Slog
News & ArtsThursday, February 9, 2012
The Ladies Life Begins with Ejaculation, not Conception
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 3:01 PM
In fitting response to the misogynistic argument that life begins at conception and fertilized eggs deserve more legal rights than the women carting them around, yesterday Oklahoma Senator Constance Johnson introduced an "Every Sperm is Sacred" amendment to her state's so-called "personhood" bill that read:
Any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.
Sadly, Johnson later withdrew the amendment after claiming that she'd made her point. Still! Between Johnson's amendment this week and Virginia State Senator Janet Howell's hilarious erectile dysfunction suggestion last week, it's refreshing to see legislators finally rising to the challenge of fighting stupid logic with stupid logic.
Curtsies to Enigma.
3
Actually this part of the linked article was my favorite, as it was not meant sarcastically, or at least I'd prefer to think it wasn't:
"State Sen. Jim Wilson, another critic of bill, tried to add his own amendment to SB 1433 that would hold men more accountable for protecting the fetus. He proposed that the father of the unborn child should be "financially responsible for its mother's health care, housing, transportation and nourishment while she is pregnant," Tulsa World reported. "
"State Sen. Jim Wilson, another critic of bill, tried to add his own amendment to SB 1433 that would hold men more accountable for protecting the fetus. He proposed that the father of the unborn child should be "financially responsible for its mother's health care, housing, transportation and nourishment while she is pregnant," Tulsa World reported. "
5
oh you girls.....
why doesn't Slog have Dr Golob on to explain to you that life begins at conception.
why doesn't Slog have Dr Golob on to explain to you that life begins at conception.
6
See also the Mississippi State Legislator satirizing anti-immigrant legislation by introducing a bill whereby all official state documents would have to refer to the body of water south of Mississippi as The Gulf Of America.
8
I'm actually asking a serious question, not trying to start a fight...
Question: What is misogynistic about the argument that "life begins at conception".
I don't get it. Is everything misogynistic? I thought that word was about the denigration of women? Does it truly degrade or express hatred towards women to say that a person believes that life begins at conception? What if the fetus will one day be a woman? Does that mean that abortion is inherently misogynistic because it may apply directly to a woman? And is the altering of a woman's body an act of misogyny? If that's the case, then having an abortion would always be misogynistic?
Please help me understand, I'm a man, but I view women as pure equals, which makes me a feminist, so I'd genuinely like to know if this issue is just over my head, and if so, I'd like to understand the context of the usage.
Question: What is misogynistic about the argument that "life begins at conception".
I don't get it. Is everything misogynistic? I thought that word was about the denigration of women? Does it truly degrade or express hatred towards women to say that a person believes that life begins at conception? What if the fetus will one day be a woman? Does that mean that abortion is inherently misogynistic because it may apply directly to a woman? And is the altering of a woman's body an act of misogyny? If that's the case, then having an abortion would always be misogynistic?
Please help me understand, I'm a man, but I view women as pure equals, which makes me a feminist, so I'd genuinely like to know if this issue is just over my head, and if so, I'd like to understand the context of the usage.
10
@#8,
Human life is worthy of protection (at least, this is my opinion, and I believe it's a majority opinion). The question is how to define human life. At some point between conception and birth, inclusive, a fertilized egg becomes a person, and has rights that can conflict with the rights of the woman hosting it. The earlier it's a person, the earlier these rights come into conflict, and the earlier the woman starts losing legal control over her own body. If you decide that a fertilized oocyte, which is a single totipotent cell (in this respect not too unlike a teratocarcinoma) and roughly half of which will spontaneously fail to implant and thus die naturally, is a person, you're stretching the boundaries of "person" way, way past anything that's scientifically defensible and you're impinging on the woman's rights at the earliest possible moment.
You're also calling into question most popular and effective forms of birth control (both the pill and IUDs can prevent implantation and thereby doom fertilized oocytes), in vitro fertilization as it's usually practiced (surplus fertilized oocytes are generated and are variously discarded, stored indefinitely until discarded, or sometimes wastefully implanted in excess numbers), and of course embryonic stem cell research and its hopes for medical treatments.
Deciding that "life begins at conception" also leads to interesting problems with the status of identical twins, which by this definition would share a life.
Human life is worthy of protection (at least, this is my opinion, and I believe it's a majority opinion). The question is how to define human life. At some point between conception and birth, inclusive, a fertilized egg becomes a person, and has rights that can conflict with the rights of the woman hosting it. The earlier it's a person, the earlier these rights come into conflict, and the earlier the woman starts losing legal control over her own body. If you decide that a fertilized oocyte, which is a single totipotent cell (in this respect not too unlike a teratocarcinoma) and roughly half of which will spontaneously fail to implant and thus die naturally, is a person, you're stretching the boundaries of "person" way, way past anything that's scientifically defensible and you're impinging on the woman's rights at the earliest possible moment.
You're also calling into question most popular and effective forms of birth control (both the pill and IUDs can prevent implantation and thereby doom fertilized oocytes), in vitro fertilization as it's usually practiced (surplus fertilized oocytes are generated and are variously discarded, stored indefinitely until discarded, or sometimes wastefully implanted in excess numbers), and of course embryonic stem cell research and its hopes for medical treatments.
Deciding that "life begins at conception" also leads to interesting problems with the status of identical twins, which by this definition would share a life.
11
Medically, the definition of Conception is the moment that the blastocyst (embryo) implants in the endometrium of the uterus. Some mistakenly refer to Conception as the moment when egg and sperm meet, but that moment is Fertilization rather than Conception.
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