Jivin J’s Life Links 8-29-11
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- The Washington Times has an update on Virginia’s draft regulations for abortion clinics which are opposed by pro-choice groups, which claim the regulations “would be the most stringent of such measures in the country and are part of a politically motivated plot to undermine the rights of women to access abortions.”
- In the National Review, Katherina Trinko writes about Ron Paul’s pro-life beliefs and his position on abortion/federalism:
But Paul still has a problem with pro-lifers. He wants to return abortion-legalization decisions to the states, not work to make abortion illegal on the federal level. “Strangely, given that my moral views are akin to theirs, various national pro-life groups have been hostile to my position on this issue. But I also believe in the Constitution, and therefore, I consider it a state-level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being,” Paul wrote in his book Liberty Defined, published this spring.
- In practical terms, what Paul proposes is removing abortion-related legislation from the jurisdiction of the federal courts rather than fighting to overturn Roe v. Wade. He views his proposal as “simpler,” since the jurisdiction could be removed via legislation rather than pushing for a Supreme Court decision, and he believes that if the jurisdiction of the federal courts was removed, abortion laws could be decided on a state-by-state basis. “Ending nationally legalized abortions by federal court order is neither a practical answer to the problem nor a constitutionally sound argument,” he wrote.
- FOX News has an article about how adult stem cells are being used to treat multiple sclerosis at the Cleveland Clinic:
Dr. Jeffrey Cohen of the Cleveland Clinic said the main goal of the study is to demonstrate that the treatment is safe, but also to find out if the treatment will benefit the patient.
White’s bone marrow, which contains mesenchymal stem cells, was collected, then purified and multiplied. After 4 to 6 weeks, doctors gave [the patient] an infusion of these stem cells, which are thought to decrease the damaging immune activity.
“We’ve had a number of effective treatments for MS that slow down the disease, but nothing that repairs the damage that has already occurred and many of us think that stem cells is one of the most promising approaches to accomplish that,” Cohen said.
Two months after the infusion, [the patient] said he has not had any side effects. He said he has better eye movement and muscle movement.
[Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore via Flickr]
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.
“would be the most stringent of such measures in the country…”
True.
“… and are part of a politically motivated plot”
Quite the conspiracy artists.
“…to undermine the rights of women to access abortions.”
Translation: to prevent women from paying a doctor to dismember preborn children.
Ron Paul has it right. I think that would be the key to eradicating abortion. Already there are some states that are almost totally abortion free because of such tough laws, there may be only 1 clinic for the whole state. i know out west this is the case in some areas women must travel to Canada or travel for hours to get an abortion. Definitely a deterrent when the “choice” to kill is not readily available.
Supreme court will always be full of pro-baby killers. We will probably not overturn Roe v. Wade. Returning power to the states and working that angle makes sense to me.
You have to respect Ron Paul – though I don’t agree with most of what he says, at least he has convictions and sticks with them (even on subjects such as his anti-war stances). The other candidates on both sides don’t form opinions before consulting polls – Paul says ‘here is what I am, and it isn’t going to change for the polls’. I like that.
I mean, the dude would be a flippen’ train wreck for a President, but you gotta respect him! (I said the same thing often of Paul Wellstone – at least he went with conviction over all else).
To be fair to Ron Paul, he has said for years that what is needed is simply legislation defining “personhood” as beginning at conception. Then all Constitutional protections would apply, including the 14th Amendment’s “due process” and “equal protection” clauses. And, as he said, it is “a state-level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being”.
What you are seeing in some states’ Personhood movement is what Ron Paul has long talked about. I’m sure he would support such a law at the federal level.
Paul is right also as a practical matter. It is hideously expensive to fight it out in each of the 50 states. That is why Roe/Doe were such a big deal. Otherwise they could never have gotten such ridiculously broad allowances passed. Abortion would have been greatly reduced, had they not got Roe/Doe. None of the Western Liberal European countries have the insane wide open abortion on demand policy that the US has. And they don’t have our insane rates of abortion either. It was only the brutal backward totalitarian countries that had high abortion rates. Ireland and Poland are very limited in what they allow. The EU probably hates such democratic rule.
Hey – just wanted to let Carla know I’m okay! Can’t get on FB now for some reason but I didn’t want her to worry. Spent the morning chainsawing trees and the afternoon building a temporary wall to keep the garage from collapsing completely and am at work now [as in, job]; heading back to my parents’ house tomorrow to keep working. My apartment, as expected, is fine. My parents have no power until probably Friday, so I am taking batteries back to my place at night to charge them so that we can keep using the circular saw and drills etc during the day. :)
Hi Alexandra!!
