When the antiabortion movement meets the antivaccine movement…

As judged by the number of needles, it meets the pro-acupuncture movement too.

“92% of children who are vaccinated have been potentially injected […]”

Do I dare to ask where this 92% comes from? Just curious to learn if it’s deep proctology or maimed statistics.

Went to the Daliy Beast article. The comment section has an interesting mix of nutties, although the majority seem to want to focus on the Planned Parenthood videos.

I really am trying to understand the thought processes behind how fetal DNA has all these magical properties, but adult DNA apparently doesn’t.

Otherwise, sex would cause autism I suppose.*

But what really got me is this quote:

“taking a baby and chopping it up to make vaccines”

Deisher has apparently never ever met a cell culture.

There is the other problem with this narrative is that both of the human cell cultures are 50 years old.

*In a way it does, but not in the way that anti-vaxxers think.

For people who call themselves Christians, the anti-abortion crowd has a remarkably casual attitude about bearing false witness.

@MikeMa – I’m not anti-abortion myself. However, I suspect someone who was would argue that they are against murder at any age after conception, and thus their concern for the fetus/person remains constant. Someone could be anti-abortion and believe in any level of social services without necessarily being a hypocrite as you suggest.

The idea that promiscuous DNA is taken up by our bodies to horribly detrimental effect is also a staple of the anti-GMO movement.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/10/17/can-genes-pass-from-genetically-modified-food-into-our-blood-posing-dangers/

Somehow this dread danger applies only to GMOs, although it is just as likely that we are at risk of biological transformation from alien DNA creeping into our genomes.every time we eat a ham sandwich or a salad.

I have learned to embrace this possibility, proudly displaying my “Food Tastes Better With DNA” t-shirt (should be fun to wear it to the opening of the new Whole Foods store near me).

“Food Tastes Better With DNA” t-shirt

That’s what makes the bacon so dangerous.

@MikeMa – I probably read more into it than was intended. I’ve seen similar comments posted on a picture and passed around various social sites. Being somewhat literal minded with these things, I find fault with most slogans. I also find that they’re often not intended as the basis for a conversation but as an attempt to stigmatize those with whom the poster does not agree. Naturally, this does not apply in the current discussion.

Apologies — the original comment was from has and not MikeMa (but Mike’s not too far off the mark, either).

has, are you familiar with Hanlon’s razor? “Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.” In this case, these ideas held by American fundamentalists are based on beliefs about “self-sufficiency” and “independence” that run directly counter to both evidence and the teachings of Christ.

For comparison purposes, Saudi Arabia is run by fundamentalists, but it is a massive welfare state.

The heavily edited tapes reminds me of how ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) was destroyed. ACORN increased voter turnout among minorities and lower SES and aided the same with housing. The tapes were made by James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles who contacted the late Andrew Breitbart who played it up to the hilt. Our Congress stopped ALL funding to ACORN prior to any hearing/investigation. Later it was proven the tapes were heavily edited. In fact, in my home town, the ACORN representative actually called the police to report suspicious persons. ACORN, a community organizing group, doing a lot of good was put out of business. I hope this is NOT a repeat, that Planned Parenthood will weather this and, perhaps, by showing the dishonesty and ruthlessness of their opponents will actually discredit them and come out stronger.

So, you affirm that some of the vaccines today came from aborting babies to grind them up to make vaccines. Kudos.
It’s always good to have at least some honesty.

“Even though abortion services make up only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s activity, with the other 97% of services going for contraception, treatment and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screenings, and other women’s health services, Planned Parenthood remains a target of the antiabortion movement.”

Maybe PP remains a target of the antiabortion movement because PP performs about a third of the million abortions per year in the U.S. and PP is probably the single biggest abortion provider in the world, and because services going for contraception, treatment and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screenings, and other women’s health services should be available through countless other health care programs paid for through Obamacare or other insurance. And maybe because half of PP funding is from the federal government, and so, half of every abortion is financed with MY tax dollars.

Maybe because the ghastly mentality that makes PP possible cares more about parts and nothing about the whole. The Grim Reaper harvesting body parts with not a care from whence the harvest comes.

Here’s a USA Today opinion from a liberal columnist for The Daily Beast:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/07/21/planned-parenthood-abortion-fetus-parts-kirsten-powers/30426475/

So, you affirm that some of the vaccines today came from aborting babies to grind them up to make vaccines.

No. Try again.

half of every abortion is financed with MY tax dollars.

So half of one third is 50%? Really?

And Liberal? I don’t think that word means what you think it means, nor does she.

because services going for contraception, treatment and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screenings, and other women’s health services should be available through countless other health care programs

Yes, they should be. But in most parts of the country, they aren’t. Sure, Obamacare will pay for that stuff — but it doesn’t really matter if there isn’t a clinic in the area willing to accept that compensation.

Of *course* PP is targeted because it is the largest abortion provider. But strangely no one ever seems to step up and tackle the one strategy that would actually work: outcompete them for all those non-abortion services. *That* is when I realize how hypocritical the anti-abortion movement really is.

Reading comprehension is not your thing. So sad.

No, trolling is its thing.

We may be looking at another 1000 comment thread.

I’m looking for a statistic… Seems I heard that only ABs preformed rather late in a term can yield tissue appropriate for research purposed. What percentage of Planned Parenthood ABs are “late”?

“So, you affirm that some of the vaccines today came from aborting babies to grind them up to make vaccines. Kudos.”

What an effing idiot — and I see that he is once again setting himself up in opposition to the teachings of the Church to which he says he belongs.

As I recall, PP is very much against mandatory ultrasounds

As well they should, since it’s a invasive medical procedure that serves no medical purpose in this case. The proposed legal requirements server only political ends.

The idea that promiscuous DNA is taken up by our bodies to horribly detrimental effect is also a staple of the anti-GMO movement.

It imperils the Purity of the Bloodline.

Specifically, the WI-38 cell line is a human diploid fibroblast cell line derived from a three month old fetus aborted therapeutically in 1962 in the US.

Waitwaitwait. The WI-38 abortion was elective and Swedish.

The abortion that gave rise to the RA 27/3 vaccine strain was in 1964 and therapeutic, as a result of the U.S. rubella epidemic going on.

^ The locations of the missing blockquote tags I hope are obvious.

See Noevo- From a strictly literal interpretation of the Scriptures, abortion, even late-term abortion isn’t a sin. For example, the book of Exodus lists the penalty for killing a pregnant mother as death, but causing her to miscarry is punished with a fine.

http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/articles/bible.shtml

To Gray Falcon #45:

I guess, with your Jesus, it would have been no big deal if the unwed pregnant teen-ager, Mary, had later second-thoughts, and decided not to go through with it.

P.S.
“And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” [Luke 1:34]

“and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” [Mat 1:19]

P.P.S.
Elizabeth might have thought it WOULD be a big deal:
“And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

Lighten up, Liz. What mother? What Lord? You don’t see no baby, now do you?

Next, SN will tell us that ectopic pregnancies shouldn’t be terminated.

It will say whatever it needs to say to keep the fish biting and continue its inane and irrelevant ravings.

Stupid anti-abortionists can’t even spell “foetus”.

Sorry to say this, but my Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary Second Edition Copyright 1983 lists the definition of “foetus” as “n. same as fetus“

@See Noevo:

“As I recall, PP is very much against mandatory ultrasounds for the potential accomplice (a.k.a. the pregnant patron).”

Ah, at last! A forced-birther who has begun to admit their real intentions: to charge the pregnant woman with (what? attempted murder? premeditated murder?) for exercising control over her own body. It would be like something out of “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Anti-abortion has never been about the value of life. If that were even marginally true, as many have observed for years, those who so rabidly support it would be working to improve the lot of the living. Instead, they are invariably the staunchest opponents of safety nets and social programs that help women and children. And many are great advocates for the very things which are most inimical to life: war, guns, capital punishment.

To anti-abortionists, life is of importance only while it resides in a non-viable state inside a woman’s womb. Once it emerges as a functioning human being, its quality of life often ceases to be of value to the people who purport to protect it.

Because anti-abortion is really about one thing: a political tool for sustaining male patriarchy by controlling women. Birth control fails. And If women can not make autonomous decisions about when and if they will have a child, they cease to have any real agency: economically, professionally — humanly.

“It’s a wonder Revs Al and Jesse haven’t been screaming non-stop.”

No it isn’t. B lack women choose abortion; just as white women do. Given the economic divide that still separates whites from blacks in this country, the roots of this decision probably rest in hard economic reality. Abortion allows women to focus scarce resources on the children they already have.

It’s a wonder Revs Al and Jesse haven’t been screaming non-stop. I wonder why they aren’t?

Yes, AoA was “wondering” about “that” a year ago, but given your obsession with mind-numbingly narcissistic pratfalls, I’m not surprised at your failure to double-check whether what comes at the end of “submit comment” will be unintentionally hilarious.

the true image of them going in OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL
Women? Free will? THAT MAKES NO SENSE.

Recent studies report that an overwhelming number of women do NOT regret their choice to abort.

@JGC,
Odd, right? The result of the loss of that fetus resulted in a lot more healthy babies. No sense of perspective.

You have to love people in the comfort of their predominantly White, suburban, well-to-do homes looking at predominantly Black, poor women and saying, “You’re killing your child.”
Then the women turn around and say, “Will you help me raise it?”
To which the privileged say, “Hell, no. You’re the one who got pregnant. How is it MY problem?”
As far as I’m concerned, men shouldn’t be allowed to make any policy decisions on women’s health. I think the ladies can sort it out just fine without the piggish rhetoric of privileged, well-to-do, “Christian”-until-they-need-to-cheat-on-their-wives men.

Ren couldn’t be more correct.

The problem is, once you remove the anti-abortion platform, what you’re left with is a belief system utterly opposed to the teachings of Christ.

I’m given to understand that the Pope opposes abortions but is entirely in favor of aid to the poor. Presumably some number of Catholics would also have this stand.

Here’s a USA Today opinion from a liberal columnist for The Daily Beast:
What say you, Whackyweedia?

Powers […] in 2011 published a piece in The Daily Beast promoting the theory that access to birth control does not prevent abortions, which she later admitted contains “a serious error” that “invalidates” her piece.

I see. Another obsessive, incompetent crank, vying for the hotly-contested position of “Pundit wrong about the most number of things”..

I see that you chose not to post my previous comment which called you out for the lie that this group only released 2 “heavily edited” videos when they released the full length videos at the same time. (yes I know they released 2 more videos since this last comment).

But why the lack of integrity? You should acknowledge that they released the full length videos as well. And you should acknowledge that the videos are not edited any more than the average news cast and less edited than John Stewart.

Concerning the remark about chopping up babies:

Dr Norby, who was responsible for procuring fetal specimens for delivery to Hayflick at the Wistar Institute:
“My predecessor, as professor of virology at the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, Sven Gard, spent a sabbatical year at the Wistar Institute in 1959 two years after the institution had been taken over by the dynamic Koprowski. One of my duties as a young student in the laboratory in Stockholm was to dissect human fetuses from legal abortions and send organs to the Wistar Institute. Such material was the source of many important studies of cell lines at the Institute, such as Leonard Hayflick’s study of WI-38 cells.

