Author Topic: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?  (Read 30465 times)

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #200 on: July 01, 2022, 12:44:17 PM »
Well in the South slavery will probably be back since it is deeply rooted in their history and culture.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #201 on: July 01, 2022, 12:47:30 PM »
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In one case you're talking about a doctor who was frankly the wrong doctor for this person, although I'm not entirely happy about the marketplace argument in medical matters. The bakery analogy doesn't hold water when comparing to a time sensitive emergency, which to me is more an issue of the general problems in the U.S. medical system. In principle a doctor acting on his conscience is not the same at all as the state banning something.

Except it wasn't only one doctor.

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Her ophthalmologist suspected a stroke in her optic nerve and told her the condition can be caused by pregnancy, but Houshmand was stuck in a Catch-22: The pregnancy was now also preventing treatment. Doctors told her that she needed steroids and blood thinners and a specific type of MRI that could make sure there wasn’t something even more serious happening. But she couldn’t get any of those things because they could endanger her fetus.

Houshmand decided she wanted an abortion. She wasn’t willing to risk losing eyesight and continuing to be in pain, vomiting over and over, with no solution … not for an eight-week pregnancy. But her doctors couldn’t help her — abortion wasn’t even an option they brought up. Houshmand had to find a private clinic that could treat her on her own. After the abortion she found out the truth: She had a life-threatening infection in her optic nerve.

As long as she was pregnant, none of the doctors Houshmand encountered would do the things that needed to happen to diagnose her — or treat her.

She saw multiple doctors, not just one who had a problem with her pregnancy.  And it was because the procedures to diagnose and treat her could endanger the fetus.

Which is the Catch-22: you can't know if the illness is serious enough to kill the fetus until it is diagnosed, but you can't diagnose the illness without killing the fetus.  You either have to risk killing the fetus or wait until the illness is so serious that it is obvious the mother will die--at which point it may be too late to save the mother (and often the fetus). :(

So the only way to know if the illness is serious enough to kill the fetus is to kill the fetus.  But it isn't medically necessary at that point, because no one knows if it is that serious.  So it is an illegal abortion, and the doctor should go to jail.

So the doctor has a choice of killing the fetus but saving the mother--and possibly going to jail (in some cases possibly for life)--or risk the life of both by holding off as long as he can--and possibly getting a malpractice suit (with a good chance of beating it).

Which do you think most doctors will do most of the time? ;)

Of course, the mother could choose to terminate the pregnancy herself.  Except that now she can't in many states because there is no exception for "mother believes it is medically necessary."

The mother doesn't get to make her own medical decisions.  Only the doctors can do that.  And the doctors are incentivized not to make the decision that might cost the fetus' life, because the penalties for making the wrong decision are much worse in that case, even though it will cost of life of the mother and sometimes the fetus in a number of such cases.

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And it is pretty common for sick pregnant people to end up squeezed in that vise, said Dr. Lisa Harris, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Michigan who specializes in treating pregnant patients with complex medical problems. While she can remember cases where death was certain if an abortion couldn’t be performed — a patient with heart and lung failure, for example — they only come up maybe once a year in her work. But patients like Houshmand happen all the time, she said. “Maybe it’s a 30 or 50 percent chance that someone might die. And they might not die immediately. Maybe it would be in the next week or month, or even year or beyond.”

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #202 on: July 01, 2022, 01:24:28 PM »
The general argument being made is bad, anyhow. You can't have a piecemeal approach to good policy. Pretending for the moment that "protecting the fetus" was a generally accepted good starting place, that can't exist in a vacuum. If people use bad reasoning or immoral logic in other aspects of their approach to a pregnant women it doesn't say anything about the starting place. If people say "no abortion" and simultaneously throw young pregnant women under the bus and offer no services to single mothers, this isn't a commentary on abortion but rather on other matters. In the case of doctors there is plenty of room for improper decision-making even if (according to the premise) it is correct to protect the fetus if possible. I too would be dismayed at the idea of a doctor withholding necessary treatment because he decides personally that he just doesn't want the woman to have it. That doesn't mean I have to be pro-choice as a result.

Although to be fair part of the culprit here is a lack of first principles. It seems pretty obvious to Christians that the lack of a central authority among all Christian sects means you can't expect to have common ground in anything. Sure, someone could say they are "pro-life" due to their beliefs but that barely tells you anything. For a Catholic to say that it may mean something very different from a Mormon or Bible Belt Baptist. The words are the same, the underlying principles (if indeed there are any) may not agree. So in a practical case you can have, say, a Catholic pregnant woman wanting lifesaving treatment and baffled that a Baptist doctor thinks the fetus' life is more important than hers. It really matters when people are not even speaking the same language, but somehow have to interact in a practical matter involving life and death. It's a problem. In all seriousness it suggests there may be very good reason to find a doctor (if possible) sharing your belief system, and there are other reasons reinforcing this being a good idea.

wmLambert

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #203 on: July 01, 2022, 01:29:34 PM »
Once we fully revert back to the States' control of abortion, such treatment can go forward legally and save the lives like Houshmand. It is not medical ethics that point to solutions. The two points will always coexist: Is it okay to kill an unborn child to possibly save a mother, or not?

BTW: the best use I know of for men to use sanitary napkins is as emergency use to stop bleeding of wounds. Special Ops warriors swear by them.

Otherwise, the only way to scientifically decide man or woman is simple: XX or XY.

Tom

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #204 on: July 01, 2022, 02:18:51 PM »
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Otherwise, the only way to scientifically decide man or woman is simple: XX or XY.
Scientists overwhelmingly disagree with you on this.

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #205 on: July 01, 2022, 02:24:32 PM »
You trust scientist?  They say the world is billions of years old and that evolution is real?  How can you trust people like that?

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #206 on: July 01, 2022, 02:36:39 PM »
You trust scientist?  They say the world is billions of years old and that evolution is real?  How can you trust people like that?

They deny the existence of angels! Do you need to know anything more?

