Egg-as-Person Laws Deprive Pregnant Women of Their Personhood
By Lynn Paltrow, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW)
March 26, 2009 - 8:00am
Personhood USA apparently sees itself as the new, hipper, more effective incarnation of the anti-abortion movement. Personhood USA hopes that by establishing the "pre-born, as legal persons with protection under the law" it will end the "injustice of abortion." Its attempt to do this last November through a "personhood" ballot measure in Colorado's failed miserably. Nevertheless, Personhood USA, is committed to "working tirelessly to establish personhood in every State."
What supporters of this approach don't mention is that if the unborn have legal personhood rights, pregnant women won't. There is really no way around this. As National Advocates for Pregnant Women's video demonstrates, if successful, this strategy will mean that upon become pregnant, women will lose their civil and human rights.
As Angela Carder learned it is not just life vs. choice - but life vs. life. Angela Carder, 25 weeks pregnant, was critically ill. More than anything, she wanted to live. A court, however, ordered cesarean surgery based on claims of fetal rights. The surgery was performed over her objections as well as those of her physicians and family. Angela Carder died two days later - the cesarean surgery listed as a contributing factor. The fetus was born alive but died within two hours.
Personhood USA doesn't address how personhood laws will affect women like Ms. Carder and others who have no intention of ending a pregnancy. Perhaps this is why legislators in at least five states have introduced bills that carry their message and several more are working on ballot measures like the one in Colorado.
In fact, North Dakota's house recently passed a personhood bill that would require the state to interpret all of the state's laws to apply to "any organism with the genome of homo sapiens" including a fertilized egg. In addition to inviting such facetious Onion-like headlines as "North Dakota House Passes 'Homo' Rights Law, this bill creates the basis for policing all pregnant women.
Upon becoming pregnant, women would lose their right to medical privacy, since under North Dakota law doctors are required to report to child welfare authorities whenever they have reasonable cause to suspect that a child (an organism) is abused or neglected. Accordingly, if this bill passes, pregnant women in North Dakota who are obese, have diabetes, or smoke should probably report directly to child welfare authorities - or perhaps some new agency, such as the Department of Organism Protection.
Indeed, a recent horrifying incident in California could become commonplace in North Dakota. A pregnant woman in California experienced a miscarriage at one-month gestation. Her doctor advised her to preserve the embryonic tissue in the freezer until she and her husband decided whether to request genetic testing or to take the remains to a mortuary. When they decided against testing, they called a mortuary. They were asked for a death certificate and were directed to the County Coroner to obtain one. The Coroner instructed them to call the police. When they complied, the police heard the words "human remains" and responded by descending on their home, entering without a warrant, and searching for what they assumed was the evidence of a crime against a person.
While the California case reflects miscommunication, families that experience miscarriages would have to expect such intrusions in states that pass personhood laws. Similarly pregnant women who miss prenatal care appointments, don't take prenatal vitamins, or drink any amount of alcohol could be deemed abusive under criminal child [organism] abuse and endangerment laws. Personhood laws would also provide the basis for prosecuting women for murder, manslaughter, or negligent homicide if they suffered miscarriages or stillbirths.
In fact states with these laws would look a lot like South Carolina, the only state that has, by judicial fiat, effectively adopted a personhood law. More than 90 pregnant women and new mothers have been arrested there based on fetal personhood claims. Recently, a pregnant woman in South Carolina fell from a 5th floor window. The press reported this incident as a suicide attempt. She survived but suffered a stillbirth as a result of the fall. Last month she was arrested on charges of homicide by child abuse and is still being held without bail.
Personhood USA asserts that "each and every human being must be respected and protected from fertilization until natural death." Their legislation, however, would have the effect of excluding pregnant women from this protection. People committed to a true culture of life need to oppose their legislative proposals, supporting instead ones that include the interests of the women who give that life.
What these supporters of personhood for fertilized human ova do not take into consideration is that invitro implantation of fertilized ova consists of more than the one or two zygots that humans are equipped to gestate and give birth to. 4 to 8 ova are regularly implanted viability has been evidenced. So does that mean that the law will consider the ova fertilized in the petrie dish are humans? Does that mean that the physicians performing the invitro procedure are putting the "lives" of those "persons" in jeapordy by implanting them; or guilty of murder by performing the reduction?
Its pretty obvious that these people are completely ignorant of any science or advances in medicine and reproductive health!
Sad to see that some value an existing life less than a "future" life: Best case scanario: An ill woman with a risky pregnancy: Kill the "future" person in order to save the life of the existing person.
Am I the only man who thinks this way? I lost my Mother when I was 4. I reason that if my partner was at risk because of her pregnancy, I would:
Break any law of any State or Country in order to abort the life inside her that threatened her life. I have her. I do not want to lose her. I do not wish to cry every day imagining how my child would have to grow up without her Mother, as did I.
-John H. Sauls
Memphis, TN
The ND bill and defining single celled fertilized ova as legal 'persons' would not just affect pregnant women, it would affect all women, pregnant or not.
The ND bill is quite specific.....while women are entitled to life, we are not to be allowed liberty or the pursuit of happiness. We are, for all intents and purposes,chattel, a form of livestock. Uncompensated chattel but chattel nontheless.
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We women might as well just go to jail right now! With these kind of ridiculus laws.
Most people I know who are pregnant and want to be, think of their child first, and will sacrifice for them. Laws like this are an insult as well as insane!
Pregnancy is not the reason to refuse physical activity (certainly if there are no taboos, but the doctor can easily check up). And the most important thing - to improve the mood and feelings, to pay all attention to a growing up fruit... Now a new trend - health and well-being. Is not present to war! There is no hatred! The most important thing not to pay to these laws of special attention. And to become crazy it is possible...