Thank you for letting me know! :)
Take care of you and yours!
“National Review” = take with a definite grain of salt. However:
Ron Paul: “Strangely, given that my moral views are akin to theirs, various national pro-life groups have been hostile to my position on this issue. But I also believe in the Constitution, and therefore, I consider it a state-level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being,” Paul wrote in his book Liberty Defined, published this spring.
Well hey, Dude, it’s not mutually-exclusive, i.e. the Constitution could be amended or interpreted so as to include the unborn.
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Reality: I mean, the dude would be a flippen’ train wreck for a President, but you gotta respect him!
Ha! Co-signed! :) He’s not in the “real world” of politics, a lot of the time, and too bad…. That said, I’m surprised at the lack of votes for him in the current poll. I mean, come on – who in the ever-lovin’ heck is John Huntsman?
Paul is next-to-last, ahead of only the preposterous Sarah Palin. Romney and Santorum are dominating – Santorum surely is the most pure “pro-life” candidate, but is he the “strongest”? Obviously not, from most people’s opinion, and he’s almost surely un-electable. The memories people have of him capering around at home, holding a dead baby, riding around in a car with said dead baby, forcing his kids to sit with the dead baby (lunatic alert) – he’s a total loser for the republicans.
I read through some of the posts on that first article and the people on there stating a ‘fetus’ isn’t human…exactly what do they think the offspring of two humans is? An elephant? I understand that some people think the mom should have a right to kill their inutero offspring because it’s dependant upon the mom (it’s logically indefensible since a 1 month old post natal baby is also fully reliant upon mom, my 3 year old is still reliant upon me for his continued existance for heaven’s sake) but how someone can be so bullheaded blind as to stand there shouting that the offspring of 2 humans isn’t human is beyond baffleing. I can’t believe that an adult human being could be that ignorant so I can only guess they think everyone else is and if they talk fast enough no one will notice. If I ever get pregnant again I’m going to make a preggy shirt that says ‘it’s not an elephant, it’s a human’. Or maybe ‘human? I’m not sure yet, I might be gestating a kola.’
Jespren: I read through some of the posts on that first article and the people on there stating a ‘fetus’ isn’t human…exactly what do they think the offspring of two humans is?
Well, if they are actually saying that human DNA is not there, then of course they’re totally wrong and need a pie in the face. I suspect they are going with a meaning of ‘human’ that involves human attributes that develop over time, rather than the barest qualification for “living human organism.”
Doug: “I suspect they are going with a meaning of ‘human’ that involves human attributes that develop over time…”
So how is a fetus “not human” by that meaning?
And aren’t you broaching a tautology by using “human attributes” in your meaning for “human?”
Tautologies are much better grilled than broached, BTW. ;-)
Well, if they are actually saying that human DNA is not there, then of course they’re totally wrong and need a pie in the face. I suspect they are going with a meaning of ‘human’ that involves human attributes that develop over time, rather than the barest qualification for “living human organism.”
Well, either way, they’re being factually inaccurate, and “need a pie in the face”.
hu·man (hymn)n.
1. A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.
Well, either way, they’re being factually inaccurate, and “need a pie in the face”.
hu·man (hymn)n.
1. A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.
Now hang on a minute, X. Among others, there is the sense of “having the attributes of man, as opposed to animals,” and that develops over time. I didn’t see what the actual quote was, and beyond the adjectival use, it could be as a noun, and if the intent was being synonymous with “person” then it’s at least a question…
Doug: “I suspect they are going with a meaning of ‘human’ that involves human attributes that develop over time…”
Rasqual: So how is a fetus “not human” by that meaning?
It may come down to just how far along the fetus would be, Rasqual. The very first definition at dictionary.com: “of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or having the nature of people,” and we know there is debate about just when “person” applies. There is a whole range of meanings, going from more-inclusive, but imputing a lesser amount of qualities, to the lesser-inclusive but meaning more qualities are present.
Doug, let’s engage in a little hypotheticital. I take a smear of blood to a scientist and ask them to tell me what it belongs too. They look at it under a microscope, run some tests, run dna. And then they send me a printout. It’s human blood, female of german ancestory with the genetic propensity of breast cancer. I forward the dna to a genetics lab specialising in human genomes and they further inform me the human woman the blood came from has red hair and green eyes.
