14 March 2006 - 11:28pm
Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman?
from Talk to Action
While the Bible that many South Dakotans are substituting for the Constitution these days maintains that "her price is far above rubies," those same people have decreed that the worth of any woman, no matter how virtuous, plummets at "that point in time when a male human sperm penetrates the zona pellucida of a female human ovum." From that moment forward, not only her body, her hopes and her dreams, but sometimes -- despite the hollow promise of a tacked-on provision allowing "a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother" – even her very life can be forfeit.
Directing the lives of women who are in the family way seems to be very much a family affair in Pierre.
Sylvia Rhoden of Union Center, a sister-in-law of Rep. Larry Rhoden, R-Union Center, the chairman of the [State Affairs] committee, said her life was turned upside down when she had an abortion more than 20 years ago.
:::
"I had grace and I had mercy that were just there when I realized what I had done, when I had taken the life from my womb and I had destroyed it, and that I had taken the hand of God and I had stopped him from fashioning what was inside," she said.
So that's what a woman does when she has an abortion. She tells God to keep his hands to himself, a sacrilegious impertinence that no virtuous woman could imagine.
However, blame for the South Dakota ban cannot be laid entirely at the feet of Republicans of a somewhat deranged religiosity. Its main sponsor was Democratic Senator Julie Bartling, and no one has fought this abomination with more character and determination than Republican Senator Stan Adelstein of Rapid City.
Sen. Adelstein strongly disagrees with the portion of the bill's text stating that life begins at conception, maintaining that it is inconsistent with Judaism. Adelstein, chairman of his synagogue in the Black Hills, stands on the principle that state law should not be fashioned from any one group's religious beliefs.
When the senate rejected proposed exceptions to the near-total ban for women whose health was threatened by pregnancy, or for those who became pregnant through rape or incest, Senator Adelstein stated his belief that it would be a "a continued savagery unworthy of South Dakota" to compel a woman to remain pregnant and bear a child conceived as a result of rape.
But the unworthy savages in South Dakota have Stan Adelstein and his friends outnumbered, and "life of the mother" is the sole exception to be allowed. Despite the lurid and now notorious fantasies of Sen. Bill Napoli, a woman doesn't have to be a religious virgin "brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it" in order to be imperiled by pregnancy. As grievous as insults to piety and virginity might be, there are other ways in which pregnancy can place a woman in danger, and not all of them are even medical.
The term "virtuous" is from a noun meaning strength, efficiency, ability. Virtue refers to strength of character as well as moral firmness or chastity, so that "Who can find a virtuous woman?" can be translated literally as "Who can find a woman of strength?"
How virtuous are these three women, how strong, and what is their worth?
AMBER
"She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms."
Amber is only 20 years old, but she already has four children, the first born when she was only 13. Her husband is more than ten years older. Keeping Amber pregnant and busy with childcare keeps her in the house -- HIS house. And of course he's free with the fists. Amber went to a battered women's shelter a few months ago, but said, "I just couldn't live there." A condition of staying at the shelter was that she look for a job, which Amber was eager to do. But there was no available childcare, so she had to job hunt with all four kids in tow ... on the bus. With no family or friends to help her, Amber went back to her husband's house.
Still looking for way out, she began classes to get her GED. She's living on the hope that with a high school equivalency she can get a decent job and be able to take care of her children by herself. Amber told me her story on the phone, and when she said that she was taking GED classes, out of the blue I heard myself say, "And now he's having dreams that this time, you're really going to leave him." She immediately responded with, "Yes, how did you know? He had a dream like that, and he woke up and just started hitting me."
Amber has no money of her own, of course. Men like her husband hold as an article of faith that a woman can't get far away on foot. So while South Dakota anti-choice activist Leslee Unruh thanks God for their abortion ban, I thank God for the two Texas funding groups that reached out to help Amber keep her hopes for herself and her children alive: the Texas Equal Access Fund and the Lilith Fund. Bible-governing legislators and career anti-choice operatives might not believe that having an abortion saved Amber's life, but she does.
PEARL
"Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."
