Bruce
Williams
P.O. Box 3938
The Hypatian Society Gillette, WY 82717
The Fundamentals Something that often gets misconstrued by politicians, judges, and citizens is the fact that the American government is predicated on 2 simple ideas. The 1st is that people have the right to do anything they want so long as it does no harm to others and what is considered harm must be well defined in a law approved by our elected officials or our own vote. The 2nd is that the government has no rights or powers except those explicitly given to it by our Constitution which was approved by our elected officials or Amended by our own vote. There is a huge difference in these 2 concepts in that the government must justify everything they do through our Constitution and the people can do anything they want so long as a law does not disallow it and the law is Constitutional. What Harm How much harm occurs to women during pregnancy? And how are we to determine at what level we consider the harm to be important enough to take action on? One of the things that our society does that causes death is law enforcement. And in law enforcement in United States approximately 48 law enforcement officers are killed each year due to felonious acts of people[1]. In order to protect these officers we go to extreme measures such as providing them with automobiles, seat belts, airbags, guns, body armor, uniforms, armored vehicles, face shields, military high caliber automatic weapons, and many other incidental weapons and items because what they do may become dangerous. So we can say that as a normality we provide protection for the 1,000,312 officers such that their death rate by felonious actions is as low as about 48/Million officers. Looking at pregnancies we find that about 700 women die from pregnancy related complications each year in the US[2]. We also know that there are roughly 3,600,000 births per year. That means that women die at the rate of 194/Million pregnancies. So women die at 4 times the rate law enforcement officers die. So based on this it is rather obvious that being pregnant is much more dangerous than being in law enforcement and we take extreme measures to protect law enforcement so we should be taking even more extreme measures to protect women during pregnancy. In 2018 there were 2 deaths caused by abortions[3] . That means the death rate is about 1.25/Million abortions. And as you can see the death rate we accept for law enforcement is 48/Million and for pregnancies the acceptable death rate is 194/Million and the safest of all is abortions with a mere 1.25/Million. In other words if you eliminate abortions you will be knowingly killing about 193 women every year that did not have to die. You see, you can't predict the onset of problems during pregnancies you can only estimate the probabilities based on the woman's previous health history and total population statistical probability so we will never be able to eliminate deaths during pregnancies. Moving on to the problem of PTSD we run into the unfortunate problem that the stresses caused by even someone who wants a pregnancy still suffer from occasionally minor PTSD symptoms that eventually "cure" themselves. The problem is not so much wanted pregnancies as it is unwanted pregnancies that are forced on mothers because the stress extends for a considerably longer period of time. PTSD is a complex subject of the brain that is not fully understood yet but what is known is that if the stresses continued beyond the pregnancy itself and into life in general it will physically alter the brain of the woman and not in a way that can ever be recovered. Presently I have not found enough research on the subject to say definitively who will and who will not suffer these problems and exactly what the changes in there brains will be so it is hard to say exactly what the long-term effect is going to be. The best we can say right now is that based on people undergoing continuous high stress develop antisocial characteristics and reduced human interaction none of which is a good quality for a mother. Dictionaries Two dictionaries are used to define the words the founders used. For the US Constitution and first 10 Amendments the 1768 Dictionary by Samual Johnson is used. A scanned version is available on Google Books at https://books.google.com/books?id=bXsCAAAAQAAJ. It will be referred to as the 1768 Dictionary.
For Amendments 11 and higher and the Wyoming Constitution except Article 1 Section 38 the online 1890 Websters Dictionary is used. It is available at. It will be referred to as the 1890 Dictionary. Wyoming's Constitution Article 1 Section 38 was just written several years ago so any modern dictionary will suffice. By using these dictionaries we eliminate the bias caused by the fact that only certain people are rich enough to get their stuff published but rather rely on the votes of the people in their acceptance of the wording. Colloquially this amounts to asking all the people if they accepted this wording and what it means instead of relying on those moneyed people who could afford publishing costs. In other words when somebody voted for something they were making a compromise, and they accepted the compromise based on the wording that was used not on the opinions of those that had publishing access. This then also eliminates the problem of what was the intent of the writers because their words give us their intent and it keeps the intent attached to our history instead of somebody’s interpretation of our history.
