Obama, “feeling blue,” FOCA, and gotcha
Last week Barack Obama raised eyebrows on all sides by tampering with a foundational principle of legalized abortion, the Supreme Court’s purposefully vague and all-encompassing “health” exception.
As defined in Roe v Wade’s companion case Doe v Bolton, it is: “all factors – physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age – relevant to the well being of the patient” (with Chief Justice Warren Burger accentuating, “the term health in its broadest medical context.”)
The abortion industry has used this definition for 35 years to commit abortion throughout all 9 months of pregnancy for whatever reason, because whatever reason will fit into that “health” definition. Pro-aborts also try to add a “health exception” to any anti-abortion legislation presented so as to gut it.
Then along came Obama on July 1, the self-described constitutional expert. According to the Associated Press…
…. Obama says “mental distress” should not qualify as a health exception for late term-abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.
In an interview this week with Relevant, a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”
Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”
Pro-aborts are fuming in part because they say Obama played right into pro-life hands, agreeing with what we’ve been saying all along. According to Washington Post writer Marie Cocco on the the liberal Alternet:
One thing is certain: Obama has backhandedly given credibility to the right-wing narrative that women who have abortions – even those who go through the physically and mentally wrenching experience of a late-term abortion – are frivolous and selfish creatures who might perhaps undergo this ordeal because they are “feeling blue.”
Since [his Relevant statement] contradict[ed] the landmark Roe v. Wade decision and subsequent court rulings that have upheld mental health exceptions to abortion bans, the campaign had to flip back from the flop.
Obama spoke to reporters on his campaign plane and gave a definition of a mental health exception that goes like this: “It can be defined by serious, clinical mental health diseases. It is not just a matter of feeling blue.” He noted that neither abortion-rights supporters nor the courts have ever interpreted a mental health exception that way. [JLS note: Bull, see ABC snip below]
They have not. Because this sort of language – that women might have late-term abortions just because they feel “blue” – is that of the anti-abortion lobby. As part of its campaign to ban the procedure, anti-abortion activists have consistently depicted women who have abortions as doing so for convenience, to get themselves out of an uncomfortable jam of their own making….
Obama has another problem, his 2007 cosponsorship of the Freedom of Choice Act, and his promise in 2007 at a Planned Parenthood event: “The first thing I’d do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act.” Skip to 1:30 in this scary 2-minute montage for the quote:
According to Jan Crawford Greenburg at the ABC Legalities blog:
Here’s… why Obama’s remarks are so startling….
This standard has long been understood to require less than “serious clinical mental health disease.” Women today don’t have to show they are suffering from a “serious clinical mental health disease” or “mental illness” before getting an abortion post-viability, as Obama now says is appropriate.
And for 35 years – since Roe v. Wade – they’ve never had to show that.
So Obama, it seems to me, still is backing away from what the law says – and backing away from a proposed federal law (of which he is a co-sponsor) that envisions a much broader definition of mental health than the one he laid out this week.
A reporter (or McCain – c’mon, where are you?!) needs to ask Obama if he’s indeed backing away from his go-hung support of FOCA. Or will he now insist it contain a tightly defined health exception? If Obama flips on FOCA, he’s in trouble. If he refuses to support a narrow health definition, he reveals he last week engaged in vacuous pander, which is actually what he did.
[HT for ABC Legalities quote: Newsbusters; top photo courtesy of The Daily Mail]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
If I understand your post correctly, your criticising Obama for moving towards your postion.
No, Hal, for pandering.
I can see how you would read it that way, Hal.
My bent is that Jill is in effect saying “I told you so.”
Here’s a man who inspires the masses, so they say, by telling them what they want to hear. In this case it’s Big Abortion and all those who worship it.
Now Mr. We-Need-a-Change has somewhat shifted and there are those who are none too happy about that.
“If Obama flips on FOCA, he’s in trouble.”
Maybe Jill should have continued the sentence “he’s in trouble…with the Abortion lobby.” You know, the folks who paid pretty pennies to his campaign.”
If this plays out like the other “misunderstandings” that Brother Change has had to clarify, he’ll go back to the media and announce that he was misunderstood, how could anyone twist his harmless statements, and pacify his backers with what they want to hear. Again.
I’m not sure “the Abortion lobby” cares that much. Obama’s position is not radically different than theirs. Roe v. Wade remaining the law is probably more important to them then the exact reading of that decision for late-term abortions.
McCain is likely MIA on this topic because he knows he
can be nailed on his own serious inconsistencies when
he says he is pro-life but he supports embryonic stem
cell research and takes big $$ from death peddler,
George Soros.
Open Society/Project on Death in America http://www.lifetree.org/resources/sorosrwjfnexus.pdf)
I don’t see any inconsistency in supporting embryonic stem bell research and being pro-life. I do, and am. I like McCain.
*stem cell research, I meant. I don’t like him taking money from Soros, though.
X,
Are you only against abortions after a certain point? How do you reconcile not only using the unborn, but harvesting and potentially marketing them? Why is this okay, but abortion isn’t? I don’t see a difference, except that one is for gain.
I don’t see any inconsistency in supporting embryonic stem bell research and being pro-life. I do, and am. I like McCain.
Posted by: xalisae at July 10, 2008 2:30 PM
X:you cannot be prolife and in the same breath support ESC.
You might find this interesting to read:
http://www.stemcellresearchcures.com/pdfs/SacrificedWithoutConsentJustEnglish.pdf
Ugh. This is the contraception fight all over again. Second verse, same as the first. Embryos which haven’t been and never will be implanted are not separate lives, just as a sperm itself is not a separate life, nor is an egg alone. You can sit there mixing up sperm and eggs all day, but without a uterus, they’ll never be anything but early-stage embryos which quickly divide themselves away into oblivion.
X – funny, you and my dad are on EXACTLY the same page on this (and being a military guy, he is ALL about John McCain as well)…
Isn’t it great when people you don’t even know tell you that you “can’t” be something because of your belief about something specific?
I bet you never knew you couldn’t be pro life until today! Just like I never knew I “screamed like a banshee” whenever people called animal rights activists who threaten people and damage property nut cases. I guess it’s true you learn something every day.
Anyway – since we’re on the topic of McCain and his more “liberal” policies – what do you think about the rape/incest/health exceptions for abortion that he supports? That honestly fits in with my beliefs more than Obama’s policy does – but McCain’s opinions that are pro war and anti civil union make it hard for me to consider voting for him. Not that it’ll matter in Massachusetts anyway, but still. I’m the tie breaker in my family – Dad is hardcore republican, Mom is hardcore dem, and my sister is even more left than my mom. Makes for interesting dinner table chats.
Emphasis on “themselves”. The need for outside intervention required to end a life which has already begun to be nourished from outside sources (be it the fetus taking nutrients from its mother, or a child eating an apple) is one place I draw my line.
McCain on condoms, and other related topics:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-nickolas/another-gaffe-mccain-unsu_b_111971.html
I dunno SOMG, thats a little too opiniony/slanted for me to take very seriously.
Do you have any articles with those quotes thats not trying so hard to make him look like a senile idiot? I disagree with him on plenty of things, but I think that particular piece is a little unfair.
Ugh. This is the contraception fight all over again. Second verse, same as the first. Embryos which haven’t been and never will be implanted are not separate lives, just as a sperm itself is not a separate life, nor is an egg alone. You can sit there mixing up sperm and eggs all day, but without a uterus, they’ll never be anything but early-stage embryos which quickly divide themselves away into oblivion.
Posted by: xalisae at July 10, 2008 3:40 PM
First of all you are equating sperm and eggs with embryos. There is no comparison. Sperm and egg are not by themselves a human being – they have the dna of the father, mother respectively. The embryo – a very early unborn child is a new unique human being with dna completely different from that of it’s parents.
The embryo in a petri dish is a human being but it won’t continue to develop because it will be denied that which is necessary for it’s continued growth – a uterus. This does not make it any less human. It is still the death of a human being – a very small unborn child.
What is it about the embryo that makes it human in the uterus, but not so in the petri dish?
X,
The minute the sperm and egg connect (there is a scientific name for it, but I sure as heck don’t know it) life begins. Something new is created. The egg combined with the sperm begins to divide in a way that is only accomplished when the sperm and egg connect. This is the beginning of life. Really. That’s the science of it.
Keeping it from implanting is interrupting it’s normal course of developing, just as ripping it from the uterus 6 weeks later is. You are also interrupting it’s development.
The logic you are using, is the same logic that pro choicers use…it’s not a person until…
Human fertilization is the union of a human egg and sperm, usually occurring in the ampulla of the fallopian tube. It is also the initiation of prenatal development.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_fertilization
Honestly X,
This:
Is when Life Begins…
cool pic, MK!
MK:
You said “The minute the sperm and egg connect”.
Let me take this rare opportunity to coorect you:
“The nano-second (about the time it takes for an eye to twinkle or Brack Obama to change his tune) the sperm and egg connect.”
