A victory for fetus rights!!!

[foolsguinea]

@Kimstu

Medically speaking, it’s pretty well understood what causes the great majority of deaths of born people too. But we don’t ignore them individually the way we do with the overwhelming majority of embryo deaths.

Um, yeah, we kind of do. Few deaths are investigated by autopsy, persons in mass death situations are dealt with en masse, really old people are just allowed to die. There’s much more callousness in medicine than you see on TV dramas. Tyler Durden had it right: “You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake.”

When I see a “pro-life” group acknowledging that more needs to be done to bring down the sky-high zygote mortality rate in general, instead of just airily accepting the vast majority of zygote deaths on the grounds that they’re “natural”, then I’ll start to believe that saving the lives of the unborn is really their top priority.

I see, you’re confused. Saving the lives of the unborn, indeed saving the lives of anyone, isn’t the top priority of the pro-life movement. Not murdering innocent people is the top priority. Very, very, very different.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that parents-to-be can’t choose to think of their embryos/fetuses as “babies” if they want to…In fact, a crucial part of a woman’s right to choose is the ability to make her own decision in early pregnancy about whether she considers the embryo a beloved person whose life she wants to nourish and protect, or a non-person whose life she is not willing to harbor in her body. A fetus’s claim to independent personhood with full individual rights grows along with its development during gestation, rather than suddenly emerging full-blown at the moment of fertilization.

My, you’re condescending. Of course, so am I. I’ve bolded the bit that’s the problem. Here you’re asserting a moral position more than defending it. Shock of shocks, not everyone agrees. The pro-life position, OTOH, boils down to this: If human rights are inherent, then they are not a matter of someone else’s opinion. Ever. (Now, I don’t believe in quite the same code of human rights as the typical right-to-lifer, myself; but it seems to me that a lot of people mostly do; these guys are trying to take common Christian morality to its logical conclusion. In fact, the underpinnings of pro-life & pro-choice thought are really very much the same; but that’s another thread.)

@Voyager

Your uncertainty leads me to believe that either you think there is nothing to do, or that all reasonable funding is being put into research. Think of the level of funding that would be put into saving the lives of babies if the death rate for newborns matched that of fetuses. If a fetus and a newborn were truly equivalent, do you think we’d be doing this little?

Now, Voyager, infant mortality has been that high in many human societies throughout history. There’s a good reason some cultures don’t name children until they’re at least a year old. I don’t just think, know that if it were that endemic, that normal, it’d be entirely rational & ordinary to take it in stride; because that’s what people do. There’s been an unfortunate cultural/philosophical creep to the point that we now go to extraordinary lengths (& put working-class families into severe economic hardship) to try to “save the lives” of children so premature they don’t have working lungs yet. This is driven by the synergy of a variety of factors, from smaller families to a sentimentality about children to an interest in perfecting new technologies to the Catholic Church’s teaching on homicide. That doesn’t make it anthropologically normal (in fact, it’s damned odd).

In any case, as Mr. Moto has pointed out, not all those who seek restrictions on abortion hold a fetus as equal to a born child. There are some who do, even as they concede pragmatically that it’s not really the same as it’s obligate to the mother (hence the acceptance of many, but not all, health exceptions). And they are deforming the debate. But the success of the movement is not due solely to that minority; it’s that some of what they say has wider appeal.

[BrainGlutton]

@article linked in OP

The Tennessee measure would give abortion providers 10 days after an abortion to file a death certificate with the state Office of Vital Records.

What happens if they don’t file a death certificate? The article does not say.

[foolsguinea]

@Voyager

… my position is that right-to-lifers are more realistic than their rhetoric.

You’re right there. The rhetoric got really overheated, when really the position differences are more different in sentiment & labelling than in practice, & that’s one of the great problems in American political thought of the last generation.

I used to be pretty strongly anti-abortion, & had some very strong influences in the movement. I came to notice that the leaders who would stoke up feelings by practically calling abortion murder weren’t actually treating it as equivalent, & in fact were horrified by the vigilantes who took them seriously & started shooting doctors.

Of course, some people have taken it seriously.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@BrainGlutton

What happens if they don’t file a death certificate? The article does not say.

I’m guessing the big gun in that arsenal is piling on even more paperwork, demanding an explanation as to why the original paperwork was not properly filled out, with hints that noncompliance with government regulations could lead to fines and/or license suspensions and whatnot, the unstated goal being to increase the hassle of providing an abortion (or encourage providers to leave the state entirely) without bothering with the laborious process of actually banning it.

But it would be nice (or at least entertaining) to hear what lip-service rationalizations for punishments the pro-legislation people can muster.

