Women's Lives Before Politics

Makavali · February 7, 2012, 11:02pm

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Presumably a miscarriage is ‘investigated’ by a doctor providing after-care. Unless doctors are routinely not interested in why an expectant mother just lost her child. [/quote]

But determining possible criminal culpability is not the job of the physician - it’s be the job of an investigating police officer and/or district attorney. A doctor would be a witness, but a doctor is not an agent of the state conducting law enforcement.

Again, every miscarriage represents the death of a child (under Pat’s theory, after fertilization). If that “person” is no different than a person outside of the womb in terms of legal rights - and Pat’s theory does not suggest otherwise - then a miscarriage warrants the same scrutiny as a dead person found in Central Park.

EDIT: forgot the underlined. Also, though, doctors might well be implicated in the homicide, so doctors have even less of a reason to be the “cop” in this situation.[/quote]

Oh brother. Well, if you want to delve into the minutia of this strawman go ahead. By in-large, miscarriages are not intentional abortions. If said miscarriage was intentionally terminiated, it’s an abortion, not a miscarriage. The word miscarriage presupposes an unintentional loss of child. I am not concerned with unintentional acts, I am concerned about the deliberate,willful causes of death and the fact that it’s legal and to some degree acceptable to do, despite the reality of what it is. [/quote]

Accidental death usually warrants an investigation.

Just saying.[/quote]

The problem with a miscarriage is that there is no evidence. I doubt you could medically prove what lead to the death even given all possible information.[/quote]

The point is that if your are going to blindly call a fetus a human and extend all the same rights to them, you have to give them due process.

There are plenty of deaths with no evidence, yet we still investigate. I think all TB wants is acknowledgment that the issue is not so black and white as certain people are painting it to be.

thunderbolt23 · February 7, 2012, 11:17pm

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

The problem with a miscarriage is that there is no evidence. I doubt you could medically prove what lead to the death even given all possible information.[/quote]

Well, I don’t want to re-argue this from scratch, but sure, there’s evidence. You just have to seek it out and get it.

sufiandy · February 7, 2012, 11:24pm

[quote]Sloth wrote:
You can hate our dogma all day long, wish we’d do as you pleas, etc. The reality is that we won’t. Period. It’s not going to happen. So, start preparing for the potential consequences

"…In a variety of international settings, I have seen religious groups, with support from the U.S. government, engaged in AIDS treatment, fistula repair, malaria control, and the promotion of child and maternal health. Ram Cnaan of the University of Pennsylvania has documented the domestic role of ?sacred places that serve civic purposes? ? homeless shelters, food banks, health care, welfare-to-work, prisoner re-entry programs. Cnaan estimates the ?replacement value? ? the cost to government agencies of assuming these roles ? to be about $140,000 each year for the typical community-serving religious institution.

Take the case of one city: Philadelphia. There are about 2,000 such faith-based institutions, many of them Catholic. Replacing them would require about a quarter of a billion dollars every year. Catholic Social Services helps more than 250,000 people a year in soup kitchens, shelters and centers for the disabled. Its Community-Based Services division runs adoption and foster-care programs, staffs senior community centers and supports immigration services. The Catholic Nutritional Development Services, working in partnership with public agencies, delivers nearly 10 million meals a year ? accounting for about half of all meals delivered to poor children in Philadelphia in the summer months when school is out.

Much of this good work ? and similar work across the country ? is now threatened. If federal policies make it impossible for religious nonprofits and hospitals to work in conjunction with federal, state and local agencies in providing social services, millions of poor and vulnerable Americans ? Catholic and non-Catholic, religious and nonreligious ? would suffer. The task of building alternatives would cost hundreds of billions of dollars ? and then lack the distinctive human touch provided by religious groups…"

Get ready to roll your sleeves up folks. Grab your checkbooks and wallets. Clear you schedules. [/quote]

So the Church is threatening to stop social services because of this? Sounds like they are just using the poor for political reasons and not because they care to help. Not the first time this has happened and I’m not even sure they followed through with the threats in the past.

pat · February 7, 2012, 11:34pm

[quote]Makavali wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:

[quote]Sloth wrote:

Presumably a miscarriage is ‘investigated’ by a doctor providing after-care. Unless doctors are routinely not interested in why an expectant mother just lost her child. [/quote]

But determining possible criminal culpability is not the job of the physician - it’s be the job of an investigating police officer and/or district attorney. A doctor would be a witness, but a doctor is not an agent of the state conducting law enforcement.

Again, every miscarriage represents the death of a child (under Pat’s theory, after fertilization). If that “person” is no different than a person outside of the womb in terms of legal rights - and Pat’s theory does not suggest otherwise - then a miscarriage warrants the same scrutiny as a dead person found in Central Park.