The Peoples Rights When the constitution was written they added 10 amendments to let the government know that there are things that they, the government, cannot interfere with. And in those amendments there is the 9th amendment which says: "Amendment 9 [Emphasis mine] And at the time the constitution was written the 1768 Dictionary defined deny and disparage as: To DENY', v. a. [denier, Fr.] 1. To contradict an accusation; not to confess. Genestt. 2. To refuse; not to grant. Dryden. 3. To abnegate; to disown. Jcjbna. 4. To renounce; to disregard; to treat as foreign or not belonging to one. Sprat. [Emphasis mine] To DISPARAGE v. a [from dispar, Lat] 1. To match unequally ; to injure by union with something inferior in excellence 2. To injure by a comparison with something of less value. 3. To treat with contempt; to mock; to stout. Milton. 4. To bring reproach upon; to be the cause of disgrace. 5. To marry any one to another of inferiour condition. [Emphasis mine] So, that means that even though there are certain rights mentioned in the amendments themselves that the government is not to consider any other right has any less importance than those listed in the first 8. Since there were no ant-abortion case law based on the mother requesting the abortion and abortions were practiced by mothers at this time and since the only case law at this time was concerning husbands, lovers, rivals assaulting the woman to induce a miscarriage because they did not want the birth to happen, the right for a mother to request and get an abortion before the zygote/embryo/fetus was alive was legal, and according to the 9th amendment a right as profound and protected as the right to bear arms, free speech, free press, etc. The case law they had was along the same general line as Wyomings 6-2-101 (d) Murder in the first degree; penalty. 6-2-104 (b) Murder in the second degree; penalty. Both of which concern the killing of an "unborn baby" through others deliberate acts.
Governments Powers What rights does the government have to allow it to act? In the broad sense the federal and state governments can only act on what their specific constitutions say they can act on. Kind of a simple statement but it's easy to understand and apply in that anybody can look up what's in the Constitution and see if the government can do that or not. Of course there's always some forms of difference of opinion on exactly what the text says but that is a function of the courts to interpret, the legislature to change the law as they see fit once something is interpreted, and the executive either approves or rejects what the legislators did but the legislative can override the executive veto or not and the executive winds up just enforcing whatever comes out of this procedure. Now this discussion concerning abortion is not going to go into depth on the legality of abortions or its history or the words of any long-ago legal person who through their rulings showed themselves to be inhumane to say the least. What we want to know is what does our Constitution demand that the government do and whether it is the woman involved or the zygote/embryo/fetus involved or both. In order to accomplish this we need to know what the founders wanted the government to do, not how they were to go about doing it. Based upon that we are going to use the definition of the words in dictionaries published at the time the Constitution was written or a dictionary from the time any amendments were written as appropriate. The general procedure now is basically to look at what other people published/wrote letters on the subject you're reviewing but any historian can tell you that there is a major fault in using that method to determine the truth behind any document. The first is there is no guarantee that the writer that you are using was expressing his/her opinion or a particular group's opinion or just some wild rumors they had heard. Secondly, what you know about any document written by any group of people, such as our Constitution, is that there were various opinions in the group and all we can say for sure is that whatever words they chose to express what they wanted to say was the truth that they ALL accepted. Each and every individual that helped write these documents may not have liked what was written or may have not cared what was written or may have staunchly supported what was written. And of all the members that were involved very few of those are generally people that publish papers or write letters that manage to survive through time to give a more general view of the argued pros and cons when selecting the wording for the document. Based on this truth about analyzing past documents using a dictionary from that time period to understand the particular words used in what they meant would give you a much more accurate picture of what the group agreed upon. This is the reason we use the word analysis process. Our own general knowledge right at this time says that abortions raise the question as to the life and health of the mother, and the possible future life of the zygote/embryo/fetus. So we should worry about anything the Constitution was told to do concerning people's lives and health The 3 parts of the Constitution that concern themselves with life and health are the Preamble, 5th Amendment, and the 14th amendment so we will look at those to begin with before we start our analysis.