Pearl is 19 year old and comes from the Piney Woods of deep East Texas. Pearl's mother was so horribly abused by Pearl's stepfather that after almost 10 years of routine and near-ritualistic rape and battering, one night she finally broke down and killed him. I remarked to Pearl that it was remarkable that her mom had received probation when she was convicted, since women so often are given stiffer sentences than men for killing a spouse. Pearl told me that her mother's sentence was probated because the abuse she endured was so horrific and unending that even her husband's friends testified for her in court.
As a child, Pearl took her share of beatings from her stepfather, too. And years later, as often happens to young women who grow up knowing nothing except abuse, Pearl found herself involved with a man much like him. After he discovered that she was pregnant, on a Monday her boyfriend would say, "I'm glad we're going to be a family," and on a Tuesday he would growl, "If you know what's good for you, you'd better get an abortion."
Pearl was confused about what to do right up until the night he threw her down a full flight of stairs. When she packed up to go to her mother's house, he threatened to kill her mother and the rest of her family. That was Pearl's epiphany, the moment she realized that she was well on her way to living the same life that her own mother had had to kill to escape from -- and that the only way she could see to be a loving mother was not to give any child of hers this brutal man for a father.
JADE
"She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness."
Jade is a very young woman who came to the clinic with her mother. She arrived in fear and in pain. The doctor's ultrasound examination discovered what he at once suspected to be an early, extremely rare and difficult to diagnose condition known as heterotopic pregnancy – a double gestation with one normally implanted intrauterine sac and another implanted in a location outside the uterus. In some other clinic on some other day Jade 's condition might have gone undetected. A perfectly competent physician could have completed her abortion procedure, thought everything was fine, and unknowingly sent her home with a time bomb ticking away in her belly.
And if most clinics in less restrictive states had diagnosed or even suspected such a condition, a doctor could have sent Jade straight to the nearest ER. Our own doctor would have liked to have that option. But here in Texas -- because of both our draconian antiabortion policies and the reluctance of the medical establishment to challenge the "religious" anti-choice lobby – almost any hospital would deny her the level of treatment she deserved to have. When an ectopic pregnancy is discovered in time, before a rupture of the Fallopian tube occurs, nonsurgical treatment with methotrexate often saves a woman from the risk of possibly massive internal bleeding resulting from a rupture, and usually also saves her Fallopian tube and her ovary, therefore helping to preserve her future fertility. Treatment with methotrexate also reduces the risk of future ectopic pregnancies. But since methotrexate would also terminate the embryo in her uterus, there are few hospitals in the state that would provide that option to Jade.
Our doctor called the hospital with which our clinic has an admission agreement, and verified that their policy indeed would deny Jade nonsurgical treatment. Since surgical treatment also posed some risk to the viable embryo, the hospital was less than enthusiastic about proceeding with that option, either, but it was all that they were willing to offer. In order to make sure that Jade would receive adequate treatment at the hospital, our doctor performed an aspiration abortion of the normally implanted pregnancy under Doppler ultrasound. I faxed her surgical record and several pre and post-operative sonograms to a doctor at the hospital. Then I gave Jade her own copy of the records, drew a map to the hospital and walked her and her mother out to their car. Only when she no longer qualified for an abortion to "save the life of the mother" did Jade become eligible to receive optimal treatment for a life-threatening and nonviable ectopic pregnancy.
Even though she had every right to be angry about having to undergo one surgery in order to avoid another, more invasive procedure, all Jade said was "Thank you." But what would have happened to her if she were living under the religious regime now being imposed in South Dakota?
Bill Napoli didn't consider the worth of women like Amber, Pearl and Jade when he was detailing exceptions to the law for the brutal rape, sodomizing and impregnating of religious virgins. When abortion becomes a crime again, what happens to real flesh and blood women who live outside such fantasies? What price will they pay for our failure to demand that their lives be valued as more than merely semi-precious?
For every one of them, each in her way, is a virtuous woman.
"Strength and honor are her clothing; and she shall rejoice in time to come."
[Title Image: The Virtuous Woman by Edward Burne-Jones from Victoria Art Gallery]
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Comments
They gripe about "abortion on demand." It's the right-wing fanatics who are doing the demanding.