[Voyager]

@foolsguinea

I used to be pretty strongly anti-abortion, & had some very strong influences in the movement. I came to notice that the leaders who would stoke up feelings by practically calling abortion murder weren’t actually treating it as equivalent, & in fact were horrified by the vigilantes who took them seriously & started shooting doctors.

I’m anti-abortion also. I think it usually represents a failure or foolishness on the part of both partners. (There are lots of examples where this isn’t true.) My wife is a biologist, and I think she would take it as a personal affront if either of our daughters needed one. Being sensible about birth control is so much smarter, and it has worked so far.

So I’m with you in that respect.

But being anti-abortion doesn’t mean being anti-choice, and it doesn’t mean it makes sense to force a woman to bear a child against her will because of a momentary mistake. I don’t think there is any contradiction in those positions.

This is one of those cases where I think it makes sense for all of us to agree to disagree. But clearly not everyone thinks so.

[Stratocaster]

@Revenant Threshold

Pro-life Americans been busy stopping abortion in Britain recently?

There’s a difference between situations where can can concievably make a significant difference, and ones in which you can’t. A huge group of Americans, all protesting for protecting kids in Thailand? Won’t make a speck of difference. A huge group of Pro-life Americans, all protesting for research into spontaneous miscarriage in America? They’ll be listened to.

Nonsense. I’ve already established the bar, rendered indisputable because it’s been posted in a message board, just as the bar for pro-lifers was. If you’re not donating money and lobbying for your tax dollars to be re-directed–something you could certainly do–then clearly, and without any other alternative possible, you don’t really oppose the sexual abuse of children. See how this works?

[Stratocaster]

@Voyager

The people we’re talking about are already in the streets. They’re the ones trying to block access to clinics. They’re the ones pressuring politicians. It would be a hell of a lot easier to pressure them to get money for fetus protection research than to try to overturn Roe v Wade. They obviously don’t care about that issue very much.

There are several in this thread that have not been so select in their assessment of “what pro-lifers really believe.” In fact, the logical fallacies practically leap off the screen, I tells ya.

As for you, all the posts here addressed the movement in general. If it didn’t apply to you, you didn’t need to object in the first place as if it did.

The movement in general. Right, gotcha. People here know what the movement in general believes.

[RTFirefly]

@Lissa

Healthy white babies are at a premium, yes. But not many people want the baby of a mother who drank heavily or used drugs during her pregnancy or a child born with obvious disabilities.

I hope you don’t mind a rather weak cite, but a good friend of mine who has been in social work for a couple of decades now says that this is a myth, and pretty much any American child under the age of 2 or 3 is adoptable, regardless of race or disability.

But only 10 million American women have ever considered adoption. (16% of those take concrete steps towards it, and only 31% of those complete the process.)

At this point, that’s still way more parents who are willing to go through the expense and bureaucratic hassle of adopting a child than there are domestic children available for adoption. Which is why so many prospective adoptive parents wind up adopting from China, Russia, Latin America, etc.

This site claims that there were approximately 854,000 abortions in the US in the year 2002. The number changes a bit year by year but if the pattern continues and abortion were banned tomorrow, the “demand” for infants would be met in under two years. What do we do with all the extra babies after all of the “supply” of families willing to adopt is exhausted?

Any instant and dramatic change in the availability of adopted babies would of course overwhelm our adoption system and the demand for adoptive babies. But it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of those 10 million give up due to the combination of the crapshoot that is domestic adoption, and the inherent expense involved in an overseas adoption - travel, and fees that go to support the operations of the overseas orphanages. I’d guess that we could deal with an added 800K adoptions a year, if the increase happened over a 15-20 year period, rather than overnight.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Stratocaster

Nonsense. I’ve already established the bar, rendered indisputable because it’s been posted in a message board, just as the bar for pro-lifers was. If you’re not donating money and lobbying for your tax dollars to be re-directed–something you could certainly do–then clearly, and without any other alternative possible, you don’t really oppose the sexual abuse of children. See how this works?

Have I called it indisputable? Like anything at all I write, you are of course free to poke holes in it and show how i’m wrong. Why don’t we, I don’t know, debate this? I’m sure you’re having fun with your gotcha reversal, but without backing it up you’re just mocking from a position you haven’t established. What about my post was nonsense?

[Sarahfeena]

I have to agree with Stratocaster in the sense that I think most of us have concerns about things that go on in the world that we don’t have the time or resources to make our pet cause. My personal attitude as a pro-lifer would be the following:

1. An embryo is a human life from the time of conception, and deserves as much protection as can reasonably be given, which would include nurturing from its mother.