US
Constitution Preamble And First, we begin with the preamble to the US Constitution, that part of the constitution which describes what the objective of the government of the US was defined as and thus what the minimum for all government action would be. The Preamble to the U.S. Constitution was written in 1787 and is: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” Wyoming's Constitution in 1890 said: Article 1, Section 1 Power inherent in the people. “All power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and instituted for their peace, safety and happiness; . . .” [Emphasis mine] We also need to understand that this demand for Welfare, since it is in a preamble, does not grant the documents that follow any extra rights or powers beyond exactly what those documents say. Rather, in this case, it is a demand that whatever is done when executing the following documents that action must not adversely affect the Welfare of the people. In the U.S. Constitution the preamble creates a per se absolute OBLIGATION that the government, both federal and state, “promote the general Welfare” and in addition Wyoming must have laws that are "instituted for the peoples safety" which absolutely includes the right of the people to have laws that protect and maintain their life and health and as well the people have the right to defend their own life and limb as they see fit and protect themselves from physical and mental harm since the government has admitted they are incapable of defending an individual and can only prosecute the offenders after they have done wrong. We need to understand what the writers of the Constitution thought the term "Welfare" and "Safety" meant at their time of use. To do that we look at the 1768 Dictionary for WELFARE where it is defined as: WELFARE. / [well and fare ] Happiness; success; prosperity. Addison. And where in this definition does it say this has anything to do with your health or wellness? We will start with the word happiness: HAPPINESS./ [from happy] 1. Felicity; state in which the desires are satisfied. Hooker. 2. Good luck; good fortune. 3. Fortuitous elegance. Denbam. [Emphasis mine] In their definition of happiness we find the words "good fortune" implying the good part of whatever fortune is. In 1768 that was: FORTUNE. S [fortuna Lat.] 1.The power suppose it to distribute the loss of life according to her own humor. Shakesp 2. The good or ill that befalls man. Bentley. 3. The chance of life; means of living. Swift 4. Event; success good or bad. Temple 5. Estate; possessions. Shakesp. 6. The portion of a man or woman. O?way. 7. Futurity; future events. Cowley. [Emphasis mine] And ill in those days was defined as: ILL. a. [contracted from Evil.] 1. Bad in any respect; contrary to good, whether physical or moral; evil. Bacon 2. Sick; disordered; not in health. Temple. [Emphasis mine] This tells us that the federal government shall configure their laws, whatever they may be, such that they are not "contrary to good" as in contrary to sick, disordered, not in health. And as we noted before this does not give the government any extra powers it just means that whatever they wind up doing the result must produce a law that is not contrary to the good health of the people. And in 1890 what did the writers of the state of Wyomings constitution mean? In the 1890 Dictionary it meant: Safe'ty (-tỹ), n. [Cf. F. sauveté.] 1. The condition or state of being safe; freedom from danger or hazard; exemption from hurt, Injury, or loss. Up led by thee, Into the heaven of heavens I have presumed, An earthly guest.... With like safety guided down, Return me to my native element. Milton. 2. Freedom from whatever exposes one to danger or from liability to cause danger or harm; safeness; hence, the quality of making safe or secure, or of giving confidence, justifying trust, insuring against harm or loss, etc. Would there were any safety in thy sex, That I might put a thousand sorrows off, And credit thy repentance ! 3. Preservation from escape; close custody. Imprison him, ... Deliver him to safety; and return. Shak. 4. (Football) Same as Safety touchdown, below. [Emphasis mine] And so we know that Wyoming must have laws that help prevent hurt or injury as well. So we know that Wyoming has a per se absolute OBLIGATION to ensure their laws do not result in hurt or injury when the laws are enforced.
The Fifth Amendment (1791) The fifth amendment states:: Fifth Amendment No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against self, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. [Emphasis mine] The fifth amendment was ratified in 1791 so we need to look to the 1768 Dictionary to see what they were talking about as far as this person who is being protected. And they defined a person as: PERSON. / [p.isinne, Fr persona, Lat.j 1. Individual or particular man or woman Ltcie. 2. Man or woman considered as opposed to things Spratt. 3. Human Being. Drydem. 4. Man or woman considered as present, acting or suffering. Shakesp. 6 One's self; not a tepie "entative". Dryden. 7. Exterior appearance. Shakesp 8. Man or woman represented in a fictitious dialogue. Baker. 9. Character. Hayward 10. Character of office South. 11. [In grammar] The quality of the noun that modifies the verb. Sidney There is no 1768 definition of the phrase "human being", so looking at the definition of human and being we have: HUMAN, a. [humanus Lat] 1. Having the qualities of a man. Swift 2. Belonging to man. Milton [Emphasis mine] BE'ING. / [from be.] 1. Existence; opposed to nonentity. Davies. 2. A particular state or condition. Pope. 3. The person existing. Dryden [Emphasis mine] So the term human being does not tell us where they consider the start of life is, just that it is something that exists in the form we know as a human. Since they do not as of this point have a definition of what a human is other than the generic statement of man we are left with just the term man and the term woman as being a person. The term woman was defined as: WOMAN. S [pirman, pimman. Sax] 1. The female of the human race. Shakesp. Otway. 