Life does not begin at conception. The debate over when life began takes us into the origin of species, a debate for creationists and evolutionists not for ethicists.
No, life does not begin at conception, it CONTINUES at conception. It is utterly ludicrous to believe that a Fetus is not living. Would you have us believe in Spontenius Generation? Men and Women are both living. Their Gametes are living. When the Gametes come together the result is living. Or would you have us believe that a woman carries around an inert mass within her, that miraculously sponteneously generates into a living being when God breathes on it?
An idea completely contrary to modern science. What you really argue here is, that the less developed have less of a right to exist than the more developed. The argument can be converted to speak of the mentally handicapped. "They're less developed than we are, so therefore their life is forfiet to our whims."
If it's the concept of dependancy, that's flawed too. Paraplegics are dependant upon others, but we advocate for their right to exist. One might argue that all people are interdependant upon one another, and so therefore everyone's life is subject to the next person's.
If one brings up the concept of a Parasitic Organism, the main difference here is, that Parasitic Organisms feed off the flesh of their hosts. A Fetus feeds from a biological system in a woman's body that exists for the purpose of its nourishment. Further, a Parasitic organism is not the result of the host organism's own act of procreation.
New DNA = New Person.
The essential argument of Abortion is that one person's whim is more important than another's life. The only time it should be allowed is when a woman's right to choose her mate has been circumvented, (rape) or she is in danger of dying. Never for simple convenience.
The idea that people who are against abortion are trying to opress women is utter foolishness. A large proportion of pro-lifers are women themselves. We advocate FOR the unborn, not AGAINST the pregnant.
...that people should be obligated by the government to provide of their bodies to others.
If you think pregnancy means nothing, and life is not being made during those 9 months, well then I have a colony on the Moon I'd like to sell you. You get a bargain on a 20-room mansion! No, it doesn't exist yet, but the materials do. No need to fret over details!
Want a cake? Bite into some flour and sugar and whatever flavors you want. Enjoy.
By the way, whatever your age, you can collect your Social Security pension now. Because you're already dying. Why wait?
I don't even know where to start here. A woman's body exists for the purposes of nourishing fetuses? I hope you treat your penis with the same susperstitious care. Every sperm is sacred now. Have a wet dream? Better run off to confession before the government comes and takes you away!
And claiming that pregnancy is from the host's own act of procreation ... really?
And yet you toss out all your claims in the case of rape? Why is that? Could it be because you see pregnancy as a woman's punishment for having sex? After all, if she's raped then she's not to blame.
What logic!
Noooo, you don't want to oppress women! Noooo! I bet you just loooove women!
Whenever people start going on about "unborn babies," and how you shouldn't do anything to an unborn baby that you wouldn't do to a born baby (oops,sorry foetus: no more amniotic fluid! Because born babies wouldn't like to be sealed in a bag of fluid for a really long time!), I like to ask them how they'd feel about being re-classified as a "predeath corpse"...
Oh yeah - and if it's okay for them to do away with scientific language and use made-up terms like "unborn child," then is it okay for me to start referring to babies as "birthed foetuses"?
"I don't even know where to start here. A woman's body exists for the purposes of nourishing fetuses?"
No, I said a Fetus feeds from a "BIOLOGICAL SYSTEM which EXISTS FOR THE PURPOSE"
I intentionally worded it this way because I saw your argument beforehand.
The purpose of the Uterus and placenta IS to carry babies, in case you forgot health class.
Women are made for doing any myriad of other things they want. Intellectually, physically, or spiritually. They can have whatever freedoms anyone else can. Your eyes are for seeing, your ears are for hearing, and your sex organs are for making babies. That's HOW IT WORKS! Far be it from me to think that procreative organs were for... Gasp... PROCREATION!
What else are you gonna do with your uterus? Knit a sweater? Paint a house?
Secondly,
Pregnancy is not a punishment for sex, where in the HELL did you get THAT nonsense? It is no way inferred by anything I said.