EDIT: forgot the underlined. Also, though, doctors might well be implicated in the homicide, so doctors have even less of a reason to be the “cop” in this situation.[/quote]

Oh brother. Well, if you want to delve into the minutia of this strawman go ahead. By in-large, miscarriages are not intentional abortions. If said miscarriage was intentionally terminiated, it’s an abortion, not a miscarriage. The word miscarriage presupposes an unintentional loss of child. I am not concerned with unintentional acts, I am concerned about the deliberate,willful causes of death and the fact that it’s legal and to some degree acceptable to do, despite the reality of what it is. [/quote]

Accidental death usually warrants an investigation.

Just saying.[/quote]

Maybe down under but not here. I am not concerned with stopping accidental death, I am concerned with deliberate death.

Sloth · February 7, 2012, 11:38pm

[quote]sufiandy wrote:
So the Church is threatening to stop social services because of this? Sounds like they are just using the poor for political reasons and not because they care to help. Not the first time this has happened and I’m not even sure they followed through with the threats in the past.[/quote]

No. Just on a reduced level. What we can do solely with private money, hiring only Catholics or doing away with insurance benefits. But without the public funds it will be scaled back and a void will be left. Get your check ready, and make sure you have some free time.

Sloth · February 7, 2012, 11:40pm

And hey, just think of it as an opportunity for you to show just how much more you care.

Sloth · February 7, 2012, 11:41pm

Oops, wrong thread!

phaethon · February 8, 2012, 10:06am

[quote]Makavali wrote:
Accidental death usually warrants an investigation.

Just saying.[/quote]

No. It usually doesn’t. As long as there are no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death there is not a lot of need for an investigation. And in most cases there won’t be one.

Tiribulus · February 8, 2012, 1:20pm

There have been cases where an assault on a pregnant woman has resulted in miscarriage and the assailant has been convicted of murder.

[quote]Sloth wrote:
And hey, just think of it as an opportunity for you to show just how much more you care. [/quote]This is a HUGE statement that will be missed by most.

DoubleDuce · February 8, 2012, 2:25pm

[quote]Makavali wrote:

The point is that if your are going to blindly call a fetus a human and extend all the same rights to them, you have to give them due process.

There are plenty of deaths with no evidence, yet we still investigate. I think all TB wants is acknowledgment that the issue is not so black and white as certain people are painting it to be.[/quote]

Blindly call a fetus human? I’m sorry, but science and common sense do that, not me. There is absolutely no argument that a human fetus is human. You can argue that mythical “personhood” or “self” doesn’t exist yet, you can argue that the life isn’t worth anything and that it doesn’t deserve rights (though both those are losing arguments fraught with holes), but there is absolutely no rational argument that it isn’t human or that it isn’t alive. It is a human life. Period. It’s like arguing that an infant human is just an infant and doesn’t constitute a human human. It’s retarded.

And as for the second, many deaths are not really investigated. There is actually a problem with nursing homes because it’s generally assumed the death is naturally caused. I read a news story the other day where, because of the way the particular system works, a coroner (elected official with no real experience) signed off on and ruled a nursing home patients death natural. The guy was buried. The reports from other caretakers there came in about the guy being abused. They exhumed the body and the guy had crushed toes, broken ribs, a broken jaw and bruises all over his body. He was beaten to death.

We do not and are not able to investigate every death. We do not generally investigate unless the death is first ruled a homicide. There is no way to prove or show the cause of a miscarriage. The default and only reasonable position would be to rule it natural or accidental unless there was sufficient cause to say otherwise. Like in the case of abortion. Or if you punch a pregnant lady in the stomach and the baby immediately dies.

DoubleDuce · February 8, 2012, 2:28pm

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

OMG…Can’t you read? I said THERE IS STILL A DEBATE!!! Obviously people don’t care about Biology 101 if THERE IS STILL A DEBATE!!! I never said I didn’t know when human life started, I SAID THERE WAS STILL A DEBATE!!![/quote]

And there is still debate about the roundness of the earth too.

pat · February 8, 2012, 5:39pm

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

OMG…Can’t you read? I said THERE IS STILL A DEBATE!!! Obviously people don’t care about Biology 101 if THERE IS STILL A DEBATE!!! I never said I didn’t know when human life started, I SAID THERE WAS STILL A DEBATE!!![/quote]

And there is still debate about the roundness of the earth too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society[/quote]

What’s funny about the flat earth society is that some of their arguments are actually quite impressive.

Grneyes · February 8, 2012, 6:41pm

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]Grneyes wrote:

[quote]HG Thrower wrote:

[quote]Mufasa wrote:
It’s regrettable that Women’s Health will always be intertwined with the very divisive issue of abortion…

Mufasa[/quote]

It’s been purposely framed that way so that anyone who opposes abortion is automatically wrong because then they oppose “Women’s Health”, don’t care about women, etc.