2. A female attendant of a person of rank. Shakesp. [Emphasis mine] And their definition of woman again does not give us any indication of when life starts. Moving on to man we find it was defined as: MAN S [man, mon, Sax ] 1. Human being. Creech. 2. Not a woman. Shakesp. 3. Not a boy Drytlcn 4. A servant; an attendant; a dependant. Raleigh, Crasley, 5. A word of familiarity bordering on contempt. Shakesp 6. It is used in a loose signification like the French on, one, any one. Tilltson 7. One of uncommon qualifications. AdtHfen 8. A human being qualiftud in any particular manner. 1 Samuel 9. Individual Watts 10. Not a beast. Creech 11. Wealthy or independant person. Tillitson 12. A moveable piece at chefs or draughts. 13. Man of war. A ship of war. Careio [Emphasis mine] The phrase "Not a boy" will take us closer to the time of the beginning of life. And we find that the word boy was defined as: BOY .S 1. A male child; not a girl 2. One in the state of adolescence; older than an infant DryJen. 3. A word of contempt for young men Ltske [Emphasis mine] Doing the same for a girl we find it was defined as: GIRL S. [Ifl???????ck, karbuua. a woman.] A young woman, or child. Skakesp [Emphasis mine] And that gives us two words to work with. Infant and child to see if either of those takes us to a point that describes where they thought life began. First looking at the word child we see that it was defined as: CHILD S "in the plural Children". [cild,Sax.] 1. An infant, or very young person. Denham, Wake. 2. One in the line of filiation, opposed to the parent. Addifon. 3. A girl child. Shakesp. 4. Any thing, the product or effect of another. Shakesp. 5. To be with Child. To be pregnant. [Emphasis mine] The word infant applies to both girls and boys and its definition was: INFANT S [infans, Lat.] 1. A child from the birth to the end of the seventh year. 2. [In law.] A young person to the age of one and twenty. [Emphasis mine] And they considered birth as: BIRTH, S. [beohy, Saxon.] 1. The act of coming into life. Dryden. 2. Extraction; lineage. Denham. 3. Rank which is inherited by descent. Dryden. 4. The condition in which any man is born. Dryden. 5. Thing born. Ben. Johnson. 6. The act of bringing forth Mihin [Emphasis mine] So we can trace back through their language usage to know that in the 5th Amendment the "person" they are addressing is a human being from the time of bringing forth from the mother onward. But what are the characteristics of the life that the government cannot deprive this person they are talking about. It was defined as: "LIFE./plural /lives. [Itp.an, to live, Sax.] 1. Union and co-operation of soul with body. Genesis. 2. Present state. Cowley. 3. Enjoyment, or profession of terrestrial existence. Prior. 4. Blood, the supposed vehicle of life. 5. Conduct; manner of living with respect to virtue or vice. Pope . 6. Condition; manner of living with respect to happiness and misery. Dryden. 7. Continuance of our present state. Locke. 8. The living form; resemblance exactly copied. Brown. 9. Exact resemblance. Deiihum 10. General state of man. Milton. 11. Common occurrences; human affairs; the course of things. Ajcham. 12. Living person. Shakesp. 13. Narrative of a life past. Pope. 14. Spirited; briskness; vivacity; resolution. Sidney. 15. Animated existence; animal being. Thomson [Emphasis mine] In 1768 Life was defined as a person who was living. And what did they mean by living? They thought that living meant: LIVING [from live] 1. Support; maintenance; fortune on which one lives. Sidney 2. Power of continuing life. L'Estrange 3. Live-lihood Hubberd's Tale 4. Benefice of a clergyman. Spenser. [Emphasis mine] The living part of their definition of life is self reference back to life and only adds in that the word living means that life is continuing on. The ability to continue on is just "power of continuing". So we know that living was just the power of continuing life. We know they were smart enough to not define a word with two opposing definitions, so we know that the words "The act of coming into life continuing on" (living) has the same meaning as "The act of bringing forth". We also know that to bring forth meant to give birth to someone and the only way you can birth anything is to have it removed from the mother. And no where in any of these definitions is the word or concept of quickening included so the attempts at using quickening anywhere in US law after the 5th Amendment was written is repugnant to the US Constitution. And since we are fully aware that a zygote/embryo by itself is incapable of continuing life would mean that the 5th Amendment does not apply to these 2 stages of pregnancy, it applies only to the woman during these stages. Now a fetus could possibly fit into the ability to continue life. So any law would have to account for the possibility that a fetus could continue life. This might take the form of requiring that all fetuses more than X number of weeks old we removed cesarean and attempts be made to use mankind's technology to assist it until it can in fact continued life on its own. If neither itself nor our technology cannot "continue life" then it was not initially alive and if life continues then the state can raise the child. To change this obvious definition that the zygote/embryo is not protected but rather it is the Person who is protected the Constitution would have to be amended by the procedure in the Constitution itself and not by judicial fiat. The word Quicken is often referred to in early American writings and State Laws. In both the 1768 and 1890 Dictionaries it is defined as "To make alive" which is derived from the Christian Bible in Psalms. Since we know that Birth is defined as The act of coming into life then Quickening and Birth are just Synonyms. Some people at the time before the writing of the Constitution arbitrarily, through the teachings of their church, decided that meant life began when there was motion in the womb. We know this was an arbitrary point chosen by early Christians because by the time the Constitution was written and religion was removed from our laws women were no longer prosecuted for abortions they initiated and abortions were common and accepted.
