From: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com (J H Woodyatt)
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity,talk.abortion
Subject: Re: abortion
Date: 14 Dec 92 21:51:00 GMT
Reply-To: bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Abiogenesis 4 Less

mills@uga.edu (Kathi Mills) writes:
# > J.H. Woodyatt
# >> Ferrari
# ># > D. Weaver
# 
# ># >There are already many classes of people.  When you were 4, you were
# ># >not a full, legal person. If you were, you would have been able to vote,
# ># >you would have had to pay taxes, you could have been drafted, etc.
#  
# ># A four-year-old IS, indeed, a "full, legal person."  It is not, however,
# ># a full, legal citizen.
# 
# >I think you're both wrong here.  Any four-year-old born or naturalized
# >in the U.S. is a full, legal, U.S. citizen.
# 
# I fail to see how a minor can be considered a full, legal citizen when
# minors do not have the rights guaranteed to full, legal citizens in our
# Constitution.

Oh, it's probably just a semantic quibble then.  Sorry for wasting
your time.  It's just that `citizenship' has meaning in international
that don't allow for the concept of `partial citizenship' really -- or
at least so I have learned in school.  You're either a citizen or
you're not.  You can hold dual citizenship, but only if both countries
recognize the concept of dual citizenship.

The trouble arises when you try to measure how much of a citizen
someone is by measuring how much freedom they are granted and what
rights they are recognized to have.  Certainly minors and prisoners
have fewer rights than free adults.  There are other less glaring
disparities.  Citizenship is not a function of rights recognized
and/or abridged.

# >Wrong again, I think.  Two kinds of persons: citizens and aliens.
# >Aliens and citizens are each divided into subclasses under the law.
# >Citizens, for instance are divided into adults, minors, etc.
# 
# Doesn't the Constituion simply assert that "citizens" should have certain
# rights?  Does it differentiate that these rights only apply to "adults"?
# If not, I don't see how it would be possible to deny them full adult rights.

No it doesn't.  It says that people have rights (some of which it
actually has the temerity to enumerate), and it demands that
the government be prohibited from abridging (some of) the rights of
its citizens.

Doing a grep on the word citizen in the Constitution reveals the
following:

--Article I, Section 2--
No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained 
to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen 
of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an 
inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.

--Article I, Section 3--
No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the 
age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United 
States and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that 
state for which he shall be chosen.

--Article II, Section 1--
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the 
United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, 
shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any 
person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained 
to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a 
resident within the United States.

--Article III, Section 2--
The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law 
and equity, arising under this Constitution... --between a state and
citizens of another state;--between citizens of different
states;--between citizens of the same state claiming lands under
grants of different states, and between a state, or the citizens
thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.

--Article IV, Section 2--
The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and
immunities of citizens in the several states.

--Amendment XI--
The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed 
to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted 
against one of the United States by citizens of another state, 
or by citizens or subjects of any foreign state.

--Amendment XIV, Section 1-- (One of my favorite amendments...)
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. 

--Amendment XIV, Section 2--
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states
according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of
persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right
to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and
Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the
executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the
legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such
state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion,
or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced
in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to
the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such
state.

--Amendment XV, Section 1--
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude.

--Amendment XIX--
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not 
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on 
account of sex.

--Amendment XXIV--
The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or
other election for President or Vice President, for electors for
President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in
Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any
state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.

--Amendment XXVI, Section 1--
The right of citizens of the United States, who are 18 years of age or
older, to vote, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or any state on account of age.


-- 
+---------------------------+  ``I guess the government that robs its
| J H Woodyatt              |  own people earns the future it is
| bard@cutter.ssd.loral.com |  preparing for itself.''
+---------------------------+                             -- Mark Twain
Newsgroups: alt.abortion.inequity,misc.legal,talk.abortion