I want to know when, if ever, we women will ever have rights, not equal, just rights? I am so mad about these rich white men making choices for us, I don't know what to do,except stay on line and sign petitions and call or write our legislators.I hope I live long enough to see this country wake up and realize we are not moving forward with all this CRAP! You are either part of the problem or part of the solution! I am hopeful after this election, but it is still an uphill fight for women everywhere! Thank God I am tough and commited to sign and write everytime I get a chance!!I may have to buy a new hard drive to keep up with all the petitions and responces,but I will, if I have to!Thanks to web sites like this one, more women can get involved with our own health rights.
Just consider, what have child-bearing-capable women EVER done to make the ruling class hate them so much? Why exactly do the ruling class feel that women have so little value? What have we done to them?
Oh, wait. We've cared for, nurtured, loved them. We've tried to help them become whole, complete, happy, healthy, humanity. Our bad. Maybe we should stand up and begin to push back when these "persons" come around and start trying to be "Lords of the Universe."
I'm way past child-bearing days, had three miscarriages, and 2 pregnancies which continued to premature birth. If I were young and got pregnant today, would I be worthy of a death sentence for my physical "fault" of not being a baby machine?
There are far more women than men in this world. If they want to fight us, let them meet us at the polls. Let them hear our voices and read our letters (and e-mails). This time, we won't just be fighting for our country, we'll be fighting for our lives and the lives of our female children. Perhaps even for the souls of our sons. It's time to stop this now.
The "Lords and Masters" need to be dragged kicking and screaming back to the earlier days of civilization, when both men and women understood that a living person is far more valuable than a might-be, and that living children are far better off if they have parents who understand that the lives of those children will be gravely impacted if the parents simply procreate without considering how to care for an extra mouth and nurture another life.
Giving personhood status to fertilized eggs is SCARY. As a woman, it really horifies me that the state will confer equal status to a living, breathing, thinking human being and a mass of genetic material. What is the basis for this? There are anomalies of reproduction such as a hydatidiform mole where a fertilized egg does not become a human being at all! Does that mean that hydatidiform moles and choriocarcinomas -- genetic homo sapiens having all the autosomal chromosomes as all of us but having defective sex chromosomes the same as me or my husband? Their definition of what life should be is too narrow and it really will compromise the rights of women who have the bodily mechanisms capable of supporting what they define as "human life".
I am more than a vessel, i am more than my uterus -- or my ovaries or my egg cells. My value as a person is not limited to the value of my reproductive organs.
This is CRAZY
This is what I dont get about many "pro-lifers" THEY ARE NUTS and Extreme!
sorry but if its going to be like this in america then I am starting to fear Being American....
For me this argument is always about the actual vs. potential. A woman is an ACTUAL person, an embryo has the POTENTIAL to BE a person. I can't believe this country would give more rights to the cells that have the potential to become a person than the person living who is an actual person! Let's make it illegal again for men to "spill their seed" and put them in jail for losing all the potential babies they could have made!
I'm very pro-life. But these laws are taking it a bit far. We allow murder in the name of self defense every day in this country, and I don't think a pregnant woman with a condition that threatens her life is any different.
Doesn't change the fact that by the time most women are having abortions their babies have heartbeats and rhudimentary nervous systems, though. You can't deny that a pregnancy is a life and that it is human. The point of the debate is only about which human's rights are more important to you... the woman's reproductive rights or the child's right to life.
I read this article and watched the video. While it points out that there can be administrative failures and that doctors don't always save their patients, I don't see anything that would undermine support for the Personhood initiative. To be honest, I hadn't heard of it before- but it sounds like a good idea. Thanks for the info.
it keeps women prisoners and not in control of their bodies. Why else would you support it you are a guy? It only increases your right as a patriarch.
Yup. I'm just an evil so and so who wants to protect unborn life. Vilify me if it makes you feel better 'Anonymous'.
Of course you are, Larry. Every unmarriagable loser right wing tool in the country will be supporting it.
So- I take it that you'll have no objection to my assuming that you're a strident man hater? Fair is fair.
I am not a man hater. I meant that men like to dominate people am I right? It is a natural instinct for many guys.
That does not mean it is bad. I just wish people- men and women who are pro-life would THINK about the person who has the children for a change. Think about the ENORMOUS responsibility it is to have a child. What happens to all these people wanting to save every embryo after the child is born? Where are they? They are not sitting up all night or changing diapers. They are not working two jobs and taking care of all these mouths to feed. What about the responsibility to the people who are already here. The earth is dying. Bringing more destructive humans here is not going to help. Please THINK. That is all.
First, you missed my point- which was that making sweeping generalizations and stereotyping people is something that both sides are capable of doing. My being an "unmarriagable loser right wing tool" is about as fair as suggesting that you're a strident man hating harpy.
Incidentally, is the irony of someone characterizing a person as 'unmarriageable' because they aren't in tune with feminist ideology lost on everyone? Aren't you beyond making value judgments based on marital prospects?
"First, you missed my point"
Hardly. Your point, or at least the one I was replying to was your expression of simpleminded support for a bill which specifically states that women, at least women of childbearing age, aren't entitled to either liberty or the pursuit of happiness although the disgusting right wing tools who wrote it do believe that we should be allowed to live. Sad little right wing tools aren't entitled to dictate which constitutional protections my daughters and granddaughters will be allowed. And you wonder why we call you folks the American Taliban.
your expression of simpleminded support... the disgusting right wing tools who wrote it..Sad little right wing tools...we call you folks the American Taliban.
Still missing the point- stereotyping and insulting just makes you look like you can't keep it together.
There are things that my side calls you.
I'm trying to be polite.
THAT is the point.
PS: Whoever gets the nom's to the court can decide whether the 'constitutional' right even exists. If that's us, then the constitution will read accordingly.
Your mindless support of a bill which denies women our basic constitutional rights and codifies our status as a form of chattel is far from 'polite'. THAT is the point.