The Serial Cultivation of Human Diploid Cell Lines, Hayflick and Moorhead:

“Isolation of primary cells.-Two methods of cell cultivation from primary tissue were employed in this study with identical qualitative results. The use of trypsin yielded far more cells initially than cultures prepared from fragmented or minced tissue. Since high cell yields were not required from the starting tissue, most cultures were started from fragmented or minced tissue. Such preparations gave fewer cells initially than could have been obtained from tissue treated with the enzyme prepara- tion. Minced preparations were obtained by cutting the tissue in a Petri dish con- taining GM with paired scalpels or a scissors until the size of each piece approxi- mated l-4 mm3. Fragmented preparations were obtained by tearing apart the tissue with two pairs of forceps in a Petri dish containing GM until the pieces could no longer conveniently be grasped and shredded. The entire contents of the dish were emptied into one or more Pyrex Blake bottles (surface area 100 cmZ), depending on the size of the original starting tissue. The fragmented lungs, for example, from a three-month-old human fetus were usually placed in four Blake bottles. Treat- ment of tissue with trypsin was done, in general, according to the method of Fer- nandes [ll]. “

Fetus
: a developing human from usually two months after conception to birth

Mince
1 a : to cut or chop into very smallpieces

@#83 — Baby. Not fetus. They are not medically or legally defined in the same way.

You should give this a listen (and read the news article link):
http://www.radiolab.org/story/grays-donation/

There should be an or between the exist and the you. Not sure where it wandered off to. Will probably show up at random in a future post.

The fact is that “chopping up babies” is not only deliberately inflammatory, it’s inaccurate.

The picture one gets from the phrase “chopping up babies” is someone using a meat cleaver in the nursery (which would have been an interesting scene in Sweeney Todd, though implausible because babies don’t shave). At best it’s colloquial and inexact. At worst, it’s inaccurate because it ignores the distinction between developmental stages.

So is mincing up fetuses less problematic? I think many people would think these are essentially the same.

There are many people who think that dissecting fetal tissue and chopping up babies are the same; which doesn’t make it any less inaccurate.

I don’t know what happened to my tonsils – I doubt they were given a proper burial (my parents didn’t pay for a headstone). They may well have been dissected, in which case, we could say they were chopping up children since I was a child at the time.

Who knows, my tonsils may have been minced – I was unconscious at the time.

Hayflick’s not the one posting here.

The Serial Cultivation of Human Diploid Cell Lines, Hayflick and Moorhead:

“Isolation of primary cells.-Two methods of cell cultivation from primary tissue were employed in this study with identical qualitative results. The use of trypsin yielded far more cells initially than cultures prepared from fragmented or minced tissue. Since high cell yields were not required from the starting tissue, most cultures were started from fragmented or minced tissue. Such preparations gave fewer cells initially than could have been obtained from tissue treated with the enzyme prepara- tion. Minced preparations were obtained by cutting the tissue in a Petri dish con- taining GM with paired scalpels or a scissors until the size of each piece approxi- mated l-4 mm3. Fragmented preparations were obtained by tearing apart the tissue with two pairs of forceps in a Petri dish containing GM until the pieces could no longer conveniently be grasped and shredded. The entire contents of the dish were emptied into one or more Pyrex Blake bottles (surface area 100 cmZ), depending on the size of the original starting tissue. The fragmented lungs, for example, from a three-month-old human fetus were usually placed in four Blake bottles. Treat- ment of tissue with trypsin was done, in general, according to the method of Fer- nandes [ll]. “

So, Hayflick referred to it as tissue. And?

I wonder where A.H.’s indignation of what happened to Henrietta Lacks and her cells. Because the fetuses that are only donated with the woman’s permission, which is not what happened with the Lacks family.

Or if he objects to medical school anatomy labs where donated bodies are dissected.

Many years ago a co-worker described his wife’s treatment by their parish priest when her fetus died inside her body due to rubella in the early 1960s. It had to be removed by a physician. Even though the fetus was not going to miraculously come back to life: the priest excommunicated her.

I wonder if A.H. agrees with that priest, because it is all about the fetus. Not the child nor the pregnant woman, and definitely not the future children that are saved due to the research. Like those who never got Congenital Rubella Syndrome, or those who get the conditions discussed in the RadioLabs podcast I linked to.

By the way, the news article that the podcast is based on:
http://articles.philly.com/2015-03-30/news/60606995_1_cord-blood-liver-tissue-banks

In reference to dissecting and fetuses:

Dr Norby, who was responsible for procuring fetal specimens for delivery to Hayflick at the Wistar Institute:
“My predecessor, as professor of virology at the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, Sven Gard, spent a sabbatical year at the Wistar Institute in 1959 two years after the institution had been taken over by the dynamic Koprowski. One of my duties as a young student in the laboratory in Stockholm was to

dissect human fetuses from legal abortions and send organs to the Wistar Institute. Such material was the source of many important studies of cell lines at the Institute, such as Leonard Hayflick’s study of WI-38 cells. ”

The Serial Cultivation of Human Diploid Cell Lines, Hayflick and Moorhead:

“Isolation of primary cells.-Two methods of cell cultivation from primary tissue were employed in this study with identical qualitative results. The use of trypsin yielded far more cells initially than cultures prepared from fragmented or minced tissue. Since high cell yields were not required from the starting tissue, most cultures were started from fragmented or minced tissue. Such preparations gave fewer cells initially than could have been obtained from tissue treated with the enzyme prepara- tion. Minced preparations were obtained by cutting the tissue in a Petri dish con- taining GM with paired scalpels or a scissors until the size of each piece approxi- mated l-4 mm3. Fragmented preparations were obtained by tearing apart the tissue with two pairs of forceps in a Petri dish containing GM until the pieces could no longer conveniently be grasped and shredded. The entire contents of the dish were emptied into one or more Pyrex Blake bottles (surface area 100 cmZ), depending on the size of the original starting tissue.

The fragmented lungs, for example, from a three-month-old human fetus were usually placed in four Blake bottles. Treat- ment of tissue with trypsin was done, in general, according to the method of Fer- nandes [ll]. “

AH – I’ve always been willing to accept the term “chop” as a replacement for “mince” (though it’s imprecise, as minced is finer than chopped). That’s some riveting stuff there, though no actual rivet tools were used.

Yes, because Shay didn’t see where Hayflick was referring to fetuses and DGR questioned dissecting.

I’m wondering if someone can explain When does a fetus become a baby, in medical terms?

I’m wondering, have you ever heard of JAQing off, in internet terms?

I was assuming you could read

You’re assuming that you aren’t transparent.

Mephistopheles O’Brien @ 110
Ever hear of Jim Thirlwell/?

Foetus is the primary musical outlet of J. G. Thirlwell. Until 1995 the band underwent various name changes, all including the word foetus. Monikers adopted at different times include Foetus Under Glass, You’ve Got Foetus on Your Breath and Scraping Foetus Off The Wheel. After 1995 the name permanently became Foetus, though the related project The Foetus Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1997 and continues.

I’m wondering if someone can explain When does a fetus become a baby, in medical terms?

At birth. For instance, that is why a fetal heart monitor is not named a “baby heart monitor”.

Child: 1 a : an unborn or recently born person.

@Roger Kulp – I hadn’t heard of Jim Thirlwell before I went looking for bands with “fetus” in their names. I did hear of Thurl Ravenscroft years ago, though, when I saw a film about the making the Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride. I can now recognize the work of Mr. Ravenscroft 3 out of 4 tries.

The two are only connected (so far as I know) by the syllable “thurl”.

So at what stage is it considered a baby? Viable?

Mephistopheles,

You’re having a pretty good month.
http://time.com/3972713/detroit-satanic-statue-baphomet/

@See Noevo – Thanks. As one of my minions, though, you should know they got the nose wrong. I gotta get a new head shot.

IANADNDIPOOT – but from a purely practical position if if a fetus is surgically removed from the womb and is viable, that’s a baby. If it’s not viable once it’s removed from the womb, it’s not. Or it’s a dead baby. Take your pick.

If it can breathe air on its own? So if a newborn needs assistance breathing it is not a baby? P.S. Fetuses are children. It’s true.

Feeling free to kill the life in the womb because it’s “non-viable” NOW is very much like our commonly-accepted practice of denying children the right to EVER get a college education in the future.

This should be good mind-numbingly stupid. Would you care to elabloverate?

Chris @142

So I gather AH really hates living children, and parents who have to deal with taking to term a baby who does not have a brain.

But Chris, that baby could have grown up to be forced birth fanatic like See Noevo or AH

Militant Agnostic: “But Chris, that baby could have grown up to be forced birth fanatic like See Noevo or AH”

But what are the chances if the child had Congenital Rubella Syndrome or the conditions mentioned in the last link I gave, like having absolutely no brain development? Seriously, who cares about real live children when there are fetuses to save!?

@AH

Dr Norby describes the dissection of fetuses for use by Hayflick. A fetus is not a tissue sample.

Skirting my point. Let’s try again:
Do you object to abortion, or to the fact that, once a dead fetus, the remains could be used in medical research and/or preparation of medical treatments?

The two are separate events – unless you can show otherwise, by example by proving that the doctors went in the streets and hunted pregnant women to convince them to change their mind about carrying their baby to term and give it to science instead.

So I’m sorry, but I will insist. The protocol you described is for working on tissue samples from a corpse. A corpse which happens to be a freshly aborted human fetus, but a corpse nonetheless.

@ SN

Perhaps you also believe technology will become “human” and take over the earth?

Mass Effect fan here, so no way I can answer objectively.
Although most people talking about human robots seem to confuse human appearance and human soul, for lack of a better word.

In short, you might be a human, if technology permits you to be.

No.
Viability determines viability.
I will be alive, if technology permits me to be.
My main point is that a non-viable fetus may be human, but that it mostly is, is dying or dead. And that’s something which could be objectively measured and predicted.

As it happens, me and my sister are alive because medical technology permitted us to stay alive. If a modern hospital had not been available, my mom would have ended with two dead babies. Human babies, no doubt about it, but dead nonetheless.
Her mom ended with 7 dead children and one alive daughter.

AH,

I’m asking in medical terms. Is it a fetus based on location in the womb, or is it developmental? If a premature infant was surgically delivered would it be a baby or a fetus, and based on what criteria?

The latest of the abortions under discussion was 14 weeks, IIRC, which is not viable and not a baby by any definitions that seem reasonable to me. Here’s a photo of a 13-week fetus, to give some idea about what we are discussing. I don’t think “baby” is honestly an accurate word to describe it, do you?

In short, you might be a human, if technology permits you to be.

There’s somebody from the Bene Gesserit on line 2.

There were at least 80 abortions involved in the work of developing cell lines, and then developing the controversial vaccines using the cell lines. The gestational age of the fetuses varied.

The following quotes from doctors in the field shed light on the circumstances surrounding the use of fetal tissue for medical research:

“Human embryos of two and one-half to five months gestation were obtained from the gynaecological department of the Toronto General Hospital. They were placed in a sterile container and promptly transported to the virus laboratory of the adjacent Hospital for Sick Children. No macerated specimens were used and in many of the embryos the heart was still beating at the time of receipt in the virus laboratory.”
Joan C. Thicke, Darline Duncan, William Wood, A. E. Franklin and A. J. Rhodes; Cultivation of Poliomyelitis Virus in Tissue Culture; Growth of the Lansing Strain in Human Embryonic Tissue, Canadian Journal of Medical Science, Vol. 30, pg 231-245

“The correct way consists in having recourse to Caesarian section or to the removal of the uterus. Only in this way can bacteriological sterility be guaranteed. In either case, then, to obtain embryo cells for culture, a programmed abortion must be adopted, choosing the age of the embryo and dissecting it while still alive to remove tissues to be placed in culture media.”
Dr. Gonzalo Herranz, Professor of Histology and General Embryology at the University of Navarra, Spain

“Experiments were being performed on near-term alive aborted babies who were not even afforded the mercy of anesthetic as they writhed and cried in agony, and when their usefulness had expired, they were executed and discarded as garbage.” Dr. Ian Donald speaking about other fetal medical research at the Karolinska Institute

I’m fairly sure you don’t know anything about my work, life, care for others. Project much?