I don't understand how you can take an argument that continually speaks for the life of an unborn child, and then try to make my statements seem as if I think pregnancy is some sort of punishment. That's just some morbid view you have of some other person that you've applied to me.
The Reason that I personally see abortion as tolerable after a rape is because a woman has BEEN DENIED HER RIGHT TO CHOOSE!
Pregnancy is not life springing from nothing, it is life continuing from something living. Simple as that. Just as a caterpillar is still living whilst in its cocoon, so is a baby still living whilst in the womb.
The difference in Sperm and a Baby is that Sperm is only half my own DNA. Just like your Egg is only half of Your own DNA. When the Sperm and Egg meet, wow, there's a whole new set DNA. That means a new person doesn't it?
I don't think your Eggs are sacred any more than my Sperm, however, Children ARE sacred.
"Noooo, you don't want to oppress women! Noooo! I bet you just loooove women!"
I'm not going to get into your blatant lack of respect for opposing opinons, that's just you being closed minded.
When it comes to Cakes. The difference here is, when you start making a cake, you put all the ingredients together. You stick it in the oven. You wait for it to bake. If you take it out prematurely. It's not "eggs, milk, flour, sugar, etc". What it's called is a "Half baked Cake" Or, if you will, an "Unbaked Cake"
Which is why I refer to them as "Unborn Babies."
With regard to Moonbases, if you took investors money to build a moonbase, and then you suddenly stopped, then anyone who invested in that moonbase could hold you liable for damages.
But, Babies aren't property. They're living. They should be allowed to continue doing so.
As far as being forced by the government to give of their bodies to others? So long as they're the result of a consentual sexual act and reside within you? YES.
...where I give up my rights by having sex. I missed the part where you have a right to tell what others can do with their own health decisions.
I also missed the day in logic class where not X = X. Unborn doesn't mean born, so calling it a "baby" is just ridiculous.
Here, have a bag of flour. I call it unmade cake. Eat away and enjoy.
You may have some dogmatic notion that women are just walking wombs, but that doesn't make it true. Part of sentience is making decisions, and part of self-determination is having the freedom to do so.
And you complain about disrespect! Now that's funny!
I don't have that notion. I simply don't have the notion that Fetus are just 'inconvenient masses of cells' either.
You didn't give up your rights, you just chose not to assert them.
"Chose"? Really? How? Where is the have-sex-lose-rights clause in the Constitution? Please clarify.
I never said "inconvenient masses of cells." More fantasy.
Your woefully ignorant declarations in this thread make it hardly worth my while to respond. You've made a religious decision, and want everyone to abide by it. I'm not buying. Forced pregnancy is slavery, plain and simple.
When I get back from lunch, I am going to dismantle your entire post, one flimsy argument after another.
Do you really think you've come up with anything dazzlingly original here? Anything that's going to stop us all in our tracks?
For now, I will just address this claim:
The idea that people who are against abortion are trying to opress women is utter foolishness. A large proportion of pro-lifers are women themselves. We advocate FOR the unborn, not AGAINST the pregnant.
Thanks, but we're not the fools.
If anyone's foolish, it's you and your fellow control-freaks, for being unable to see that "advocating for the unborn" and "advocating against the pregnant" are one and the same thing.
You cannot do the former without doing the latter.
And I'd like to add that actually, when you tell me that I am not
allowed to make medical decisions about an organ inside my body, you are indeed "advocating against" me.
In common with most adult women, I know what's right for me, and if you actively seek to prevent us from acting in our own best interests, you are advocating against us.
And I don't give a damn what gender you are - there are plenty of female misogynists out there.
And I don't give a damn what gender you are - there are plenty of female misogynists out there.
Yep. And remember, "the only moral abortion is MY abortion."
And? What's your point? Nobody's asserted that zygotes/ embryos /foetuses aren't living, we just don't know why you place so much emphasis on that fact. Lots of things are living: the bacteria in my nose is living, the trees outside are living - so what?
You seem to be confusing the biological meaning of "a life" and the sociological or philosophical meaning of "a life": one is about chemistry, the other is about biography.