Your mindless support of a bill which denies women our basic constitutional rights and codifies our status as a form of chattel is far from 'polite'. THAT is the point.
If I were doing what you suggest, that it would be reason for righteous anger, although that isn't the same as being impolite.
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I don't believe for an instant that the bill does what you suggest, and if you wanted to change my mind, then being impolite won't help.
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You're suggesting that the bill would make women property- which is demonstrably false. You're also misrepresnting the interpretation of the constitution on which your rights claim is based.
"THINK about the person who has the children for a change. Think about the ENORMOUS responsibility it is to have a child. What happens to all these people wanting to save every embryo after the child is born? Where are they? They are not sitting up all night or changing diapers. They are not working two jobs and taking care of all these mouths to feed."
Well, I'd check out 'feministsforlife (dot) org' if I were you. I think that they do a pretty decent job of addressing those concerns. For example, one thing that I know that they're interested in is trying to expand support for pregnant women and young mothers in college.
Also, I don't know why you're correlating 'having' a child with 'bearing' a child. If a woman doesn't want to raise her baby, then I don't know anyone who'd want to try to make her. There are actually quite a few groups (and even some legislation) trying to encourage adoption. Personally, I find it very sad that culturally many have deemed having an abortion to be preferable to bearing a child and giving it up- despite the fact that there are so many couples looking to adopt.
"What about the responsibility to the people who are already here. The earth is dying. Bringing more destructive humans here is not going to help. Please THINK. That is all."
Well, if your answer to environmental degradation is abortion, then I'm not sure if you're thinking. First of all, it isn't the most populace countries which have been responsible for the greatest harm to the environment. Secondly, insofar as rising population is a potential problem in countries with emerging economies, I'd recommend sex ed, contraception and elective sterilization.
Not only does "termination" end a human life- it is also the worst possible method of lowering birth rates: invasive, expensive, temporary, and more dangerous than the alternatives.
These egg as a person laws will never stand. We will fight with everything we have. I gave 85.00 (combined) to Planned Parenthood and Narl. There aren't the policing resources to moniter every woman's fertility, and we will make a Federal law to stop this nonsense. We will NOT be imprisoned, or reduced to baby machines. It ain't happening you anti choice nuts, so dream your little dream but we will fight this with everything we have. We MUST fight for FOCA because our constitution says that we have a right to a safe and legal abortion. These laws that keep on being created to undermine Roe V Wade shall not stand. For me, I don't have to worry. I am beyond the age of pregnancy, but for my nieces and girl children of the world, I will fight the American Taliban with every breath in my body. Please give generously to those organizations who are fighting for the same thing, so we never have to live a life of The Handmaiden's Tale, or Start a Revolt like the Passion of Molly T. Thanks my pro-choice sisters for everything that you do.
FOCA is already DOA.
What SCOTUS giveth, SCOTUS can taketh away.
We're hardly the Taliban.
A lot of us aren't even religious.
From the sound of it, you can defend RvW to your last breath, but my generation will still be at it long past then.
PS: Despite your calling my friends an I nuts (even though you sound like more of a radical ideologue than those I know), I don't bear you any ill will.
You're promoting what you think is right and just- I believe that. I believe that you're mistaken about what is right and just, but I don't question your intentions.
This whole issue could do with a lot less venom.
Happy hunting.
I just trust that my side will prevail eventually- even if it takes another 50 years to do it.
Pretty much, Jan.
The fact is that Team Zygote will lose the fight before it really gets started....
Women simply will not put up with it, and here's why:
The legislation threatens the autonomy of pro-life women to manage their pregnancies as they see fit. It is one thing to oblige shameless, godless, harlots to submit to public control of their pregnancies. It is quite another to legislate similar public intrusion into the pious lives of godly, submissive, quiverful women.
Think about it...Social Services questioning/investigating the prenatal decisions of Team Zygote?
Methinks Team Zygote should be careful what they wish for.
Okay. I'll be Team Zygote. I dub you, the "Double O's"- (007: license to kill and all that).
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I don't think that you know us as well as you think.
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Your "shameless, godless, harlots" remark shows that you buy into the myth that we give a damn what you do between the sheets. Act out the Kama Sutra if you want- we really and truly don't care.
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We see human life prior to birth as deserving of protection just as human life right after birth is. It's a matter of child welfare for us. Do you think that we object to child welfare agencies?
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I know you tend to fetishize all gynecological decisions as a totem of political and personal empowerment. Our side doesn't. Don't take my word for it- I'm a guy. Go find a female pro-lifer and ask her if she would object to laws which protect the welfare of life in utero. See if she thinks that women should be able to 'manage her pregnancy' in a way that endangers the life of her "zef". If she thought that she should be allowed to risk the unborn life that way, then she wouldn't have decided to be pro-life to begin with.
How can you not be concerned with the quality of life here now? This country US is guilty big time of helping to deatroy the planet! Look at mountain top coal mining-it is destroying people who are already here -lives. We have destroyed so many species of animals and plants it is not funny. I am sorry but I have lost my respect for many humans. I do not think that bringing anymore into this sickening mess is worth it. I will never change my thought on having a choice in what happens to me. I have listened to many pro-lifers and they only care about UNBORN people not the ones here already. That makes no sense to me. I think all you pro-lifes should be blaming medical science for abortion not women. In fact science is to blame because we live way past our expected ages. Would you be willing to stop taking medicine that extends your life to make room for all these unborns? I doubt it. The problem is that humans have broken and upset the balance of the natural world to the point that now abortion and contraceptives are the only last saving tools we have before we overpopulate ourselves to all our deaths. Do you understand? We are not living in a balanced world anymore. We have to do something.