AH: Tell me something. The vaccine derived from a single human fetus saved thousands of lives. Would you have had them all die for the sake of a fetus that would never have come to term?

Gray, you are probably aware that some vaccines are not made in fetal cell lines, yes? Problem solved.

Helianthus: I’m not skirting the issue. And yes these quotes are real, and since I’ve sighted who/where they come from, I hope you will find out more.

There is zero point in discussing views of morality around this issue when
a. we don’t even agree on the facts surrounding the procurement and use of the fetal tissue
b. we don’t agree on objective standards of morality

I can pretty much assure you we won’t agree.
But perhaps we can at least get the facts straight.

AH: If they could have developed the vaccine without fetal tissue, they would have. If they were not allowed to do so, the vaccine would not have been developed. Would you have allowed those children to die?

objective standards of morality

Without you explicitly stating what you think those objective standards of morality are, it’s hard to see if others agree with you…

But I’ll take a shot in the dark and assume you think murder is bad.

part I) Do you think it is acceptable to kill another in self-defense?

part II) If yes, do you think terminating a pregnancy that is threatening the life of the mother is acceptable?

If not, why not?

Which children? The ones killed by abortion or the ones we speculate would have been killed by lack of vaccine. Ideally, we proceed in such a way that neither group is sentenced to death. that would be my preference.

AH: The ones who would have died from rubella. Would you have them die for the sake of one non-viable fetus?

Right, because making vaccines not using fetal tissue is the same thing as flying by force of will.

At least 80 fetuses were used…. See above#76
All of the fetuses were viable. What made them not viable was being removed from their mother and dissected, while still alive.
That pretty much wrecks viability.

AH: Last I checked, Many of those fetuses were infected with rubella. They most likely would have been stillborn, and caused trauma to their parents when born. Again, would you allow people to die for the sake of the stillborn?

See Noveo @148

No Room For Humans?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servotron

AH: so you would have been perfectly fine with my mom carrying a congenital rubella baby to term, knowing it was probably going to die within the first week or so of birth? You would have been fine with the other baby, anencephalic, who would have killed her and died also, being carried to term? It’s so nice that you care more about nonviable fetuses than adult women.

By the way: viability in the US is generally evaluated at birth, for any birth that occurs prior to 24-26 weeks gestation. If there are signs of viability – breathing movements, unsealed eyes – resuscitation efforts will be made. Under 24 weeks, many times the baby (it’s been born, so now it is a baby) will be placed in a warm isolette with oyxgen flowing in No active measures. They either show they will live (breathing movements, steady heartbeat) or they will die (no breathing, declining heartbeat).

Unlike many European countries, we rarely use birthweight to decide. I’ve seen 250-400 gm babies survive, and 1000 gm babies die.

So, AH..Almost NONE of the fetuses you mentioned were viable. They would NOT have survived (especially with the available technology at the time).

Why do you like to watch babies die? Wouldn’t it be kinder to them and the mother, if they have live -threatening issues, to terminate the pregnancy if the mother decides to do so? Why are you forcing women to watch their babies die?

MI Dawn; please reread above#76, #155,#178.

I’d also like a citation for the Ian Donald quote…every citation I’ve found is an antiabortion site. Given that he was apparently talking about research around WWII, I suppose it’s possible. However, right now, I don’t believe it’s a true quote.

And, true, rubella isn’t always fatal. But when it is caught during the early months of pregnancy, it causes Congenital Rubella Syndrome. Why on earth do you think it’s benign? And do you really think it’s a walk in the park to raise a severely handicapped baby from birth? Do you think it’s a piece of cake to stand by helplessly knowing your child will die before you do of a congenital syndrome?

It’s bad enough when it occurs from a random mutation, as it did in my cousin, as she watches 2 of her 3 children slowly regress mentally and become weaker, then wheelchair bound, then bedridden. She’ll get to watch them die. Isn’t that jolly? Though I bet AH will say that makes her a better Christian or something, my cousin would readily say it turned her away from religion because what kind of supreme being would torture a family in this way?

AH,

There were at least 80 abortions involved in the work of developing cell lines, and then developing the controversial vaccines using the cell lines. The gestational age of the fetuses varied.

Assuming this is correct, though I can find no confirmation of this, most of those vaccines are presumably no longer in use. The polio vaccine currently in use is produced using monkey cells, not human ones.

In any case, I don’t see your point. None of these fetuses were aborted for the purpose of creating vaccines, were they? Is it that you think they deserved a decent burial? Personally, if I had been one of those fetuses (if you se what I mean) I would rather have my remains go to something useful.

The following quotes from doctors in the field shed light on the circumstances surrounding the use of fetal tissue for medical research:

I cannot find a full text version of the paper the first quote is from, though I note it makes no reference to abortions. For all we know these fetuses could have been the result of spontaneous miscarriages or maternal deaths. I am skeptical of the claims about hearts still beating while the fetus was dissected. Mind you, I am not familiar with ethical standards 60 years ago, when this paper was published. Ethics have changed since then, thankfully.

The second quote I cannot find anywhere but rabid anti-abortion websites. I cannot confirm if it is genuine, what date it is from or even if it refers to human embryos. I did find Dr. Herranz, who, surprise surprise, is not a Professor of Histology and General Embryology, he works in the Department of Biomedical Humanities and writes about medical ethics. He appears to be anti-abortion himself.

The third quote, if genuine (I can’t find it anywhere but anti-abortion sites and books), is about experiments carried out in Sweden 40 years ago, in the 70s (or perhaps earlier). I struggle to see the relevance to 21st century America.

Note: one of the known causes of autism is Congenital Rubella Syndrom

Apparently at a fairly substantial rate, I recently read this paper on congenital rubella https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2002/177/11/greggs-congenital-rubella-patients-60-years-later

“Others have followed up subjects with the congenital rubella syndrome. In 1991 Dr Louis Cooper described the 20 000 children born in the United States during the 1964–1965 epidemic.20 In their 20s, a third were leading normal lives, a third lived with their parents and had “non-competitive” jobs, and a third required institutional care for profound handicaps.”

Now they may not have gotten that diagnosis back in the 60’s but I suspect with modern diagnostic criteria most of the 1/3 that were in institutional care are on the spectrum and a fair percentage if not most of the 1/3 living with their parents have at least some aspect of being on the spectrum as well.

I know the scare trend graphs are out there but does anyone really think we are going to hit 2 of 3 kids who are vaccinated with the MMR will coming down with autism and all of them will test totally and completely above average in every way right up until the day they get that shot?

Now not every kid gets exposed to rubella in the womb even in the worst epidemics before vaccination, but of course the horrors those parents went through apparently don’t matter like the terrors of the modern parent of the special snowflake.

To Helianthus #149:

“My main point is that a non-viable fetus may be human, but that it mostly is, is dying or dead.”

So, by your criteria
1) If you think another human is in the process of dying, you may kill him.
2) Our modern technology makes human beings more quickly than in the past, since now even babies born 3-4 months premature can be viable.

@AH

Do you have links to the original sources of those quotes in comment #76?

@AH

Okay, so you have no way of verifying the validity of those quotes, nor examining their context?

Searching for “NCBC quarterly 2006, A Brief History of Human Diploid Cell Strains Rene Leiva, M.D.” only brings up random anti-abortion sites. What we need is a citation to the original paper.

Just provide the PubMed identification number.

@ SN

1) If you think another human is in the process of dying, you may kill him.

To save another human life, because the one dying is putting the other at a real risk of dying or of sequelae, too? Yes.
To do nothing is to kill them both.

Also, “think”, as in “having good evidence in the form of medical teachings, previous experience and tell-tale clinical symptoms”.
I’m not talking about using my gut feelings to decide who lives or dies.
And I never said it would be an easy decision. If it was an easy one, it wouldn’t be a moral conundrum.

2) Our modern technology makes human beings more quickly than in the past, since now even babies born 3-4 months premature can be viable.

Yes. A challenge, but yes. So what?

I clearly stated I follow a “lesser of two evils” position.
Historical chronicles are pretty clear on this: abortions and infanticides have been widespread, in all societies, for the 2 last millenia if not more.
“Caesarian” is so named because Julius Caesar was born this way. If surgeons at that time could do this, you can bet they also knew how to kill a fetus.

Conservative estimates put deaths from abortion worldwide at over 1 billion.

And outlawing abortion wouldn’t change much this sorry state of affairs. Dark-alley abortion offices and, for the upper-class, sympathetic family physicians were the norm before, they would become the norm again.
But I guess a benefit of outlawing abortion would be to make it easy to pretend it isn’t happening. That was the norm, too.
If you really want to lower the number of abortions, you will need to work ahead of the moment a woman becomes pregnant.

Todd W. Did you look for it or are you just whining? I copied directly from my personal files. I suppose you could contact the NCBC or I suppose you could go back to Hayflick and Moorhead’s work for the first part. Then you could look up Plotkins work if you like. Context exists my friend, go get it.

Rubella doesn’t sound as dire as some of the talk here lead me to believe.
“Rubella, sometimes called German measles or three-day measles, is a contagious disease caused by a virus. The infection is USUALLY MILD with fever and rash.
Symptoms:
Rubella usually causes the following symptoms in children:

RASH that starts on the face and spreads to the rest of the body
LOW fever (less than 101 degrees)

These symptoms last 2 or 3 days.

Older children and adults may also have swollen glands and symptoms like a cold before the rash appears. Aching joints occur in many cases, especially among young women.

About HALF of the people who get rubella DO NOT HAVE SYMPTOMS.

Complications:

Birth defects if acquired by a pregnant woman: deafness, cataracts, heart defects, mental retardation, and liver and spleen damage (at least a 20% CHANCE of damage to the fetus if a woman is infected early in pregnancy)”

http://www.cdc.gov/rubella/about/index.html

@SeeNoevo

We’re talking about the effects of rubella on a fetus (and the mother) when the mother is infected early in pregnancy. You are quoting the section that primarily discusses infection of children who have already been born and adults.

Todd, I provided the source for my quotes.

To gaist #180:

I’ll take a shot at what you asked AH:

“I) Do you think it is acceptable to kill another in self-defense?”

Yes, it can be.

“II) If yes, do you think terminating a pregnancy that is threatening the life of the mother is acceptable?”

It CAN be, under certain circumstances.
(In many cases the answer would be No. The threat to the mother is just that – a threat, a risk – not a certainty. Whereas, the end of abortion is a certainty. Abortion, as in the INTENDED destruction of the human life in the womb, is ALWAYS wrong.)
In certain cases that would be fatal to the mother (e.g. some ectopic pregnancies), the intended saving of the mother’s life may require UN-intended ending of the baby’s life. This “double effect” can be morally acceptable:

“When a choice will likely bring about both an intended desirable effect and also an unintended, undesirable effect, the principle of double effect can be applied to evaluate the morality of the choice. The chosen act is morally licit when (a) the action itself is good, (b) the intended effect is good, and (c) the unintended, evil effect is not greater in proportion to the good effect. For example, “The act of self-defense can have a double effect: the preservation of one’s own life; and the killing of the aggressor. . . . The one is intended, the other is not” (Catechism, no. 2263, citing St. Thomas Aquinas).”
http://www.cuf.org/2004/04/ectopic-for-discussion-a-catholic-approach-to-tubal-pregnancies/

Helianthus @ #197 – See Noevo is evidently unfamiliar with the concept of triage.

AH- And we found no evidence that the source you used is real.

By the way, you never answered my question: Would you allow pain and suffering caused by another rubella outbreak for the sake of someone who wouldn’t be alive in the first place?

The NCBC is not a scientific journal, but a religious one:
http://www.ncbcenter.org/

It is based on opinion, one in which concludes contraception is immoral. This is not a publication that we should use to formulate medical policy.

If a premature infant was surgically delivered would it be a baby or a fetus, and based on what criteria?

