Ohio State Sen. says if men are so worried about wombs, then turnabout is fair play

[marplots]

How do you differentiate between sperm that are swiming and those that are not?

5 mm relay race. You know, the usual way.

 

[RandFan]

5 mm relay race. You know, the usual way.

Touche. What do you call sperm that are swimming to differentiate them from those that are not?

 

[thaiboxerken]

A point that I just heard on Thom Harman today is that the 20 week ban won't affect too many woman at all. However, all of the other portions of these GOP bills will affect most women (who aren't wealthy). They will shut down most of the women's health clinics. This doesn't just stop abortion services and make it harder to get one. It stops many women from access to all kinds of health services. Cancer screenings, examinations, birth-control services, rape counselling, pre-natal care, post-natal care... etc.

Wealthy women will still have access to abortion and health services, as they always have, even when there were outright bans on abortion.

 

[RandFan]

A point that I just heard on Thom Harman today is that the 20 week ban won't affect too many woman at all. However, all of the other portions of these GOP bills will affect most women (who aren't wealthy). They will shut down most of the women's health clinics. This doesn't just stop abortion services and make it harder to get one. It stops many women from access to all kinds of health services. Cancer screenings, examinations, birth-control services, rape counselling, pre-natal care, post-natal care... etc.

Wealthy women will still have access to abortion and health services, as they always have, even when there were outright bans on abortion.

Yes. Two levels of care. One for the wealthy and keep an aspirin between your legs and pray you don't get sick.

 

[Travis]

Scientifically speaking, an unborn baby is by definition a human being.

The legitimate purpose of anti-abortion laws is the protection of human lives. The only reason is even allowed is because of the arbitrary state of "personhood" created by SCOTUS because they were in over their heads.

Explain how "personhood" can be defined in a way that is not arbitrary?

What is the definition of a human being? Really?

A human being is any member of the race known as homosapien. By virtue of having that race's DNA, and being alive, a fetus is a human being.

Okay, fine. So what? My uncle Ken was a human being and we (meaning the family) pulled the plug on him after he was deemed brain dead. Did we commit murder?

Also, what makes you think a fetus isn't a baby? We don't call humans that lack their faculties something other than human. By that same token, we shouldn't call babies something other than babies simply because they lack the developed body parts that other babies have due to time.

I have no problem calling them babies. I also have no problem with someone terminating one. You can officially call it "baby slaughter" and I'll still support the right to do it.

Yet do we say they are not human?

Whether or not someone acts human like, no one denies that they are human. That's not to mention that two words can describe the same object - Something can be a fetus and a baby.

Also, you can stop at "A fetus is a human being." . No rabbit hole necessary.

Who said anything about personhood?

Even if no one did it should have been brought up. I am for the protection of persons. I am not for the protection of human beings.

That's why I have no qualms about pulling the plug on someone that is braindead in spite of the fact that they still retain all the aspects that make them a human.

I'm talking strictly about human beings. The difference between fetuses, and a skin cell, of course, would be that fetuses have the ability to become full human adults.

Which makes them a potential person. And not worthy of legal protection as such.

Question for everyone: Is a baby not a person the day before its born? Is it not a person two days before its born?

It isn't even a person two days after birth. It doesn't become a person until it reaches the point where the neurological system is capable of self cognition. Then it is a person and worthy of protection.

I am not in the business of worrying about protecting things that aren't even capable of fearing for their lives.

If it's a college-educated woman with a broad range of resources including decent Internet skills and good insurance, she may have a private doc who won't "subject" her to tests to ensure her reproductive health. However, many doctors require pelvic exams and Pap smears, per link above. They're not all just being mean. Clinics see a diverse demographic - some professionals but also the young, uninsured, un- or mis-informed, possibly carrying denial and shame about molestations or drug-related behavior. In such cases taking the opportunity to test may be the best chance to detect potentially life-threatening diseases and curing what can be cured.

Yes, but if a law required all doctors to do these tests no matter the situation of the woman you can see how that would be ridiculous, right?

And if that was the case I hope you would see it as being a law aimed at harrassing women into not getting birth control.

Apologies to Travis, I misread something and corrected something that wasn't wrong.

Sorry.

 

[Minoosh]

Yes, but if a law required all doctors to do these tests no matter the situation of the woman you can see how that would be ridiculous, right?

It would be absurd - and it would be far more defensible than testing only single women, or only women who acknowledged being sexually active, or any other subjective criteria.

Note I am defending the practice of, say, universal screening for first-time patients - not a law requiring it.

Rough analogies: To work in my last job I had to prove I was a high school graduate. It didn't work to prove I was a college graduate. I needed to get my HS degree or transcript - no exceptions. In another job, where I was required to be a college graduate, it didn't help to provide my teaching certificate - even though a prerequisite for a teaching certificate is a bachelor's degree. It has to be my degree or transcript.

In a field where a lot of people have claimed discrimination, protocols were in place to neutralize certain kinds of discrimination. If there were a valid reason to not hire people with HIV - can't think of one, but if there were - you don't want to test only people with self-reported risk factors. It doesn't work to prove you've never had sex, never had a blood transfusion and that your mother did not have HIV. What would work - in terms of averting legal liability for discrimination - is a test, now available OTC. There's irony in that, because at least in the olden days the tests could miss HIV lurking in your body as it could take years to develop antibodies. So it doesn't prove what it purports to prove.

But it is objective and universal, hence non-discriminatory. Some docs claimed that under the Accutane law they were required to pregnancy-test men which IMO is going too far.

It is refreshing to hear someone defend infanticide. I'm not being sarcastic. It's intellectually honest. I do think your standards are as subjective as anyone else's, however. More subjective, maybe. Conception is a discrete event. Plan B in some cases targets a zygote, and so is "abortion" to some people, but my opinion is that we've progressed permanently beyond the point of defining a zygote as a person (or human being).