Adoption is not an answer for many women. Being pregnant can be deadly for some, pregnancy is not something many can hide,it carries stigmas for women. Why are you not keeping your baby? what is wrong with you? etc etc.
These are not excuses. This is fact. Morning sickness,Hypertension,loss of sleep,heat , fatigue, mood swings. Been there done that. It is a strain on a womans body PERIOD. It is hard painful work giving birth. This IS a BIG DEAL. YOu act as if it is soooo easy. You need to THINK more!
You totally ignored my point that the planet wide environmental damage has been caused disproportionately by countries with more advanced economies and lower population density- Which shows that the problem is not one of population but of industry. Think about that.
"Pro-Lifers only carry about UNBORN life."
Well that is - not to put too fine a point on it - stupid.
Pro-lifers are no more or less involved in charitable activities than pro-choicers. The 'pro-life' cause is not tied to caring for people after birth- but SFW? Does one cause have to embrace every ill in the world to be justified?
That's absurd.
As far as losing respect for human life because of what's been done to the planet- that's just seriously messed up. What good would a pristine planet without humans be?
If you want "balance" then attack the way people consume resources. If you really think that population is a big part of the climate change problem (which it isn't- but w/e) Focusing on sex ed, contraception and promote voluntary sterilization.
"Abortion for the environment" - you are not thinking at all.
" Which shows that the problem is not one of population but of industry. Think about that."
Sorry but both reality and common sense render this conclusion unusually stupid, even for a right wing tool such as yourself.
You should try living in, say, India.
Oh and the problem with with what the right calls 'charitable' is that most of it involves forced prayer and being proselytized to by moral pygmies.
Okay, "left wing tool"...
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Why is India becoming such a problem? Because they are becoming a more industrialized nation. China and India are both increasing the amount of global damage because they are emerging economies. I already said that. If you're talking about local pollution which isn't dependent on the use of technology- that's been the case with any major population center for the last 2 millenia. Look at the cloaca in ancient Rome or the Thames in Victorian London. Suggesting that abortion is the solution to that perennial problem is beyond absurd.
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I'm not a proponent of the 'right wing' idea of charity rather than state action as a means of solving social ills- although I think the charities certainly help far more than they hurt.
Why is India becoming such a problem? Because they are becoming a more industrialized nation.
India has had problems with overpopulation for generations, these problems aren't recent nor are they limited to major cities. I suggested that you go live there in order to experience 1st hand the effects of overpopulation. However I can see that you're destined for a lifetime embarrassing yourself by endlessly and ignorantly bullshitting your betters on subjects you know nothing about.
Suggesting that abortion is the solution to that perennial problem is beyond absurd.
Your mother must be so embarrassed. Did your father constantly belittle her as you do the women here?
The solution to the problems of overpopulation is empowering women, improving our status with education and the ability to make a living for ourselves and our children and respecting our need for control over when and how many children we bear. Clearly abortion always has been and always will be part of that control as is making contraceptives available and affordable. You would have to be a right wing tool to read what I wrote as a suggestion that abortion is THE solution to overpopulation.
So, you've abandoned the environmental damage justification (better late than never) and now you're switching entirely to population control.
Alright then- how has abortion been doing in India? I mean, that's your example, and they've had legal abortion longer than we have. It must be helping, right? It couldn't possibly be the case that it didn't help and they're actually starting to limit abortion- or could it?
You know, they're still using infanticide in parts of India. That hasn't seemed to help any - but abortion hasn't either and you insist on that being part of the solution. Are there other parts of this solution that I should know about? Are any of them final?
"Embarrassing yourself by endlessly and ignorantly bullshitting", said the pot to the kettle.
"Did your father constantly belittle her as you do the women here?"
You're anonymous! How can I be belittling you due to sexism if you're anonymous?
BTW: My dad's a staunch pro-choicer, but my mom's a staunch pro-lifer, and I'm not buying that she's a misogynist.
I'm almost completely out of lag time, and when it's gone, I'm not planning on screwing around on this site anymore.
Reply if you want, but unless it's in the next ten minutes, I'll never see it.
Bye.
"So, you've abandoned the environmental damage justification (better late than never) and now you're switching entirely to population control.
LOL! No, I was talking about empowering women. The notion frightens you so much you cannot even type it
I wasn't asking about the political opinions of your parents nor was I talking about the way you've been speaking to me. I was talking about the way that you speak to the women here and trying to understand why you believe that your more or less constant stream of insults and flaccid attempts to dominate were even minimally acceptable or effective.
I'm not planning on screwing around on this site anymore.
You've been threatening to leave since your first posts and yet you have not.
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee on Monday endorsed a proposed Colorado Human Life Amendment that would define personhood as a fertilized egg.
I'm not sure what your point is about women who could die from going to term. I don't know anyone who doesn't consider "life of the mother" to be a legitimate 'hard case' exception, and I went to high school a guy who spent a few years in a Catholic seminary. Six months ago, the polls leading up to the election put the number for pro-life at 47%- but only 20% of those make no 'hard case' exceptions.
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As far as adoption not being a solution because it carries a stigma- well that is just a stupid cultural attitude. I'll be happy to work with you folk to change attitudes about teaching biology, sex ed. and evolution in public schools. Won't you guys help try to destigmatize adoption? There's already a good deal of that out there already.
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Anyway, I don't consider avoiding social stigma to be a legitimate justification for taking a human life.
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Granted- pregnancy and child birth are a strain on the mother. If she doesn't intend to keep the child, then I see her enduring that hardship as something which is unjust. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. It's not that I think that everything is peachy and dandy if she is pregnant but doesn't want to be.
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I know that there are some pro-choice dinosaurs out there who think that pro-lifers view the hardship as 'just deserts' for promiscuity, but it is only the pro-life dinosaurs and a handful of unreachable (ie, young earth creationists) that think like that now.