I’d say the same demosntrable criteria used to determine when what previously had been a human being has ceased to be a human beingis the logical criteria to use to determine when something that previously has not been a human being–a fetus– has become one: -characteristic human neural activity. The cessation of such activity as a consequence of illness or traumatic injury allows the determination that someone has become brain dead and may ethically be removed from life support, so it’s presence would indicate a fetus has developed sufficiently that it must be considered a human being rather than something with the potential to become a human being.

This characteristic neural activity is first observed around 23 to 24 weeks gestation.

AH: “NCBC is sited by the author of this post for one thing.”

Where? Is it buried in the link, or are you confusing it with National Catholic Register? So what? Orac cites lots of things he does not agree with, especially when he is critical of it.

“Second, no one is talking about establishing policy”

Reading comprehension fail. The whole point of the demonization of Planned Parenthood is to restrict access to certain medical procedures due to religious doctrine, not science. Plus the other side effect is to also demonize the MMR and other vaccines due to religion, not science.

How is the NCBC not trying to dictate policy with articles like Coverage of Immoral Procedures under the Affordable Care Act. Essentially you all want to use your particular religion to affect the medical choices of others.

Click on the link in the post that says “concluding in a FAQ”. Then scroll to the FAQ.

Are you telling me you are afraid to read the NCBC paper because it violates your deeply held beliefs in bigotry and abortion? Surely you are able to read a document and evaluate it?

My comment is awaiting moderation. Perhaps I’m over the limit of posts? Too much time spent already.

AH: “Second, no one is talking about establishing policy”

Who did David Daleiden make sure saw his illegally filmed video? Was it presented in a church, or to politicians?

@AH

I think a pertinent aspect to Gray Falcon’s question is this: the fetuses were aborted, which is, of course, sad and unfortunate, but the abortions had nothing to do with vaccine development. After they had already been aborted, tissue samples were taken for use in research.

So, if you were in the position to decide what to do back then would you:

a) Take the tissue samples and put them to good use to develop vaccines that have saved thousands of lives and improved overall quality of life; or,

b) Bury the aborted fetuses or otherwise rendered all of their tissue unavailable for any use other than worm food, thus leaving the only options of the time: vaccines with horrible adverse effects or death and suffering from the disease?

Todd, fetuses were dissected alive, they were not hanging around already dead, gee well, I guess we better use these already dead babies so we don’t waste them…The researchers coordinated with the abortionists and were in fact looking for potential fetal abortion candidates. They were no where as removed as most people imagine

“…on the asis of this video’, not ‘of this argument’.

See Noevo: Rubella doesn’t sound as dire as some of the talk here lead me to believe.

That might be because you’ve no personal experience of anyone who suffered those consequences. At the time I met my wife she was working as a medical social worker and more than half of her caseload at her palce of employmennt ( a large residence for assisted living) were adults with multiple disabilities acquired as the result of rubella infection in utero, so I’ve a different (and I’d argue more informed) understanding of exactly how dire those consequences can be.

Todd, fetuses were dissected alive, they were not hanging around already dead, gee well.

And this would be a problem if it could be established that at the time of ‘live dissection’ those fetuses represented human beings. I know of no evidence is support of such a presumption, however. Care to take a whack at making that case?

JGC your comment has no basis in reality.

AH, is it moral to lie? Do you think surreptitiously taking a video of someone and selectively editing it is honest?

AH: “JGC your comment has no basis in reality.”

Oh, really? You are now denying that there was a rubella epidemic in the early 1960s that caused lots of stillbirths and disabled tens of thousands of children?

AH @234: I’m pretty sure that a fetus aborted in the 1960’s is dead.

Also, did you know that a person can be dead and still have a beating heart?

Further, you did not answer my question: would you refuse an organ transplantation if you needed one because it came from a person who had just died?

Oh sorry I meant #155

AH: “Chris the full videos are available online. ”

So what? Is it moral to video someone without their knowledge and edit it dishonestly?

I’ve already addressed the citations many times.

Im fairly certain the fetuses did not donate their organs /consent. It is unethical for a person responsible for killing a person to be the consenting party to donation. If you were a doctor and you intentionally cooperated with actions which led to death so that you could harvest organs that would be a very big problem.

AH@ 243: You seem to have missed the part where the only possible way to get a legal, hospital abortion in Canada in 1952 was if the mother was going to die. And that the fetuses described in that paper were from a hospital.

So either the fetus died, or the mother *and* the fetus died. Can you not do that math?

Again: Organ or no organ?

From AH’s comments, I have visions of a flying squad rounding up women and dragging them off to an abortion clinic, gleefully rubbing their hands together as they plan for pretty babies to dissect.

AH: First, you have no PROOF that these things actually happened. That’s why we have been asking you for citations so we can read the quotes IN CONTEXT.

Secondly: are you aware that cardiac muscle can beat for quite some time after death? I know everyone has this “stopped heart” thing in mind. But that has almost nothing to do with muscle activity. And you can see a “heartbeat” of muscle for hours (try it with frog legs…they’ll actually jump with a little stimulation. Freaked me out in high school biology class.)

However, as a nurse and a midwife, I have grave doubts that they were dissecting “babies with heartbeats”.

If you want to read the papers in context you can do so. The quotes I have provided have been sourced. I understand you don’t like it, but that is the proof. I didn’t write these sources. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it invalid. If you have grave doubts, fine, I really don’t care. You can in fact get the papers, read them, get the books read them. Nothing is stopping you.

Todd, fetuses were dissected alive

Your only basis for this statement is the Herranz and Donald quotes, which have no discernible bearing on WI-38 or MRC-5.

Some Christians are seemingly oblivious to human suffering and would rather see a woman die in agony than see a fetus the size of a tadpole aborted on the basis of some metaphysical, pre-scientific notions of souls and sin that I utterly reject.

Not only do I reject it, it doesn’t make any sense anyway; if the immortal soul is real and there’s a heaven and hell and all that, wouldn’t dead babies (i.e., aborted fetuses) go straight to heaven anyway, now that limbo doesn’t exist anymore? (Yeah, the RCC got rid of it; how one eliminates a supernatural realm, I can’t tell you.) Seems an easier lot than suffering through however many years in this mortal realm before you get to go hang out with Jesus for eternity or whatever.

OK. Now I know that video is all crap. I hadn’t watched it because PP does legally have the right, with the patient’s permission, to donate speciments for science. And maybe the woman talking was a bit crude but she was being played for that role.

HOWEVER…

PP doesn’t do terminations generally beyond 12 weeks. You won’t see the kind of stuff mentioned. It’s nearly impossible to tell the difference between male and female at that point. There is no calcification of the bones. I’ve SEEN women miscarry at 12, 13, 14 weeks. I’ve poked through the specimens to try to identify if everything was expelled or if a D&C was needed to complete the process. This is bull.

@AH #238

“Taking organs from living persons I would reject, yes, even if I was suffering.”

Including ones where the living donor survives? What if you could donate some of your liver or a kidney to save a life, would you refuse because any kind of organ donation is a sin not matter what if the donor is living? What about tissue donations such as a bone marrow transplant where the living donor may experience a fair amount of pain, but doesn’t lose anything other than a bit of tissue?

Is it different if the living donor can continue to live or is your no not at all never completely absolute?

We can & must debate about
who we think we may kill, & for whom,
when, where, & why,
but let’s all keep in mind the main issue:
that fetuses _may_ be already sentient.
If we keep that main point in mind,
we’ll surely at least reduce all our killing.

Later, shortly before her death, Sarah writes those same words on the hotel bathroom mirror:
PERVERTED, TWISTED, CRIPPLED.

Mirrors, SN: they’re your friends.

@SN

you’re OK with killing the life that infallible scientists say is non-viable.

“infaillible scientists” have designed the computer you are using right now.
You may want to stop using it before it explodes. One never knows.

One of my points is that you do moral decisions using the tools you have. “Tools” in the large sense, to include people with some expertise in the appropriate fields.
Another good motto I read somewhere is that an amateur should be wary of second-guessing the expert in the line of fire. He may sometimes have a point, but more often than not he will be missing some context.
So I will trust a gynecologist over some stranger on the internet to tell me if a fetus has some chance to live. If you have a better solution, I’m all ears.

Lastly, it seems as though you are primarily concerned with protecting abortion rights only in certain circumstances, namely, where a) the pregnancy is considered to be endangering the mother’s life, and b) the fetus is considered “non-viable” (gestation of less than 5 months?).

Do I read you correctly?

That would be my starting point.

These are dark situations I feel where abortion is the moral thing to do, because the fetus is never going to be a human being (e.g. ectopic pregnancies – the egg is not going to develop properly) or is going to die shortly (internal bleeding and oxygen deprivation following placenta abruption), and there is nothing you (currently) can do to fix it.

There are less dark, less clear-cut situations, like rubella infection, or more generally any infection of the amniotic chamber, where the life of the mother is in jeopardy, and the life/correct development of the baby has bad odds. You – the parents, the medical staff and whoever who feels his opinion may count – may hope things will resolve themselves in a positive way, but if you are unlucky, you lose both the mother and the child. You can only make “conjectures”, to use someone else favorite word, but based on past experiences, it looks dire.
I tend heavily into caution: protecting the life that is – the mother – over the life that could be – the baby. If I am wrong this way, I only killed one person. If I go the other way and I am wrong, I killed two persons.
Yeah, because I don’t follow the trite “if I don’t get involved, I don’t have any responsibility in the outcome”. To do nothing is to do something.

These shades of grey go lighter, all the way to purely elective abortions. The lighter we go, the less sure I am of my moral position.

But if we don’t agree on what I see as the clear-cut cases, there is no point grappling about the more murky ones.

Which brings me to another angle of my position: what’s effective at reducing the number of abortions.

Well, we’ve outlawed murder, thievery, child-molestation, etc. We don’t pretend murder, thievery, child-molestation, etc. don’t still happen.
But I think the outlawing probably results in less murder, thievery, child-molestation, etc.

True enough (although, some religious leaders became recently famous for denying that child-molestation happened among their ranks. But I digress).

But:
As I said, we did pretend abortions weren’t happening, or only to the other people.
My mom told me about the concierge at the entrance of her building who was providing her services as a “faiseuse d’ange” (angel maker), back in the 60’s. Everybody knew, but everybody pretended not to.

In social terms, abortion is not happening like crimes done out of spite or lack of self-control, on the spur of the moment. Well, I’m not talking about the self-inflicted ones.
Illegal abortion is a service proposed by people to other people. In this regard, its dynamics are more akin to gambling or prohibited substances than wanton murder.
And in all developed countries, illegal gambling or tobacco/alcohol/… consumption have not been curtailed until they have been made legal, and heavily regulated.
I also have this little feeling that the true availability of different contraception methods, for women and for men, is a bigger factor in reducing the demand for abortion than whatever outlawing you can do. In this respect, I think the current attack on Planned Parenthood, if successful, will only results in more abortions, not less.
Just saying.

Krebiozen, JP, re beliefs: God created mankind for eternal life. Death, disease, suffering entered the world through the plan of Satan to destroy mankind because he hatred God ( hurting Gods children was The way to torture God). This is what satan wants, confusion death, deception. God, being greater than Satan and always being the author of life and love, becomes the very victim Satan is going after and in becoming man offers himself in place of his children. Satan falls for this, because he never sees past his own hatred, and he kills the spotless lamb, thereby the sins of all humanity deceived as they were by the evil one are paid, and so no longer must man be captive to satan or eternal death. Man has free will and by joining himself to Christ may return to the loving Father for the eternal life he was created for.

And #264 shows exactly why there is absolutely no point in continuing any attempts at reasonable discussion with AH: goddidit…’cept for when satandidit…

Assuming that is an accurate representation of their views rather than satire.