2. Figuring out why some embryos just don’t make it is maybe not the best use of medical resources right now. I think that figuring out why some people have implantation problems, and trying to fix that, would be appropriate. But saving embryos that nature rejects due to malformation or other problems is a different story. Sometimes, we allow extremely handicapped or sick people to die without heroic medical intervention, and to me, losing such an embryo is the same thing. By “medical intervention,” I mean actual medical treatment, not withholding food, water, etc. A general rule of thumb for me is that man should not take an ACTIVE hand in ending a life.

[Richard_Parker]

@Sarahfeena

I have to agree with Stratocaster in the sense that I think most of us have concerns about things that go on in the world that we don’t have the time or resources to make our pet cause.

The problem is that Kimstu was making an argument about the pro-life culture as a whole. If, as a whole, they felt the way that **Stratocaster **apparently feels, then there would be more pressure to develop technology to prevent miscarriage.

You cannot concede that most pro-lifers do want to do more to prevent miscarriage, but don’t because it’s so far down on their list without also conceding Kimstu’s point about inconsistency (in action, if not in thought).

[Sarahfeena]

@Richard Parker

The problem is that Kimstu was making an argument about the pro-life culture as a whole. If, as a whole, they felt the way that **Stratocaster **apparently feels, then there would be more pressure to develop technology to prevent miscarriage.

You cannot concede that most pro-lifers do want to do more to prevent miscarriage, but don’t because it’s so far down on their list without also conceding Kimstu’s point about inconsistency (in action, if not in thought).

The pro-life culture as a whole may have the same attitude towards it as I do, I don’t know, but I think it may be a good guess. Upthread, it was compared to people dying of old age, which is not a bad analogy, IMO. Even those that respect life in the sense that they don’t believe in ending it prematurely accept the idea that there are some situations that are beyond human control, and that maybe God/Mother Nature knows best in some circumstances.

[Revenant_Threshold]

@Sarahfeena

The pro-life culture as a whole may have the same attitude towards it as I do, I don’t know, but I think it may be a good guess. Upthread, it was compared to people dying of old age, which is not a bad analogy, IMO. Even those that respect life in the sense that they don’t believe in ending it prematurely accept the idea that there are some situations that are beyond human control, and that maybe God/Mother Nature knows best in some circumstances.

That’s a good point, and we do tend to allow people to die sometimes. But I think given the amount of work done to subvert nature through medical treatment with kids and adults (and even people who are certain to die), you can’t entirely dismiss any spontaneous abortion as being natural and therefore not something to fight against.

I do see the point (as brought up earlier that there’s a difference between actively killing someone and just withholding potentially lifesaving treatment. I just don’t think that the moral difference between the two is all that huge. If I was able to save someone’s life and chose not to, I would consider myself a murderer. The problem with this issue is that it’s about research into fetus-saving treatments, rather than supporting the treatments themselves; still, I think given the amount of research done to try and improve our lives, there should be a significant proportion of pro-lifers who do consider this a priority and do work to support it in ways equivalent to their support for anti-abortion measures.

[Richard_Parker]

@Sarahfeena

The pro-life culture as a whole may have the same attitude towards it as I do, I don’t know, but I think it may be a good guess. Upthread, it was compared to people dying of old age, which is not a bad analogy, IMO. Even those that respect life in the sense that they don’t believe in ending it prematurely accept the idea that there are some situations that are beyond human control, and that maybe God/Mother Nature knows best in some circumstances.

That sometimes sick people are allowed to die does not suggest to me that, if I believed a fetus were a human life, I would not place any particular importance on the millions of them that die of natural causes.

I don’t think death is the best analogy. First, there are a lot of resources already being spent on prolonging natural life and fighting death. Second, as you concede, there is a general understanding that most old-age death is inevitable; I don’t see how that’s necessarily true of miscarriage. Third, and most importantly, old age death is seen as natural and OK in large part because people have lived long lives by that point and their quality of life is beginning to decline. This is obviously not true of a miscarried fetus.

[Sarahfeena]

@Richard Parker

That sometimes sick people are allowed to die does not suggest to me that, if I believed a fetus were a human life, I would not place any particular importance on the millions of them that die of natural causes.

I don’t think death is the best analogy. First, there are a lot of resources already being spent on prolonging natural life and fighting death.

True, but more resources are placed in some areas than others, for one thing, and there is a general acceptance that there are some situations that can’t be fixed. Old age is one of them. Certain types of miscarriages are another.

Second, as you concede, there is a general understanding that most old-age death is inevitable; I don’t see how that’s necessarily true of miscarriage.