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My POV- and that of all the younger pro-lifers I know is that it is a question of weighing one injustice (the hardship of bearing a child when you don't want to) against another injustice (that of taking a human life). You guys are the ones who oversimplify- pretending that there's no injustice if you allow abortion (because you classify some humans as 'non-persons'). The postRvW generation of pro-lifers (born after Roe) generally acknowledge that there is going to be a level of injustice no matter what- but that doesn't negate a duty to minimize the injustice in our society by overturning Roe.
My POV- and that of all the younger pro-lifers I know is that it is a question of weighing one injustice (the hardship of bearing a child when you don't want to) against another injustice (that of taking a human life). You guys are the ones who oversimplify- pretending that there's no injustice if you allow abortion (because you classify some humans as 'non-persons').
The POV shared by pro-choicers is that it is absurd and disingenuous to call a not-yet-developed fetus "human life" in the same sense that a pregnant, grown woman is "human life," thus conferring an equivalency between them where the two have rights that have to be "balanced" and thus the woman exercising control over her own body constitutes an "injustice." When this equivalency is made to a fertilized egg, the ridiculousness becomes so self-evident that our biggest frustration is that such an argument often isn't laughed straight out of the building.
You seem a little more thoughtful than most trolls on this site, so I'll tell you this: If you study feminism, you'll see that one of the constant threads in the treatment of women throughout history is an often heavy-handed social regulation of their sexuality and ability to bear children. It's why women who have lots of sex are called "sluts," but men who do the same are called "studs." It's why the Catholic Church opposes contraception. It's why when Gardasil first came out, everyone was talking about how it would make young girls into sexually aggressive libertines, but now that there's talk of giving it to boys, everyone is now concerned about its price and efficacy (nary a word on turning "good boys" into promiscuous horndogs).
It's why abortion is a litmus-test issue for many voters, and not the innocents killed as "collateral damage" by fighter jets in Afghanistan or Predator drones in Pakistan. Some people may truly be concerned about the fetuses being aborted, but that's not why abortion is the big issue it is today. It's because the notion of a woman who controls her own sexuality, and any consequences of that sexuality---without being punished for it in some way---upends some of the most fundamental cultural assumptions held by a wide segment of society, going as far back to the story of Adam and Eve. It's the kind of thing that makes them think civilization will fall apart if it is not nipped in the bud. (Much like the conservative position on gay marriage.)
This is why the abortion controversy will eventually settle down in favor of pro-choicers, as it has already in a number of European nations---it comes down to equality between the sexes. While there's still a long way to go on that front, nothing's going to turn that clock back in the developed nations.
I would really recommend some study of feminism, especially if the word connotes "bra-burning" to you. There's a lot of mind-blowing analysis in there, and I think it would make clearer where a lot of us here are coming from.
The POV shared by pro-choicers is that it is absurd and disingenuous to call a not-yet-developed fetus "human life" in the same sense that a pregnant, grown woman is "human life," thus conferring an equivalency between them where the two have rights that have to be "balanced" and thus the woman exercising control over her own body constitutes an "injustice." When this equivalency is made to a fertilized egg, the ridiculousness becomes so self-evident that our biggest frustration is that such an argument often isn't laughed straight out of the building.
You've packed a bunch of assumptions in there. First of all, calling a fetus 'human life' is non-controversial. People on my side of the fence feel that those who deny that are making an argument whose "ridiculousness becomes so self-evident that our biggest frustration is that such an argument often isn't laughed straight out of the building."
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You seem a little more thoughtful than most trolls on this site
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Ha! What a dubious distinction. I was pointed to an RHRC story yesterday by someone who's sympathetic to FFL. I'm just messing around while my computer is busy with annoying maintenance stuff, but I'll be done with that before long, and I don't expect to 'troll' here in the future as nothing constructive has come of it. I will return the favor you extended to me and assume you are more thoughtful than many of the insult and mantra spouting commenters on this site. I'm hoping, therefore, that you'll at least grant me that (without adding your qualifiers) 'a fetuses is a human life' is ipso facto true.
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On the other hand, I'll acknowledge that you have a perfectly good point in objecting to calling a "fetus 'human life' in the same sense that a pregnant, grown woman is 'human life,' thus conferring an equivalency between them." The statement with qualifiers included is definitely problematic. The problem is that those are your qualifiers. It isn't our intent to 'confer an equivalency' between them with regard to their eligibility for rights. Mature humans (ie, adults) who are in good mental health are eligible for the full compliment of rights. Rights can be taken away from those with less reasoning capacity due to infirmity, and rights are (temporarily) withheld from those who are still yet to develop their capacity. We are seeking to draw either equivalency or at least comparability to infants. Infants have no autonomy whatsoever. That's why we find it so laughable for a pro-choicer to say that we want to give fetuses 'more rights than women'.
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Almost everyone agrees that infanticide is wrong because even if we deny them autonomy, we still give them the right not to be killed (or injured). Why is that? Is it because a newborn infant mind is capable of such complex reasoning? Of course not- they can't even focus their eyes on an object enough to pick it out from the incoherent blur in their visual field. At birth, their cognitive ability is LESS than that of a NON-PRIMATE. Therefore, if your standard for 'personhood' is cognitive ability, then a raccoon has more status than an infant. There may be a few animal rights extremists more concerned with raccoons than human infants, but there aren't many- and it isn't standard for proponents of legal abortion.
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Infants have an unassailable right to life because of the immanent (not merely potential) ability that any infant has merely by being healthy and human. (There are some people who worry about anencephalic fetuses and whatnot- but I find that to be merely sad.) A few people say that infants are 'potential persons', but most acknowledge that insofar as 'person' is used in a right conferring sense, they are people. If the immanent cognitive ability of an infant gives it that status when it's actual ability is below that of animals, then how is it that the actual cognitive ability of the unborn (which at some stages is admittedly nil) is the measure rather than the immanent cognitive ability up until natural birth?