Abortion laws that do not allow health exceptions refuse to acknowledge that the WOMAN is a person.
mk–The word you’re looking for is “fertilization.” However, you are mistaken in that fertilization can be scientifically proven to be the beginning of life. In order for science to prove that something is or isn’t a thing, there has to be a solid definition of that thing. The definition of “life” and “living being” in the sciences includes factors like “react” and “reproduce.” A fertilized ovum (zygote) can only react chemically, the way a nerve cell or skin cell does.
Science has the advantage in that some things are factual and definite, but this is not one of them. Whether or not fertilization is the beginning of human life is a matter of debate within the scientific community. There is no consensus.
“Initiation of prenatal development” doesn’t mean “beginning of life.” It just means “initiation of prenatal development.”
What is it about the embryo that makes it human in the uterus, but not so in the petri dish?
Posted by: Patricia at July 10, 2008 4:46 PM
Answer: The intent of God’s will makes it human no matter what. Man’s tampering with that zygote in any way has perverted that intent and is just another abortion or murder of a child be it at a physically smaller level.
Abortion: Hebrew root word Nephilim, Strong’s Concordance:
5307
naphal, naw-fal; a prim. root; to fall, in a great variety of applications (intr.or caus., lit. or fig.): — be accepted, cast (down, self, [lots], out), cease, die, divide (by lot), (let) fail, (cause to, let, make, ready to) fall (away, down, -en, -ing), fell (-ing), fugitive, have [inheritance], inferior, be judged [by mistake for 6419], lay (along), (cause to) lie down, light (down), be (x hast) lost, lying, overthrow, overwhelm, perish, present (-ed, -ing), (make to) rot, slay, smite out, x surely, throw down.
5308
nephal (Chald.), nef-al ; corresp. to 5307: – fall (down), have occasion.
5309
nephel, neh’-fel; or
nephel, nay’-fel; from 5307;
something fallen, i.e. an abortion: — untimely birth
An abortion is an untimely birth wrought at the hand of a man or woman and in direct rebellion to the direct expression of God’s will and intent.
LOL Well HisMan maybe we should add that to the questionnaire: “Are you choosing abortion in order to rebel against something? If yes, what?”
DRF,
Actually the term you’re looking for is “amphimixis”.
This is often refered to as the “moment of conception” and occurs when the male and female pronuclei fuse. Once fusion is complete there are no longer two seperate cells, but one zygote.
There is no great scientific debate surrounding this process.
SoMG:
LAYW:
No questionnaire needed. God already knows.
MK, is that a picture of HUMAN egg and sperm? The authors deliberately interrupted a fertilization in progress to take it. If it’s human, wouldn’t that be ending a human life at its very beginning? Murder? A snuff pic? No wonder Patricia thinks it’s cool.
“Initiation of prenatal development” doesn’t mean “beginning of life.” It just means “initiation of prenatal development.”
Posted by: DRF at July 10, 2008 7:15 PM
The energy and brainpower that it must have taken to develop this rationalization boogles my mind.
From Wikipedia:Prenatal development is the process in which an embryo or fetus (or foetus) gestates during pregnancy, from fertilization until birth.
Science has the advantage in that some things are factual and definite, but this is not one of them. Whether or not fertilization is the beginning of human life is a matter of debate within the scientific community. There is no consensus.
This statement is blatantly false. In fact most textbooks agree that the beginning of life begins at conception:
Here’s just a sampling:
What Embryology and Science textbooks say about the Beginning of Human Beings
“Just the Facts, Ma’am”: It’s too bad Sergeant Friday isn’t around to help us with the embryonic stem cell debate.
by Clark Forsythe, AUL
Much of the public promotion for human embryonic research rests on the assumption that the human embryo is not a human being.
As a May 2004 letter to USA Today put it (inaccurately), “a gamete about the size of a period at the end of a sentence” is not a human being. [True, a gamete (sex cell, egg or sperm) is not a human being. But the target of embryo research is not gametes; it’s embryos.]
Here’s a reveiw of what contemporary embryology and biology texts say about the beginning of human beings.
William Larsen in his 1993 text, Human Embryology, states: “the nuclei of the male and female gametes unite, resulting in the formation of a zygote containing a single diploid [having the full complement of chromosomes] nucleus. Embryonic development is considered to begin at this point.” Larsen also states that ” the moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.”
Bruce Carlson in his 1994 text, Human Embryology and Developmental Biology, states that “through the mingling of maternal and paternal chromosomes, the zygote is a genetically unique product of chromosomal reassortment.” Carlson states that when “the maternal and paternal chromosomes…become organized around the mitotic spindle in preparation for an ordinary mitotic division…the process of fertilization can be said to be complete and the fertilized egg is called a zygote.”
The one-celled human zygote is properly called an embryo.
What is the nature of this embryo?
O’Rahilly & Muller in their 1994 text, Human Embryology & Teratology, state: “the zygote…is a unicellular embryo and a highly specialized cell.” They explain that “[a]lthough life is a continous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.”
They add: “this remains true even though the embryonic genome is not actually activated until 4-8 cells are present, at about 2-3 days.” Furthermore, “[t]he embryonic genome is formed” with the union of the male and female pronuclei, and, at that point, “the embryo now exists as a genetic unity.”
So, this one-celled embryo is a “genetically distinct human organism” which “exists as a genetic unity”. O’Rahilly & Muller quote from a pioneering work in human embryology by Heuser & Streeter: “[I]t is to be remembered that at all stages the embryo is a living organism, that is, it is a going concern with adequate mechanisms for its maintenance as of that time.”
The human zygote or embryo has undoubted genetic individuality.
The developing embryo’s sex and its separate and individual genetic identity are determined at fertilization.
As Pauerstein states in his 1987 text on Obstetrics, “[e]ach member of a species begins with fertilization — the successful merging of two different pools of genetic information to form a new individual.”
Levine & Suzuki concur in their 1993 text, The Secret of Life: “For better or for worse, every individual’s genetic endowment is determined at the moment of conception. Sperm and egg each carry a random selection of parental genes. Their fusion creates a genetically unique individual.”
Another name for organism is being. It is a human being at the embryonic stage.
As the 1995 Ramsey Colloquium on Embryo Research concluded: “The embryo is a being: that is to say, it is an integral whole with actual existence. The being is human. It will not articulate itself into some other kind of animal. If is is objected that, at five or fifteen days, the embryo does not look like a human being, it must be pointed out that this is precisely what a human being looks like — and what each of us looked like — at five or fifteen days of development.”
These are the concepts and language that human embryologists have used in the 20th century. The size of the human organism, and the uses to which it can be put, don’t change the scientific reality.
[Clark Forsythe, Dir, AUL Project in Law and Bioethics]
However, you are mistaken in that fertilization can be scientifically proven to be the beginning of life.
Wrong again. In fact scientists routinely study the beginning of new life and the fertilization process as this article attests.They know exactly when it starts, because they are attempting to understand all the mechanisms involved and why when seemingly healthy sperm and egg meet a new life doesn’t happen. For example:
‘Start of Life’ Gene Discovered
Scientists have found the gene responsible for controlling a first key step in the creation of new life; the gene helps sperm combine DNA with the egg’s DNA.
The HIRA gene is involved in the events necessary for the fertilisation that take place once a sperm enters an egg.
Faults in this gene might explain why some couples struggle to get pregnant despite having healthy sperm, say the researchers from the UK and France.
It may be worth screening infertile couples to see if they have a faulty version of HIRA, experts suggested.
Although their work in Nature is based on fruit flies, the same genetic processes are present in humans. A slight mutation in the HIRA gene means that life does not even get started Lead researcher Dr Tim Karr [University of Bath] said: “All sexually reproducing animals do the same kind of DNA ‘dance’ when the DNA from the mother’s egg cell and the father’s sperm cell meet for the first time.” When the sperm enters the egg, its DNA has to undergo a complete transformation so that it can properly join with the female DNA to form a genetically complete new life.
Sperm makes this change by swapping the type of ‘packing material’, known as histone proteins, it contains. The result is called the male pronucleus, which can then combine with the female pronucleus. The process is controlled by the HIRA gene. There may be a rationale for screening infertile couples for mutations in HIRA.
Dr Karr, who worked alongside French scientists from Centre de G?n?tiqiue Mol?culaire et Cellulaire, said: “A single gene, HIRA, looks after this re-packaging process, making it fundamental for those first 15 minutes in the regeneration of a new life. This is one of the most crucial processes that takes place in sexually reproducing animals. A slight mutation in the HIRA gene means that life does not even get started.”
To understand the process better, the researchers studied a type of mutant female fruit fly, known to biologists as a sesame mutant, which they know produces eggs that do not allow a proper male pronucleus to form.
They found that HIRA is the gene responsible for chaperoning the assembly of the sperm pronucleus and if it is damaged in any way in the egg then fertilisation fails.