AH- Your religious views are utterly reprehensible. Your refuse to answer a simple question about the ethics of your stance, unaware that does nothing to help you out.

According to Hebrew understanding of the Bible, Satan only exists as God’s subordinate. The word “Satan” can be translated as “prosecutor”. By this understanding, death, disease, and suffering entered the world by God’s will for God’s purposes. To suggest Satan has power of his own is idolatrous.

So what you’re saying is that you would approve of another rubella outbreak, and all the death and suffering it entails?

AH: Enough sidestepping. Which is better: To harvest cells from a few non-viable fetuses, or let people die and suffer from rubella? We need an answer.

Todd I don’t think you are even trying to think. Is love that is forced love? No. Love has to be freely chosen in order for it to be authentically love. God allows free will because this is what is required in order for love to be made manifest. The fact that satan or anyone rejects God and chooses evil is squarely on the individual.

AH,

Krebiozen, JP, re beliefs: God created mankind for eternal life. Death, disease, suffering entered the world […]

That’s what you believe, though why anyone would believe such a bizarre scenario beats me. I don’t share those beliefs, obviously, but I respect your right to hold them.

I noticed that you wrote earlier:

There is no moral problem with donations that do not compromise the health or result in the death of the donors.

It was your absolute language that caught my attention. What I think you meant was, “I have no moral problem…”. There are several billion of us on this planet and we do not all agree about morals. I have a problem with people who make absolute statements about morality and try to impose those beliefs on those who don’t share them. This planet is too small for that kind of attitude, unless we carve the planet up into some kind of mega-cantons.

I would like to see abortions carried out as little as possible, not because I believe they are immoral, or sinful, but because it is unpleasant for the woman undergoing it, and also partly because abortions clearly cause distress to some with religious objections, such as yourself. I would like to accomplish this by providing effective contraception, by educating people and by empowering women to take charge of their own fertility and bodies. You, presumably, would like to accomplish this by scaring people into abstinence or into having unwanted children through threats of eternal torture after death, or by making them look at an ultrasound of their fetus (which has little effect on women’s decisions), which I can’t help finding despicable.

I disagree with your beliefs but I don’t want to see you suffer either, nor would I want to see anyone who was opposed to abortion being forced to undergo, carry out or witness one. I find it sad that you and your ilk are not willing to offer me the same respect, and that you do your best to impose your beliefs on others who do not hold them.

Proclaiming that there can be no reasonable discussion with people who express religious views is bigotry.

How can you discuss something rationally with someone who has reached their views through a route other than reason, especially when they claim that Truth comes from some kind of infallible Holy Writ that cannot be challenged? Isn’t that is the very opposite of reasonable.

The fact that satan or anyone rejects God and chooses evil is squarely on the individual.

What about those who reject God and evil? Can a secular humanist be good?

What is irrational in what I have said? Prove it!

You are under no obligation to believe as I do, however, you fail to see that even your view tries to impose on others.

AH @ 233

Then what evidence indicates that at all stages following conception the developing organism is a human being, rather than a human zygote, embryo or fetus?

let’s start at the beginning: following fertilization but prior to the first round of cell division we’re talking about something that’s unicellular, possess no differentiated tissues, is insensate beyond the most basic chemical/receptor interactions common to all cells, exhibits no sentience or any higher neural functions because–obviously–it possesses no neural structures of any kind.

By what rational argument must this be considered to sahre exact identity with a day-0ld, week-old, year-old, twenty year-old…etc., human male or female?

And please note that any argument from portential (“If it isn’t aborted it will eventually become a human being”) argue against your position, as logically at any time the statement “This has the potential to become a human being” is found true the statement “This is already a human beiing” must be found false.

It is unethical for a person responsible for killing a person to be the consenting party to donation.

And again: your evidence that at the time the abortions are legally permissible and where tissues may be harvested, the fetus is must be considered to represent a person such that the fetus’ consent would be necessary would be…what, exactly?

Be specific.

@AH

Would you choose A or B? It is a pretty simply answer to give.

but let’s all keep in mind the main issue:
that fetuses _may_ be already sentient

What evidence indicates that fetuses may be already sentient at any time prior to 23-24 weeks gestation ( the earliest time at which characteristic human brainwaves patterns may be detected)? Be specific.

Todd, Rejection of God is how death, disease, suffering are made manifest

Demonstrably false, AH: death and disease occurred long before human beings capable of embracing or rejecting a putative god existed on this planet.

So, AH, why are you here?

@AH

Actually, you haven’t answered the question. You’ve danced around the answer, plenty, but no straight answer. Instead, you’ve focused on a quote about the polio vaccine (remember, we are asking about the rubella vaccine). You have noted how you would refuse any tissues/organs from a living donor (which does not bear on the question I asked you). Again, with the development of the rubella vaccine, the fetus had already been aborted for reasons other than vaccine development. At that point, there were two options:

a) Take the tissue samples and put them to good use to develop vaccines that have saved thousands of lives and improved overall quality of life; or,

b) Bury the aborted fetuses or otherwise rendered all of their tissue unavailable for any use other than worm food, thus leaving the only options of the time: vaccines with horrible adverse effects or death and suffering from the disease?

Given your snarky response at #227, am I correct in concluding that you would choose option B? A clear yes/no reply is all that is needed.

KayMarie @ 187

I thought it was generally accepted by everyone that congenital rubella was a major cause of autism.Way too many links and studies to post here as you can see.

The LBRB article citing where Lyn Redwood links congenital rubella to mercury is especially worth a read.

JGC @ 241
“That might be because you’ve no personal experience of anyone who suffered those consequences. At the time I met my wife she was working as a medical social worker and more than half of her caseload at her palce of employmennt ( a large residence for assisted living) were adults with multiple disabilities acquired as the result of rubella infection in utero, so I’ve a different (and I’d argue more informed) understanding of exactly how dire those consequences can be.”

AH @ 233

JGC your comment has no basis in reality.
Maybe you are the one who has no basis in reality.Here are just two of the more recent studies that back up what JGC says.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2013/12/29/maternal-infections-linked-to-increased-risk-of-autism-in-kids/63836.html

http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news/2014/large-study-links-maternal-infection-to-autism-risk

AH @ 282

Todd, Rejection of God is how death, disease, suffering are made manifest.

As an atheist myself,there are two question I have always asked hardcore believers.I have yet to get a logical answer,that makes any real sense.

How do you square this belief with children who are born with very serious birth defects and genetic disorders? Most religious doctrine,especially Judeo-Christian doctrine was formed centuries before people knew anything about modern medicine,be it genetics,and congenital disorders,or infectious diseases.

What of the pain and suffering endured by sick and injured animals?Has a dog who has contracted parvovirus or a rhinoceros dying of fungal pneumonia rejected God?

Please answer in a logical manner.

JGC @ 289

Interesting article about when brain waves are first detected.

Even pro-lifers are not sure if a fetus has enough brain activity to feel pain in the first trimester.

I’d addressed this back in 2012, in another RI post (https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2012/01/13/a-one-trick-pony-does-his-one-trick/)

From that post:

The earliest neural activity that can be associated with brain function has been measured was at 12 weeks of development. It however displays none of the characterisitics of actual brainwaves seen on a normal EEG. R. M. Bergstrom stimulated the fetal brain stem directly and recorded random bursts of electrical activity, which looked exactly like the bursts produced by fetal leg muscles when they were so stimulated.

At 17 weeks gestation Bergstrom reports finding “primitive wave patterns of irregular frequency or intermittent complexes from the oral portion of the brain stem and from the hippocampus” in the midbrain, measured by EEG. None of the fetuses Bergstrom studied, however, displayed “brain waves” or other kind of signal from the cerebral cortex as late as 150 days post-fertilization ( the oldest fetuses studied). [Bergstrom RM. Development of EEG and unit electrical activity of the brain during ontogeny. In: Jilke LJ, Stanislav T, eds. Ontogenesis of the brain. Praha, Czech: University of Karlova Press, 1968:61-71.]

When we do begin to see actual brainwaves originating from the cortex–sustained, bilaterally synchronous waves, characterisitic sleep spindles, etc., the kind of brainwaves whose absence is prima facie evidence that a victim suffering traumatic injury is brain-dead–is around 26 weeks gestation.

“Functional maturity of the cerebral cortex is suggested by fetal and neonatal electroencephalographic patterns…First, intermittent electroencephalograpic bursts in both cerebral hemispheres are first seen at 20 weeks gestation; they become sustained at 22 weeks and bilaterally synchronous at 26 to 27 weeks.” [“Pain and Its Efffects in the Human Neonate and Fetus” Anand et al, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 317, Number 21: Pages 1321-1329, 19 November 1987]

While this involves animal research,it does involve (a type) of autism.All I have to say is science is awesome!

To Krebiozen #279:

“How can you discuss something rationally with someone who has reached their views through a route other than reason, especially when they claim that Truth comes from some kind of infallible Holy Writ that cannot be challenged? Isn’t that is the very opposite of reasonable.”

Maybe you should ask an atheist who’s anti-abortion, like Nat Hentoff.

http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/06/nat-hentoffs-solitary-pro-life-witness

This article and many of the comments here revolve around vaccines developed from the bodies of aborted babies.
Does anybody out there know how many vaccines were developed from the bodies of people who were born?

What if Dr. Josef Mengele had developed some wondrously efficacious vaccines from the bodies of the various prisoners before they were gassed at Auschwitz?

Do you think such vaccines would be as popular as the ones described above?

This article and many of the comments here revolve around vaccines developed from the bodies of aborted babies.

The vaccines in question were not developed from the bodies of aborted babies.

They are grown in human cell strains. The cell cell strains were obtained from fetus tissue 50 years ago.

It’s easier to to be here, sitting on your high horse

That’s going a bit far; if S.N. were Lady Godiva, he’d have been too busy staring at himself in the mirror to ever make a fuss in the first place.

Bonus question: if such research on vaccines has been done by Mengele (setting aside the fact that this guy was too biased to conduct good research), would SN discard these findings and accept that the research was repeated on fetuses?

A more direct approach might be to try to get him to reconcile remarks such as this* with Pius XII’s first encyclical:

I wish we could at least impeach the white half of him.

ObImage.

* He’s really fond of the mulatto shіt. So much for sexless serenity.

See Noevo,

“How can you discuss something rationally with someone who has reached their views through a route other than reason, especially when they claim that Truth comes from some kind of infallible Holy Writ that cannot be challenged? Isn’t that is the very opposite of reasonable.”
Maybe you should ask an atheist who’s anti-abortion, like Nat Hentoff.

That article states (quoting Mark Judge):

“A famous liberal who was a staple at the Village Voice and who had a column in the Washington Post , in the 1980’s Hentoff actually let himself be swayed by evidence about abortion.”
“It happened when Hentoff was reporting on the case of Baby Jane Doe, a Long Island infant born with spina bifida and hydrocephalus, which is excess fluid in the cranium. With surgery, spina bifida babies can grow up to be productive adults. Yet Baby Jane’s parents, on their doctor’s advice, had refused both surgery to close her spine and a shunt to drain the fluid from her brain. In resisting the federal government’s attempt to enforce treatment, the parents pleaded privacy.”

So Hentoff’s objection to abortion was triggered by an emotional reaction to some parents of a severely disabled child refusing life-saving treatment for that child, which of course is exactly the same as a six-week abortion. How is that rational?