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #207 on: July 01, 2022, 03:16:58 PM »
The general argument being made is bad, anyhow. You can't have a piecemeal approach to good policy. Pretending for the moment that "protecting the fetus" was a generally accepted good starting place, that can't exist in a vacuum. If people use bad reasoning or immoral logic in other aspects of their approach to a pregnant women it doesn't say anything about the starting place. If people say "no abortion" and simultaneously throw young pregnant women under the bus and offer no services to single mothers, this isn't a commentary on abortion but rather on other matters. In the case of doctors there is plenty of room for improper decision-making even if (according to the premise) it is correct to protect the fetus if possible. I too would be dismayed at the idea of a doctor withholding necessary treatment because he decides personally that he just doesn't want the woman to have it. That doesn't mean I have to be pro-choice as a result.

It does not address the first principle of "protecting the fetus," or more to the point, "the fetus is a human life."  But it does address the first principle, "the mother has control of her own body."

By making it illegal for a mother to abort a fetus without permission (i.e. except in certain circumstances) means that the mother no longer has control of her own body.  Which means doctors can refuse to perform certain diagnosis which may harm the fetus or certain treatments that may harm the fetus, but which the mother requires.  The mother can no longer decide what is best for her; she must have agreement from the doctor and the state.  And either may arbitrarily deny her of what's best for her.

And while the state does have an interest in preserving human life, does it have such an interest when it robs the rights of its citizens to control their own bodies, or even their own health and life?

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #208 on: July 01, 2022, 03:22:01 PM »
Once we fully revert back to the States' control of abortion, such treatment can go forward legally and save the lives like Houshmand. It is not medical ethics that point to solutions. The two points will always coexist: Is it okay to kill an unborn child to possibly save a mother, or not?

I don't see how States' control can change things for the better.

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Otherwise, the only way to scientifically decide man or woman is simple: XX or XY.

So you believe that women who were born with penises should be required to use women's dressing rooms?  I didn't realize you were such a liberal!  ;D

Or are you suggesting we should create a third sex, based on the science?  Which rest rooms should they use?  ;)

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #209 on: July 01, 2022, 05:43:00 PM »
Once we fully revert back to the States' control of abortion, such treatment can go forward legally and save the lives like Houshmand. It is not medical ethics that point to solutions. The two points will always coexist: Is it okay to kill an unborn child to possibly save a mother, or not?

Except most of the anti-abortion crowd isn't content with state's rights on this. They can't wait to outlaw abortion on a national level through congress. You don't think they want to let Massachusetts and California keep killing babies, and there's no way they get that through those state legislatures?

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #210 on: July 14, 2022, 06:54:53 PM »
Well, we're off and running.

I believe President Biden mentioned a 10-year-old rape victim who was denied an abortion in Ohio.

At first, there was denial.  "it was all made-up."

Then they caught the guy who raped her.  The AG, who denied they even had such a case, now is crowing about catching him. :)

But, of course, she was able to get an abortion in Indiana.  So Indiana's Republican reaction?

Write a law requiring 10-year-olds to have their rapist's baby.  "She would have had the baby, and as many women who have had babies as a result of rape, we would hope that she would understand the reason and ultimately the benefit of having the child."  You can't explain to most 10-year-olds the benefit of going to sleep on time.  ::)

This also completely ignores the fact that it is life-threatening to make a child that young have a baby.  (This article has nothing to do with the current situation, since is bemoaning a similar situation from 2015--in Paraguay.)

Not to be outdone, the Indiana AG is going after the one truly guilty person he can:  the doctor who performed the abortion.

Because, after all, when Republicans see a bunch of 5th graders playing in the school yard, they naturally think, "Oh, they'd all make fine mothers!"  ::) >:(


msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #212 on: July 15, 2022, 01:24:26 PM »
If only that 10 year old girl could learn the benefits of having a child. They could share the bus to school together, or even day care.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #213 on: July 19, 2022, 05:16:42 PM »
And it just keeps on going:

A woman in Texas had an ultrasound at 9 weeks that showed her fetus has no heartbeat.  So she asked for the dead fetus to be removed.  Then the problems began.

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Her doctor refused.  That procedure, called a D&C, is the same procedure used to remove a living fetus.

"He said, "Because of the new law that passed, you're going to have to get another ultrasound for me to do anything for you.""

Overwhelmed emotionally and physically--"The pain would get so severe it would be hard to walk"--she went to get another invasive ultrasound at another imaging center...

"Even after that second ultrasound, would you're obstetrician give you that surgical procedure?"

"No. No."

She had to get another ultrasound showing her dead fetus.

"You had to go walking around carrying a dead fetus?" ...

"When a woman is walking around with a dead fetus, what is the danger to her?"

"She can develop an infection that can make her sterile..."

Or even worse.  "When the baby dies inside, the baby starts to release parts of its tissue which can get into the mother's blood supply, which can cause organ failure, which can cause death."

In Texas and in other states, a doctor who does the right thing and removes a dead fetus can be vulnerable to an expensive lawsuit.

"Any private citizen can walk into a court and say, "Dr. Smith performed an abortion.""

Citizens are incentivized to bring such cases.  They can win more than $10,000.  And even if the doctor can prove that the fetus was dead, the doctor still has to be responsible for his own legal fees.

"They are going to lose even if they win.  And that's the chilling effect.  They face the specter of endless, ruinous litigation that they can't stop, can't avoid, can't pre-empt."

It took her two weeks before she could get the D&C.

So healthy mothers who want a child may (and probably will soon) end up dying because doctors are worried that some brain-dead person thinks he can make a quick $10,000 suing the doctor for an abortion.  So a doctor has to decide between doing a simply procedure to save a mother's life and possibly being sued to bankrupcy, or...not. :(

Because some brain-deads out there--like like the Idaho GOP--think we should stop all abortions, regardless of the cost.  >:(

Crunch

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #214 on: July 22, 2022, 04:39:17 PM »
If only that 10 year old girl could learn the benefits of having a child. They could share the bus to school together, or even day care.

If only illegal aliens that rape children could be kept out of the US. But that's not convenient for you, is it?

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #215 on: July 22, 2022, 04:48:14 PM »
Yes, if only we put up a westeros wall sealing off the length of the mexican border, no 10 year old would ever be raped again.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #216 on: July 22, 2022, 07:02:56 PM »
If only that 10 year old girl could learn the benefits of having a child. They could share the bus to school together, or even day care.