The research was funded by a Wolfson Royal Society Merit Award, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and the French Ministry of Research.
Wolf Reik of the Babaraham Institute said: “This is a really exciting discovery. This could indeed be an explanation for some types of infertility in humans; if there were females that carried this mutation, they would not be able to conceive normally. There may be a rationale for screening infertile couples for mutations in HIRA in order to provide best counselling on infertility.” [BBC, Dr Tim Karr, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4377898.stm; N Valko RN, 28Oct05]
This is often refered to as the “moment of conception” and occurs when the male and female pronuclei fuse. Once fusion is complete there are no longer two seperate cells, but one zygote.
There is no great scientific debate surrounding this process.
Posted by: Lauren at July 10, 2008 7:53 PM
yes lauren! And you will see what happens in my post above (or maybe doesn’t happen!).
Lauren @ 7:53 PM
Right – and there are numerous biochemical reactions which are triggered, for example the zona pellucida hardens, multiple proteins are created etc.
xalisae – put another way – if you’re attempting to get human embyronic stem cells, you have to get them from human embryos – hence human beings.
FYI – I am against both ESCR & IVF for this reason.
HisMan, you wrote: “The nano-second [is] about the time it takes for an eye to twinkle or Brack Obama to change his tune”
First of all, he doesn’t so much change his tune as add details and describe limitations and exceptions to things he’s said before. Elaboration is misinterpreted as contradiction. Nuance is misinterpreted as wishy-washyness. All senators who (unwisely) run for President suffer from this effect to some extent, especially Democrats, but even Bob Dole had a problem with it. Karl Rove did an excellent job of maximizing it in 2004 against Kerry, but I think its effectiveness this time will be limited because both candidates are senators.
Secondly, at least Obama knows what his opinion is.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-lois-capps/things-that-make-you-go-h_b_112023.html
Money quote: “When he was asked if “condoms stop sexually transmitted disease” he responded “I’ve never gotten into these issues or thought much about them.””
Ok guys. I’ll change my opinion about stem cell research, start going to church, and say some prayers for all of the fertilized eggs that might have passed through my uterus without implanting…maybe start a memorial for all of the billions of “babies” that go off to heaven unbeknownst to even their own cruel-hearted mothers and their frigid, evil uteri. Let’s all go find a menstruating woman and have
a funeral for her used tampons while we’re at it. I wonder why so few people take the pro-life movement seriously…
On the other hand, Obama suffers from the additional disadvantage of being a lawyer. On the first hand again, I think the voting public has clued in to this particular “gotcha” game.
X-
I’m honestly baffled by your stance. I mean, I’ve heard the exact same arguments from pro-choicers as to why abortion is ok.
I just don’t understand why you believe that implantation changes the innate being of a person.
What about the unique individual changes at implantation? I just can not accept that somehow a person is less of a person because they have not arrived at a particular destination.
To me it would be akin to saying that a baby with a certain birth defect that made it impossible to survive outside the womb is, infact, not a person because it has no potential outside of its mother. COuld you please explain how your rationalization for ESCR is different?
Jill, that pic of the bottomless girl qualifies as soft porn. Difficult as it is to believe, there are people who get off on pictures of naked girls in clinical settings. Sort of a “let’s play doctor” fetish. I would be very surprised if there weren’t people enjoying your picture in ways you may not have had in mind when you posted it.
SoMG,
that’s a stretch….
X,
thats really insulting to pro-lifers.
I’ve explained this numerous times, and I will once more for your benefit, I suppose. It is the interference by an outside individual which directly causes an established, growing fetus to die which otherwise wouldn’t.
I just don’t understand what “established” really has to do with it. A zygote is certainly growing.
Doesn’t ESCR involve “interference by an outside individual which directly causes” a human being to die that otherwise wouldn’t?
Ok guys. I’ll change my opinion about stem cell research, start going to church, and say some prayers for all of the fertilized eggs that might have passed through my uterus without implanting…maybe start a memorial for all of the billions of “babies” that go off to heaven unbeknownst to even their own cruel-hearted mothers and their frigid, evil uteri. Let’s all go find a menstruating woman and have
a funeral for her used tampons while we’re at it. I wonder why so few people take the pro-life movement seriously…
Posted by: xalisae at July 10, 2008 8:36 PM
This is yet another example of an immature response. There seems to be a rash of these today. Hmmmm…
X: First of all if a fertilized egg does not implant, it will be long gone from a woman’s body by the time she has her menstrual period. Therefore your suggestion is ridiculous in the extreme. Please try to learn something about your body before you blow off on this board.
@Lauren:X cannot defend her position because it is not based on a rational logical argument. Her equating sperm and oocyte with a fertilized egg (new human being) is not correct.
You have to have an action against someone for a murder to occur. You would have to implant a fertilized egg and then remove it for any wrong to be done here, and the “immaturity of an indefensible, irrational position” that you somehow found is just you misinterpreting my frustration and exasperation with a movement I fundamentally believe in yet also find fundamentally flawed. (pun intended)
I don’t see how Xalisae’s idea of having some sort of ritual recognition of the early self-aborting pregnancies and the zygotes who don’t implant is “insulting” to RTLs. They’re human beings, aren’t they? We might even think about whether we could do something to make them less common in the future. Or would that be interfering with God’s will?
Jasper have you ever toured the Red Light District of the Internet? There are abundant pages of pix of specula just where you’d expect specula to be. Also, nurse fetishes. Doctor-patient exploitation fantasies. And in Jill’s pic she’s clearly teasing the camera with her head tilted and her hair dangling and her wrists crossed at just the right place.
Any Tom Lehrer fans reading? “It’s called SMUT! Give me smut and nothing but!
A dirty novel I can’t shut
If it’s uncut
And unsubt-
Tle
I’ve never quibbled if it was ribald
I would devour where others merely nibbled
As the judge remarked the day that he
Acquitted my Aunt Hortense
“To be smut it must be ut-
Terly without redeeming social importance!”
Po-o-o-o-or-
Nographic pictures I adore
Indecent magazines galore
I like them more
If they’re hard core!
Bring on the obscene movies, murals, postcards, neckties, samplers, stained-glass windows, tattoos, anything! More, more, I’m still not satisfied!
Stories of tortures
Used by debauchers
Lurid, licentious, and vile
Make me smile
Novels that pander
To my taste for candor
Give me a pleasure sublime
Let’s face it, I love slime!
All books can be indecent books
Though recent books are bolder
For filth, I’m glad to say, is in the mind of the beholder
When correctly viewed
Everything is lewd
I could tell you things about Peter Pan
And the Wizard of Oz, there’s a dirty old man!
I thrill
To any book like Fanny Hill
And I suppose I always will
If it is swill
And really fil-
Thy!
Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately
I’ve got a hobby, rereading Lady Chatterley
But now they’re trying to take it all
Away from us unless
We take a stand, and hand in hand
We fight for freedom of the press
In other words
Smut, (I love it)
Ah, the adventures of a slut
Oh, I’m a market they can’t glut
I don’t know what
Compares with smut
Hip hip hooray
Let’s hear it for the Supreme Court
Don’t let them take it away!”
http://www.amazon.com/Remains-Tom-Lehrer/dp/B00004SWBH/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1215743480&sr=8-1
Look at this disgusting Catholic Bashing website:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/its_a_goddamned_cracker.php
our old friend PZ Myers…(/sar)
Thanks, SoMG. I’ll be passing that along to my husband. He’ll get a kick out of it. I thought it was funny, myself. (oh noes…could it be…young xalisae also is not offended by porn?! *gasp*)
Oh, and Amanda…your dad sounds cool. :P
You have to have an action against someone for a murder to occur. You would have to implant a fertilized egg and then remove it for any wrong to be done here,
Since a new human being exists at fertilization, anything that deliberately interferes with this life, whether it be the taking of the morning after pill, creating the new life in a test tube and then experimenting with that life, it is murder. What you are saying is that it ain’t a person until it implants. Sorry but it has all the genetics of a new person and it is a unique individual different entirely from the mother’s body it resides in or different from the two people who’s germ cells gave it life in the petri dish.
There is an action against someone xalisae – a very small human being. Saying it ain’t so doesn’t make it so.
Xalisae wrote:You have to have an action against someone for a murder to occur. You would have to implant a fertilized egg and then remove it for any wrong to be done here,
Since a new human being exists at fertilization, anything that deliberately interferes with this life, whether it be the taking of the morning after pill, creating the new life in a test tube and then experimenting with that life, it is murder. What you are saying is that it ain’t a person until it implants. Sorry but it has all the genetics of a new person and it is a unique individual different entirely from the mother’s body it resides in or different from the two people who’s germ cells gave it life in the petri dish.
There is an action against someone xalisae – a very small human being. Saying it ain’t so doesn’t make it so.
Sorry my above post was missing the italics.