If a z/e/f is "a life," it is a life in the same way as a bacterium or a ladybird is a life, that is, a discreet living organism.
A z/e/f is not a life in the sociological/philosophical sense; that is to say, an accumulation of experiences and interactions - a biography or an identity. A z/e/f does not have a self.
This distinction, between the sociological and biological senses of "life," closely mirrors the distinction between the words "human being" and "person." The two words are not synonymous: while a z/e/f has the basic characteristics necessary to qualify as a human being in the biological sense, it lacks any of the qualities of personhood.
Your attempt at the slippery slope argument here is laughably bad, but that's perfectly normal for an anti-choicer: you're always trying to depict blastocysts as morally equivalent to mentally disabled people.
I've heard this argument more times than I care to remember, and I still think it sucks - it's always just "mentally handicapped people," as if there were no variation witin that category - although in this instance it is exceptionally garbled.
The fact is that at most stages of gestation, a z/e/f is less developed in every sense than any adult mentally impaired person - and that is significant because that lack of development is directly responsible for the fact that z/e/fs cannot have experiences like feeling pain or anxiety, whereas "mentally handicapped" people can.
But if you actually think that there is any meaningful common ground between this http://www.visembryo.com/baby/stage2.html
or this http://www.visembryo.com/baby/stage10.html and a person with learning disability, then there's something wrong with you.
Personally, I don't care how developed a z/e/f is: if a woman does not want it inside her body, it has no right to be there.
Comparing a z/e/f to a paraplegic is a false analogy.
There are 2 types of dependency: physical dependency and social dependency.
The difference between the way that a foetus is dependant and the way that a paraplegic (for instance) is dependant is that a paraplegic can be kept alive by anyone, whereas a foetus can only be kept alive by one particular individual person: the pregnant woman. She cannot give the foetus to someone else to gestate, so if there is a law saying that foetuses must be kept alive, the burden of doing so falls on the individual pregnant woman. The equivalent with respect to paraplegics would be if there was a law that said that the paraplegic's nearest living relative HAD to provide the paraplegic's care him/herself, or face imprisonment.
As no such law exists, keeping a paraplegic alive does not oblige any particular individual to make any significant sacrifice; keeping a foetus alive most emphatically does.
Well, no-one's bringing up parasitism, but anyway...um ... you're fucking kidding me, right? Parasites eat the flesh of their hosts? What, including fungi that live in human nails - they're flesh-eating, are they? Tapeworms, threadworms - they chew on the intestinal wall, do they? Malaria? E. coli? Do parasitic plants live off the flesh of their hosts, too? Like mistletoe - does it only grow on really fleshy trees?
Hmmm. Interesting theory. So a cancerous cell is a "new person," whereas a set of identical twins is, er, only one person. What about a person with tetragametic chimerism? How many people would he/she be? How about if a woman was pregnant, and had an abortion, but before she had the abortion fetomaternal microchimerism had already taken place - would that nullify the abortion? After all, the "new DNA" would still exist, so - according to your argument - the "new person" would also still exist.
Ooh, doesn't it fall apart quickly when you try to use science to shore up a position that has absolutely no scientific basis?
Whim? Since when was a desire for some autonomy over one's own body a "whim"? And since when were there two persons involved in an abortion? There is one only: the woman. The foetus, while it might be biologically human, is not a person.
This kind of shit just goes to show how little you understand about the abortion debate.
There is not only one "essential argument" in support of abortion, there are many.
The one I regard as most compelling is this one: a z/e/f does not have the capacity to suffer, either mentally or physically. A woman does have the cpapcity to suffer, both mentally and physically. A z/e/f does not have a sense of self, of past or future; a woman has all of those things. A z/e/f loses nothing when it is aborted; a woman loses her right to bodily autonomy when people like you force her to hand her body over to an alien organism that has invaded it against her will. Therefore, if a woman finds herself pregnant against her will, she should be allowed to have an abortion if she wants one.
But why should the fetus be punished for the sins of the father? The fetus is innocent! If it's not okay to kill z/e/fs that are conceived by consensual sex, how can it be okay to kill z/e/fs that are conceived by rape? After all, there is no inherent difference between the two types, is there? No - but that's not the issue, is it?