If only illegal aliens that rape children could be kept out of the US. But that's not convenient for you, is it?

That's the Republican answer to all the problems they are creating, isn't it?  Stop all crime.

If all crime stopped, there wouldn't be a need for gun control.  If we cure all insanity, there wouldn't be a need to keep guns away from crazy people.  If there were no rapes and pushy boyfriends and medical problems with pregnancies, there wouldn't be a need for abortions.

But you guys can't wait, can you?  You first have to repeal all gun control measures and ban all abortions in a world where there are criminals and crazy shooters and rapists and ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages and then blame all the pain, misery and deaths that you cause with your brainless laws on these problems that no one can completely solve--not even you guys.

Here's a brilliant idea--why don't you ban all these things after you've created your fantasy world, and NOT while there are 10-year-old girls who get pregnant from men who are BOTH legal and illegal residents.

...Instead of trying to distract from the REAL problem--that Republicans want to require 10-year-old girls to have their rapist's babies, regardless of where their rapist comes from.

yossarian22c

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #217 on: July 26, 2022, 09:35:41 AM »
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/26/1111280165/because-of-texas-abortion-law-her-wanted-pregnancy-became-a-medical-nightmare

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Elizabeth stood up to get some lunch. That's when she felt something "shift" in her uterus, down low, and then "this burst of water just falls out of my body. And I screamed because that's when I knew something wrong was happening."

Her waters had broken, launching her into what she calls a "dystopian nightmare" of "physical, emotional and mental anguish." She places the blame for the ensuing medical trauma on the Republican legislators who passed the state's anti-abortion law, on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who signed it
...
 For a fetus at 18 weeks, the chance of survival in that state is almost nonexistent, according to Peaceman: "This is probably about as close to zero as you'll ever get in medicine."

Republican policy. Wait until women are about to die to treat them, even if the fetus has no chance to survive.

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #218 on: August 03, 2022, 08:58:52 AM »
Well in a huge turn out for a mid term primary election, voters in Kansas voted down an anti abortion change to the State's Constitution by 2-1 margin.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/sorry-kansas-voters-crusade-revoke-100000682.html

NobleHunter

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #219 on: August 03, 2022, 11:23:53 AM »
While the decision was decisive, I wonder if the balance of people confused by the question affected one side more than the other. It seemed to be deliberately arcane and I'm not sure we can take it as given that both sides were equally confused by it.

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #220 on: August 03, 2022, 01:07:41 PM »
Honestly, I don't see how this is confusing.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2022/aug/02/kansas-abortion-ballot-language


This article describes it as confusing, but it seems clearly stated to me.

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A vote for the Value Them Both Amendment would affirm there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion...

In the articles rewording that they say is clear:

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Voting “yes” would mean supporting an amendment that would change the Kansas state constitution so it no longer protects abortion,

How is that not the same thing? You don't even have to plow through all the other usual verbiage once you have that salient fact.

Now I'll grant you that people are stone dumb for the most part, which is why I am having growing misgivings about democracy on the whole. I just don't know what would be better. Now add to this the fact that there was no shortage of campaigns, and there was nothing confusing about the yard signs strewn about, religious leaders advocating yes, phone campaigns, media campaigns.

I doubt there was much actual confusion on which direction to vote. if anything, the wording encoraged a yes vote, which is why the Coalition for Constitutional Freedom (a reproductive rights organization trying to prevent a ban) complained about it. So there might actually have been more support to protect abortion than indicated by the vote.

jc44

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #221 on: August 03, 2022, 02:06:31 PM »
Having read the ballot question I'd certainly believe that it was designed to confuse and, to me at least, appears to be in favour of "yes". There are far too many words there. It could, and should, and been cut down to "Repeal the Kanas Constitutional amendment that protects abortion? yes/no".

On the other hand it seem unlikely anyone was actually confused due to the publicity surrounding the vote.

Ephrem Moseley

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #222 on: August 03, 2022, 04:57:51 PM »
hahahahaha

sucks to not be in the top caste doesn't it?

laws shouldn't be made based on the extremes

priests will deal with the extremes

I know you don't trust us

some of you will, some day, perhaps.

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #223 on: August 17, 2022, 11:04:12 AM »
Well in WV the Governor does not think the people should get a choice in the matter.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/wva-governor-voters-shouldnt-decide-175201007.html

That's right, let the people decide unless they are going to decide against what we want, then it is not their issue to decide.

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #224 on: August 21, 2022, 06:14:56 PM »
So the hand recount  in KS turned up a change of 60 votes out of 922,000 cast. That is a change of I think .006%  change. Yeah there was a chance a recount could change the totals.

This is the result of  Trump and his lackies election denials.  People wanting recounts on results that are so large there is no way the recount could change the results.

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #225 on: August 22, 2022, 05:38:13 PM »
So the hand recount  in KS turned up a change of 60 votes out of 922,000 cast. That is a change of I think .006%  change. Yeah there was a chance a recount could change the totals.

This is the result of  Trump and his lackies election denials.  People wanting recounts on results that are so large there is no way the recount could change the results.

But what about the server in New Zealand that was flipping votes?

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #226 on: August 22, 2022, 06:37:25 PM »
Ah, but you forget the server in Minsk that changed others back!

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to overcome the server in New Zealand, so it was a wash in the end.  :(  ;)

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #227 on: August 31, 2022, 08:48:31 PM »
So a liberal MI group wanted to get an abortion rights amendment on the ballot for the fall. They needed 425,000 signatures to get it on the ballot. They got 750,000. And the Board of State Canvassers, split 2-2 on party lines, blocked putting it on the ballot.

The Republican members "argued that spacing and formatting errors in the text circulated to voters for their signatures rendered the effort invalid."

https://www.yahoo.com/news/michigan-board-blocks-certification-abortion-210314718.html

It clear enough for almost 3/4 of a million people to sign to get it on the Ballot. But now they will have to go to the State SC.

Republicans say "leave it to the people and the states" but do not really mean that.  Look at KS.  What do the Republicans fear with putting it on the Ballot? They fear it being made part of the state Constitution.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #228 on: September 09, 2022, 05:18:21 PM »
The South Carolina legislature tried to pass a bill during a special session that bans all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, only for the life of the mother.