The
US 14th Amendment And So, how does the 14th Amendment Guarantee Fit Into This? US 14th Amendment Section 1 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.” [Emphasis mine] Wyoming's Article 1 Section 6 Due process of law. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. [Emphasis mine] Based on the above, what did the writers of the US 14 Amendment and WY Article 1 Section 6 consider a person, born, life, self-conscious, thinking, and intelligent to be in their day? The 1890 Dictionary defined a person as: PERSON, “. . . 3. A living, self-conscious being, as distinct from an animal or a thing; a moral agent; a human being; a man, woman, or child. Consider what person stands for: which, I think, is a thinking, intelligent being, that has reason and reflection. Locke. 4. A human being spoken of indefinitely; one; a man; as, any person present. This person they are talking about in the 14th Amendment and WY Title 97 Art. 1 Sec 6 has the property of living, self-conscious, being, thinking, intelligent. Being just implies something with a physical body which would be the frame of someone born or the combined matter of a zygote/embryo/fetus. So, when they said living what did they mean? “LIV'ING participle present tense [from live.] Living, n . . . 4 Power of continuing life, the act of living, or living comfortably.” [Emphasis mine] What does life mean at this time? And life was defined as: LIFE, n. 1. The state of being which begins with generation, birth, or germination, and ends with death, also, the time during which this state continues, that state of an animal or plant in which all or any of its organs are capable of performing all or any of their functions; - used of all animal and vegetable organisms. 2. Of human beings The union of the soul and body, also, the duration of their union; sometimes, the deathless quality or existence of the soul; as, man is a creature having an immortal life. She shows a body rather than a life Shak [Emphasis mine] Generation is the biological processes that ends up with any biological entity which as a class can reproduce, germination is the beginning of generation, and birth in definition 1 is explicitly defined as “the Union of the soul and body” for human beings in definition 2 so they did not consider germination or generation as the beginning of life for a human being. So, now we need to know when the “soul” and body form a union. We know that the majority of the people that were voting for the fourteenth amendment and Wyoming's Constitution were of the Abrahamic religion(s). And we know that all 3 Abraham religions have the equivalent of the Christians Old Testament. From this we know that in Genesis 2:7, their holy book(s), it says “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This puts the union of the soul and body in definition 2 at the time of birth when the baby begins breathing on its own. This belief that breath being life was verified again in Genesis 6:17, Genesis 7:15, and Genesis 7:22 so there is no question that breathing is what their holy book defines as the beginning of life for humans. This is not an attempt by me to interpret the meaning of their holy book(s) and neither is it an attempt to get the judiciary to interpret their holy book(s). This is what is written and correlated with a dictionary definition to show when the voters of that time considered life began. There will obviously be different interpretations by different sects and people within those sects of these 3 religions but those interpretations are irrelevant to the law, the only thing that matters is the wording in their holy book as it applies to life’s beginning in definition #2. There is a parallel idea involved that does not require religious considerations. This person, since it ages, must be or have been a child before becoming a man or woman. And child is defined as: Child (child) . . . 5 A young person of either sex, esp one between infancy and youth, hence, one who exhibits the characteristic of a very young person, as nonsense, obedience. trustfulness, limited understanding, etc [Emphasis mine] But this does not tell us when the category Child begins. To find that out we look at infancy: In'fan-cy . . . See INFANT 1. The state or period of being an infant; the first part of life; early childhood. [Emphasis mine] The word infant does tell us when a child begins: Infant 1. A child in the first period of life, beginning at his birth; a young babe; sometimes, a child several years of age. [Emphasis mine] Both of these define life as beginning at birth. So what is birth? Birth 1. The act or fact of coming into life, or of being born, generally applied to human beings, as, the birth of a son 2. Lineage; extraction, descent, sometimes, high birth, noble extraction. Elected without reference to birth, but solely for qualifien- tions Prescott 3. The condition to which a person is born; natural state or position, inherited disposition or tendency A foe by birth to Troy's unhappy name Dryden 4 The act of bringing forth, as, she had two children at a birth. "At her next birth" Milton 5. That which is born, that which is produced, whether animal or vegetable [Emphasis mine] Definition 1 as it applied to humans was in the sense of the birth of a son and in 1890 there was no way to know the sex of the child until it was brought forth from the mother. Definition 4 reinforces this because it says it is the act of bringing forth such as in the phrase “she had 2 children at a birth”. Now we know through 2 totally independent paths, one representing the major religions definition of when life begins and another through a nonreligious path. Both of these definition methods define life as beginning when the fetus is no longer a part of the mother. But to be a person it must be able to continue life would mean this being could maintain whatever functions it needed to maintain its self-conscious, thinking, intelligent characteristics after it was no longer a part of the mother. A person also had to be Self-conscious, which meant: Self-con'scious (-shuis), a. 1. Conscious of one's acts or states as belonging to, or originating in, one's self. "My self-conscious worth." Dryden. 