See Noevo and AH:

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2015/07/fetal_tissue_research_for_als_planned_parenthood_videos_leave_out_that_donations.html

Read this article and then think about whether you want to ccontinue yammering on about how morally superior you are.

here was a discussion on, I believe, Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” site about ethics. One retired engineer from the NASA chimed in and explained how the Nazis did realize tests on the acceleration effects on the human body – basically, throwing Jewish prisoners down, alive, into a mine shaft.
So the NASA found itself in this moral quandary:
– do they use the results of the Nazi experiments – which, for all they know, were perfectly useful results, ethics questions aside;
– or do they round up a herd of goat and repeat the experiment, with the caveat that, since goats are not humans, the results will not be as good?
They finally went with the nazis’ results. In addition to the results being more accurate – and thus, less likely to result in the NASA killing the people they will be sending to space, they may have felt that discarding these previous results would have been like killing the prisoners a second time.

Ahem.

Considering that NASA was not only already using rocket technology developed by the Nazis using slave labor that killed (and, in fact, was designed to exterminate) tens of thousands of people but also employing the Nazis who used it, that “finally” strikes me as a little overstated.

But I mostly bring it up because it raises an interesting question:

What if Dr. Josef Mengele had developed some wondrously efficacious vaccines from the bodies of the various prisoners before they were gassed at Auschwitz?

Do you think such vaccines would be as popular as the ones described above?

It’s not a matter of:

“What if the American aerospace industry used technology that was developed by Wernher Von Braun using the bodies of various prisoners before killing 20,000 of them?”

It did.

But I have a feeling you don’t think that all people of good conscience should revile, condemn and recoil from it for that in the present.

Why is that?

HTML fail

To JGC:
Are you still out there?
I’ll repeat my question:
What do you, as a self-described observant Jew, believe about an afterlife?

Indeed. It was not actually my intention to condemn either him or rocket science, though I condemn the slave labor, of course.

You’re on solid ground overall.

No pun intended; I’m weary.

Nice “aim”, Dr. Barker.

Yes, the tactical shift back from embryonic to fetal stem cells among the theocratic set has already been noted.

But my search was frustrated, because all I got was
“Our normal site is currently undergoing maintenance.”

I wonder how often that maintenance happens?

Your onanism is duly noted. Again.

The petulance is a nice touch, though.

To #6: Does this mean only a socialist can support crime control?

I like to remind people that The Clergy were prominent in the movement to legalize abortion, just as they were prominent in the Civil Rights Movement and other efforts to demonstrate God’s love in the service of social justice. Certain malefactors have been studiously burying that part of our history, but it’s not going to work so long as people of good will feel called to stand up and testify to the truth.

For Krebiozen, and most of the others here, who can’t stomach references to the “goat herders” book (i.e. the Bible), Catholic teaching/philosophy, or ANY religious stuff, in regards to the abortion issue…

So it’s not just you being unable to stomach others dismissing your ‘religious stuff’ as the sole authority on the issue?

I wonder how often that maintenance happens?

Probably whenever something in the news constitutes too much of a security risk for them to keep the whole site up and running.

But if by “annual report” you mean “Form 990,” it’s on Guidestar anyway. And if by “annual report” you mean “annual report,” the cached version is still accessible.

So it would serve no nefarious purpose for them to take it down.

Joseph Hertzlinger: “I don’t recall seeing anything anti-vaccine in anti-abortion publications.”

Please read my comments #20 and #214. Click on the links I provided.

Re: PP’s dumb 3% statistic

If pedophiles used the same tactics as Planned Parenthood to minimize their crimes:
“So you see, sexual abuse of minors is only 3% of the pedophile’s interaction with children, your honor”

Activities With children in year 2015

Providing meals : 65
Rides in car: 147
Supplying educational reading material: 247
Candies handed out in neighborhood: 580
Offering special counsel: 120
Providing gifts: 70
Providing baths: 55
Gentle hugs: 120
Sexual abuse of children: 43

Cecile Richards should be in jail.

Only in a 3rd world theocracy. Perhaps you should move, AH, since a secular nation like the US doesn’t regulate things to your liking.

wow, you give secularists a bad name.

AH,

Re: PP’s dumb 3% statistic

If pedophiles used the same tactics as Planned Parenthood to minimize their crimes:
“So you see, sexual abuse of minors is only 3% of the pedophile’s interaction with children, your honor”

Funny you should bring that up…

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/07/13/pope_francis_interview_on_pedophilia_and_celibacy_in_church.html

I’m sure in this case you wouldn’t argue that we should discard the other 98%?

Oh Nadar, you crack me up.

Oh, AH, you crack me up. Both your lack of morality and civility show who well you serve your particular deity. Still trying to tell women what to do with their bodies based on invisible sky fairies?

If you want to read the papers in context you can do so. The quotes I have provided have been sourced. I understand you don’t like it, but that is the proof. I didn’t write these sources. Just because you don’t like it doesn’t make it invalid. If you have grave doubts, fine, I really don’t care. You can in fact get the papers, read them, get the books read them. Nothing is stopping you.

Actually, something is. Because (unsurprisingly) the quotes from Donald and Harranz aren’t sourced to books or papers, and (equally unsurprisingly) appear to exist exclusively in the form of rumors on the internet.

The third quote you provided — ostensibly proving that polio-vaccine research was carried out on live babies who arrived at the lab after having been ripped from the womb by abortionists at ten-to-20 weeks — is sourced to a paper that was published in 1952.

I can’t find the text of the paper. (Or, ftm, an abstract.) But I second Krebiozen’s skepticism about embryos being dissected while their hearts were still beating.

I mean, there’s a 0% chance of survival outside the womb at ten-to-20 weeks now, in the present, even with the use of every available aid in the neo-natal intensive care unit.

So I don’t see how it could have been any less impossible prior to 1952.

But I second Krebiozen’s skepticism about embryos being dissected while their hearts were still beating.

The quote (which is accurate; G—le Books has a scan of the bound volume, although only accessible in snapshots) doesn’t actually state this; he has to hitch it to another wagon before trying to get away with the ol’ switcheroo.

See Noevo,

Gee, I’m surprised you didn’t read a little more from that very short article.

Why? The rest of it has little or no relevance to the ethics of abortion.

It goes on to say things such as
“Whenever I see that kind of story, where everybody agrees, I know there’s something wrong,’ Hentoff told the Times…

That seems an odd attitude; reminiscent of oppositional defiance syndrome.

“He came across the published reports of experiments in what doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital called ‘early death as a management option’ for infants ‘considered to have little or no hope of achieving meaningful ‘humanhood.’

What does infanticide have to do with abortions? Remember, the majority of US abortions take place earlier than 6 weeks gestation and 90% earlier than 13 weeks, a whole 27 weeks before term. If you can’t argue against a 13-week abortion without referring to infanticide I’d say your argument’s in trouble.

He talked with handicapped people who could have been killed by abortion.”

My son has a very similar condition to the child on the article and required similar life-saving surgery. I’m glad he wasn’t aborted and that we didn’t leave him at the hospital and forget we had a baby as we were advised – we were very young and this was 1980 when attitudes, I hope, were different. However, I would not condemn someone who did abort a pregnancy because of disability. I see no inconsistency in this.

Similarly my existence was an accident – my parents hadn’t planned on having me, their marriage was nearly at an end, and both were pro-choice so my mother’s pregnancy with me could easily have been aborted, but it wasn’t. I would not condemn a woman who did have an abortion in similar circumstances.

Neither of these experiences changes my views on elective early abortion, nor on later abortion for severe disability. Why would they?

“When Hentoff’s pro-choice friends heard about his new pro-life convictions (which, to them, were heresies), they were aghast, but he didn’t back down: “Here were liberals, decent people, fully convinced themselves that they were for individual rights and liberties but willing to send into eternity these infants because they were imperfect, inconvenient, costly.

The only arguments in favor of infanticide I have seen, and which I personally support are those like the Groningen Protocol, which allows the killing of “infants with a hopeless prognosis who experience what parents and medical experts deem to be unbearable suffering“. It isn’t imperfection, inconvenience or cost that drives this protocol, but unbearable and intractable suffering.

I saw the same attitude on the part of the same kinds of people toward abortion, and I thought it was pretty horrifying.”

This is a description of his emotional reaction to his friends’ attitudes, not a rational argument.

“… he is hardly a political or social conservative. His courage and independence on the issue of life deserves note.

I admire his courage in standing up for his convictions but I think they are sadly misplaced. They are clearly based on his emotional reactions, on anthropomorphizing and empathizing with an fetus, not on reason.

“Hentoff’s transformation is recounted in The Debate Since Roe: Making the Case Against Abortion 1975-2010 , a powerful collection of essays from the Human Life Review , which has received excellent reviews and which other reporters could learn a great deal from.”

I dug around and realized that Hentoff’s Paulian conversion took place in 1984, 21 years ago, when attitudes were very different, I hope; I have related my experience, above.

@#347 —

Re: Your dumb analogy

Pedophiles provide meals, gifts, car rides and baths to children in order to groom them for sexual abuse. Because their mission is sexual abuse not ending child hunger, etc.

Planned Parenthood does not provide 97% of its services to millions of women in order to groom a much smaller number of entirely different women for the abortions that make up the remaining 3%. Because its mission is not abortion but the provision of women’s health services to women who need them.

See the difference?

So AH’s degraded (or is that upgraded) into “I know you are but what am I?”

No Ann I dont. PP murders children.

Obviously most commenters in this thread don’t agree with you and have explained why they don’t agree with you and aren’t going to change their view of the matter..

So exactly what do you hope to achieve with your repetitious yammering?

Sorry, blockquote fail on #369

Should have been:

No Ann I dont. PP murders children.

#368 AH:

No Ann I dont. PP murders children. If they sell sunshine on the side, they are still murdering children,

Of course, you will provide some reference to birth certificates for some of these children alleged to have been murdered.

and shamming their data to pretend like it’s really no big deal.

And you will provide evidence for the “shamming” of data, right.
I didn’t think you would or even could.

Chris, child killers are immoral. They belong in prison.

Abortions carried out legally are not crimes, therefore not murder and not subject to prison terms.

“He came across the published reports of experiments in what doctors at Yale-New Haven Hospital called ‘early death as a management option’ for infants ‘considered to have little or no hope of achieving meaningful ‘humanhood.’

By which he means that when he “dug into” his subject, he couldn’t come up with any better evidence that a society that tolerated abortion was on a slippery slope leading to euthanasia for the disabled than a 1973 piece in the New England Journal of Medicine by two (2) doctors at Yale-New Haven reporting that out of the 299 deaths that occurred in the neonatal unit there between 1970 and 1972, 43 were the result of their decision to withhold treatment with parental consent.

That was just as illegal and unpopular in 1973 as it was in 1984 and is now, needless to say. But needless to say, he doesn’t mention that the piece was promptly greeted with national outrage and condemnation at the time. Because the only reason he’s bringing it up at all is in order to associate abortion with something that reliably provokes exactly that response, validity no object.

child killers are immoral. They belong in prison.

Child killers do end up in prison.

Unless of course they have a “religious belief” get out of jail free card.

http://www.vocativ.com/culture/religion/faith-healing-deaths/

Some anti-abortionists also end up in prison, though not for their anti-abortion views:

http://articles.philly.com/2001-06-23/news/25323661_1_child-pornography-abortion-doctor-nicholas-morency

No Ann I dont. PP murders children. If they sell sunshine on the side, they are still murdering children,

Please explain how 97% of the services they provide can be characterized as something they do “on the side”.

and shamming their data to pretend like it’s really no big deal.

Please also explain how the data is a sham.

Eyes wide open?

Yes. That’s why I can clearly see that it’s not possible for Planned Parenthood to pretend that 97% of the services it provides aren’t abortions unless it’s a pretense that they’re not.

“Most people who oppose abortion also oppose bigotry.”

Says the poster who brought up pedophilia.

those sources don’t tend accurately represent the majority of prolife people.

Luckily for everybody, neither do you.

Oh gaist, how would you know? Are you cranky?