The Republicans had a majority of votes to pass the bill, but were stopped by 5 Republicans joining all the Democrats in filibustering the bill.

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“You want to believe that God is wanting you to push a bill through with no exceptions that kill mothers and ruins the lives of children — lets mothers bring home babies to bury them — then I think you’re miscommunicating with God. Or maybe you aren’t communicating with Him at all,” Shealy said...

That's Republican state senator Katrina Shealy. :)

When Republicans start using such strong language in opposing an abortion bill, you know the Republicans have gone too far. ;)

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #229 on: September 09, 2022, 06:01:42 PM »
That AP article seems badly written, since the ordering makes it appear that the "miscommunicating with God" quote is about the exceptions for rape or incest. But the actual quote says it's about forcing mothers to bring babies home to bury them, which would be regarding the issue of (I assume) disallowing abortions even when pregnancies are non-viable. Although I can see why that scenario concerns many people, it doesn't seem to be mentioned as the reason why the 5 Republicans won't support the bill as is. Also messy is that the article seems to flipflop on whether there are in fact exceptions for rape and incest, as finding clarity on this point requires double-checking with a linked article in the article suggests that they finally decided on the exception for rape and incest being reduced from 20 to 12 weeks. So in the end it does look like there are exceptions? The reporting just isn't very good.

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #230 on: September 10, 2022, 04:00:37 PM »
So the MI voter initiative is on the ballot after the state SC ordered the Board that had dead locked to put it on the ballot for this fall.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortion-rights-amendment-made-michigans-110309533.html

So we will see this fall how this vote turns out. MI is more liberal than KS so I expect it will pass easily.

Not to be out done by silly things like what the Public wants, Republicans in many state houses are trying the raise the level needed for passage of voter initiatives from 50% to 60% or higher.

So much for the argument to let the States decide.

msquared

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #231 on: September 13, 2022, 12:22:09 PM »
So much for leaving it to the States.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-lindsey-graham-proposes-nationwide-153715632.html

Not that it will pass.  This seems like a very tone deaf move on his part.  We have already seen a backlash against the Roe V Wade decision and I do not see how this helps anything.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #232 on: September 22, 2022, 04:12:07 PM »
More examples of women being denied the right to control their bodies, this time from Ohio.

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The affidavits were filed in Cincinnati as part of a lawsuit aimed at stopping enforcement of Ohio’s strict new abortion law, which it temporarily did last week. Originally paused for two weeks, on Tuesday the enforcement delay was extended to at least Oct. 14.

If true, the affidavits show that a Columbus 10-year-old was not the only child or teen rape victim forced to leave the state. They also describe more than two dozen other instances in which the abortion law put women under extreme duress.

The descriptions include those of three women who threatened suicide. They also include two women with cancer who couldn’t terminate their pregnancies and also couldn’t get cancer treatment while they were pregnant.

Another three examples were of women whose fetuses had severe abnormalities or other conditions that made a successful pregnancy impossible. Even so, they couldn’t get abortions in Ohio.

And in three cases, debilitating vomiting was caused by pregnancy — so bad in one case that a woman couldn’t get off the clinic floor. But neither could these women get abortions in Ohio, the affidavits said. ...

In 2021, Ohio’s Children’s Advocacy Centers saw 6,717 cases of sexual abuse against Ohioans between infancy and adulthood. And in 2020, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 571 girls aged 17 or younger received abortions in Ohio, according to the state department of health. Fifty-two of them — or one a week — were 14 or younger.

Sadly, the affidavits filed in late August and early September by workers at abortion clinics provide further evidence that child and teen rape and subsequent pregnancy is a problem in Ohio. But so long as fetal cardiac activity is detected, S.B. 23 requires such victims to either have those babies or scramble out of state and try to find an abortion. ...

The affidavits also detail cases of fetal abnormalities and other problems so severe that pregnancies can’t result in a successful birth. One patient at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Southwest Ohio had a fetus with abnormalities including “a lack of lower extremities and the contents of the fetus’s abdomen, including possibly the heart, protruding through a defect in the abdominal wall,” Liner, a doctor, said in her sworn statement.

Because S.B. 23 doesn’t allow women in such cases to abort their pregnancies if they don’t pose an imminent threat to their health, they either have to leave the state for an abortion or carry the fetus to term — even though that “can be extremely distressing for patients,” Liner said.

In another case, this one in Dayton, a woman was 13 weeks pregnant but had no amniotic fluid, prompting her doctor to tell her the pregnancy was “nonviable.”

“However, because the fetus still had fetal heart tones, the physician discharged her with instructions to call the office if she developed a fever,” Trick said in her affidavit.

As we know, lack of amniotic fluid means that the fetus' lungs will not properly develop and so will not function.

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #233 on: September 22, 2022, 04:47:12 PM »
As we know, lack of amniotic fluid means that the fetus' lungs will not properly develop and so will not function.

I am sympathetic to outrage over stupidities in lawmaking, including denying medical aid for mothers when it might harm the baby, and other extreme cases where a non-viable pregnancy is forced to go to term (this last one requires more nuance, but there are cases I can sympathize with). But the link above seems to be all over the place, including in its evidence mothers who threaten suicide, and those who feel very sick while pregnant. One must be clear about what one means and not play both sides of the argument: if a fetus is a human being with rights (innate rights, I don't mean legal rights) then it seems irrelevant to cite mothers who really, really want to abort the fetus for various personal reasons. The level of discomfort a mother has would seem to me immaterial in regards to killing someone else. However as I mentioned there are other cases where I have no doubt the laws bypass reason and end up being some kind of moral trumpet, or even vindictive punishment, rather than an attempt to maximally protect all involved parties. Journalism sucks.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #234 on: September 22, 2022, 05:32:17 PM »
What you seem to be forgetting, Fenring, is that women do commit suicide because of pregnancies.  And not just because they "really, really want to abort the fetus."  Pregnancy messes with a woman's hormonal and chemical balances, and sometimes this leads to serious depression and/or temporary insanity.  Some women really, really mean it when they say they are going to kill themselves, and terminating the pregnancy is at times the only way to save their lives.

