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1

Holy mother fuck... What the fuck "science now proves that life begins at conception"?

Goddamnit... I hate it when I'm too pissed off to respond intelligently... These doctors, if they are actually medical doctors with any relevance towards reproductive health, should be ashamed. If they're all podiatrists, well, whatever...

Posted by L | October 16, 2006 5:46 PM
2

Of course life begins at conception. A blastocyst is alive, just like an amoeba is alive. The question is, does a blastocyst have any more claim to personhood than an amoeba? I vote no.

Posted by keshmeshi | October 16, 2006 5:52 PM
3

Yes, "life" begins at conception, but Mother Nature sees fit to end more than 25% of those "lives" almost immediately. At least a quarter of all fertilized eggs never implant successfully, or spontaneously abort within the first few weeks. Should we start examining women's menses for the presence of fertilized eggs to enforce laws requiring universal fertility?

Look, I'm basically an abortion opponent. I think it's disingenuous to pretend a blastocyst is not a potential human life. However, I also believe that pregnancy is unique in that it is the one case in which that human life is 100% dependent on its host organism. Unless and until we can find a way to deal with the fact that enforced pregnancy is holding someone prisoner to their own biology for 9 months, the decision belongs to the person whose body is necessary to the continuance of the pregnancy. If you can host the fetus for her, then maybe you can tell her not to abort. But no one else can make that decision.

I don't want to live in Ceaucescu's Romania, with its enforced pregnancy laws. I don't want to go back to the days when OB/GYN wards were full of septicemia cases. Criminalizing abortion doesn't stop it. It never has. Women have been finding ways to terminate unwanted pregnancies ever since they figured out what pregnancy was. Want to stop abortion? Then work to find better ways to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Posted by Geni | October 16, 2006 6:01 PM
4

If human life indeed begins at conception, then the god of those who claim this is quite cruel, creating so many malformed young humans for the evil mother to eject from her selfish womb before they can live on their own. Perhaps miscarriages are a form a witchcraft. That's certainly a belief with some sound historical precedent behind it.
The two sanest views I've ever read about when life begins are Irrigaray's (we should use spontaneous abortion as a clue) and Arendt's (life is an interpretative continuity that can extend back only so far as the ability to interpret does) - incidentally this view is crypto-thomistic much like the Heideggerian worldview it's based on.
Never trust a physician when it comes to truth any more than you trust a mechanic. To learn to fix bodies or the modern automobile one needs to forget about reality and stick with the idols of the tribe.

Posted by kinaidos | October 16, 2006 7:03 PM
5

So, what, all those wiggly spermatazoa aren't alive?

Posted by Paulus | October 16, 2006 7:28 PM
6

Paulus, isn't that your drag name?

Posted by SEAN NELSON, EMERITUS | October 16, 2006 9:07 PM
7

No Sean, Wiggly Spermatazoa is my hustlin' name.
My drag name is Dixie Normous.

Posted by Paulus | October 16, 2006 11:10 PM
8

My blood pressure shot up once they stated that "science proves that life begins at conception". That's like saying that science "proves" that the earth is 6000 years old.

These people are crazy. If they wish to think these things in the privacy of their own homes, that's just fine by me. However, I would not want these doctors anywhere near me, my family or my friends. Ever.

Posted by bma | October 16, 2006 11:54 PM
9

Ridiculous. I almost puked up my morning coffee. As keshmeshi said, amoebas are life too. So are bacteria and viruses. Does that mean when we get sick we should do whatever we can to keep that "life" alive? I mean, god wanted us to get sick right? Otherwise he would have made someone else sick....right???


And that whole part where they say, "execpt for the life of the mother" and "the morning after pill will be available all the time, even for rape and incest"...wtf? So they think that human life should be spared, except life that started because of a bad event? And do they think that using the morning after pill is any less of an affront to "life"? I also wonder how easy it is for a pharmacist to say no to someone requesting the morning after pill.....(insert young women, un-married women, poor women, etc)

And, I am not some man-hater but honestly, if men had to give birth, this would be a different story. Wait, let me re-phrase. If men had to give birth this would not be an issue at all, in fact I am sure that they would have 3rd term abortions legal.

Posted by Monique | October 17, 2006 8:13 AM
10

Forget pharmacists. Look how easy it is for a doctor to say no:
http://bitingbeaver.blogspot.com/2006/09/morality-clauses-ec-and-broken-condoms.html

Posted by Ursula | October 17, 2006 9:39 AM
11

Flavor Flav, you've done it again.

Posted by SEAN NELSON, EMERITUS | October 17, 2006 11:47 PM
12

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Posted by apartments warsaw | October 26, 2006 5:18 AM

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