I’ve met pro-life people, quite a few of them, and they tend to be considerate, compassionate and not trying to pretend anybody who disagrees with them is a murdering paedophile.

Oh gaist, how would you know? Are you cranky?

Let’s see… “crabby,” “cranky,”…. I think maybe that line could use some fixing up:

Oh gaist, how would you know? Are you cranky on the rag?

They also tend not to resort to pissy fits when others don’t immediately agree with them.

Typically they also, unlike you, seem like decent human beings I wouldn’t mind hanging out with, despite possibble differences of opinion.

AH: “Dear abortion lovers,”

We, or at least I, do not love abortions. We understand that they are necessary. Many times to save the mother. I do not like that as a primary means of birth control, which is why I find that the Roman Catholic Church opposition to contraception to be abhorrent and unrealistic.

“Over 90% of their “pregnancy related services” end in abortion.”

That is pretty good cherry picking. Despite being told over and over again 97% of their services do not include abortion. You realize that the way you stated that is kind of a lie. You do realize that lying is immoral, right?

^ Messed up the link: the first half links to a different thing than the second half, but I intended to make it clearer with a break in between. Also note that the second half leads to a PDF.

Chris, I don’t think you know much of anything about catholic teaching, based on most of your comments thus far. But you are correct about opposing contraception. Different thread.

I’m not sure you know what a lie is.

Blockquote fail.

Ann PP annual report is available online. My figures are correct.

I guess it’s time for you to begin citing the relevant portions, now isn’t it? And I do mean “citing.”

Nice try.

Indeed.

They kill over 300,000 children a year. Over 90% of their “pregnancy related services” end in abortion.

They don’t kill any children.

Re: the 90% claim.

http://www.factcheck.org/2011/04/planned-parenthood/

Nadar, I know you’re mad, but I’m sure you’re capable.
DGR, fetuses are children.

Based on the available evidence, including PPs own annual reports, that AH wouldn’t know the truth even if it came up and bit him.

DGR, fetuses are children.

In your mind.

Re: The number of abortions at Planned Parenthood :They reported 329,445 in 2010, 333,924 in 2011 and 327,166 in 2012.

And that represents “90%” how exactly?

Re: The number of abortions at Planned Parenthood :They reported 329,445 in 2010, 333,924 in 2011 and 327,166 in 2012.

And?

Anyway.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contraceptive_serv.html

According to the above “In 2013, publicly funded family planning services helped women to avoid 2 million unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in about 1 million unintended births and nearly 700,000 abortions.”

Clearly Planned Parenthood is providing a valuable service.

AH: “Re: The number of abortions at Planned Parenthood :They reported 329,445 in 2010, 333,924 in 2011 and 327,166 in 2012.”

Okay, that is the numerator, now what is the denominator? Just saying that is “90%” without telling us, with references, the total number of women getting services, including details of those services, is lying by omission.

As noted above, opposition to contraception, and emphasis on abstinence is unrealistic. This is what leads to unwanted pregnancies and spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the real world. And abortions.

If you want to prevent abortions, then do not oppose contraception. Do do otherwise is hypocritical.

Over 90% of their “pregnancy related services” end in abortion.

That’s basically just a rhetorically dishonest way of making it Planned Parenthood’s fault that affordable, accessible prenatal/obstetric care is the only kind that’s already available to virtually all women at almost any clinic or hospital that provides it, when in fact it says nothing about them except that they’re true to their mission statement.

But besides that, unless:

(a) the 1,128,783 pregnancy tests on their last annual report don’t count as pregnancy-related; and

(b) more than two-thirds of them were negative and all the others led to abortion

I don’t see how it could be true.

Citation?

Knowing just for the hell of it. And in this case, arguing just for the sake of arguing.

Of course, you’re happy to engage in the latter while being utterly ignorant just for the hell of it. Offhand, in just two days, there’s the screaming boner about marriage licenses and utter dimwittery about U1.27.

PP appears to be fully transparent in its activities, unlike the Catholic Church, which, to this day, refuses to accept responsibility for the aiding and abetting of pedophilic priests…

Regarding the multiple attacks on AH for his analogy in #347, just one thought:

I’d like to think there was an unsaid “before I leave” following “just one thought”.

But, that would just be wishful thinking.

At any rate, I didn’t see the responses to AH’s abysmally stupid comment as “attacks”.

More in the way of constructive criticism intended to help AH develop their obviously sub par reasoning skills.

See Noevo:

So are you saying that if Planned Parenthood tried to be secretive about the abortions and used that government money that you’re so upset about (despite it not actually going to support abortions) to pay off the women who had abortions to keep them quiet then you’d be okay with it?

That’s the Catholic Church approach. But I have trouble believing that you’re support it in this situation.

Unlike the Catholic Church with the sexual abuse scandal (and the equal or greater scandal in other religions, in homes, and in the public schools),
Planned Parenthood is PROUD of ITS scandal (i.e. abortions) and lobbies publicly and furiously for protections to continue its scandalous activity.

Yah, the RCC was so not-proud that they deliberately covered it up for as long as they possibly could and then fought tooth and nail against facing the legal consequences.

They’d still be at it if they could be.

To ann #379:

“[Nat Hentoff] couldn’t come up with any better evidence that a society that tolerated abortion was on a slippery slope leading to euthanasia for the disabled than a 1973 piece… 43 [deaths] were the result of their decision to withhold treatment with parental consent. That was just as illegal and unpopular in 1973 as it was in 1984…”

Maybe not full blown, wide-spread euthanasia.
But not even a slippery slope?

“Physician aid in dying (PAD), or assisted suicide, is legal in the states of Washington, Oregon, Vermont and Bernalillo County, New Mexico… The key difference between euthanasia and PAD is who administers the lethal dose of medication. Euthanasia entails the physician or another third party administering the medication, whereas PAD requires the patient to self-administer the medication …”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euthanasia_in_the_United_States#Legislation_and_political_movements

Here’s some new video of a guy lots of people want to euthanize.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-33078828

Another article in The Independent notes “Last month the European Court ruled that his feeding tubes could be removed without breaching his human rights.”

Sounds similar to this country’s Terri Schiavo case, where she was starved and dehydrated to death.

But not even a slippery slope?

You mean like the slippery slope the Gipper cautioned against here?

https://youtu.be/fRdLpem-AAs

Regarding the multiple attacks on AH for his analogy in #347, just one thought

The irony of this* following immediately on the heels of the utterly gratuitous “big girl,” “girl with a big head,” “big boy” demonstration of your basic character is not lost.

* Maybe it’s a lack of caffeine, but I really couldn’t come up with a suitable recasting; it’s a Fowlerian “fused participle” to my eye.

To ann #439:

“We weren’t on a slippery slope that led to euthanizing the disabled at birth in 1973, or 1984, and we’re not on one now.
During the only time period during which eliminating the unfit from society enjoyed any political popularity in this country at all, abortion was completely taboo and entirely illegal.”

Do mean the time period of racist and eugenicist Margaret Sanger, the founder of what became Planned Parenthood?

Sounds similar to this country’s Terri Schiavo case, where she was starved and dehydrated to death.

Clearly God has no problem with people starving to death:

http://www.poverty.com/

Who are you to question God’s will?

“As far as my views about abortion: As noted above … I believe abortions should be legal, safe and RARE.”

Just like appendectomies or cancer treatments.
Babies as disease.

Did you forget the part where you were cheerleading for rubella?

He’s complaining about a statement made by AH….this should be fun.

Why is it that all of you would be in favor of denying first graders now the right to ever get a college education in the future just because they can’t handle a college curriculum now?

Your predictable topic swerve is noted, but I’ve already noted that the “commonly-accepted practice”* you’re invoking (again) seems to have no referent.

This is the original version:

Feeling free to kill the life in the womb because it’s “non-viable” NOW is very much like our commonly-accepted practice of denying children the right to EVER get a college education in the future. We quite sensibly deny children a future college education because they are non-college material NOW.
(And this saves parents’ a lot of work and worry over how to pay for those college tuitions. Whew! College-be-gone, worry-be-gone.

And baby-be-gone. Viability schmiability.

* Yes, reproducing this hyphen in the run of text pained me.

Bill Price @ 448:

There’s an image of Margaret Sanger photoshopped into a KKK meeting that’s all over the wingnuttosphere, along with a quote with a few negative particles edited out. No matter how many times the original picture sans KKK, and the original quote are shown to them, they won’t give it up.

Figures Egnor would buy it.

To ann and to all others here besides AH:

Why is it that all of you would be in favor of denying first graders now the right to ever get a college education in the future just because they can’t handle a college curriculum now?

Practically all of my posts have been about either what is or isn’t a part of Judaism or what is or isn’t a factually accurate statement about the services provided by Planned Parenthood.

So I have no idea where you’re getting that from.

So I have no idea where you’re getting that from.

Well, he’s just trying to change the subject, but I suspect that it’s some sort of freakish Common Core bad trip to go along with his misogyny born of resentment, dripping racism regarding Obanana, and so forth.

Perhaps he’ll finally hork up the basis of the evasion tactic on his own.

This is probably a shock to you, but those sources don’t tend accurately represent the majority of prolife people.

Well, AH, you’re fond of comparisons, right? Percentages?

OK? We’re set then. How many chopper-uppers of live children Clayton Waagners have the opponents of forced birth produced?

Remember, you made a quantitative statement:

Most people who oppose abortion do so because killing is wrong.

Get cipherin’, with no false-equivalence excuses.

And…
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/153699-exposing-the-planned-parenthood-business-model

And…

There’s really no need for you to reinforce your run-of-the-mill instantiation of cowardly evasiveness.

I mean, if you’re that unreflective, what you really have on offer is the squandering of everybody’s time. In other words, a “Freddy Got Fingered” impersonation of Bengt Ekerot.

I’ve seen people who oppose abortion go on about whatever wars they want to fight and the people they want to bomb. It’s not about a moral aversion to killing, it’s about having a platform that almost looks Biblical that doesn’t require spending tax money on “undesirables”.

Gray Falcon,
George Carlin had a little something to say about that.

Regarding the multiple attacks on AH for his analogy in #347, just one thought:

Unlike the Catholic Church with the sexual abuse scandal (and the equal or greater scandal in other religions, in homes, and in the public schools),
Planned Parenthood is PROUD of ITS scandal (i.e. abortions) and lobbies publicly and furiously for protections to continue its scandalous activity.

I wouldn’t call them attacks, and once again – it’s not our side equating Planned Parenthood with paedophilia. Which I do call an attack.

See Noevo, May God Bless you. Peace.

I’ll answer your question See, if you answer one for me. Would it have been better for babies to have been stillborn from another rubella outbreak, rather than using a fetus to develop a vaccine?

By the way, I do have a response to your question, See. It’s a false analogy, and therefore irrelevant. I suggest you learn basic logic before coming back here.

Narad @310

ust by the by, your assignment of mutual culpability to Yishai Schlissel’s most recent stabbing victims was a fantastically minimalist self-portrait.ust by the by, your assignment of mutual culpability to Yishai Schlissel’s most recent stabbing victims was a fantastically minimalist self-portrait.

A sixteen year old girl has now died of her injuries from this act of faith. I am sure SN considers this a double of bonus given his misogyny and homophobia.

Todd, I think most pro choice people believe they are doing what is right and compassionate. I used to be pro choice myself. I know you dislike the evidence I’ve given, but it is real.
I don’t dislike people who are pro choice I just strongly disagree. Peace

MI Dawn #478,
We already force people to live by our religious and moral beliefs. That is why murder, rape, theft, arson etc is wrong and punishable. If you kill someone, you go to jail. That is forcing religious/moral beliefs on someone. If abortion is murder (a point where I am undecided) then it is absolutely right to try to force people to stop doing it.

