Pundit, journalist, and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Buchanan is both strongly pro-life (“I will use the Bully Pulpit to defend the sacred rights of the unborn to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”) and vehemently against illegal immigration (“We will stop the illegal immigration in its tracks.”). So imagine what he must think about this recent ruling:
A U.S. District judge in Missouri has temporarily prohibited the deportation of a pregnant Mexican woman who falsely claimed U.S. citizenship, saying that her fetus is a U.S. citizen and may be protected under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004.
I almost wish Buchanan were still running for office just so we could find out what he thinks about this dilemma. I suspect that either his head would explode or that he’d shut down like the computer at the end of War Games. Either way, it would be fascinating to see him tussle with which of his dogmatic priorities would take precedence in this situation.
(Full disclosure: I used to be a big fan of Pat's when he had a radio show with that milquetoast Barry Lynn. But he lost me when he aligned with the America First isolationist wing of paleoconservatism.)
(Hat tip: Christus Victor (again))
There is no conflict. Put her in jail, deliver the baby, put the baby up for adoption, banish her from the U.S. Note: banish, not deport. Illegal aliens who are not legitimate assylum seekers should be banished for life from the U.S.
Doesn't place of birth determine citizenship? Deport the both of them. Lack of citizenship does not imply lack of humanity, so what does abortion have to do with it?. I don't see a conflict.
Hoot,
Doesn't place of birth determine citizenship? Deport the both of them. Lack of citizenship does not imply lack of humanity, so what does abortion have to do with it?. I don't see a conflict.
I think the case is more complex than it appears. After all, the father is an American and the baby was concieved in the U.S. The baby is not only a seperate human being from the mother but has its own legal protections and/or "rights", so why should the baby be deported? While the mother may be from Mexico, the baby isn't. The pre-born child has a greater claim to citizenship in the U.S. than it does in Mexico.
Where is the outrage over this clear case of judicial activism? Oh, I forgot: this judge is pro-life so it doesn't count.
Unfortunately for Judge Wright, his ridiculous reference to Laci's Law most likely will result in his decision being overturned because, as was noted, no fetal rights to remain in the country have every been recognized before.
And they sure won't be now. That women will be on her way to Mexico very shortly unless she comes up with a new legal strategy.
Mark my words.
Joe,
The baby is not a citizen according to our own Constitution:
14th amendment:
Regardless of whether the entity in her womb is legally a human being, it is neither born nor has been lawfully naturalized. It is therefore not a U.S. citizen and subject to deportation until it is born.
Mike:
There is no conflict. Put her in jail, deliver the baby, put the baby up for adoption, banish her from the U.S. Note: banish, not deport. Illegal aliens who are not legitimate assylum seekers should be banished for life from the U.S.
Aren't you the same guy who accused me of being ignorant about libertarianism in another thread? This led me to believe that you were libertarian, but obviously you're not. In libertarian fantasyland, there's no such thing as an "illegal alien."
Joe:
Suppose a pregnant woman is told by her doctor that she should stop working to protect her pregnancy. Now suppose, further, that she's single and can't afford to stop working, so she continues. She winds up miscarrying the baby. Should she then be charged with manslaughter, or with reckless endangerment? Because that's the precedent you're trying to set here, by according full legal rights to the unborn.
The primary problem I have with your argument is that you describe the woman and the fetus as "separate entities," but the problem here is that they cannot be separated. At least, not yet. What you do to one, you implicitly do to the other, so you cannot separate their fates.
Mike,
Regardless of whether the entity in her womb is legally a human being, it is neither born nor has been lawfully naturalized. It is therefore not a U.S. citizen and subject to deportation until it is born.
Let's change one variable and say that the mother was a U.S. citizen but the father is an illegal alien. Should the pre-born child be deported?
Joe,
No because gender equality doesn't apply here. The mother, not the father, carries the baby to term. Thus while it is in her womb, regardless of whether you call it her property or baby, it is subject to whatever she is subject to. If she is not a citizen then the child cannot possibly be legitimately called a citizen until she gives birth to it either artificially or naturally.
You're drawing a very bad false comparison here. The role of parents are different, thus the law has to treat them differently. The crux of the matter here is that you are so radicalized over the issue of abortion that you have allowed it to cloud your principles.
I have often not agreed with you, but have respected your thinking. However I am sad to say your thinking here is as sloppy as the average American's. Snap out of it man, you're better than that. The father has no role in this because the constitution says that the child isn't a citizen until it is born or naturalized.
Unless you want to cheapen our naturalization laws by extending them into the womb and allowing millions of illegals to claim citizenship, then
just accept that you're barking up the wrong tree here. The legal ramifications for what you are arguing are sickening. Millions of foreigners could claim citizenship under a system that recognizes those who haven't been born yet to be American citizens. You'd be advocating the final death blow to American culture and identity.