2. Conscious of one's self as an object of the observation of others; as, the speaker was too self-conscious. [Emphasis mine] There is no evidence a zygote or an embryo is self-conscious at any of those 2 states. So it is sometime during the fetal stage that it may or may not gain self-consciousness. It would obviously be towards the very end of the fetal stage and not the beginning. Two more qualifying words to qualify as a Person were thinking: think'ing, p. pr. of think. Hence : p. a. Having the faculty of thought; as, a thinking being. — think'ing-Iy, adv. think'ing, vb. n. of think. Hence : n. 1. Act or mode of mental procedure of one who thinks; cogitation; judgment. Whose music, to my thinking , pleased the king. Shak. 2. That which is thought; a thought or idea. “Speak to me as to thy thinkings .” Shak. [Emphasis mine] and intelligent: In-tel'll-gent 1. Endowed with the faculty of understanding or reason; as, man is an intelligent being. 2 Possessed of intelligence, education, or judgment; knowing; sensible; skilled; marked by intelligence; as, an intelligent young man, an intelligent architect; an intelligent answer. 3. Cognizant; aware; communicative. [Obs] Intelligent of seasons Milton. Which are to France the spies and speculations Intelligent of our state Shak. There is no indication that a zygote or embryo becomes intelligent and starts thinking. So it is sometime during the fetal stage that a zygote/embryo may or may not begin thinking and be intelligent. It would obviously be towards the very end of the fetal stage and not the beginning. So they would not be considered to be a person. From this we know that at the time of the passage of the 14th amendment and the approval of the Wyoming Constitution both required that the government Direct their laws to ensure the safety and welfare of human beings from birth until death.. So we need to know what death meant to the people in 1890. It was defined as Death 1. The cessation of all vital phenomena without capability of resuscitation, either in animals or plants. Local death is going on at all times and in all parts of the living body, in which individual cells and elements are being cast off and replaced by new, a process essential to life General death is of two kinds death of the body as a whole (somatic or systemic death), and death of the tissues By the former is implied the absolute cessation of the functions of the brain, the circulatory and the respiratory organs; by the latter the entire disappearance of the vital actions of the ultimate structural constituents of the body. When death takes place, the body as a whole dies first, the death of the tissues sometimes not occurring until after a considerable interval. Hurley
So the writers of 14th amendment were addressing persons which at this time had a little more complex definition than when the constitution was written, and completely different than the English Common Law Alito mistakenly used. Under the definition of person this entity would have to be a living being which was a thinking and/or intelligent being. And to be intelligent that being would have to have the faculty of understanding or reason which would be hard to attribute to any stage of pregnancy. If intelligence does exist in the fetal stage that would have to be ferreted out by medical knowledge. A person can also be an entity in which its organs are capable of performing their functions, which in a non technical society is generally when the human being is brought forth from the mother but with modern technologies there is a point where our technology can provide/support the missing functions or parts of those organs not fully developed yet until those organs become fully develop. But this is just semantics because we generally remove (bring forth) the fetus from the mother before our technology can be used to maintain the organs functions. So at this point we know that the 14th amendment requires that any entity that is intelligent or would have the faculty of understanding or reason and its organs are capable of performing their functions themselves then the federal government has a per se obligation that whatever laws the states have the law must not be contrary to the good health and safety of those human beings that have been brought forth from them mother and are capable of performing their functions to maintain their functioning. Now if the state has no anti-abortion laws then there is no question because the medical procedure is available to the populace. If a state has a law that is anti-abortion then that state law must not be contrary to the good health of the people. This does not give the federal government any more rights or powers than it had before it just says which way the courts must rule when laws are challenged for Constitutionality. When looking at the difference between the 5th Amendment and the 14th Amendment it is rather obvious that the 2 definitions of what we call a person that is addressed by the amendments basically consist of the difference between the phrases "and terminating when there is no more power of continuing life" and the phrase " in which its organs are capable of performing their functions". And this difference in wording has a lot more to do with the knowledge at the time they were written then on an attempt to change the meaning but rather have the same intent based on new knowledge. Once you are brought forth from your mother and your organs can sustain enough functions to allow the brain to keep those organs functioning you are a person until your body/organs can no longer sustain enough functions to prevent the brain from shutting down permanently, often referred to as death. In all of our Constitutions these are the only written words that allow any government to make any decision as to if some abortion law is constitutional. Nowhere in our Constitutions does it allow a judge to ignore of 1 more more of the Constitutions and instead use the common law of England to amend our Constitution. The Constitution itself has a procedure to make those amendments and nowhere in that procedure is a judge or judges Fiats allowed. Wyoming's Article 1 Section 38 Article 1, Section 38 Right of health care access. (a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person. (b) . . . (c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution. (d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement. [Emphasis mine] Paragraph (a) in our Wyoming Constitution takes all healthcare questions out of the hands of governments and like at the founding of our country turns it over to the adults as a per se right. But what is our present day definition of Adult? Adult n. 1. One who has attained maturity or legal age. 2. Biology A fully grown, mature organism. adj. 1. Fully developed and mature. 