Also note that they were talking about debilitating nausea and vomiting.  The article mentioned a 16-year-old who lost 20 pounds from vomiting from her pregnancy.  How much more weight do you think she could lose while growing a baby before you'd lose both of them?

I would also like to remind you of the case discussed before where a woman had an infection behind her eye (partly caused by her lower immune system due to her pregnancy) which couldn't be diagnosed because it required an MRI, which could not be performed since she was pregnant.  Her symptoms were headaches and debilitating vomiting.  If she hadn't gotten an abortion and then the MRI, the infection would have gone into her brain and she would have died.  Vomiting is not just some excuse used by women who happen to want an abortion. 

There are some on the Right who would rather see these women die than to admit that they do not really understand pregnancy and how complex and hard it can be.  They'd rather bury people's wives and daughters than admit that their simplistic view of life and medicine is wrong.  Don't be fooled by these fools.  Pregnancy is hard, and it can do weird and horrible things to a woman's body chemistry.  It is one of the few natural biological functions that can, and does, kill people.  It is risky.  And declaring that any abortion that some ignorant politician does not agree with is murder is an abomination.  No matter how much innate rights one might believe that a fetus has.

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #235 on: September 22, 2022, 05:44:18 PM »
The suicide point also perhaps requires more nuance since we'd have to look on a case by case basis. As a general principle "I'll kill myself unless X" is not a particularly good reason to do X. In fact it seems to be becoming a more prevalent type of threat as far as I can see. Now there are people with personality disorders (like BPD) who may be more prone to such sentiments, and if that's so then the solution to this needs to also be more nuanced than just "do what they want". Temporary insanity is probably a loose term, but in cases where a person is at risk to harm themselves and others, I'm not sure an abortion is the most obvious answer as you do. That's sort of like saying if someone poses a risk to someone else we should eliminate that someone else preemptively to remove the threat of harm, like in Speed (shoot the hostage). As for extreme nausea, I've know a few women who had this, it sucks. That doesn't seem to me that relevant other than as a particular example of really really wanting an abortion. Other reasons can include poverty, mental health issues, lack of family support, and other issues, all of which will be very unpleasant. For all of this you'd have to ask how much unpleasantness a person should be going through before we finally say it's ok to kill a baby - note this would be the necessary argument if a fetus is a person as mentioned above. The most apparent fact in the debate is that people who cite many reasons to grant abortions typically are not going to grant that premise, in which case there's not really much of a debate other than about what a fetus is. The details you mention become ancillary if that issue is up in the air, hence why abortion is an impossible topic. A good start would be to at least recognize what the other side of the coin would be if your starting premise was different, and to respect how others enact that belief. In some cases they honorably pursue that belief (even if you disagree with them), in others naturally many people will be scumbags. YMMV

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #236 on: September 22, 2022, 06:56:58 PM »
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As a general principle "I'll kill myself unless X" is not a particularly good reason to do X. In fact it seems to be becoming a more prevalent type of threat as far as I can see. Now there are people with personality disorders (like BPD) who may be more prone to such sentiments, and if that's so then the solution to this needs to also be more nuanced than just "do what they want". Temporary insanity is probably a loose term, but in cases where a person is at risk to harm themselves and others, I'm not sure an abortion is the most obvious answer as you do. That's sort of like saying if someone poses a risk to someone else we should eliminate that someone else preemptively to remove the threat of harm, like in Speed (shoot the hostage).

You are not understanding the situation.  You seem to keep thinking that the suicidal thoughts and tendencies are coming from some other source, such as personality disorders.  But that is not the case.

In some cases (perhaps many), the cause of the suicidal thoughts is the pregnancy.  There is no doubt about it.  When you have a person who has had no such thoughts in the past, and suddenly becomes very serious about it when she becomes pregnant, there is good reason to believe the correlation is causation when it happens again and again and again.

If there was a drug that people were taking, and the leading cause of death of those taking it was suicide, wouldn't you consider it a strong possibility that the drug was causing at least some of those suicides?

Now look up the leading cause of death for pregnant women and mothers in the first year after their pregnancies.  Guess what it is. ;)

This is not to say that all women who feel suicidal should automatically be allowed to have an abortion.  But it does pretty well dispel the idea that the pregnancy has nothing to do with those suicidal feelings and ideas.  So it cannot be dismissed as being from other causes.

And if the pregnancy is causing serious intentions of suicide, then that affects the intrinsic right of the fetus to live.  If the fetus' presence is causing a dangerous situation, the fetus' life may become secondary.

It's like a castaway in a boat that is found by a passenger ship.  The castaway has typhus, which would infect most of the passengers and crew of the ship.  Is the ship obligated to rescue the sick castaway, with the almost certain knowledge that his presence will kill many of the passengers and crew?  I suspect that maritime law would say no, and certainly not call it murder.

Yet if the presence of a fetus is causing the mother to become mentally sick, these laws deem it murder if the mother tries to get rid of the cause of her illness. :(  Certainly it is not the fetus' fault that he/she is making the mother ill.  But the fetus is the cause.

When a doctor determines it is the fetus that is causing severe mental illness to the point of suicide, then abortion should be an option.  To deny it is to condemn mothers, and often their fetuses, to death.  And that would be putting the life of the fetus above that of the mother.

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #237 on: September 22, 2022, 07:51:16 PM »
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As a general principle "I'll kill myself unless X" is not a particularly good reason to do X. In fact it seems to be becoming a more prevalent type of threat as far as I can see. Now there are people with personality disorders (like BPD) who may be more prone to such sentiments, and if that's so then the solution to this needs to also be more nuanced than just "do what they want". Temporary insanity is probably a loose term, but in cases where a person is at risk to harm themselves and others, I'm not sure an abortion is the most obvious answer as you do. That's sort of like saying if someone poses a risk to someone else we should eliminate that someone else preemptively to remove the threat of harm, like in Speed (shoot the hostage).

You are not understanding the situation.  You seem to keep thinking that the suicidal thoughts and tendencies are coming from some other source, such as personality disorders.  But that is not the case.