There's something else behind your belief that a woman who was forced to submit to sex should be exempted from gestation, while a woman whose pregnancy was the result of consensual sex should damn well carry the thing to term... whisper it: women who willingly have sex should be punished. That's what you're doing here: you're framing pregnancy in terms of bad behaviour and punishment.
Which means that, contrary to your protestations, you do "advocate AGAINST the pregnant" - but only some of the pregnant, right? The ones who enjoyed having sex.
See? You are misogynists, after all!
As you can see, it is not easy to construct an argument in favour of banning abortion using either science or logic. That's why most anti-choicers just stick to religion, and thinly-veiled misogyny.
You're obviously new to this - I can tell from the fact that your "arguments" against abortion have clearly never been subject to any criticism. I suggest you do some reading - "Breaking the Abortion Deadlock" by Eileen McDonagh is a good place to start; and Peter Singer is good too: try "Unsanctifying Human Life."
See if you can refute any of their arguments; if you can't, don't bother trying to take on pro-choicers in debate.
To spew the same emotionally distancing rhetoric that everyone else has heard for years and years and years. First it's a fetus, then it's a mass of cells, then it's a Z/E/G. Do anything to convince yourself that what you are carrying is something other than a less developed human being.
As to comparing a Fetus to Cancer Cells, The Zygote Embryo Fetus is created by a specific act, the act of sex. Cancer can be caused by many various reasons, and sometimes for no reason whatsoever. A "Zygote Embryo Fetus" only occurs via one method. Sex. (Or possibly Artificial Insemination, etc either way it's a choice) I.E. Those who choose to have sex, choose to risk pregnancy. Men, Women, Dogs, Cats, Monkeys, Hyenas etc.
Abortion for Birth Control is a totally foolhardy concept. In a world with Condoms, The Pill, The Patch, Spermicidal Jellies, The Sponge, Vascectomies, Diaphragms, Cervical Caps, IUDs, Depo Provera Shots, and any number of other effective methods. The idea that we should somehow staunchly defend Abortion is simply idiocy.
Why can't you simply accept the fact that the result of sex is potential pregnancy?
Secondly, the idea that you are supposed to have absolute control over every organ in your body, equally stupid. If so, will your heart to stop beating. Just say "Stop it!" Can't can you? That's cause it's involuntary. You can will yourself to stop breathing to an extent, but you can't will your lungs to cease their processes.
Eat some old food, and see that you get food poisoning. Then simply will your stomach to stop hurting. You can't, your stomach has to do it's natural processes all on its own. You can try to will your bowels not to move, but they eventually will.
How about you will your nerves to stop registering pain? Can you do that? Maybe you can, if you're a Zen Master. Who knows?
However, you do have some control over your uterus, you have control of what goes in. If you don't want to bake a cake, don't put one in the oven. Very simple.
The idea that pregnancy is somehow a punishment for Enjoying Sex. Simple ignorance.
You mean to tell me, that if I point a loaded gun at you, and pull the trigger, that if you die from the shot I'm not 'responsible' for that? I went through all the steps consciously deciding to do just that.
I like pulling triggers, I like making guns go BANG! You're matriarchal society is trying to oppress me by making me stop shooting my gun irresponsibly!
When the result (death) occured, I didn't desire it. I still did it though. You can't abort that.
I'm sorry that Babies take a lot longer to catalyze than cordite.
Conscentual Sex = Conscentual Pregnancy.
Whether or not it is a person cannot be debated scientifically, only philisophically. So therefore your assertion that it nullifies any scientific ideas in my thread are null.
Also, goes are all that nonsense you spouted about 'sense of self,' 'ability to suffer' and whatnot. Ones Ability to Suffer and ones Sense of Self are not subjects of scientific innquiry, but philisophical inquiry. They cannot be used to rebut an argument based on scientific grounds, (which is what you're trying to do not necessarily what I was trying to do)
Further, even on Philisophical grounds there is immense leeway for debate as it is, seeing as fetus' respond to stimulus as if they have a 'sense of self' they respont to 'pain' stimulus as well. so simply stating it as fact is rather droll.