Posted by: Patricia at July 10, 2008 9:52 PM
Thanks, SoMG. I’ll be passing that along to my husband. He’ll get a kick out of it. I thought it was funny, myself. (oh noes…could it be…young xalisae also is not offended by porn?! *gasp*)
Posted by: xalisae at July 10, 2008 9:49 PM
Actually this doesn’t surprise me one bit, xalisae.
X,
I am only asking you to hear yourself the way we are hearing you. The prochoice argues that it isn’t life until it is sentient. Or viable. Or they give it three months.
And our response is always, Why? What happens at that point that changes that suddenly makes it a “baby”? Of course they can’t answer, because it’s been what it is all along. Nothing changes. That’s the point. Baby at 3 weeks, baby at 12 weeks, baby after birth.
When you say that it only becomes a baby/human being after implantation you are doing the same thing. You response about menstruating dead babies is illogical, because by your own words there was no outside interference.
All people die. Sometimes they die at 90, sometimes they die at 4 hours after conception. But they are all people and life begins at fertilization. It finds a home, to grow and be nourished in at implantation.
Look at the life cycle of a kangaroo. (Not that Kangaroos and humans are the same)…the embryo crawls up the pouch and latches onto a teat. It never really “implants” at all. It doesn’t need to.
But it was a kangaroo, alive and kicking (pun also intended) from the get go…
I use the kangaroo because most of it’s gestation takes place outside of the womb. It comes out of the birth canal at what would be the equivalent of a 7 week old human fetus.
Was it not alive before this? Was it not a kangaroo? The minute it comes out it begins to climb…
I guess my point is, no matter where the embryo, blastocyst, zygote IS, it is, from the moment of fertilization, alive.
You say we sound crazy, but we would be inconsistent if we didn’t say that life began at fertilization. We would be doing exactly what pro choicers do. Arbitrarily picking a point when life begins, instead of looking at when it actually does. Read Patricia’s post.
But SoMG, context matters. Is MK’s picture porn too?
for Kangaroo fetishes?
..
Patricia, MK -good points
Isn’t it amazing how many people here will attempt foolishly to argue about life, attempting to dismiss its existence in its beginning embryonic stage…and yet are scared to death to permit “it” to live another possible second…while at the same time arguing that it is still “nothing”…non-existent life. Me thinks you protest too much! Your own fearful arguments against that existing life are rather your very proof for the necessity of respect for that life. And the best proof is that every one of you would not be spewing forth attempts at non-science if your own present existence depended upon them!! But, alas, even YOU began in the life of the embryo. If it were only a “freak” of nature rather than already formed life…well then…what does that make you??!!
Mk: great post.
I especially liked this paragraph:
All people die. Sometimes they die at 90, sometimes they die at 4 hours after conception. But they are all people and life begins at fertilization. It finds a home, to grow and be nourished in at implantation.
God bless
Jasper,
OH NO! THE TANTALIZING KANGAROO BREASTS! :)
Patricia,
Thanks. The kangaroo has always fascinated me because at exactly the stage that most abortions take place, and when Doug would claim they are nonsentient cell structures, these little embryos, yes embryos, are climbing through 7 inches of fur to find a breast…
While in the womb, the development process can start and then stop, depending on things like whether or not there is drought in Australia. Reminds me of freezing embryos (stopping them in time) and reanimating them at a later date. Didn’t Disney want to do something like that?
The point is, at no time are they not kangaroos…and at no time are they not human beings.
The argument has been given that it is because it is IN the womens womb, or that the embryo is dependent on that woman and that woman only.
Well, so are these tiny kangaroos, only they aren’t IN the womb. If you ripped one off of it’s mothers teat, you would be killing it. While it is in it’s embryonic state. It’s a good thing we DO carry our own young IN the womb, or we’d be picking off the unwanted ones like ticks!
Jess is gonna have a cow when she reads this! What????? Picking little baby kangaroos off of their mothers????
SoMG,
I’m curious. Do you read the things that we post to you and not answer, or do you just not see them?
On the last thread,with uncle sam, I asked you a boatload of questions and they have gone unanswered. The same thing happened the other day.
It’s fine if you choose not to answer, but it’s frustrating to get into a conversation with you and then have you drop it, without knowing if you’re doing it on purpose or inadvertently…Either is fine. I’d just like to know. I won’t invest so much time if I know that you most likely won’t answer…
Jasper, you wrote: “Look at this disgusting Catholic Bashing website:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/its_a_goddamned_cracker.php
our old friend PZ Myers…(/sar)
Posted by: Jasper at July 10, 2008 9:41 PM”
Watch out: I posted a link to that story and Jill deleted my post and told me to stop posting my “propaganda” on her site.
PZ Myers understands evolution as well as (almost) anyone in the world. You can learn a lot about many interesting things by reading him regularly if you can get over his hatred of religion. He’s very good at explaining what science knows and what it doesn’t know, and why. He keeps you up-to-date on the ongoing effort to corrupt high-school science classes with theories of the supernatural. And I think he is very angry about the fact that the kid who stole the cracker received death threats. I think about how I feel about the treatment of people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ibn Warraq and I very definitely sympathize with the desire to respond by desecrating sacred symbols of the religion that motivates death threats. I think it is wrong of him to indulge that desire, however.
MK, no if I don’t answer something it means I missed it or thought it wasn’t worth answering.
Anyway, we’ll know PZM has guts when he does something similar to a copy of the Koran.
“He keeps you up-to-date on the ongoing effort to corrupt high-school science classes with theories of the supernatural.”
You mean intelligent design.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali is good though, shes the lady who speaks out against Islamic violence, etc.
Anyway, we’ll know PZM has guts when he does something similar to a copy of the Koran.-
agreed SoMG.
Jasper, yes, I’m afraid ID is a theory of the supernatural although some of its proponents deny this. What else can you call a theory that postulates a mysterious force but says absolutely nothing about its nature except that it (conveniently) answers questions we haven’t answered yet?
OK SoMG:
The ID is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, not some mysterious force.
Can you spell Trinity and do you know what logos means?
HisMan, ID proponents strongly deny that ID has any religious content whatsoever, at least publically.
And the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are supernatural entities.
“A reporter (or McCain – c’mon, where are you?!)”
Seriously….he really isn’t going to win this election because I haven’t seen/heard much from him, and he doesn’t seem too interested in calling Obama on ANYTHING.
MK, is that a picture of HUMAN egg and sperm? The authors deliberately interrupted a fertilization in progress to take it. If it’s human, wouldn’t that be ending a human life at its very beginning? Murder? A snuff pic? No wonder Patricia thinks it’s cool.
Posted by: SoMG at July 10, 2008 8:02 PM
SoMG,
Was that just are you being snied or are you that technologically ignorant to think that picture couldn’t just as easily be of the creation of an embryo that was later implanted in a womans womb and delivered to term? ummmm.
if I were a betting man I would place my money on the “snied” possibility
Elizabeth, I heard a colleague of McCain’s quit simply because he didn’t want to campaign AGAINST Obama.
SoMG: 8:47: Jill, that pic of the bottomless girl qualifies as soft porn. Difficult as it is to believe, there are people who get off on pictures of naked girls in clinical settings. Sort of a “let’s play doctor” fetish. I would be very surprised if there weren’t people enjoying your picture in ways you may not have had in mind when you posted it.
SoMG: Jasper have you ever toured the Red Light District of the Internet? There are abundant pages of pix of specula just where you’d expect specula to be. Also, nurse fetishes. Doctor-patient exploitation fantasies. And in Jill’s pic she’s clearly teasing the camera with her head tilted and her hair dangling and her wrists crossed at just the right place.
Any Tom Lehrer fans reading? “It’s called SMUT! Give me smut and nothing but!
This is a pro-life site, not a porn- education site. Did you forget?
Jasper, yes, I’m afraid ID is a theory of the supernatural although some of its proponents deny this. What else can you call a theory that postulates a mysterious force but says absolutely nothing about its nature except that it (conveniently) answers questions we haven’t answered yet?
Posted by: SoMG at July 10, 2008 11:15 PM
“It’s a mystery.”
SoMG,
MK, no if I don’t answer something it means I missed it or thought it wasn’t worth answering.
Well, how do I know the difference? How about the questions on the exposing Obama thread? Did you miss them, or did you think they weren’t worth answering?
This is a pro-life site, not a porn- education site. Did you forget?
Posted by: Janet at July 11, 2008 4:07 AM
That’s why Somg’s porn comments should be deleted. She seems fixated on porn, not surprising considering the work she does and the monkey on her back. Note that everything is related to in porn terms – a pic of fertilization becomes a “snuff” picture? Yeah, right.
It’s fine if you choose not to answer, but it’s frustrating to get into a conversation with you and then have you drop it, without knowing if you’re doing it on purpose or inadvertently…Either is fine. I’d just like to know. I won’t invest so much time if I know that you most likely won’t answer…
Posted by: mk at July 10, 2008 10:24 PM
When you gonna learn girl? You can’t debate this person. It turns into a debacle. Each and every post Somg comments on is hijacked in some way. See with this one? It turned into a discussion on porn and ID. Jasper and HisMan bite every time.