In some cases (perhaps many), the cause of the suicidal thoughts is the pregnancy.  There is no doubt about it.  When you have a person who has had no such thoughts in the past, and suddenly becomes very serious about it when she becomes pregnant, there is good reason to believe the correlation is causation when it happens again and again and again.

That's just a truism: the bad thing caused in circumstance X occurs during circumstance X. It says nothing about causation, merely about timing. You can take a packed up box of dynamite, and when a gorilla sits on it you may have circumstantial reason to suggest that gorillas may be the cause of major explosions. But I trust you can see that this really tells us nothing about gorillas, but rather than there's a system in play that was not previously acknowledged.

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If there was a drug that people were taking, and the leading cause of death of those taking it was suicide, wouldn't you consider it a strong possibility that the drug was causing at least some of those suicides?

Are you likening a natural biological process to taking experimental drugs? Granted the body is a drug factory of sorts, but this seems like an otherwise tenuous analogy.

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This is not to say that all women who feel suicidal should automatically be allowed to have an abortion.  But it does pretty well dispel the idea that the pregnancy has nothing to do with those suicidal feelings and ideas.  So it cannot be dismissed as being from other causes.

You can quote me above where I said pregnancy had no relation to suicidal ideation. What I said was that a person threatening (or wanting) suicide is not ipso facto a reason to accede to a request. It is, however, a cause for real concern that should be taken seriously.

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And if the pregnancy is causing serious intentions of suicide, then that affects the intrinsic right of the fetus to live.  If the fetus' presence is causing a dangerous situation, the fetus' life may become secondary.

You are torturing the word "causing" here, to understate the point. There may be many factors, not the least of which are the mother's preconceptions about pregnancy, the society and its narratives, and the physical conditions the mother expects to encounter. None of these exists in a vacuum, and they are totally unrelated to the physical fact of the pregnancy itself. You would have to argue that the suicidal ideation is 100% biochemical (good luck with that argument, we won't have this kind of science for 500 years), and even if we granted this you still have no credible basis for the premise that someone's life becomes secondary even if their presence causes danger for someone else. For instance take a famine situation, or some other zero-sum environment: would you argue that the presence of an extra person in a famine, which necessarily constitutes a mortal danger for others who may starve if this person eats, therefore establishes that the value of this 'extra' person's life becomes 'secondary'? I'd also like to parenthetically note that the term 'secondary' may make the matter sound cold and dry but recall we're talking (according to the argument) about a person. Not that you need to pepper your clauses with terms like "unfortunately" and "with bitter regret", but it would be nice if at least you thought them before choosing brevity.

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It's like a castaway in a boat that is found by a passenger ship.  The castaway has typhus, which would infect most of the passengers and crew of the ship.  Is the ship obligated to rescue the sick castaway, with the almost certain knowledge that his presence will kill many of the passengers and crew?  I suspect that maritime law would say no, and certainly not call it murder.

You have your analogy backward. The proper framing in this example would be that there's a castaway in the boat, and their presence makes someone else sick. Now this framing (and thus the analogy) would be mired by the fact that typically you make someone else sick because you are sick, which is not in evidence in the fetus case. So let's tweek it to be that a castaway is in the boat, and someone else present is fatally allergic to them. Do you think it would be reasonable in this case for the person with the allergy to have the right to declare the castaway's life as of 'secondary' importance? We might well imagine this extreme scenario could degenerate into a "me or you" choice, but luckily IRL there are other options.

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Yet if the presence of a fetus is causing the mother to become mentally sick, these laws deem it murder if the mother tries to get rid of the cause of her illness. :(  Certainly it is not the fetus' fault that he/she is making the mother ill.  But the fetus is the cause.

No, a single thing cannot cause someone to become mentally sick. We don't have this kind of analysis available. You can cite the pregnancy as triggering it, perhaps, but that is not causation. The pregnancy could have catalyzed something else already in play, etc etc. I'm surprised I have to point this out to you.

I'm reminded a legal case a lawyer friend told me about, where the presence of a fly in someone's water allegedly caused him such mental distress that he lost total control of his life, couldn't work, and was in therapy. Naturally he was suing for damages. While one could perhaps believe the plaintiff really did have these symptoms and wasn't malingering, it is obviously farcical to posit as the primary theory that the fly caused this man's life to spiral out of control.

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When a doctor determines it is the fetus that is causing severe mental illness to the point of suicide, then abortion should be an option.  To deny it is to condemn mothers, and often their fetuses, to death.  And that would be putting the life of the fetus above that of the mother.

I'm not really sure why you are intent on framing this as a fetus causing a (presumably) biochemical problem, and yet insistent that it would require a surgical solution. Why not a biochemical one, if it's just a question of hormones? Unless you're willing to admit into evidence that the mother's ideas can be contributory, in which case your argument falls into a world of trouble.

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #238 on: September 22, 2022, 10:51:32 PM »
As Fenring points out, all of this hinges on the intractable question of personhood. If the fetus has an equal right to life as the mother, then its difficult to allow any abortion except one where the viability of the pregnancy is 0%. You might just have to strap the Mom in restraints for the duration of her suicidal thoughts. She needs to be committed involuntarily to protect the child.

Now, I personally think it is absolute nonsense to consider an entity without brain and therefore without thought as a person, but if I can't convince people on that front, very few of these tragic cases hold up as morally wrong according to their deduction from that premise. Would we allow one conjoined twin to deliberately kill the other in order to be separated?

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #239 on: September 23, 2022, 12:07:45 AM »
As Fenring points out, all of this hinges on the intractable question of personhood. If the fetus has an equal right to life as the mother, then its difficult to allow any abortion except one where the viability of the pregnancy is 0%. You might just have to strap the Mom in restraints for the duration of her suicidal thoughts. She needs to be committed involuntarily to protect the child.

This is at least a correct way of inspecting the question from both sides, and I agree with this type of process. A detailed investigation of possible solutions might involve quite a number of solutions, but this is how to begin to look at it.

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Now, I personally think it is absolute nonsense to consider an entity without brain and therefore without thought as a person, but if I can't convince people on that front, very few of these tragic cases hold up as morally wrong according to their deduction from that premise. Would we allow one conjoined twin to deliberately kill the other in order to be separated?