#477

I used to be pro choice myself.

And this person used to be anti-abortion:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/lovejoyfeminism/2012/10/how-i-lost-faith-in-the-pro-life-movement.html

I find her thinking much more compelling than anything you or See has offered.

Edmundo: “That is forcing religious/moral beliefs on someone.”

Not really. Morality and fair play do not need to be based on religion. It can be argued it is more attributed to common sense rules to have a successful society.

Chris, get PP annual report. Also see the link to former PP clinic director’s article. Why do you get to decide that certain babies can be killed? Aren’t you imposing your morality on them? W

Adam, every human life is a human life.

According to your beliefs. But as Americans we are not required to ascribe to your beliefs, just as you are not required to ascribe to mine.

Chris #483
That is actually what I was referring to when I used the slash. I do not murder, among other reasons, because the bible tells me not to. You do not murder because of your moral belief, which may not come from religion. I thought a slash meant and/or. Sorry for the confusion. What I said still stands, we (christians/athiests) enforce our religious and/or moral beliefs on people all of the time, and in many cases have every right to do so.

AH: “Chris, get PP annual report. Also see the link to former PP clinic director’s article.”

No, you made the 90% claim, therefore you need to provide the evidence to support it. I did read about the PP numbers this morning, and you “90%” bit was not in it. So you are now required to back up that claim.

AH: “Letting women decide for themselves who is a human being and who is not, makes no sense.”

Obviously, because according to your deity women are not capable of making decisions on their own. So if you want us to subscribe to your deity’s rules prove that he/she exists.

Edmundo: “I do not murder, among other reasons, because the bible tells me not to.”

More often than not it comes down to an economic issue. One reason a ruler of a fiefdom would frown on murders is that it cuts back on his working force. More than once I have seen dramatizations (like fantasy, Westerns, scifi, and even “historical” programs like Vikings) where someone has killed a person, and then finds they needed that person’s skill. Usually as an ironic “oops” moment.

The most potent example of the economic cost of human death was with the native peoples of the Americas. Disease was not completely responsible for the 95% drop in their population over two centuries. The problem was that is was not just children who came down with measles, smallpox, etc, but the adults. When the adults were unable to farm, hunt, make shelter, clothing, etc then entire families died, and then almost entire civilizations.

Chris if you read the article link you’ll see what I’m referring to.
Why do you get to impose your arbitrary criteria on me? I don’t have to accept the murder of some human beings. I don’t have to accept your arbitrary morality. and I dont.

Chris, what proof would be good enough for you? You are imposing an arbitrary rule that says it’s ok to kill some human beings.

Adam you are accepting an arbitrary rule that says it’s ok to kill certain human beings.

Edmundo, I just remembered a better example of the economic incentive to not kill (and sorry if this is a Godwin): the Nazi use of slave labor.

It is not really productive to starve and kill your labor force who are manufacturing weapons and medical supplies. This was very well explained in The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis by Arthur Allen. Some Polish prisoners did make a good typhus vaccine, except they secretly vaccinated each other and sent defective vaccines to the Nazi military forces.

It is a very good read.

We already force people to live by our religious and moral beliefs. That is why murder, rape, theft, arson etc is wrong and punishable. If you kill someone, you go to jail. That is forcing religious/moral beliefs on someone.

Not necessarily. As a society we expect and hope its participants are house trained, but I don’t see consequences as necessarily forcing anybody into doing something. I mean, we allow murderers and other criminals back into society once their prison sentences are done, we send soldiers into battle trained to kill and indeed, often call returning ones heroes. Cops are known to kill in the line of duty, and we don’t think of them as murderers. Some doctors and nurses terminate a pregnancy, but that doesn’t make them murderers, even if we individually or as a society regret any of the above situations.

And it’s not like murder is hardwired into our instincts., so it’s not like most of us have to be threatened with punishment not to kill, divine or secular. Humans are social animals after all.

If abortion is murder (a point where I am undecided) then it is absolutely right to try to force people to stop doing it.
And if it’s not murder, there is absolutely no right to try to force* people to stop doing it, yes?

* I don’t have a problem with people voicing their opinions on the issue, but forcing them is another matter.

blockquote fail, starting from “And if it’s not murder…

AH and others argue that a woman does not have control over her own body during the time that a blastocyst/embryo/fetus depends on it.
When does she get that control back? Once a baby is born, is it legitimate for her to refuse to donate blood for a transfusion that the baby needs? How about donating a kidney, or a piece of liver, or a skin graft?
The only reasonable answer is that she always has personal autonomy- that no one can be forced to give of their own body to support someone else.
Unless, of course, one supports forced donations of blood and redundant organs. That would at least be consistent.

AH ironically asks, “Why should some people get to decide who lives and who dies? Who is valuable and who doesn’t count?”

Who decides this? People who decide that it’s better a pregnant woman should die, or at least come close to death and lose her fertility, rather than allow an abortion. Who? Those people who say that removing a Fallopian tube that happens to contain a fetus, isn’t really an abortion, so it’s OK (the USCCB). Who? Those people have decided who lives and who dies and that the fetus is valuable, and the female acting as incubator doesn’t count. Who? Those who put forth the “Let The Woman Die” bills because women are only allowed three acceptable positions in life:

Virgin Mother
Virgin Martyr
Mother Dying Nobly in Childbirth

I hope you are in the van of a movement to require cameras in every delivery room to capture that magical moment when a female child is born and instantly loses her “right to life.”

AdamG, it is not a coincident that I have this song presently as an ear worm:
http://www.montypython.net/scripts/sperm.php

Ellie, your views don’t represent mine.

madder , so the child in the womb can die so women can have autonomy?

@AH #512: Is that all there is to it, or should Adam attempt to ban masturbation? Are you satisfied with a hope that Adam doesn’t engage in it, or will you join with him in his war against those who do?

When does a woman regain control over her own body, AH?

@DGR #481,
Nice article, that explains precisely how the pro-life movement has led to the suffering and death of tens of thousands of women, to millions of unwanted pregnancies and to millions of unsafe abortions. Rarely has a movement so well-intentioned led to such appalling suffering. If Heaven and Hell really exist I suspect some people are going to get a terrible surprise.

When do human beings have the right not to be killed, madder?

If you start with a tire and start adding parts, at what point do you have a car, AH?

AH:

God is infinite and creator of all. Nobody tells him what to do, or puts him in a lab to do experiments, “proving” his existence.

You could just as easily say that about the Hindu concept of Brahmin, which has more followers and has been around for longer. How do you know that you’re right?

Chris,
This blog, and you particularly, add more books to my reading list than anywhere else! It’s appreciated.

Madder? So if you wanted to kill someone else’s fetus you could because they aren’t born?

And you are trying to make me complicit by having me accept it.

Personally, I could give a rat’s ass about what you or anyone like you chooses to believe and/or accept.

Which is why I don’t visit religious blogs, whether anti-abortion or not, on some delusional crusade to impose my particular opinions and beliefs on the denizens of those sites.

You chose to come here and voice your opinion, and that’s all it is, and people have explained why your opinion is invalid in their eyes.

And yet you keep whining away.

AH: “God is infinite and creator of all.”

Prove it. Until then it is an invisible sky fairy and has no say in the public policy.

“Nobody tells him what to do,…”

Or more accurately: your particular deity does not exist.

“You believe in a morality which says you can kill some human beings. I don’t.”

Actually when your rules are imposed on women more end up dying. When you restrict contraception and abortion you actually get both more abortions and infanticide. Which is why link provided above by DGR is a good read. Of course you will discard it because, even though it is well referenced, it was written by a woman. You have shown that you don’t believe women can make decisions about their own body.

Krebiozen: “This blog, and you particularly, add more books to my reading list than anywhere else! ”

🙂

This blog and others are where I get ideas for my reading list.

A fetus has its own body, it is a unique human being.

These aren’t traps either, AH, I’m honestly curious.

…is contraception acceptable?
…is non-vaginal coitus acceptable?
…is having sex during ‘safe days’ acceptable?
(…and the list could go on)

Or do you think all of these cheat Odin of his little children?

Adam surely knows that sperm are not human beings

So spermicidal contraceptives are a-ok?

AH: “And you impose a death sentence on some human beings because of where you arbitrarily draw the line.”

The line is not arbitrary. You might want to learn a bit about how the chemical signals direct where the proteins go during fetal development. The book by Sam Kean is not overly technical as it is meant for a general audience. Even you could understand it if you are willing to open your mind and pull the shingles from your eyes.

What is arbitrary is basing laws on the beliefs of one religion for a deity that does not seem to exist.

@AH

Any comment on those Bible passages I provide?

I was really embarrassed for AH. Obviously he doesn’t understand the concept of autonomy. Of COURSE it’s wrong for me to make another person terminate a pregnancy. That’s why we don’t drag women off to abortion clinics. However, if the woman, of her own free will decides she does not want the burden of the pregnancy to continue, for whatever reason, I would happily give her a ride. Because I don’t see killing a lump of cells as murder.

On the other hand, AH appears to be perfectly happy to kill any number of sentient beings, because they have XX chromosomes, as long as the lump of cells survives.

By the way, AH/SN: How come in almost any society it was wrong to kill/steal/injure those who belonged to the group? Even without a super-sky-fairy, people developed moral codes to promote the ability to live in groups safely. Gee…you’d almost think it was inborn in us, rather than denoted in some musty, many-times-translated and cherry-picked-as-to-allowable-chapters book. (One of my favorite books talks about the Councils of Nicea and Trent and how they decided what was “in” the bible and what was “out”.)

Science confirms that fetuses are unique human beings. Surely you know that.

AH: Repeating a statement does not make it true.

Now tell me something: Would you have rather let people suffer through more rubella epidemics rather than let the improved vaccine be developed from fetal tissue?

AH: “Science confirms that fetuses are unique human beings.”

Citation needed. Provide the PubMed indexed studies by reputable qualified researchers who are not paid by any church or church related business. Don’t just try to tell us about their unique DNA sequence, some which if you have read the last two books I referenced you would know can cause some serious effects.

And answer DGR’s questions in #544.

If uniqueness is your criterion, then a molar pregnancy is deserving of protection too.

Gaist #501
I actually meant to say murder in the place of kill. But I agree with you, if abortion is not murder, then we should allow it to happen. If it is murder, then we should not allow it to happen. The trick is figuring out when killing becomes murder. For me I am convinced that after the brain is semi formed (somewhere from 15 weeks to 30 weeks), killing the baby is murder. Before then, I just don’t know.

A unique human organism is formed at conception.
http://bdfund.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/wi_whitepaper_life_print.pdf

Edmundo: “Whether abortion is murder is thus not a religious question or scientific but a philosophical one.”

The Roman Catholic Church is not the only religion to restrict abortion.

The philosophy bit is complicated. Sure it is fine to restrict abortion, but it gets into other territory when the “philosophy” decides to also restrict contraception. Then that gets into how women are perceived in a society.

I strongly suggest you read the links in Comments #481 and #488. It is, again, an economic argument to place a burden on all of those with a Y-chromosome.

The thrust of the argument in the link you provided is:

Because the zygote arises from the fusion of two different cells, it contains all the components of both sperm and egg, and therefore the zygote has a unique molecular composition that is distinct from either gamete

Ok, so the argument is that a certain combination of components in a zygote is what allows one to decide whether it is a baby or not. Which specific cellular components are necessary to determine if a type of cells are babies or just cells?
The argument that follows in the link you provided turns to semantics, (i.e. defining ‘organism’ and ‘cell’) not science. Which specific cellular processes make a cell a baby?

AH: “A unique human organism is formed at conception”

Not a PubMed indexed journal.

Also the author is associated with this group:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witherspoon_Institute