2. Relating to, intended for, or befitting adults: adult education. 3. Containing or dealing in explicitly sexual material; pornographic: adult movies. [Emphasis mine] Which would rule out zygotes/embryos/fetuses but does include all adult women. This does leave the question of child rape pregnancies, is the abortion question up to the child or up to their guardians? Paragraph (c) does allow the legislature to restrict these rights to "protect the health and general welfare of the people . . .” So we must see at what age a human being can be considered part of the people. For our definitions we will use “The Free Dictionary” off of the Internet at https://www.thefreedictionary.com People n. pl. people 1. a. Humans considered as a group or in indefinite numbers. Often treated as a plural of person, alone and in compounds: People were dancing in the street. I met all sorts of people. This book is not intended for laypeople. b. The mass of ordinary persons; the populace. Used with the: "those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes" (Thomas Jefferson). . . . 5. Informal Animals or other beings distinct from humans: Rabbits and squirrels are the furry little people of the woods. [Emphasis mine] Moving on to person: Person (pûr′sən) n. 1. A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; salesperson. See Usage Note at chairman. . . . 9. A character or role, as in a play; a guise: "Well, in her person, I say I will not have you" (Shakespeare). [Emphasis mine] And how is living defined today? Living (lĭv′ĭng) adj. 1. Possessing life: famous living painters; transplanted living tissue. 2. . . . . . . 9. Informal Used as an intensive: beat the living hell out of his opponent in the boxing match [Emphasis mine] Living, as before refers to life (basically hasn't changed since the start). Life (līf) n. pl. lives (līvz) 1. a. The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism. b. The characteristic state or condition of a living organism. 5. a. The interval of time between birth and death: She led a good, long life. b. The interval of time between one's birth and the present: has had hay fever all his life. c. A particular segment of one's life: my adolescent life. d. The period from an occurrence until death: elected for life; paralyzed for life. e. Slang A sentence of imprisonment lasting till death. . . . 12. a. Something that actually exists regarded as a subject for an artist: painted from life. b. Actual environment or reality; nature. [Emphasis mine] And birth is presently defined as: Birth (bûrth) n. 1. a. The emergence and separation of offspring from the body of the mother. . . . 3. A beginning or commencement. See Synonyms at beginning. tr.v. birthed, birth·ing, births [Emphasis mine] From looking at the present day definitions we can see that it agrees with the 1768 and 1890 dictionaries. Thus a person is a human being from the time they are brought forth from their mother until their organs can no longer keep the brain alive to sustain all the organs (death). This indicates that the Wyoming Constitution limit their actions to the considerations of the mother only and not the zygote/embryo/fetus. Reproduction Obligation The next question is, what obligation is there in our laws that requires people to reproduce? There is none. In addition no federal or state law protects anybody except those persons which had been brought forth from their mothers and had the power of "continuing life". This is where the 9th Amendment comes in to play. There is no requirement to reproduce and there is no requirement to protect that which the Church of England had described as "living" (even though it had not been brought forth from it's mother and does not have the power to continue life) what so ever and thus the people retained the right to all matters of reproduction by the mere existence of the 9th Amendment in the Constitution and their practice of abortions as a medical procedure, so the government has no interest in controlling reproduction and thus the 9th Amendment leaves the rights to reproduction to the people by law! And in accordance with the US Constitution and the Wyoming Constitution the two governments have no authority to make any laws contrary to keeping those persons who had been brought forth from their mothers and have the power of continuing life as healthy as possible. From this we can tell that religious commands based on the teachings of the religious beliefs of foreign kings, essentially religious dictators, of England based not on knowledge but rather on religious superstition is how the court today redefined the beginning of life and the point at which they will essentially say they are stopping a murder. They also say that it is okay to carry this through simply because it has been in place for so long. This attitude of letting a wrong continue on simply because it's been there for so long and it is part of the religion of the people presently in power is quite repugnant to our Constitution. There is no reasoning based on the First Amendment that would allow the government to enforce a Christian arbitrary rule on non-Christians when there is a more logical solution not based on ignorance but rather on the knowledge that the founders used to define things in our Constitution. For this reason the concept of quickening being when a woman can first feel motion be removed from the legal system repertoire of excuses to hold onto religious dogmas such as the usage of the "Curse of Ham" to enslave people with a dark skin color.