Or would you also assert that a fetus, when it springs from the womb, instantly develops a sense of self? An ability to suffer? Oh does it? Sounds like "Magical, Religious, God-stuff" to me. At what point does a Fetus have enough Sense of Self to be worthy to live? If a Fetus isn't a person 'inside' of the womb, what about it coming 'out' of the womb suddenly makes it a person? Do tell please I'd love to hear it. If it doesn't, then does it develop it over time? I'd say the age where you develop "Sens of Self" and "Ability to Suffer" is somewhere around 80 years old. But, by that time you have the right to live, just not the ability. Go figure on that one.
I don't care much for science one way or the other, but either way those arguments do NOTHING to diminish the scientific statements in my post.
This is the part where you try to dazzle me with your scientific knowledge, but it really falls flat upon examination.
The main difference in the assertion new DNA = New person is a consciousness of the act. The other things you speak of are spontenius, or even entirely random. Pregnancy is not random. Healthy people + having sex = pregnant people.
The second difference is that Cancerous Cells do not eventually form into a new living human being. And they are also damaging to the person involved, (another situation in which abortion should be allowed, danger to the mother.)
With regard to Twins, Both the twins are new sets of DNA, simply because they're identical sets of DNA, doesn't mean they're both not new and independant.
And, I bet you thought you'd stumble me up with phrases like tetragametic chimerism and fetomaternal microchimerism. (Wow, I watch CSI too.)
Tetragametic chimerism occurs sponteniously, has no basis in any choice, and it does little to improve your position.
In the case of Tetragametic Chimerism, both sets of DNA are owned by one 'person' or 'entity' This idea blends the Philisophical and Scientific definitions.
I never intended to argue based on science, merely to use it to support my assertion, you however have posted this as some sort of attempt to disprove my scientific assertions, and thus undercut my preceeding argument. You've failed here in this instance.
The definitions of chimera and microchimerism itself explain this away.
chi·me·ra also chi·mae·ra n.
An organism, organ, or part consisting of two or more tissues of different genetic composition, produced as a result of organ transplant, grafting, or genetic engineering.
Microchimerism: The presence of two genetically distinct and separately derived populations of cells, one population being at a low concentration, in the same individual or an organ such as the bone marrow.
(Bold added for emphasis)
The "New DNA" in Chimerism occurs within one individual. In a sense that individual simply has two DNA codes. Both sets of DNA belong to, and encode for, the individual.
The DNA in a Fetus does not "Belong to", or "Encode for" the individual in whos uterus it resides.
With regard to Fetomaternal Microchimerism, The DNA that changes places still retains the DNA qualities it had before. If skin sheds from your body, its still YOUR skin, but it is not going to eventually develop into a whole person. Also, it's assumed to be a natural part of the reproductive process. It really isn't applicable to the frame of reference.
The point is that in a "Z/E/F" ,as you so eloquently put it, (such a conveniently emotionally distancing phrase isn't it?) the "New DNA" is a the result of a choice on the part of TWO individuals. The DNA in a Fetus is encoding and replicating cells for itself, not you.
And as a result you don't get to choose whether it lives or dies. It really, again, boils down to. "It's less developed, it's inconvenient, kill it."
You might get away with that for roaches, or toilet bacteria. But not with human embryos.
The precise point is that an Unborn Baby is not an Alien Organism, it's a Human Organism. It has not invaded her body "Against her Will" but by her choice.
On a personal level, I can make the acception for cases of Rape because I feel a woman should have the right to choose. And since she hasn't had it, then it is allowable, (but extremely less than desirable) for her to end the pregnancy.
I believe a woman should have the equal right to choose, just as a man.
A choice before conception.
...another loud-mouthed hectoring ape here to illustrate how well he throws his shit up against the cage walls...showing off his stupidity. giving us his "opinion". well guess what doobie? i could care less what you "think".
we get jerks like you in the threads at times, hollow boy. i can't wait until your participation on the blog is over and i don't have to be exposed to your filthy disgusting spew. that moment won't come a bit too soon to suit me.
now i have to spend the rest of my day with "god's breath" in my mind.
laughable.