That's totally ok, and I think the important thing is to remember that good people believe the other side of it. Maybe it's hard to respect hypocrites, but one should try to find respect for people who act decently within their own premises. If we all did that we'd have a much better environment, no matter how much we disagree on stuff. I do actually disagree that very few cases hold up as morally wrong if you accept their premises, though. Or at least, I'd agree with WS's sentiment in a fair number of cases that the way people act is often quite disreputable. You can claim to believe XYZ but if you're a jerk you're a jerk. I find jerkiness of every stripe highly aggravating. I think it would still be possible for completely decent people to still disagree about abortion, but as things stand there is no real journalism or public discourse about it since the entire thing is about narrative control and clicks.

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #240 on: September 23, 2022, 05:46:44 PM »
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I think the important thing is to remember that good people believe the other side of it

I have a problem with that. There are some things that are just wrong, and people on the other side are not deserving of respect. Like the folks that thought slavery wasn't a crime against humanity. I'm not bringing that up by accident, it is in fact a similar question of personhood. If a slave is a person, then they would have all the rights and privileges of other persons. You can't say, "well, I don't agree with you that negros are sub-human, but to each their own."

I will continue to try to turn people who think that Plan B is killing a person, and I refuse to give them any respect. I just know its futile to throw tragic cases at them and say, what about this? At best you'd get them to admit that the law should be amended to clarify specific cases, all of which would only apply to 0% viability cases. At best.

Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #241 on: September 23, 2022, 05:58:23 PM »
I have a problem with that. There are some things that are just wrong, and people on the other side are not deserving of respect. Like the folks that thought slavery wasn't a crime against humanity.

You know what? If someone proposed a serious and genuine reason in favor of slavery, I'd listen to the argument. For instance context matters: if we were situated in 500 B.C. I might very well be inclined to agree that slavery is necessary if the reasoning was solid. At this point in history, not, but that's for ancillary reasons to morality, such as technology level. I'm not actually advocating for relative morality, but rather discussing whether to dismiss someone for a view I disagree with. For instance I've been giving more thought lately to the warhawk view of reality. I am trying to see through their eyes more, even though that type of mentality is alien to me.

NobleHunter

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #242 on: September 23, 2022, 10:13:36 PM »
Even if they were arguing that you and your family, specifically, should be slaves? Or murdered by the state? Or forced to give birth to the children of their rapist?

There may be value in attempting to understand why people have certain beliefs but that doesn't mean we shouldn't dismiss those beliefs out of hand.


Fenring

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #243 on: September 23, 2022, 10:24:03 PM »
Even if they were arguing that you and your family, specifically, should be slaves? Or murdered by the state? Or forced to give birth to the children of their rapist?

There may be value in attempting to understand why people have certain beliefs but that doesn't mean we shouldn't dismiss those beliefs out of hand.

Being unable to distinguish between rational and irrational positions is part of it. Hence why understand first, judge second. And underlying worldview matters too. For instance someone whose worldview is "I own everyone, no one else matters but me", then in a sense it would be 'rational' to try to enslave everyone. But that's not what I mean by rationality; I mean rather the use of truth in reasoning, and I personally hold that it is not true that everyone else can belong to one person. But then how could I accept any argument about slavery? It would have to go something along the lines of it being objectively bad but forestalling something worse. So to use your example, if someone presented to me a legitimate concern wherein the enslavement of my family would be the best option to avoid some horrible evil, I might consider that argument to be rational, if unfortunate. There is, after all, such a thing as intentional self-sacrifice for a greater good. Killing your own people is bad, but frame it as them choosing to die for their country and suddenly it might be acceptable. I don't want to call even that a good, per se, but it might well be better than the alternative (e.g. the enemy winning). That's why the context and the underlying moral framework matters. And I can assure both you and TheDrake that there is a bone fide underlying moral framework wherein an anti-abortion position is rational. The trick is to understand that it's possible for two, antagonistic, rational positions to be put forward at the same time. This type of tension is quite difficult to unravel: are they disagreeing because one is right and the other wrong? How else could they disagree? But those are not the only options when confronting a dynamic tension in the development of understanding. Just keep aware that we are basically infants in our level of understanding; I doubt either side of any modern debate actually really knows what they're talking about.

jc44

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #244 on: September 24, 2022, 11:06:28 AM »
Even if they were arguing that you and your family, specifically, should be slaves? Or murdered by the state? Or forced to give birth to the children of their rapist?

There may be value in attempting to understand why people have certain beliefs but that doesn't mean we shouldn't dismiss those beliefs out of hand.
It is possible to both believe that a given philosophy is correct and for you to be directly disadvantaged by it - indeed you can argue that it is only by taking negative consequences from a belief that you can show that you actually believe in it rather than it just being a convenient cover for self-enrichment.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #245 on: October 03, 2022, 03:43:52 PM »
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You are torturing the word "causing" here, to understate the point. There may be many factors, not the least of which are the mother's preconceptions about pregnancy, the society and its narratives, and the physical conditions the mother expects to encounter. None of these exists in a vacuum, and they are totally unrelated to the physical fact of the pregnancy itself. You would have to argue that the suicidal ideation is 100% biochemical (good luck with that argument, we won't have this kind of science for 500 years)...

No, a single thing cannot cause someone to become mentally sick. We don't have this kind of analysis available. You can cite the pregnancy as triggering it, perhaps, but that is not causation. The pregnancy could have catalyzed something else already in play, etc etc. I'm surprised I have to point this out to you.

I didn't have sufficient time to respond until now.  I hope the ideas haven't gone cold since then. :)

First, I don't think there is any doubt that severe depression--so severe that it can lead to suicide--cannot be biochemically driven.  We absolutely know that suicidal depression can be chemically driven from the medicines we already give to the ill.  I've seen articles on how chemotherapy that can lead to suicide, and I'm sure you've seen commercials on TV that include "side effects can include thoughts of suicide..." (A real plus for taking that medicine, right?  ::) )  There are many medicines that can lead to suicide in some patients.

Furthermore, it is documented that certain brain tumors can radically affect a person's personality, although I suppose one could argue that this is not a chemical change to personality but rather one caused by a physical change to the brain itself.