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The pro-choice 'personhood' criterion is arbitrary and inconsistent. It is actually (despite all of the "anti-intellectual" slander thrown at my side) a remnant of bad science. It is an outgrowth of the old common law 'quickening' standard (which is practically prehistoric) and still bears influence from recapitulation theory. In fact, the only reason that the American law is based on trimesters (as opposed to the British law which is still derived from quickening) is because it was mathematically convenient. A consistent cognitive 'actuality' standard cannot account for the difference in treatment of "immature" humans and complex animals. A consistent cognitive 'immanence' standard is pro-life. The pro-choice ethic is a marriage of convenience between two inconsistent standards.
Speaking of assumptions....cognitive ability is not, in my experience, the basis for "personhood" among those of us who advocate reproductive freedom.
Thought you should know.
I went with what is usually considered to be the best case. I wasn't interested in knocking down a straw man.
Everyone who's ever made a decent argument to me about setting the 'personhood' threshold at some arbitrary point (in my experience it seems to be somewhere between the middle of the 2nd and 3rd trimesters) has based it on the fact that they judge the significant sort of mental activity to begin at around the point in time that they happen to chose.
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What would you prefer?
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Some sort of morphology standard?
Ability to elicit a pain response?
Viability?!
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If I had to pick one, I'd definitely go with brain development. It's really the only one that makes any sense as far as I can see.
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If you've got a better idea, I'd be glad to hear it.
Okay.
It's the most philosophically defensible.
Viability is actually a terrible argument for 'personhood', but it makes a decent basis for arguing that the choice of the woman be given preference- which is not the same at all (since you can give preference to the woman's rights even if the fetus is a person).
You end up in 'Violinist' territory that way.
I seem to have spelled 'imminent' wrong.
I mistakenly put 'immanent'- oh about 500 times in the post above :P
What imminent ability (e.g. what is the measure and when does it occur in the newborn) is supposedly giving the newborn legal rights? - what law is that?
I've never studied feminism- but I've been exposed to a good deal second hand. I don't call myself a 'feminist man', as most of my male friends do because I think that they're just glossing over issues they won't raise in mixed company. There is an implication (amongst my peer group) that not being a feminist is the same as being a sexist. I think that that is bunk. Over time, modern feminism amassed more and more ideology until it is now more or less it's own hybrid of philosophy and social theory- and objecting to it is possible without being sexist (IMO).
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I find that because it began as a social movement (as opposed to philosophy and social theory which begin in the academy) it is a bit nebulous. There's no authority or authorship or way to establish the orthodoxy of competing claims. A good example is the UC presentation on youtube about whether FFL is truly feminist or not. I wonder if this is a fundamental problem with the nature of modern feminism- that it tried to cross over from a legitimate social movement into some sort of interdisciplinary intellectual 'paradigm shift' that would fundamentally redefine how we see the world.
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I'm kind of philosophically conservative. Whitehead famously said that all of philosophy is merely "footnotes to Plato". I don't go that far, but I do feel that after the age of enlightenment, most advances in philosophy have been more technical than ground-breaking. I don't really believe that the thinking of liberal theoreticians circa 1950-1965 was wrong. I think that the problem was that it was only applied selectively. Freedom, equality, fairness and justice weren't in need of being redefined (IMO), they just needed to be applied to people other than just white males- not that anyone here will give a rat's hind end what I think about feminism, but that's my two cents.
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one of the constant threads in the treatment of women throughout history is an often heavy-handed social regulation of their sexuality and ability to bear children.It's why women who have lots of sex are called "sluts," but men who do the same are called "studs."
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I agree with all of that, but unlike some I don't think that it is merely the product of adopting 'patriarchical' cultural norms. I think that those norms themselves were merely the (probably inevitable) evolution of biologically determined behavior. I think it was an unavoidable step in our social evolution. Do you agree?
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It's why the Catholic Church opposes contraception.
I think that was one component- certainly. After all, women still can't become priests, and catholic men are still seem more susceptible to the 'Madonna whore' complex than average.
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The religious half of my family is Catholic. To be honest, I'm not sure that anyone is all the decisions resulting in Vitae. There's a group that still believes that Paul VI might have allowed contraception if he hadn't died when he did. It never made a much sense to me UNLESS you accepted that god didn't like anyone to interfere IN ANY WAY with reproduction because EVERYTHING about creating life (including semen- ergo no male masturbation) was his to control just as ending life is his to control (which is why capital punishment, euthanasia, and wars of aggression aren't allowed either).
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I began to think of myself as an agnostic around 9, so a lot of it seemed kooky to me anyway. Over time I came to suspect (and still do) that it was partly motivated by a desire to be sure that the Catholic church would always be the dominant form of Christianity. It was a kind of biological recruitment policy to deal with the spread of protestantism :)
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when Gardasil first came out, everyone was talking about how it would make young girls into sexually aggressive libertines,
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LOL. To be honest, I never thought that that was the real motivation for the conservatives. I thought that it just disturbed them to think about the POSSIBILITY of their daughters being sexually active. Wasn't there a scene in 'Rebel Without a Cause' where Natalie Wood's dad slaps her for wearing lipstick? The way I read that was that the dad got angry because he suddenly realized that his daughter wasn't a little girl anymore- and took it out on her.
It's why abortion is a litmus-test issue for many voters, and not the innocents killed as "collateral damage" by fighter jets in Afghanistan or Predator drones in Pakistan.
I'm going to have to disagree on this. Many American's do accept collateral damage as an unfortunate reality of war (although the 'consistent ethic of life' people in large part were more concerned about the war than abortion during the last election), BUT there is a very important difference: collateral damage is (by definition) death which was unintentional. Abortion isn't. When our soldiers were accused of intentionally killing civilians in Iraq, there was a much different reaction. I don't know how old you are, but my dad's told me that outside of the anti-war movement, the reactions were similar during Viet Nam.