I give them another smear of blood. They run their tests and inform me this blood belongs to a male bobcat from the northwest United States and it has the genetic trait for extra toes.
My point? Humans are humans. Bobcats are bobcats. Mice are mice. And in my hypothetical? The one thing those scientists couldn’t tell you, me, or anyone else, is if that human blood came from an 8 month old inutero babe or a 24 week born premie, or a 41 week ‘postdates’ inutero baby, or a happily gurgling 3 month old. And the only way they could even determine the difference between a 7 month old fetus or a 27 year old woman is if there were other issues to draw that inference from (such as a blood disease that would be impossible in a preborn human).
The notion that some people are more or less human. Or that not all humans are human beings or that not all human beings are people is utterly absurd. The word ‘person’ is a synonym for ‘human’, human beings is just the longer form of human.
You might think being human is nothing special. You might think being human doesn’t guarentee any rights in and of itself. You might think there are more important human rights than life. And while I may not agree with any of these beliefs, they are beliefs that can be held with rationality. But please, do yourself and us a favor and reevaluate the logically indefensible, biologically false, and completely irrational belief that a living organism with human dna and two human progenetors can be anything but human.
Doug, let’s engage in a little hypothetical. I take a smear of blood to a scientist and ask them to tell me what it belongs too. They look at it under a microscope, run some tests, run DNA. And then they send me a printout. It’s human blood, female of German ancestry with the genetic propensity of breast cancer. I forward the DNA to a genetics lab specializing in human genomes and they further inform me the human woman the blood came from has red hair and green eyes.
Hey Jespren, you know – even the Human Genome Project supports the earth being multiple orders of magnitude older than 6,000 years. ;) But continue:
I give them another smear of blood. They run their tests and inform me this blood belongs to a male bobcat from the northwest United States and it has the genetic trait for extra toes.
My point? Humans are humans. Bobcats are bobcats. Mice are mice. And in my hypothetical? The one thing those scientists couldn’t tell you, me, or anyone else, is if that human blood came from an 8 month old in-utero babe or a 24 week born premie, or a 41 week ‘postdates’ inutero baby, or a happily gurgling 3 month old. And the only way they could even determine the difference between a 7 month old fetus or a 27 year old woman is if there were other issues to draw that inference from (such as a blood disease that would be impossible in a preborn human).
Agreed, and I’ve never argued that the unborn are less human, as far as DNA, than you or I. For that matter, the egg and sperm aren’t, either.
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The notion that some people are more or less human. Or that not all humans are human beings or that not all human beings are people is utterly absurd. The word ‘person’ is a synonym for ‘human’, human beings is just the longer form of human.
“Person” is a societal construct. It’s not a matter of science, not a concern of biology. “Human being,” per se, applies to the unborn, to the zygote, as much as it does to you and me, in its most-inclusive usage. For that matter, it also applies to the sperm and egg – they are definitely “human,” here, and they are “something that exists,” or it can only be said that they have the fact of existence, i.e. they are “beings,” as a noun, thus “human beings,” overall.
There is also the usage of “human” where more-developed attributes are implied, as with our emotions, etc., and/or those things which set us apart from every other species on earth.
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You might think being human is nothing special. You might think being human doesn’t guarantee any rights in and of itself. You might think there are more important human rights than life. And while I may not agree with any of these beliefs, they are beliefs that can be held with rationality. But please, do yourself and us a favor and reevaluate the logically indefensible, biologically false, and completely irrational belief that a living organism with human DNA and two human progenitors can be anything but human.
Hey – we’re definitely “something special.” Out tool-making and tool-using brains, our use of language, our capacity and will to pass information on to our descendants – we’re mos’ def’ somethin’ special here on earth.
No, that does not “guarantee any rights,” no. On “more important rights than life,” I take the point that without life, nothing else matters. If “we” were not alive, what consideration of morals/ethics, “rights,” etc., would there be? However, “we” are here as a race on earth, as a species, and reality is that there are lots of us, and that more are being born all the time, legal abortion or not. No, not all human beings live, and not all human beings live when it’s the decision of somebody whether they live or not.
But I certainly don’t say that a living organism with human dna and two human progenitors is not human. It obviously is (short of such mutation taking place that we’d then say a new species was present – a possibility which I’m not considering as likely enough to alter my answer. It obviously is, the same as the egg and the sperm.