What else can you call a theory that postulates a mysterious force but says absolutely nothing about its nature except that it (conveniently) answers questions we haven’t answered yet?
Just the opposite is done, SoMG. The facts of historical scientific study and its revelations in actual evidence direct themselves, in logic, to the possibility/probability of ID. The ID is not “posited” beforehand. You “conveniently” wish to dismiss that directive result yourself.
pip,
I wonder where McCain’s campaign actually IS because I haven’t heard much about it. I saw this thing on fox news last night at one of McCain’s town hall meetings. Somebody stood up and said, “I already know why I’m not voting for Obama, but I still have yet to see why I should be excited about voting for you.”
I’m 1,000% sure I’m not voting for Obama and WHY I’m not voting for him, but I’m just sort of ehh about voting for McCain. I like him, but I just don’t feel excited about him I guess.
He is at a town hall meeting in my town today!!
I am looking forward to seeing McCain in the debates with Obama.
Carla, me too!
KC, you need to learn more about science, about the history of science, and about ID. (Read DARWIN’S BLACK BOX by Michael Behe, that’s still considered the definitive statement of what ID is and what it claims.)
Janet, the question is not whether I have forgotten that this is a RTL site, not a porn site; it’s whether or not JILL has forgotten this. She, not I, posted the soft-porn pic.
Jasper, you poor ignoramus, you wrote: “Was that just are you being snied or are you that technologically ignorant to think that picture couldn’t just as easily be of the creation of an embryo that was later implanted in a womans womb and delivered to term?”
That picture is an electron micrograph. It requires the use of chemical fixitives, which kills the cells.
And snide is spelled snide.
MK, repost and if it’s worth answering I will answer.
KC, you need to learn more about science, about the history of science, and about ID.
Direction from whom…you…SoMG?? Ha! Your agenda was already revealed by neglecting discovery as a first must to leading to the possible/probable outcome of ID. Even the source you mention depends on that discovery. Somehow you wish to twist it to somehow first positing something that is actually the outcome and dependent upon the science of observation of what already exists. Sorry. There are earlier papers with a basic outline of the history of ID – very logical in such outline.
KC, you so obviously don’t know what you’re talking about that I am not going to answer your posts any more. I’m sorry but you do not have the background to benefit from my expertise.
Well….part of my motivation is to explain things to anyone, no matter how ignorant. So I’ll give you a chance: Explain what “discovery” you meant when you wrote: “Your agenda was already revealed by neglecting discovery as a first must to leading to the possible/probable outcome of ID. Even the source you mention depends on that discovery. ”
If you can explain, clearly and respectfully, what “discovery” you mean, I will continue to answer you. Otherwise no.
what are you talking about SoMG? I didn’t write that.
Sorry Jasper. I should have addressed my post to “Truthseeker”. Humble apologies.
KC, you so obviously don’t know what you’re talking about that I am not going to answer your posts any more. I’m sorry but you do not have the background to benefit from my expertise.
Posted by: SoMG at July 11, 2008 6:03 PM
Sorry, but your only expertise is being an internet troll and killing babies.
KC:DNFTT
me at 8:46pm
KC, you so obviously don’t know what you’re talking about that I am not going to answer your posts any more. I’m sorry but you do not have the background to benefit from my expertise.
Obviously an inept excuse for your cop out exit. I’ve noticed that when you don’t have the tools yourself to refute when challenged, you attempt to turn the question back on its author when it’s really in your court.
Jasper, yes, I’m afraid ID is a theory of the supernatural although some of its proponents deny this.
What a shining example for what you purport to be your so-called background expertise in this area!!
Patricia, you wrote: “Each and every post Somg comments on is hijacked in some way. See with this one? It turned into a discussion on porn and ID. Jasper and HisMan bite every time.”
Excuse me but the porn discussion started because Jill posted a smutty image, and the ID discussion because Jasper linked to Pharyngula. Neither was started by me.
Maybe my posts are just more interesting than Jills. Not my fault.
KC, one last chance: what did you mean by “discovery” when you wrote: “Your agenda was already revealed by neglecting DISCOVERY as a first must to leading to the possible/probable outcome of ID. Even the source you mention depends on that DISCOVERY.”? Part of my reason for asking is to measure your attention span.
And Patricia, you wrote: “a pic of fertilization becomes a “snuff” picture? Yeah, right.”
Are you saying that deliberately interrupting a human fertilization in progress with a toxic chemical ISN’T murder? Why not? According to RTLism someone committed murder and that pic is an electron micrograph of the victim’s corpse.
Maybe my posts are just more interesting than Jills. Not my fault.
Posted by: SoMG at July 11, 2008 9:19 PM
In your own mind! Megalomaniac!
That is if it’s human. MK still hasn’t deigned to inform us what species it is. I wonder why not (sarcasm).
That picture is an electron micrograph. It requires the use of chemical fixitives, which kills the cells.
Posted by: SoMG at July 11, 2008 5:13 PM
BullSoMG
chemical fixative…lol
SoMG,
thank you for correcting the spelling error your
snideliness.
SoMG
Snide over Mama’s Growing
ts, what is funny about the phrase “chemical fixative”?
SoMG: KC, one last chance
At what???
Part of my reason for asking is to measure your attention span.
Another illogical reply; non sequitur.
This is just tooooo easy. And it obviously has to be getting embarrassing even for SoMG. The emperor and all that!!
SoMG,
MK, repost and if it’s worth answering I will answer.
It’s off topic and wouldn’t be appropriate to repost.
It was in regards to the Opera conversation we were having. Just click the link for July on the right go to the “Uncle Sam” post, hit F4, type in MK, highlight all, and you’ll fine them…
SoMG,
That is if it’s human. MK still hasn’t deigned to inform us what species it is. I wonder why not (sarcasm).
Posted by: SoMG at July 11, 2008 10:06 PM
She didn’t respond because she was playing miniature golf and hitting softballs at the batting cages.
Or, as you put it, because I didn’t find it worth answering?
We post pictures of aborted babies all the time here. So if this truly was taken the way you say, then okay, fine, what shame, but it doesn’t invalidate the picture and what it shows.
But I have no idea what the process is for taking photos like this one. Nor do I care. It shows the beginning of life. If it also show the end, then so be it. That just serves my purposes even more.
As far as being human, the site claims it is. But I wasn’t there, so I don’t know.
Photomicrograph
A light micrograph is a micrograph prepared using a light microscope, a process referred to as photomicroscopy. At a basic level, photomicroscopy may be performed simply by hooking up a regular camera to a microscope, thereby enabling the user to take photographs at reasonably high magnification.
Photomicroscopists take photographs of many biologic subjects such as cells and proteins and insect eyes. Roman Vishniac was a pioneer in the field of photomicroscopy, specializing in the photography of living creatures in full motion. He also made major developments in light-interruption photography and color photomicroscopy.
MK,
Have you ever seen the book A Child Is Born? Incredible!!
SoMG: Now that we all have a pretty accurate idea of what you’re all about, I am curious as to what (if anything) you consider “sacred”.
Given the “work” that you do, is there anything you consider off limits?
That picture is an electron micrograph. It requires the use of chemical fixitives, which kills the cells.
Posted by: SoMG at July 11, 2008 5:13 PM
_________________________________________
SoMG – how do you know about fixitives in electron micrography?
That seems to be some pretty esoteric knowledge.
Chris A, I took Cell Biology.
KC, you wrote: “[one last chance] At what???”
At preventing me from concluding that you lack the attention span necessary to continue a conversation from one post to another, also, the background, the raw technical smarts, and the attitude necessary to profit from my willingness to teach and to share abortion expertise. I’m afraid you have blown your last chance. This is the last answer you will ever receive from me.
Mike, I consider sacred the principle of not drawing conclusions without evidence, the idea that the truth or falsity of a hypothesis is properly determined by reason and experiment, and the principle of individual body-ownership.
The “evidence” is that human life begins at conception. This is not a “hypotheseis”. Reason AND experiment have proven that.
YOU, SoMG do not OWN the bodies of the babies you destroy.
CONCLUSION: You are a murderer.
… and YOU KNOW IT.
principle of individual body-ownership.
Posted by: SoMG at July 12, 2008 4:02 PM
None of us are against that, but the unborn child also has a body too.
So you are really not for this at all. What you are for is the absolute right of SOME people to have the principle of individual body-ownership. Don’t be so imprecise Somg.
KC, you wrote: “[one last chance] At what???”
At preventing me from concluding that you lack the attention span necessary to continue a conversation from one post to another, also, the background, the raw technical smarts, and the attitude necessary to profit from my willingness to teach and to share abortion expertise. I’m afraid you have blown your last chance. This is the last answer you will ever receive from me.