It's because the notion of a woman who controls her own sexuality, and any consequences of that sexuality---without being punished for it in some way---upends some of the most fundamental cultural assumptions held by a wide segment of society, going as far back to the story of Adam and Eve. It's the kind of thing that makes them think civilization will fall apart if it is not nipped in the bud.
Do you really think that? That seems awfully depressing. I can't see into other people's hearts or anything, but unless I'm a really bad judge of character I honestly don't think that people think that way anymore.
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the conservative position on gay marriage.
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I don't think that that is about sex. I think that it is about religious faith. I don't really understand religious faith very well. It might help me get along better with some of my family if I did, but it seems too much like willing yourself to overcome your rationality.
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Anyway, I found something that represents my view on that issue...
Marriage and the State
...this way polygamists can get in on the act too if they like :)
This is why the abortion controversy will eventually settle down in favor of pro-choicers, as it has already in a number of European nations---it comes down to equality between the sexes. While there's still a long way to go on that front, nothing's going to turn that clock back in the developed nations.
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I worry that that may be true. A friend of mine who's more pro-life than I am (and who's 24) told me at the end of last year that she didn't think that she'd live to see the day when the laws got changed back. That's a big part of why I decided to 'start doing something about it'.
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Whether it is biological or cultural, evolution doesn't favor what is better- only what offers a material advantage. I think that the pro-choice position is arbitrary and unjust, but that may not keep it from winning the day.
You've packed a bunch of assumptions in there. First of all, calling a fetus 'human life' is non-controversial. People on my side of the fence feel that those who deny that are making an argument whose "ridiculousness becomes so self-evident that our biggest frustration is that such an argument often isn't laughed straight out of the building."
The thing is, that's not an argument about the issue at hand. It's just a conflation that takes advantage of a lack of appropriate vocabulary to discuss the subject. It's akin to arguing, "This is a FREE country, so why should I have to pay for land to build my house on?"
Consider this: A cancerous tumor is also "human life." It's human (as in, has Homo sapiens DNA), and it's alive (as in, not dead). So why is killing that "human life" okay, but killing the "human life" that is a zygote not so? Can you see that there's more to the argument than simplistically saying, "That's human life, and killing human life is MURDER" ?
That's why we find it so laughable for a pro-choicer to say that we want to give fetuses 'more rights than women'.
By your argument, a fetus has one right that neither you, nor I, nor a pregnant woman would ever be permitted: the right to sustain oneself directly from the body of another person, without that person's consent, for a period of nine months.
Over time, modern feminism amassed more and more ideology until it is now more or less it's own hybrid of philosophy and social theory- and objecting to it is possible without being sexist (IMO).
Feminism has grown into a large and complex academic edifice, to be sure, but at the end of the day it still comes down to addressing very real inequalities that women in this country and others suffer day-to-day. If you're not at least aware of what women are fighting for, then you're going to have a very hard time differentiating your voice from the usual right-wing peanut gallery in discussions like these.
One particular point you would learn is that being sexist, or even racist, is a much more banal thing than you think. It's not about being Archie Bunker, or even being kinda-sorta like Archie Bunker. It's that our whole society has a whole freaking lot of patterns that are fundamentally sexist, or racist, or worse, and most people just go along with that without realizing it (let alone having any sort of desire to be sexist/racist; often quite the contrary). People can be sexist/racist, but that's not nearly as significant as the fact that the entire culture is sexist/racist, and it will continue to be so as long as people do not make themselves aware of that.
I agree with all of that, but unlike some I don't think that it is merely the product of adopting 'patriarchical' cultural norms. I think that those norms themselves were merely the (probably inevitable) evolution of biologically determined behavior. I think it was an unavoidable step in our social evolution. Do you agree?
Hell no. Ask an anthropologist about this sometime, and read up on ethnocentrism. Just because Western culture developed one way, doesn't mean that all other cultures will necessarily develop the same way. There's plenty of literature about sex-egalitarian societies.
It never made a much sense to me UNLESS you accepted that god didn't like anyone to interfere IN ANY WAY with reproduction because EVERYTHING about creating life (including semen- ergo no male masturbation) was his to control just as ending life is his to control (which is why capital punishment, euthanasia, and wars of aggression aren't allowed either).
I believe that is accurate. And yet no Catholic prelate has ever suggested witholding communion to political figures who vote in favor of those three policies. Intersect the Church's consistent pro-life slant with the Puritanism/slut-shaming of American culture, and you get the modern pro-life movement.
I began to think of myself as an agnostic around 9, so a lot of it seemed kooky to me anyway. Over time I came to suspect (and still do) that it was partly motivated by a desire to be sure that the Catholic church would always be the dominant form of Christianity. It was a kind of biological recruitment policy to deal with the spread of protestantism :)
Glad to see you're not tied to that yoke. It all goes back to the "be fruitful and multiply" directive from God, which the Church has pushed in a heavy-handed way.
LOL. To be honest, I never thought that that was the real motivation for the conservatives. I thought that it just disturbed them to think about the POSSIBILITY of their daughters being sexually active.
It was a very real possibility for social conservatives. No one ever came out and said it directly, but the view was that the risk of contracting HPV and then cervical cancer served as a disincentive to engage in sex. Effectively, these people wanted to hang on to THE RISK OF CANCER to keep THEIR OWN YOUNG DAUGHTERS in check. That's how sick this whole controlling-women thing is.
I'm going to have to disagree on this. Many American's do accept collateral damage as an unfortunate reality of war (although the 'consistent ethic of life' people in large part were more concerned about the war than abortion during the last election), BUT there is a very important difference: collateral damage is (by definition) death which was unintentional. Abortion isn't.