Conclusion Women's inherent right to life and health cannot be legislated away because there are not enough babies in the for profit adoption industry. This adoption thing comes about because Alito and Barrett both eluded to the fact that there are adoption agencies and “Safe Haven” laws that take newborns in and adopt them out. But they don’t tell you that this is a for profit industry and it has been having an economic downturn the last few decades. And I have to wonder about this fact considering that apparently 4 of the 5 judges in favor of overturning Roe said in their congressional hearings that Roe was precedent on precedent and then not but a few year(s) later overturned that precedent. Lying by a judge in any court generally only comes about when money is involved, and some of that money winds up being part of the judges wealth. And I have a problem with people making money off the untimely death of others (except morticians and cemeteries and the like, they get their money because someone died, not by forcing people into situations that kill them). Considering that the judges, law enforcement, politicians and doctors are not gods that can bring you back to life and the judges have always said the government can't and won't protect you individually from death and harm, and law enforcement has no requirement to protect any one individual, and the politicians laws do nothing but punish those that harmed/killed you after you are harmed/dead, and the doctors cannot always diagnose or treat deadly conditions associated with pregnancies means it is the woman who is responsible to preserve their own health/life under ALL conditions regardless of what the medically uninformed judges, medically uninformed law enforcement, medically uninformed politicians, or incapable doctors think. Reality is as reality is. (This has nothing to do with law rather it has to do with once irreversibly damaged or dead there is no coming back) Some of the original laws that outlawed abortions were ostensibly to keep women from dying from the abortions, since that was apparently much more common than dying due to the pregnancy, the states in those cases were trying to protect the women from something nobody in their time truly understand and all they knew was that more women were dying due to the abortions then were dying due to pregnancies. And even though the abortions in those days weren't suicide they were still more deadly than the alternative and thus it makes sense to outlaw them. But since that time medicine has advanced way beyond that problem. The problem now is that more women are dying due to pregnancy then are dying due to abortions. There are 1.25 deaths/Million abortions now. There are 194 deaths/Million pregnancies now. That means the no abortions law will be knowingly killing about 193 women every year that did not have to die and our Wyoming and US constitutions absolutely demand this not be the case. Our legislators are essentially increasing the death rate of women while we know that our Constitutions tell us that: Women's inherent right to life and health cannot be legislated away because of their sex, Women's inherent right to life and health cannot be legislated away because of their condition of pregnancy, Women's inherent right to life and health cannot be legislated away because the medically uninformed judges say they neither can nor will prevent women's death, Women's inherent right to life and health cannot be legislated away because medically uninformed politicians THINK it is the proper thing to do while actually causing more deaths, Women's inherent right to life and health cannot be legislated away because incapable doctors cannot diagnose problems or stop deaths during and after pregnancies. Fundamentally until a state legislature can amend the fourteenth amendment as well as redefine the words used in the Wyoming Constitution they have a per se obligation to protect women’s health and welfare regardless of the status of a foreign body within her body. If the legislature wishes to ensure that every zygote that is fertilized survives and becomes a person then they must invest the states money in developing artificial wombs so the women are not put in harm’s way by their action and the artificial womb can grow the cells until their organs can maintain the entire entities functions.
Bruce Williams
[1] https://ucr.fbi.gov/leoka/2019/topic-pages/officers-feloniously-killed [2] https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/maternal-deaths/index.html [3] https://www.statista.com/statistics/185325/number-of-legal-abortions-by-marital-status-in-the-us-since-1973/ An Addendum The Court Amending The Constitution A Second Time When reading the Courts Majority opinion in Dobbbs we find that for some reason the Court has amended our Constitution by ignoring a part which specifically tells the court they can't do what they are doing. The court states: "The Court's decisions have held that the Due Process Clause protects two categories of substantive rights ‐ those rights guaranteed by the first eight Amendments to the Constitution and those rights deemed fundamental that are not mentioned anywhere in the constitution." And yet, the 9th Amendment specifically states: "Amendment 9 Looking at our 1768 Dictionary we see that deny and disparage meant: To DENY', v. a. [denier, Fr.] [Emphasis mine] To DISPARAGE v. a [from dispar, Lat] [Emphasis mine] So, even though the 9th Amendment demands the same treatment for all rights the people have even if not mentioned in the first 8 or anywhere else in the constitution the Court has decided that only those rights deemed fundamental that are covered by the 9th Amendment are going to be botherd with as far as Due Process. And they apparently get to define which rights they consider fundamental. If this wording in the 9th Amendment was ambiguous or their statement about how they are going to analyze things was ambiguous then one could argue that its just a matter of semantics. But neither the 9th Amendment nor the Courts choice to ignore rights not belonging to their chosen idea of what is a fundamental right is ambiguous in any way. They are knowingly amending our constitution by unequally matching those retained by the people by only applying their highest standards analysis to their chosen "fundamental" rights not enumeration in the Constitution. And just the fact that the founders had to include the 9th amendment proves that they did not trust the legislative, executive, or judicial branches to always protect the people's rights and they were hoping that if one branch got out of hand the other two or the states would be able to correct the situation with the guidance of the documentation in the Constitution. |