Tgirsch,
One of the reasons why many of us vacillate between the libertarian, constitution and republican parties is that we find some of the Libertarian Party's positions to be absurd. You'd probably have to make a conscious effort to avoid commentary from libertarians disaffected by the LP's stance on immigration. Vox Day and Ilana Mercer are but two prominent online examples.
The LP doesn't speak for probably a good 2/3 of us yet, if it did then it'd be a much stronger party. It is thankfully slowly reforming, according to what I have been reading in Liberty and Reason magazines.
I have to take the slightly OT chance to rip War Games. I would rename the movie "NORAD Central Defense Computer & dial-up BBS". It was like one step beyond punchcards, if that.
The Commodore 64 blew that movie away.
It's Jake,
Even if Congress does have the authority to do that they have no business allowing the mother to stay in the country. "Protecting families" is never a legitimate excuse to not enforce our immigration laws. If the father wants the child to grow up around the illegal immigrant mother then by God he can leave the country with her.
You bring in the issue of divorce rate where it has no connection. The issue is not men marrying and impregnating illegal immigrants. Men who knowingly have a relationship with an illegal immigrant are already suspect in their character and fitness to be fathers. You cannot argue for respecting the rule of law when you won't respect a law that is so plain and simple.
These people are colonizing our country and have no business being here. In the name of "keeping families together" you are supporting the destruction of our country's culture and traditions. These people come here with no respect for our laws, if they had any respect for them they'd have come here legally in the first place.
The last thing that America needs is to be littered with children born out of wedlock to illegal immigrants. As I have said before, you can do one of two things to the mother while respecting our sovereignty:
1) Deport her and then give the father sole custody
2) Deport the mother and child with her and let the child claim American citizenship through its father when it reaches age of majority.
I for one don't give a rat's ass about the "rights" of an illegal immigrant. The only rights they deserve are the right to due process of law, the right to not be bodily or mentally harmed by the government and the right to have Uncle Sam pick them up by the scruff of their neck and fling them back across the border.
Mike:
One of the reasons why many of us vacillate between the libertarian, constitution and republican parties is that we find some of the Libertarian Party's positions to be absurd.
Yeah. Besides, everyone knows the proper definition of "libertarian" is "someone who thinks Republicans aren't mean enough." :)
This is an idiotic decision from a point-scoring liberal-activist judge. Let's put aside the policy question of what should be done in this case--although, as it happens, I tend to favor the pro-deportation side of that argument. The question would be, does the Born-Alive Act's recognition of fetal personhood confer legal citizenship on the unborn child? And the answer to that question is plainly no. The relevant constitutional provision is the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, which stipulates that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens. Note that it doesn't say that all persons brought into existence in the U.S. are automatically citizens.
Typed too fast: I meant the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, not the Born-Alive Act. Incidentally, the guy's a Carter appointee.
This is an idiotic decision from a point-scoring liberal-activist judge.
I agree that it is quite a stretch to use UvofVA as grounds for the decision. In all likelihood the case will be overturned because of that shoddy reasoning.
The relevant constitutional provision is the first sentence of the Fourteenth Amendment, which stipulates that all persons born or naturalized in the U.S. are citizens. Note that it doesn't say that all persons brought into existence in the U.S. are automatically citizens.
That’s true. From a legal standpoint I think it is is fairly clear that no rights of citizenship exist for the unborn (the problem I have is with the double-standard involved in deporting the parent).
But that still leaves us with the question of what Pat would do. Since he advocates extending particular “rights” to the pre-born baby, on what grounds would he exclude the right to become a naturalized citizen, particularly when one of the parents is an American?
Joe: But that still leaves us with the question of what Pat would do.
Why not ask him?
Also, I had a thought about this. Let's assume for a moment that this is judicial activism, and that the justice has an ulterior motive here. What is that motive? Is it to push a pro-immigration/anti-deportation agenda? Is it to try to more firmly establish the Unborn Victims of Violence Act in law by using it as a precedent? Or is it to get the Unborn Victims of Violence Act struck down, by exploiting some of the side-effects of the law's language?
When you think about it, it really could be ANY of those things. (Of course, it also could be that this justice is just interpreting the law as written, and that he's not trying to make any particular point, but nobody's going to buy that, and even if they would, it doesn't make for very good blogging...)
Given this judge's history on abortion, it seems pretty unlikely that he's trying to shore up the UVVA. As for a question raised earlier, I don't believe that there's any straight-line deduction from a right not to be dismembered to the privilege of citizenship--any more than voting rights for fetuses are logically entailed by opposition to abortion.
Larry Lord,
Why are you so quick to assume that Wright is pro-life? This Carter appointee's logic is so self-evidently absurd that it seems clear he was tossing out the first things that came to his mind. This judge is not a champion of Life; rather it appears that he is much more likely a champion of unrestricted immigration.
Tim