The reason why those deaths are not a concern to you nor most other people is because they occur far, far away, to people you cannot relate to, and you learn of them only in the most abstract terms (a soundbite on the evening news, a blurb on page A10). If you were at your daughter's wedding reception, and foreign fighter jets dropped 500-pound bombs on the venue because they thought it was a "terrorist gathering," and neither your head of state nor the foreign military ever apologized or even acknowledged error, let alone allowed any sort of justice to be obtained through the legal system---you would be a lot less accepting of that "unfortunate reality of war." Your daughter, her new husband, most of your immediate and extended family---dead. Maybe even a few shrapnel pieces in your head. Would you suppose some politicians half a world away should be barred from Communion for that?
Do you really think that? That seems awfully depressing. I can't see into other people's hearts or anything, but unless I'm a really bad judge of character I honestly don't think that people think that way anymore.
That's why I'm suggesting the study of feminism. A lot of what the pro-life movement does makes little sense unless you analyze it in that light. (They want to get rid of abortions, but then, they also want to make contraception harder to obtain? It's self-contradictory; it's illogical, unless there's something else going on.)
I don't think that that is about sex. I think that it is about religious faith. I don't really understand religious faith very well. It might help me get along better with some of my family if I did, but it seems too much like willing yourself to overcome your rationality.
In all the same-sex marriage debates, no one has ever proposed requiring religious followers to accept these unions, or even LGBT folks in general---religious faith is not at issue. When conservatives argue against it, it's all about the effect they see it having on society ("marriage will become meaningless, divorce rates and promiscuity will skyrocket, broken families everywhere," etc. etc.).
I worry that that may be true. A friend of mine who's more pro-life than I am (and who's 24) told me at the end of last year that she didn't think that she'd live to see the day when the laws got changed back. That's a big part of why I decided to 'start doing something about it'.
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Whether it is biological or cultural, evolution doesn't favor what is better- only what offers a material advantage. I think that the pro-choice position is arbitrary and unjust, but that may not keep it from winning the day.
Abortion rights will become secure and uncontroversial in the future, but that says nothing about what the abortion rate will be then. You had better believe that everyone on this site will agree that it is better for a woman to avoid the need for an abortion, be it through contraception or accurate knowledge about her own sexuality. That's why we call ourselves "pro-choice" instead of "pro-abortion."
If you want to "start doing something about it," without contributing to the peanut gallery that is ultimately going to lose this debate, then fight for comprehensive sex education and improved contraceptive access. Convince those in the pro-life movement that if they're really serious about reducing/eliminating abortions, they'll have to learn to let go [of the whole woman-controlling schtick] and support measures that have been proven to be effective.
In other words, quit seeking to get rid of abortions by punishing women, and start seeking to get rid of them by empowering women. It might not be as emotionally satisfying, it might not be as much fun not to lob verbal bombs at the other side---but what it will be, is effective. The pro-life movement long ago decided that they would not fight the problem effectively; what will you decide?
you are so right about sexism and racism. We can not ignore these two issues and "hope" that they will go away. They unfortunately are alive and well after all these years.
You've packed a bunch of assumptions in there. First of
all, calling a fetus 'human life' is non-controversial. People on my
side of the fence feel that those who deny that are making an argument
whose "ridiculousness becomes so self-evident that our biggest
frustration is that such an argument often isn't laughed straight out
of the building."The thing is, that's not an argument about the issue at hand. It's
just a conflation that takes advantage of a lack of appropriate
vocabulary to discuss the subject. It's akin to arguing, "This is a
FREE country, so why should I have to pay for land to build my house
on?"Consider this: A cancerous tumor is also "human life." It's human (as in, has Homo sapiens
DNA), and it's alive (as in, not dead). So why is killing that "human
life" okay, but killing the "human life" that is a zygote not so? Can
you see that there's more to the argument than simplistically saying,
"That's human life, and killing human life is MURDER" ?
I don't know how to account for this unless you only read the very beginning of what I wrote. You've knocked down a straw man by acting as if my first premise was my entire argument. Your cancer counter-example only applies if I want 'human life' to be sufficient for the right to life, but I was arguing for it to be a necessary condition in addition to imminence of cognitive ability.
Seriously- did you just not read it?
Oh heckfire! Maybe it's my fault. I just realized that I typed "immanent" instead of "imminent". Maybe it will make sense now.
By your argument, a fetus has one right that neither you, nor I, nor a pregnant woman would ever be permitted: the right to sustain oneself directly from the body of another person, without that person's consent, for a period of nine months.
I don't see why you're making assumptions about what rights I would permit to whom. Maybe you should ask me first.
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The reason why those deaths are not a concern to you nor
most other people is because they occur far, far away, to people you
cannot relate to
Now you're making assumptions about why things concern me. I don't think that you'd like people making all kinds of assumptions about your value system. That's kind of inconsiderate- or at least uncharitable.
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One particular point you would learn is that being sexist, or even
racist, is a much more banal thing than you think. It's not about being
Archie Bunker, or even being kinda-sorta like Archie Bunker.
Who is Archie Bunker?
you're going to have a very hard time differentiating your voice from the usual right-wing peanut gallery in discussions like these.
Well, my machine's almost finished doing with maintenace and backup anyway. When it's done I can get back to business as usual and I don't think that I'll be goofing off here.
You said a bunch of other stuff that I don't think that I have time to respond to- there's a comment from nicci that I wanted to answer, and I think that'll use up the rest of the time.
You know, I disagree with a lot of what you say, but I think that what you say is interesting, and the back and forth is fun.
Here's what I decided to do: Since I don't know who you are and I'm not planning on coming back, if you'd like to correspond about... society and politics and gender etc.- just click on my name and then you can use that to send an email to me.
Bye.




