But finally, there is the fact that a significant percentage of women do suffer from depression when and after they are pregnant, but not before, and lose that depression after the baby is no longer in the her body.  These are all indications that changes to the body that actually cause depression, and not just enhance it.

There is also the question of whether something needs to be "100%" the cause of the mental illness.  We don't have such criteria for other causes of death.  I mean, if a man is dying from an illness and his bodily functions are at only 10% of normal, we don't say that a person putting a pillow over his face only 10% killed him (to give a gruesome example).  If a person fell down a cliff and was seriously injured, we don't say that a man who kicked him a few times is only partially responsible for killing the person.  That which pushes a person over the edge holds a great deal of the responsibility for the person's death.

So if a woman who is a little depressed but has never had thoughts of suicide suddenly is making plans because she is pregnant, can you really say that the pregnancy has nothing to do with it?  That the pregnancy didn't push her over the edge?  That the pregnancy has nothing to do with the suicidal ideation?  Especially when some mothers, after losing their child, no longer have such ideation?

And could you say that any doctor that had serious fears that a patient would kill herself while pregnant would be a murderer is he had the pregnancy terminated to save her life, instead of seeing both her and her child die?

This is not to say that other methods of helping the mother would not be preferable and/or should not be taken if possible.  But this is one of those circumstances where the opinion of those directly involved, primarily the mother and the doctor, take precedence over everyone else's opinions.  Judging how close someone is to killing herself requires intimate knowledge of the situation.

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I'm reminded a legal case a lawyer friend told me about, where the presence of a fly in someone's water allegedly caused him such mental distress that he lost total control of his life, couldn't work, and was in therapy. Naturally he was suing for damages. While one could perhaps believe the plaintiff really did have these symptoms and wasn't malingering, it is obviously farcical to posit as the primary theory that the fly caused this man's life to spiral out of control.

But a fly is not a chemical in one's body.  Would the lawsuit seem so ridiculous if it was LSD that put in the glass of water? ;)

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I'm not really sure why you are intent on framing this as a fetus causing a (presumably) biochemical problem, and yet insistent that it would require a surgical solution. Why not a biochemical one, if it's just a question of hormones? Unless you're willing to admit into evidence that the mother's ideas can be contributory, in which case your argument falls into a world of trouble.

It's not the fetus per se that is causing the problems, but the biochemical changes to the mother that is the culprit.

And, yes, if we knew exactly which chemicals were causing the mental illness, then we could--and should--treat those.  But (1) we don't know which ones they are, our bodies being kludged together so that one chemical or DNA strand can have multiple effects on the entire system, and (2) even if we can treat chemical, would it kill the fetus?  Is the chemical so important to the fetus that it would cause the fetus' death?  And would you be comfortable if a doctor tried experimenting with different chemicals for the mother (in order to find out which one was causing depression i the mother) if such experiments could lead to the fetus' death?

The mother does not just "carry" a child.  Her whole body changes to become an incubation chamber, providing the fetus with chemicals and hormones that are necessary for the child's development.  And some of these chemicals and hormones are not beneficial to the mother, and can be downright detrimental.  And the only way we know how to bring the body back to normal is to remove the cause of these new hormones, which is the pregnancy itself.  The fetus in a sense is collateral damage.  But the mother has the right to save herself if a pregnancy is likely to kill her, or if it will not result in the birth of a viable child.  Otherwise, she is no longer a person but an incubation chamber with no rights or free will.

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #246 on: October 03, 2022, 04:36:33 PM »
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The famous Wagon Mound case set the reasonable foreseeability requirement as “the foresight of a reasonable man”. (Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd. v The Miller Steamship Co. (The Wagon Mound, No. 2), [1967] 1 AC 617) While some people are more susceptible than others to serious psychiatric injuries, it would not be reasonable to require third parties to be aware of such possibilities.  Unusual or extreme events caused by negligence are imaginable but not reasonably foreseeable.  The law of negligence draws the line for compensability of damage.  One cannot use unique frailties as a form of insurance.

That's your legal case, not that it actually applies in any way. It is obviously reasonably foreseeable that someone might suffer from post-partum depression. Then again, 81% of women have been found to suffer from depression after having an abortion as well, so be careful about championing the right to an abortion because of depression, because you might also be arguing that abortions should be withheld because they might foreseeably cause depression and make the clinic responsible for damages.

TheDeamon

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #247 on: October 03, 2022, 06:05:08 PM »
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The famous Wagon Mound case set the reasonable foreseeability requirement as “the foresight of a reasonable man”. (Overseas Tankship (UK) Ltd. v The Miller Steamship Co. (The Wagon Mound, No. 2), [1967] 1 AC 617) While some people are more susceptible than others to serious psychiatric injuries, it would not be reasonable to require third parties to be aware of such possibilities.  Unusual or extreme events caused by negligence are imaginable but not reasonably foreseeable.  The law of negligence draws the line for compensability of damage.  One cannot use unique frailties as a form of insurance.

That's your legal case, not that it actually applies in any way. It is obviously reasonably foreseeable that someone might suffer from post-partum depression. Then again, 81% of women have been found to suffer from depression after having an abortion as well, so be careful about championing the right to an abortion because of depression, because you might also be arguing that abortions should be withheld because they might foreseeably cause depression and make the clinic responsible for damages.

This is one of my biggest reasons for having a pet theory that so many of the women who vehemently pro-abortion rights are also people who have had abortions themselves are even a thing.

They're suppressing/rationalizing what happened with their own abortion, and view any attempts to restrict abortions as personal attacks on the choice they made.

TheDrake

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #248 on: October 03, 2022, 06:18:59 PM »
It's hard not to take "you are a murderer" as anything other than a personal attack.

Wayward Son

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Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?
« Reply #249 on: October 03, 2022, 06:28:58 PM »
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Then again, 81% of women have been found to suffer from depression after having an abortion as well, so be careful about championing the right to an abortion because of depression, because you might also be arguing that abortions should be withheld because they might foreseeably cause depression and make the clinic responsible for damages.

And it is a balancing act, isn't it?  Pregnancy can cause depression; abortion can cause depression.  How can anyone decide which would be better for any individual?  Especially for one who is severely depressed.

But more importantly, who should decide for an individual?  ;)