It depends on the miscarriage. Many of them are embryos that didn’t form correctly and simply CAN’T be saved, due to the malformation. Let’s say, for example (and I’m making this up completely), that no organs developed due to some kind of chromosonal problem. I don’t really see how that can be “fixed.” The technology involved would be incredibly complex, and completely out of the range of what is even being THOUGHT of in medical science. Many, many miscarriages are due to these types of chromosomal problems. It’s not that the embryo will develop with problems…it’s that it’s not going to develop at all.

Third, and most importantly, old age death is seen as natural and OK in large part because people have lived long lives by that point and their quality of life is beginning to decline. This is obviously not true of a miscarried fetus.

But not in the case of a miscarried fetus that has no hope ever of living any life at all. I think we are so far off from genetic engineering in the womb, that it is not fair to hold this standard up to pro-lifers as something they should be working towards.

[Richard_Parker]

@Sarahfeena

True, but more resources are placed in some areas than others, for one thing, and there is a general acceptance that there are some situations that can’t be fixed. Old age is one of them. Certain types of miscarriages are another.

It depends on the miscarriage. Many of them are embryos that didn’t form correctly and simply CAN’T be saved, due to the malformation. Let’s say, for example (and I’m making this up completely), that no organs developed due to some kind of chromosonal problem. I don’t really see how that can be “fixed.” The technology involved would be incredibly complex, and completely out of the range of what is even being THOUGHT of in medical science. Many, many miscarriages are due to these types of chromosomal problems. It’s not that the embryo will develop with problems…it’s that it’s not going to develop at all.

But not in the case of a miscarried fetus that has no hope ever of living any life at all. I think we are so far off from genetic engineering in the womb, that it is not fair to hold this standard up to pro-lifers as something they should be working towards.

That’s all true, but there are also miscarriages that are medically preventable, as well as miscarriages that are preventable by violating women’s rights (such as legally requiring bedrest in certain circumstances). No one talks about negligent or reckless homicide in a case where a woman smokes during pregnancy causing a miscarriage; no one talks about talks about negligent or reckless homicide when a woman fails to properly manage her diabetes during pregnancy. And I think the reason that none of this is on the table is that it is so absurd on the face of it. But it is entailed by the belief that a fetus is a human with full rights.

[Sarahfeena]

@Richard Parker

That’s all true, but there are also miscarriages that are medically preventable, as well as miscarriages that are preventable by violating women’s rights (such as legally requiring bedrest in certain circumstances). No one talks about negligent or reckless homicide in a case where a woman smokes during pregnancy causing a miscarriage; no one talks about talks about negligent or reckless homicide when a woman fails to properly manage her diabetes during pregnancy. And I think the reason that none of this is on the table is that it is so absurd on the face of it. But it is entailed by the belief that a fetus is a human with full rights.

It certainly has become socially unacceptable to engage in behaviors that harm an in-utero baby, if not legally unacceptable.

It is hard for me to speak for all pro-lifers in this context, because I am not necessarily of the opinion that LEGALLY a fetus is a human with full rights. I believe that MORALLY it is, but that is a different thing. Of course, this shows that making a statement about what “pro-lifers” think is bound to be wrong, because there is no one “pro-life” opinion. Stratocaster’s opinion and mine are different, although perhaps as similar as any two pro-life opinions on this board. It irks to see anyone, pro-choice or pro-life, presuming to know what I think just because I use that label to describe myself. And it happens a lot.

[Contrapuntal]

@Sarahfeena

It is hard for me to speak for all pro-lifers in this context, because I am not necessarily of the opinion that LEGALLY a fetus is a human with full rights. I believe that MORALLY it is, but that is a different thing.

I think the real question is whether *actually *it is a human with being. All else flows from that. If actually it is a human being, then morally and legally it should be treated as one.

[Sarahfeena]

@Contrapuntal

I think the real question is whether *actually *it is a human with being. All else flows from that. If actually it is a human being, then morally and legally it should be treated as one.

Well, maybe that IS the question, but it is one, IMO, that cannot be answered. People will always come at it with a different set of premises. While it seems clear to me that it is, it seems equally obvious to others that it isn’t. Not sure how to solve that dilemma.

[Contrapuntal]

@Sarahfeena

Well, maybe that IS the question, but it is one, IMO, that cannot be answered. People will always come at it with a different set of premises. While it seems clear to me that it is, it seems equally obvious to others that it isn’t. Not sure how to solve that dilemma.

Me either. However, if someone asserts that it is, it would seem to me to be a consistent position to assert that it has full human rights. Are their any other classes of humans without full human rights?

I alluded earlier to using extreme measures to recover a dead body; witness the hikers recently who were lost in a blizzard. If a fetus has full human rights, how is the dead body which has been expelled from the mother any different? I understand that the practical concerns are tremendous. Should that matter?