Posted by: SoMG at July 12, 2008 3:59 PM
KC: don’t take it too hard. I’m sure you were on the edge of your seat waiting for Somg’s brilliant, enlightening reply. Look on the bright side, one less troll to interact with! :-D
BTW Somg, HOW could you determine that KC lacked the above since KC prevented you from doing this? Your post as most of yours are, is illogical. Stop eating bonbons, watching soap operas and pretending you are a medical professional of some sort or another. Get a life!
Mike @ 6:34 PM
Don’t let SoMG get to you. His argument is based on positive law and an assumption of individual body sovereignty which is unsupportable philosophically. His argument is invalid.
To SoMG the “principle” of the unborn’s location within the woman’s body gives her all the rights to kill another human being. To him she can’t do that to a toddler, or even a “viable” child, but it’s okay any time prior, even when he acknowledges their full humanity.
He completely ignores the right to life of the unborn who did not chose to be there, but is within her natural environment, as Patricia said – she has a body too. There is no other gestational environment.
In other words he begs the question – he simply assumes the sovereign body rights are available to the woman, but never explains how such a right exists without an absolute right to life regardless of location/environment. When pressed, he balked.
With all his talk about precision, he fails logically.
Obviously he thinks this way out of self-interest. In many other areas, he appears intellectually honest, (and I respect that aspect) but in this one area, it’s as though his whole world would turn upside down to admit that.
Carla,
MK,
Have you ever seen the book A Child Is Born? Incredible!!
Yes I have, and as far as I know, none of those babies were killed having their “Picture” taken. There is an identical picture in that book. This might even be that picture. I don’t why SoMG claims that the fertilized egg had to die in order to be photographed. Fixated on death I suppose. Look at his choice in movies.
MK, isn’t everyone fixated on death to some extent?
I agree that the fetus owns its own body but it does not own the uterus or the water, oxygen, and nutrients it takes from the pregnant woman’s bloodstream. The result for the unwelcome unborn is the same: an extremely poor prognosis. Physical dependence on something to which it is not entitled except by an act of charity.
No, SOMG is correct. Electron microscopes kill the cells.
They capture those images by flooding the cells with radiation or a heavy metal that will illuminate them – like lead or tungsten, or dehydrating them or freezing them instantly.
To me the shallow pits and undulations in the surface of the ovum look like artifacts of membrane fixation. But I admit I haven’t read much about the limits of optical microscopy lately.
OK let’s assume it’s not fixed. How likely is it that they injected that specimen into a woman? Very unlikely. It’s much more likely that they created a human being and either killed it or at very least deliberately let it die. If you oppose research on human zygotes, you ought to oppose this.
And the way most cells in labs get killed is, they go into a flask with bleach in it, and then get autoclaved (steamed under high pressure for 30-60 minutes). How would you like to go that way?
SoMG,
I don’t own the air I breathe either.
Ownership does not make it okay. The circumstances of the unborn are unique. What kind of a person says, hey this is my water, you can’t have any, go and die?
What kind of a mother did you have? Didn’t she teach you right from wrong? Was your father absent? Were you ever cuddled? Seriously, how does someone become like you? What was lacking in your childhood to cause you to be totally lacking in empathy?
OK let’s assume it’s not fixed. How likely is it that they injected that specimen into a woman? Very unlikely. It’s much more likely that they created a human being and either killed it or at very least deliberately let it die. If you oppose research on human zygotes, you ought to oppose this.
A. Did you not read my response? This is an abortion sit. We show pictures of abortions. If that was an abortion, then so be it. It just proves both sides of my argument. It was life. It was ended.
B. And the way most cells in labs get killed is, they go into a flask with bleach in it…
What does killing cells have to do with killing human beings????
CARLA:9;33: MK, Have you ever seen the book A Child Is Born? Incredible!!
When I first read this, It looked like “a Choice is Born”.
Lennart Nilsson
In association with researchers and with the help of advanced, specially designed equipment, he has documented the inside of man down to the level of a cell. Throughout the years, ha has devoted special attention to capturing the creation of a human being, from conception to birth.
http://www.lennartnilsson.com/
(The intro to the above site is AMAZING)
In the mid-1950s he began experimenting with new photographic techniques to make extreme close-up photographs. These advances, combined with very thin endoscopes that became available in the mid-1960s,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lennart_Nilsson
NOVA: Your photographs always seem to reveal the most miraculous things. I’m curious if you’ve ever been disappointed by something you’ve revealed.
LN: Oh yes, very very very often. It’s often that something bad happens during the filming — egg cells are dying inside the woman, the fertilized egg cell is not going to get fertilized inside the body. And for example, the implantation — only 40% of all fertilized cells are going to get implanted inside the body. Of course it’s much harder in vitro, outside the body, to do the same. So, of course, many times we are disappointed.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/odyssey/nilsson.html
It sounds very much to me as if the POINT is to take these pictures while the fertilized egg is still ALIVE…
SoMG:
At preventing me from concluding that you lack the attention span necessary to continue a conversation from one post to another
And should anyone in the universe care?
I’m afraid you have blown your last chance. This is the last answer you will ever receive from me.
Promise?
Re: principle of individual body-ownership
Well then, in that scenario, boundaries naturally are given by the woman’s own physical limits. She and she alone has the rights you’ve established and those have the built in limitations of just her body alone. Anyone outside of her body has no rights, even if hired. Such an other individual (abortionist, assistants) therefore would be “breaking and entering” such a limited body domain in order then to commit homicide….in your scenario. They do not, in your scenario, have any right to any kind of “individual ownership” of this other one within that other body outside of their own. And actually some courts have also established this…even if a woman should hire such a “gun”…that would then go beyond her own bodily domain. So, the only way for this limited “ownership” to exercise her “rights” within your scenario would be for you to necessarily condone something like coathanger mutilation or something similar, acting completely on her own and thus taking the responsibility and consequences of that individual action of body to body within. I doubt if you would want to do this though, since it may upset you to be out of a job. Any presciption/chemical taken as well would have to also involve the intervention of another “outside” of that limited body to body relationship. Thus anyone outside of that direct relationship of the individual body/s within the body of the mother, and body of the mother, in your scenario, would be intervening (an accomplice to) in killing an individual outside of his/her rightful domain/baileywick! Each has only the right to the body within his/her own body!! In your scenario, anyone outside of the mother’s body then, does not have any rights of control over the body within that mother. Once she therefore goes beyond her body limits which alone establish that relationship of “ownership” in your scenario she steps outside of her limited “rights” to that separate body within. Other bodies cannot be extensions of her own re: the body held within just her body and only its imagined “right of ownership”.
Some of the circumstances of the unborn are unique to them; others are not. The circumstance of needing something which you are not entitled to except by charity is not unique to the unborn.
And the point isn’t whether or not you own the air you breathe. It’s whether or not someone else owns it.
Well MK I stand corrected. Maybe it was taken inside a woman and went on to live.
SoMG,
The child wouldn’t be there 99.9% of the time if it were not for the actions of the owner of the body.
The point is that no ones owns the air. And I don’t believe we can “own” the water inside our bodies. Technically, if the unborn is using the fluids/nutrients in the body that it is in, why isn’t it equally the infants water/nutrients.
We have two bodies, both using the same things. Whose to say which body owns them? Or are you saying that a person is only a body? There is no “mind”/”soul”…
Again, what kind of a childhood did you have? What kind of a person thinks in terms of who owns bodily fluids?
We are all here on this earth together. Who cares who owns what. This is a mother and a child. What kind of a mother would withhold her “fluids” from her own child????
Is this how your mother thought of you? Is this where you learned this thinking? For most people the bond between mother and child is the single most powerful bond in existence. I can only assume that your mother did not feel this, and thus did not pass it on to you, and that that is why you are capable of thinking of the mother child bond in such cold/technical terms…
I am asking you in all seriousness…were you ever cuddled? Have you ever loved or been loved by anyone? Have you never felt the bond that forms between two people? Do you even have any friends that you love, or that love you? I’m honestly not trying to be rude, but you just seem so totally incapable of human emotion…I feel so sorry for you.
I’ll be your friend. It will probably be one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but I really, really will try to be your friend if you want…
Well MK I stand corrected. Maybe it was taken inside a woman and went on to live..
That’s perfectly okay. It was totally understandable. I had no idea either, and I’m still not sure that the first picture was taken with the same method. So you could still be right. Either way, like I said, the picture, regardless of how it was taken, still shows the moment that “life” begins in human reproduction.
Of course LN did say : “Of course it’s much harder in vitro, outside the body, to do the same. ”
I wonder how many zygotes died in those experiments.
MK, you wrote: “What does killing cells have to do with killing human beings????”
Are you saying human zygotes are not human beings?
I know you are very passionate about some of the music we discussed, SoMG. I might even say emotional. I enjoyed that side of you.
I second MK. Talk to us on a personal level. We care about you.