The REAL crux of the issue is when is a fetus a person. All the other arguments are irrelevant. From my perspective, I like to look at the consequences if each side is wrong. If the pro-life crowd is wrong and fetuses are just a blob of cells, then some unwanted babies are born. If the pro-choice crowd is wrong and fetuses are a human being, then you are sanctioning the murder of innocent babies. Since I’m not God, and I don’t know the answer for sure, I’d rather err on the side of caution. Show me a pro-choice activist who can tell you with exact certainty when a fetus becomes a person and I’ll show you a liar.[/quote]

Show me ANYONE who says with exact certainty when a fetus becomes a person and I’ll show you a liar. The truth is, no one can say when. Pro-lifers have their “truth”, pro-choicers have their “truth” and pro-abortionists have their “truth” and NEVER will the three ever agree. It’s medical science vs. religious views and NEVER will those two ever agree either.
[/quote]

Medical sciece favors the view that the fetus is human through out gestation. It’s a living human organism, I challenge you to find a single shred of scientific evidence to the contrary.

Your viewpoint is odd in your claim that you don’t know when human life begins. Wouldn’t that be handy information to know before you decide to kill said human organism?
I mean, in your view, it’s a craps shoot. So you have a 50/ 50 shot that you are committing murder with an abortion, but that’s a chance your willing to take? [/quote]

I have never, and will never consider abortion murder. I am pro-choice, with the caveat that I would not have an abortion or condone an abortion except under extreme conditions. I don’t believe in them being used as birth control, as I had a friend in high school who DID use them as birth control (she was a very good negative role model on why NOT to have sex).

One of the main arguments for/against abortion is when is a human life started? At conception? When it’s still a mass of cells and doesn’t resemble a human at all? Or when the brain is formed? When the heartbeat can be first heard? Is it still murder if there’s no resemblance of human life? Is it still murder if it’s discovered the baby won’t survive pregnancy? Or life after birth? Or are you just preventing needless suffering of the baby and parents? Are you being merciful in stopping something that can’t possibly survive?
[/quote]

Whoa, why the caveat? If there is nothing wrong with abortion, why would you not have one? If there is nothing wrong with it, than you should be having as many as you like with out issue. So if there is nothing wrong with abortion, why wouldn’t you just have them when ever?

I hate this cop-out…“I am pro-choice, but I wouldn’t have an abortion.” Bullshit. You won’t have an abortion because you know it’s wrong even if you are unable to articulate why.

The only argument surrounding abortion is human life. The rest are red herrings and strawmen…The whole, “You’re against women!” bullshit is just a pathetic lacquer used to try and hide the sheer of a morally repugnant act.

There is no discernible break in the human life cycle between conception and death. Nothing make it suddenly human, it is what it is. It’s a living human organism just like you and me, it just has fewer cells. Looks don’t make something what it is, you and I are a clump of cells, just a bigger clump.

See to say that the fetus isn’t a human life is to say that even if your mother had aborted you, you still would have a chance to exist, because what makes you, you, comes in sometimes later. Well, that’s bullshit. If your mother had an abortion, you wouldn’t be and you never would be again. [/quote]

Gee, maybe I have the caveat because I don’t think it’s right to force a woman to have a baby that is the product of a rape? Or force a teenage girl to have a baby that is a product of incest? Or a baby that won’t survive due to a serious congenital birth defect?[/quote]

If I could get rid of all abortions save for the whole rape and incest thing I would take the deal. Considering the fact that that makes up way less than 1% of all abortions, I’ll take the deal.
However, it still is a human being, and why should the kid be killed because of how it was conceived?
The usually a child with a severe defect will miscarry, I ain’t even worried about that.

The caveat is still curious because you are protecting the 99.999% of abortions done as a method of birth control to protect a tiny minority. Most abortions are a matter of convenience not to protect the woman’s life, or in cases of rape or incest. So if you’ll concede the 99% I’ll concede the 1%. That’s fair, isn’t it?[/quote]

Why should a woman who was raped be FORCED to give birth to a kid who is a product of that rape? Why should the rape be allowed to continue like that? It’s traumatic enough, now she has to give birth? WTF? In another argument someone brought up how the woman would know THAT baby was the product of a rape and not the sex her and her husband had right before that. Well, that’s what in utero paternity tests are for.

Not all serious defects miscarry, Bella Santorum, for example. Most infants with her defect die within a week of birth, why even let that pregnancy go full term? Why put the mother, family, baby through that? Granted, she is the exception because she’s 3 years old, but that’s less than 10% of the cases of Trisomy 18.

It’s the right to choose that I support. No one, least of all the gov’t, should be allowed to say what can and cannot happen to YOUR body. I know the majority of abortions are used as a sort of birth control and in some cases probably a very wise decision and made in good faith. If women had more access to affordable birth control, not just condoms, it would help immensely.

pat · February 8, 2012, 9:18pm