know of). he may have still had some rights at the time, but those were fairly academic considering he’s still dead, now weren’t they?
in general, humans strip whatever rights we please from any group of people we dislike enough, or fear enough, or feel a severe enough need to make scapegoats out of. pretty much always have, in fact. the USA is only remarkable in this respect by claiming to revere principles that say we shouldn’t be doing that, even though we do do that.
you want to find people who have no rights? look for whatever group of people frighten and disgust you the most within your own society, and see for yourself how many rights (if any) they are still allowed to keep.
“As they haven’t met the standards set by the 14th Amendment, fetuses aren’t citizens.”
So… does that mean we can kill illegal immigrants?
@nomen nescio: So the logic for abortion=the logic for Guantanamo?
the logic’s the same? i wouldn’t say so at all, no, but… well, rob, you tell me which you’re protesting the more fervently.
i could go into the pertinent facts — rights of the woman, beginning of personhood, ethical necessity of self-determination, and so on — but let’s face it, if such common sense would sway you, you’d already be on my side. i could explain to you what the differences between a fetus and a grown adult are, but ’twas at that point i realized, you’re asking ME that as if you somehow thought I didn’t know, which is just exactly through the looking glass.
so, rob, from YOUR end, if the logic isn’t the same, explain to me what you think the difference should be. keep in mind that most of the prisoners in gitmo are acknowledged by absolutely everybody to be innocent men.
If the prisoners at Gitmo are innocent, then they should be released.
And actually, when I mentioned “rights” above, I wasn’t thinking of the rights which accompany citizenship. Rights are not granted by government. They exist whether government recognizes them or not. “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights…”
i agree. now let’s convince congress.
if a right exists in the forest, but noone is there to recognize it, how does it exist? what does it mean for a “right” to exist if absolutely noone pays it any heed?
you’re almost right in that it isn’t government, specifically, that creates rights. but they are not independent of human society, either. we create rights; the very concept is contingent on us — i don’t think any other animal has any similar notion. (well, some of the more social mammals might come close, but they certainly don’t philosophize over the nature of “rights” the way we do.)
i also notice you didn’t do much in the way of explaining what you think that difference is or should be. you know, the difference you brought up to begin with?
I prefer Jefferson’s formulation:
“All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
Exactly, rob, which is why this conversation will lead nowhere. You want to know if there’s ever a point at which it’s okay for the men with inalienable rights to commandeer a woman’s body in order to make sure she does what they want with it.
It doesn’t matter how many questions you ask about illegal immigrants or Gitmo or what.
There’s never going to be an argument that convinces me that you know better what I should do with my body than I do and that you should, therefore, have the legal right to dictate what I do with my body.
I would also like some inalienable rights. One of them being to have control over my body, which seems like such a basic thing that it’s starting to make me sad that you still want to argue about it.
It really has nothing to do with men’s inalienable rights. (Jefferson’s construction is generic and inclusive). It has to do with whether an unborn child has any rights.
I get that you think the answer to that is “no.”
But there is more than one opinion on that premise. It’s not inconsistent for Rep. Lynn to oppose the imposition of federal control on healthcare and be pro-life. She’s being consistent to her principles.
fetuses (because we’re really not talking about children here, you can quit trying to win by that special pleading trick, we’ve all caught on to it) have exactly whatever rights we choose to give them. same as everybody else, that way. nonexistent deities have nothing to do with anybody’s rights because deities are make-believe.
and, of course, we do choose to give fetuses at least some rights. witness how pregnant women get treated in our society, simply because they’re pregnant. that differential treatment makes no sense unless we assume that fetuses have rights.
less rights than the women who carry them, naturally — a lot less, it really doesn’t make any sense to assume anything else — but if they had no rights, third-trimester gravid women would not need be offered any favors or services unavailable to prepubescent girls, now would they?
[B: wordpress is being really pissy at me lately. it doesn’t even fail to post comments now, most of the time it just says “discarded” out of hand. what’s up with that?]
fetus is simply Latin for “offspring” or, more colloquially, “child.”
If rights exist only by consensus, then we are all leading a precarious existence. There used to be a consensus in the south about blacks and slavery. Didn’t make it right. They were denied their rights. Doesn’t mean they didn’t exist. They had certain rights, regardless of whether a consensus existed that recognized them.
But I do get that there are a number of premises that we disagree on. It’s a legitimate disagreement on important core principles. I was simply trying to point out that Rep. Lynn is not necessarily being hypocritical. If she shared your premises, then you are correct, she would be guilt of hypocrisy.. But she doesn’t.
you don’t speak latin any more than i do, rob. we speak English, and the word “fetus” has a definition in this language the ancient romans would not have entirely agreed with.
gee, it took you how long to notice? welcome to the real world.
where, rob? point me to the cave the slaves’ human rights were hiding out in while the slaves were denied those rights. show me the prison cell those rights were locked up in all those years. show me the rights themselves, if you think they have some sort of independent existence of their own.
“cave” has an apropos connotation. you caught me. I’m a platonist. [smile]
I was simply trying to point out…
A month later…
Seems to me you more just wanted to argue about your pet topic and none of the more recent posts fit the bill.
I know, Dolphin, this whole thing is very weird. But anyway, for the record, I think there’s something very weird about politicians trying to extend legal rights to things that are in my body that are directly in contradiction to what I want to do with my body.
Why can’t abortion just be wrong to you guys? Preach against it. Write ugly letters to the editors about how only slutty women with low morals would ever consider it. Put up your crosses. Piss and moan on months’ old blog posts. Try to dissuade women from having them all you want.
You can do that without having to make a claim to legal personhood for fetuses that requires my claim to legal personhood to be curtailed.
Unless, of course, this is about your efforts to curtail my legal personhood.
Which, of course, I suspect it is.
Inference: trying to resurrect a dead thread on someone else’s blog is because more people (by a factor of a skazillion) visit here than visit redhatrob’s blog?
Actually… I didn’t realize the original post was a month old. It came across my screen for some reason when Kleinheider cited it in one of his recent instapundit-like quotes. And yes, I tip my hat to the success of TinyCatPants. (but can you really throw rocks at RedHatRob with a name like TinyCatPants?)