I just re-read my 8:54 comment and I didn’t mean to sound so condescending. I wouldn’t want to be your friend just because I pity you. You’re very intelligent, funny, talented, well read…You’ve got some great qualities. I just wish you’d set your standards a bit higher and ask more of yourself. I mean with a brain like your, passion like yours, an insatiable curiosity like yours…well imagine the great things you could accomplish and the wonderful things you could bring to relationships. Yet you choose to commit legal homicide and take the lives of little kids…you could do so much more. Why do you ask so little of yourself?
SoMG: 8:37: Some of the circumstances of the unborn are unique to them; others are not. The circumstance of needing something which you are not entitled to except by charity is not unique to the unborn.
Let’s talk more about the unborn. Does an elephant practice charity when it gestates and gives birth to its baby? Does a cow? Does a fish? Then why do you call it charity when a human brings a baby to term? What makes us different?
SoMG,
“Of course it’s much harder in vitro, outside the body, to do the same. “
I’m sure quite a few died. Again, I’m not commenting on the morality of the photographer, I’m only trying to show the moment that life begins.
It’s hard to comprehend that that picture represents a person. We’re such a visual society and if it doesn’t look like a person, then we assume it isn’t a person. But that is a flaw in us, not in the creation itself.
But think about the that amazing moment! That split second before the sperm hits the egg, and the split second after it does. Doesn’t that just boggle your mind???? Whether you believe in a supreme being or not, you’ve got to admit, that that is as close to miraculous as it gets!
And we take it for granted. Like it’s nothing. But it IS. It’s huge. It’s bigger than landing on space, it’s bigger than the pyramids, it’s bigger than the photography that allowed us to see it up close. And we get to be part of it. We get to grow and nourish that little tiny miracle of life…it just doesn’t get any better than that.
Wouldn’t you rather be party to bringing that life into the world, rather than ending it? What brought you to this place? Why be a destroyer when you can be a creator?
Sorry SoMG,
I suppose I got too close for comfort there. I’ve never been good at boundaries. Sorry if I freaked you out. We can go back to technical talk if you want.
SoMG…you out there?
ts, what is funny about the phrase “chemical fixative”?
Posted by: SoMG at July 12, 2008 3:51 AM
The fact that it “sounded” like you knew what you must be right cause you used such a technical phrase but in reality it is just as likely no “chemical fixatives” were even used for that photograph.
KC at July 12, 2008 8:34 PM
What gives rise to individual body rights if there is no life to begin with?
Charity vs dependency. Do we kill people who are dependent upon us?
Another interesting point: when a woman aborts her and her husbands child, one she consented to, she’s in breach of contract – the marriage covenant – apparently something SoMG has no idea about. Their “ownership” is joint.
I’ll tell you something strange – but true – when men want to hold power over women for say prostitution, they will rape them repeatedly until she gets pregnant and force her to deliver the baby. They will demand she bonds with that child – born into a brothel. Then they remove the child and force the mother to prostitute herself. All other children are then aborted.
Believe it or not – what SoMG backs – creates such conditions, because his viewpoint undermines mutual respect between men and women. Oh – if a woman who has been impregnated for those sex-slave child purposes does abort, she’s brutally killed as an example to others.
Make no mistake SoMG believes in slavery – completely. I make no distinction between him and them. Humanity is for exploitation and profit.
Chris,
Ironically enough, I think SoMG is enslaved, himself. I don’t think he is free…He’s kind of locked himself into a corner and doesn’t know how to get out now. I mean how does one go about facing the truth about what they’ve been doing most of their adult life, when that truth is so horrible. How does one break free from those kinds of bonds. Even if they were self imposed. If he wanted to, how does he get out, now that he’s so far “in”?
You know MK, I wrote that response and came back and read all your comments and I thought – that wasn’t very kind of me. I don’t want to gloss over what I see as a hardened position on these things, but honestly we don’t know for certain if in fact he’s an abortionist. So that comparison is unfair.
I guess after a while we tend to get hardened to things and we never stop to think about what that might mean to the other person.
Chris,
Exactly. Even if he really is an abortionist, that would just mean that he needs tons more understanding than the average joe. How hard it must be to be trapped in that lifestyle…
I really mean it when I say I’d be his friend. Nobody is all bad. Nobody is all good. I have my flaws. He has his merits. True friends bring out the best in each other. It would be awesome if we could do that for each other. He could teach me about Opera and statistics and who knows what else. I could help him to realize that the light won’t hurt…
Okay SoMG,
I’m going to assume that your silence means that you don’t wish to respond to any of my posts. I know you’ve seen them because you just posted on another thread…so I know you’re still around. Again, sorry if I embarrassed or insulted you. Peace.
See you in the morning…
MK,
Your love and compassion is always amazing! Not many people could say that they could be someone like SoMG’s friend or would even attempt to try. You are a strong lady, that’s probably why I like ya so much!
We should get together again sometime this summer! I’m thinking about taking Gabriella to brookfield zoo maybe the end of july/beginning of august!
but honestly we don’t know for certain if in fact he’s an abortionist
I personally do not believe Somg is an abortionist. I think she has medical training and teaches in some capacity but is not a doctor.
SoMG revels in your compassion like a stalker left to go hunting again. I pity SoMG’s friends.
Some day he could be brought to repentance, but till then, don’t invite me over when your entertaining his/her kind. How can you give someone the benefit of the doubt when they refuse to engage in honest dialogue and answer except when they see fit. How many people have asked if SoMG is a boy or girl and the answer is
“yes”. That is so telling. SoMG is playing you like an instrument and you are gets a sick sense of empowerment in your compassion.
Does that sound about right SoMG?
I really mean it when I say I’d be his friend. Nobody is all bad. Nobody is all good. I have my flaws. He has his merits. True friends bring out the best in each other. It would be awesome if we could do that for each other. He could teach me about Opera and statistics and who knows what else. I could help him to realize that the light won’t hurt…
Posted by: mk at July 12, 2008 9:52 PM
Noble intentions mk. I would never say that SoMG couldn’t be a friend some day, just that he hasn’t shown any true repentance. I agree with a lot of what said. I recommended to him on the HIV blog that he quit working on death serum for babies and work on something noble like finding a cure for AIDS. When SoMG begins to show openness and honesty then you might trust him/her enough start talking friendship. Till then SoMG stands for “Seeks only Murderous Goings-ons”
Oh brother. MK, you wrote: “I don’t believe we can “own” the water inside our bodies.”
So then do you support government-mandated forced blood donations? If not, why not? Remember, they’d save lives.
Janet, you wrote: “Does an elephant practice charity when it gestates and gives birth to its baby? Does a cow? Does a fish? Then why do you call it charity when a human brings a baby to term?”
Because humans, unlike non-human animals, understand the concept of charity. You cannot practice charity without understanding what it is. Just as you cannot give a promise unless you understand what a promise is.
“If a lion could talk, we would not understand it.” –Wittgenstein.
Chris A., you wrote: “Charity vs dependency. Do we kill people who are dependent upon us?”
Yes. We kill patients who are dependent upon us by withholding transplantable/transfusable organs/blood. Usually for reasons of mere convenience.
You wrote: “Another interesting point: when a woman aborts her and her husbands child, one she consented to, she’s in breach of contract – the marriage covenant – apparently something SoMG has no idea about. Their “ownership” is joint. ”
Really? Does the marriage covenant give the husband joint ownership of the wife’s life-support functions?
You wrote: “I’ll tell you something strange – but true – when men want to hold power over women for say prostitution, they will rape them repeatedly until she gets pregnant and force her to deliver the baby. They will demand she bonds with that child – born into a brothel. Then they remove the child and force the mother to prostitute herself. ”
You’re saying this as an argument AGAINST legal abortion??? (That’s as dopey as this:”I understand a woman gets beaten up in the USA every five minutes. My question is, when does she sleep?” –Anon.)
You wrote: “Believe it or not – what SoMG backs – creates such conditions, because his viewpoint undermines mutual respect between men and women. ”
I see. So the fact that pimps abuse their hos is a result of legal abortion? If we criminalized abortion then pimps would stop subjugating their hos by rape and forced childbirth? The criminalization of abortion would generate mutual respect between pimps and hos?
I know what’s happened to you. You are suffering from a form of aphasia which causes you to think “criminalize abortion” when you really mean “legalize prostitution”. You think you are making an argument in favor of criminalizing abortion when in fact you are making one in favor of legalizing prostitution. I’m not sure how I’d treat such an aphasia, my neuro days are behind me.
You wrote: “Oh – if a woman who has been impregnated for those sex-slave child purposes does abort, she’s brutally killed as an example to others.”
Maybe we should make it a felony to harm or threaten to harm someone for getting (or refusing to get) an abortion. I know: let’s increase the penalties for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Law. And even better: let’s guarantee the right to choose whether to abort or keep a pregnancy without coercive interference as a Federal right.