But this:
made me laugh out loud!
In the later 1600s and early 1700s, microscopes were powerful enough to allow the human eye to see sperm and eggs.
The Church said that life did not begin until three months after birth - so if the baby died, it did not have be buried in consecrated soil - so much for the "life begins at conception argument."
For the first 1700 years of the Church, people did not understand exactly how semen fertilized an egg. It was only later when biologists of the 1700s began to figure out how pregnancy "worked."
These scientific models were co-opted by some religious groups that re-interpreted scripture based on biological texts - the Book of Darwin?
The Bible does not mention spermatozoa nor ovum, and yet the neo-religious argument comes from these scientific observations and the idea that this is "life" is proposed.
Each month young woman has an "unborn egg." Men carry millions of "unborn sperm."
The idea the life begins when they're matched up is a leap of faith.
Topic basically says it.
Unfortunately, there's no evidence that methotrexate spares future fertility any more than surgical treatment. This has nothing to do with Texas laws. Neither does the fact that few docs would give methotrexate in the presence of a heterotrophic pregnancy, due to the increased risk of complications.
www.emedicine.com/med/topic3212.htm
www.aafp.org/afp/20051101/1707.html
is that methotrexate, unlike any type of surgical intervention, does not increase the risk of future ectopic pregnancies. Of course selection criteria apply, but many highly skilled and widely experienced practitioners do consider it the treatment of choice if a woman is medically eligible for it. Others, of course, might prefer to opt for laparoscopic surgery.
That aside, the influence of Texas antiabortion statutes on the medical care available to women in our hospitals has been transformative and overwhelming in its impact.
A couple of months ago, a nulliparous 19 y/o patient with a unicornuate uterus presented with a pregnancy in a small, nonconnecting rudimentary horn. The recommended treatment for this rare and dangerous condition is the same as for an ectopic pregnancy, and this young woman's condition should have dictated immediate surgery to remove the rudimentary horn.
But no. Despite her pleading, the only treatment she has been able to obtain is high-risk OB care -- and since the risk of rupture of the pregnant horn before the end of the second trimester is so exceedingly high, she's probably gonna need it.
Most women diagnosed with fetal demise no longer have access to a hospital D&C, either, not unless they have some pretty influential connections. They are sent home to "let nature take its course," told to return only if they begin to bleed or show signs of infection. If they don't abort within several weeks, they are told to seek treatment at an abortion clinic. After the passage of so much time, they are at greatly increased risk of life-threatening DIC -- which of course could not be treated in a freestanding clinic. I recently spoke with a woman who was forced to carry a rotting 12-week fetus for over a month, and her case is not at all unusual. That's just how scared hospitals here have become of even the most tenuous connection to abortion.
Antiabortion hysteria has reached such a fever pitch in the medical community of North Texas that this year UT-Southwestern ceased operating the network of family planning clinics that were the only source of health care for tens of thousands of low-income women in Dallas County. Why? Because some of the physicians associated with UT-Southwestern also practice at hospitals in other cities where abortions might be performed. And were that found to be the case, the medical school feared losing $10 million in annual funding from the state.
The treatment women in Texas receive -- or, all too often, do not receive -- has everything to do with our draconian antiabortion laws. This is the only state in the country where a doctor is now subject to the death penalty for performing an abortion on a minor without written parental consent.
...in a blog post. May I?
do as you like with it.
A longtime provider of abortion care who was interviewed in PBS Frontline's The Last Abortion Clinic said:
She's right. People have no idea of how much has already been lost. The same law that made a capital crime of abortion without parental consent also applies to post-viability abortions to preserve a woman's health. The only exceptions are danger of the woman's imminent death or "severe and irreversible brain damage or paralysis." No other vital organ system need apply.
Rep. Will Hartnett of Dallas, the sponsor of this "pro-life" piece of patriarchy, said that "given the priorities of mothers today," fetuses had to be protected from selfish women who might seek abortions because of any other major organ failure.