MK, you wrote: “What kind of a person thinks in terms of who owns bodily fluids?”
Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm…. someone who grew up during the age of transplantation?
MK, you wrote: “I think SoMG is enslaved….”
“I am the slave of duty.” –G&S.
Oh and Janet, fish do not gestate and give birth. They hatch from eggs.
Janet, you wrote: “Does an elephant practice charity when it gestates and gives birth to its baby? Does a cow? Does a fish? Then why do you call it charity when a human brings a baby to term?
Because humans, unlike non-human animals, understand the concept of charity. You cannot practice charity without understanding what it is. Just as you cannot give a promise unless you understand what a promise is.
My point was that giving birth is a natural occurring event of all creatures. CHARITY ISN’T PART OF THE EQUATION!!!!! No where is it written that a woman has a right to kill its offspring for whatever reason if she’s not feeling charitable that day! There’s no sense in arguing this point further, I think you get it.
Because humans, unlike non-human animals, understand the concept of charity.
But this has been our argument all along. We are NOT animals. We are human beings that understand the concepts of love, charity, responsibility, honor…this is why it is so horrible that a mother could destroy her own child.
If an animal does something like this, it’s understandable. They aren’t capable of understanding the enormity of what they are doing.
But human beings DO understand, yet choose to kill their own children anyway. It’s the very fact that they DO understand, that makes the act so monstrous.
If I am sickened by the thought that your mother killed three of your siblings, I can’t imagine what it must have done to your young mind. You may think, intellectually, that what your mother did was no big deal, but inside, deep inside, the knowledge had to have affected you…perhaps even damaged you. I can’t imagine what it must have done to your mom.
People can appear untouched by things. But that doesn’t mean that they aren’t influenced in the most profound manner.
Do you really think it is coincidence that you, now, kill other peoples children?
Maybe you do it because it was so ingrained in you by your mom, from an early age, that abortion was a womans perogative. I’m sure Margaret Sangers kids must have gone through this. The woman wrote papers and gave speeches on how “awful” motherhood is. She publicly denounced traditional marriage. She lived in a separate residence than her husband for heavens sake. She told the world that children were a burden and a drain on society. What message do you think her kids got? Maybe you became an abortionist to get your mothers approval.
Or maybe your mom was a quiet mousy thing and didn’t promote choice. But you still got the message. Maybe you chose your line of work as a way to justify what she did.
Even if you didn’t know about the actual abortions at a young age, I’m sure her attitude came across.
You’ve told me before that she is proud of the work you do. What kind of a woman is proud that her son kills people all day, every day?
You probably have no idea what I’m talking about. You probably, honestly feel, that your moms abortions meant absolutely nothing to you. But the proof is in your choice of occupation, your inability to open up to anyone on a blog that you’ve been visiting for almost 2 years, your coldness and lack of empathy towards other human beings.
This is what I mean by saying you are enlaved. Your entire life is a reaction and you don’t even realize it. You think you’ve “chosen” your line of work, but I think it chose you.
I asked you in an above post, and you didn’t answer…why, why, why do you choose to destroy, when with a great mind like yours, you could choose to create???
SoMG,
The quote of the day says it better than I ever could:
Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. The result was that their minds became dark and confused. Claiming to be wise, they became utter fools instead….
*
As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.
SoMG,
“I am the slave of duty.” –G&S.
No, you are a slave to your repressed feelings.
I think it is because you are probably a very sensitive individual that you became what you became. You have such passion, which means that you feel things deeply. If you were less passionate, like Hal for instance, maybe you wouldn’t have been so affected by your mom’s choices. But you aren’t dispassionate. Just the opposite.
All those feelings. All that emotion. All that passion and sensitivity. What a job it must be for you to keep it buried. How difficult it must be to turn off your emotions and live your life as if nothing touches you.
You never talk about a wife. Nor children of your own. You never talk or refer to any other human beings…don’t you hunger for human companionship? With passion like yours, don’t you yearn for a deep, real, honest connection with another person? Don’t you ache for that bond that the rest of us have?
Aren’t you lonely?
MK: The kangaroo has always fascinated me because at exactly the stage that most abortions take place, and when Doug would claim they are nonsentient cell structures, these little embryos, yes embryos, are climbing through 7 inches of fur to find a breast…
Sigh…no, MK, I think you’re confusing the relative rates of development. Heck, a newborn colt, for example, often will get up and take a trot around in its very first day after birth.
You show me a human baby that does that, and I’ll show you a baby that spent a lot of extra time in the womb.
Sigh yourself Doug,
A colt is not still in an embryonic stage. Did you look at that picture? What, are you kiddin’ me?
It’s what we have been trying to tell you all along doug. It’s a baby. It is in one stage of it’s life. That’s all. A kangaroo embryo, the websites term, not mine, climbs from it’s mothers womb to her teat. It is still an EMBRYO!
The female kangaroo has a type of yolk sac in the womb instead of the fully developed placenta. Nutrients from this yolk sac are absorbed from the embryo. When birth occurs the baby kangaroo is still in an embryo like form having developed forelimbs. It will only weigh about 0.04 ounces and will crawl to the abdominal pouch then attack to a nipple to suck.
*
The embryo stays in this pouch and sucks for a few months until it can move around and is full developed. The embyro is called a joey. It can remain in the mother’s pouch for six month to one year. It will peak out as the mother hops along to see the outside world. The musky rat-kangaroo is the only kangaroo to produce more than one single young. When the embryo leaves the womb the female can mate again. She can have a fertilized egg in her womb while the young is still in her pouch. An blastocyst is the name given after the fertilized egg stops and becomes a simple, hollow ball of 100 cells. This blastocyst will just stay in the womb until the offspring in the pouch leaves to be on it’s own. It is in a state of suspended development. After the offspring lives the pouch the embryo will continue to develop then live the womb and live in the pouch. Embryonic diapause is the name given this feature of reproduction. A female kangaroo can care for up to three litters at one time.
http://www.essortment.com/all/pouchesleap_rnoz.htm
If successful in reaching the pouch, the baby’s tiny mouth clamps onto a teat, which swells into the mouth so that the infant cannot release it. The infant’s esophagus expands so it can receive both nourishment and oxygen. The baby, now called a pouch embryo, cannot let go even if it wants to.
http://science.jrank.org/pages/3742/Kangaroos-Wallabies-difficult-life-newborn-kangaroo.html
When will you get it? Life begins at fertilization. Scientific terms like emybryo, zygote and fetus are all words that describe human beings at different stages of development just as infant, toddler and adult do.
This kangaroo EMBRYO is equivalent to a 7 week old human fetus. It is capable of crawling 7 or so inches to attach itself to its mothers’ teat, and it doesn’t even have hind legs yet! It is so underdeveloped that some people might not even realize that it is sentient…go figure. And yet it manages through its sense of smell to find that teat and latch on…
Just IMAGINE (I know you love that word) what a 7 week old HUMAN embryo might be capable of!
SoMG: We kill patients who are dependent upon us by withholding transplantable/transfusable organs/blood. Usually for reasons of mere convenience.
Are we obligated -morally- to allow transplants of our organs to prevent the killing of someone who needs it/them (in your opinion)?
mk:7:56: This kangaroo EMBRYO is equivalent to a 7 week old human fetus. It is capable of crawling 7 or so inches to attach itself to its mothers’ teat, and it doesn’t even have hind legs yet! It is so underdeveloped that some people might not even realize that it is sentient…go figure. And yet it manages through its sense of smell to find that teat and latch on…
The story of the kangaroo’s embryonic development is amazing! Please post it on a future thread… it is well worth repeating for those who may have missed it this time around!
Just IMAGINE (I know you love that word) what a 7 week old HUMAN embryo might be capable of!
Maybe they would look at us and doubt that we are sentient beings.
This kangaroo EMBRYO is equivalent to a 7 week old human fetus. It is capable of crawling 7 or so inches to attach itself to its mothers’ teat, and it doesn’t even have hind legs yet! It is so underdeveloped that some people might not even realize that it is sentient…go figure. And yet it manages through its sense of smell to find that teat and latch on…
Just IMAGINE (I know you love that word) what a 7 week old HUMAN embryo might be capable of!
MK, the point with the newborn colt is that the “horse baby” is much more developed and advanced in some ways than what is true for newborn humans.
Same for the kangaroo embryo – it does quite a bit that human embryos don’t. You said:
when Doug would claim they are nonsentient cell structures, these little embryos, yes embryos, are climbing through 7 inches of fur to find a breast…
I doubt I’d say that the kanga embryos are sentient, but for now, without knowing more about them, I’m not saying it’s impossible that they are.
Anyway, the overall point is that regardless of what happens with kangaroos, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything about human gestation.
MK: This kangaroo EMBRYO is equivalent to a 7 week old human fetus./i>
No – that’s the point – they’re not equivalent, same as for many animals – they develop much differently than humans.