…and this is a 
Smacking down more lies about Plan B
Category: Reproduction
Posted on: August 13, 2006 7:42 PM, by PZ Myers
It's really not that hard to understand, but what's blocking acceptance are the amazing lies people say about Plan B emergency contraception. Ema found a ghastly op-ed that got everything wrong; try reading my summary of Plan B, then the op-ed by Abby Wisse Schachter, and see if you can spot all the errors. You won't be as thorough as Ema, though, who has posted a wonderfully detailed, complete annihilation of Schachter's article.
Comments
Today's (8/13) Philly Inquirer included a letter to the editor by a pointy-head who claimed Plan B killed fertilized eggs. Rebuttal has already been sent.
Posted by: Shem | August 13, 2006 7:47 PM
The inference that there can be any tangible risk at two-fold normal contraceptive dose is preposterous. Normal contraceptive doses are well below levels that constitute risk in normal healthy women, even with prolonged usage; otherwise, they would not be approved for usage. Even prolonged hormone replacement therapy past menopause has not been shown to pose inordinate risk compared with benefits. Pregnancy, on the other hand, can have life threatening consequences, not to mention the socio-economic and psychological consequences of unwanted children. I believe that in Holy Blood, Holy Grail, it was stated that the first thing any effective religion does is control its women. This is Holy Blood, Holy Bull -- The doctor was either quoted out of context or is pretty dumb.
Posted by: Marlene Garo | August 13, 2006 8:26 PM
My wife had a dream two nights ago that George Bush had forbidden the teaching of science.
You're right on the money, Marlene, about religion controlling women. Experts on the Bible such as Bart Ehrman (chair at UNC) say that the especially anti-women sections of Paul's epistles (Titus and Timothy) are late forgeries.
Posted by: Peter M. | August 13, 2006 8:43 PM
This makes me wonder if Dr. Roston warns her middle age patients about those stinky little pills derived from pregnant horse pee, that in addition to proliferating breast cells contains metabolites that make oodles of DNA adducts in the very same cells.
Posted by: Michael Allen | August 13, 2006 8:50 PM
Semi-related question: I've seen it written a number of places that Plan B was studied and found safe for women 16 years of age or older (and one that claimed it was safe for "all ages", which I find a little suspicious), but none of those places have ever included a reference. Could someone please point me at a study, or even a summary of a study?
Posted by: Zed | August 13, 2006 8:53 PM
This cheered me up, tho':
See http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/content/projo_20060813_13miner.1d1160a.html
... there are non-clueless voices out there, for what it's worth.
Posted by: AJ Milne | August 13, 2006 8:54 PM
And the rest of them? The entire thing is pretty much, if not anti woman, than woman stay in your place.
Posted by: GH | August 13, 2006 9:45 PM
Zed,
Not a primary source (I'll try to look for it), but a good review from the Government Accountability Office's report (.pdf), Decision Process to Deny Initial Application for Over-the-Counter Marketing of the Emergency Contraceptive Drug Plan B Was Unusual:
Fourth, the rationale for the Acting Director of CDER's decision was novel and did not follow FDA's traditional practices. Specifically, the Acting Director was concerned about the potential impact that the OTC marketing of Plan B would have on the propensity for younger adolescents to engage in unsafe sexual behaviors because of their lack of cognitive maturity compared to older adolescents. He also stated that it was invalid to extrapolate data from older to younger adolescents in this case. FDA review officials noted that the agency has not considered behavioral implications due to differences in cognitive development in prior OTC switch decisions and that the agency has considered it scientifically appropriate to extrapolate data from older to younger adolescents.
...
There are no age-related marketing restrictions for safety reasons for any of the prescription or OTC contraceptives that FDA has approved, and FDA has not required pediatric studies for them. All FDA-approved OTC contraceptives are available to anyone, and all FDA-approved prescription contraceptives are available to anyone with a prescription. For hormonal contraceptives, FDA assumes that suppression of ovulation would be the same for any female after menarche,13 regardless of age. FDA did not identify any issues that would require age-related restrictions in its review of the original application for prescription Plan B, and prescription Plan B is available to women of any age.
Prof. Myers,
Thank you for the link.
Posted by: ema | August 13, 2006 10:10 PM
Good story on why emergency contraception should be more readily available to women:
The GOP Forced Me to Have an Abortion
By Dana L., The Washington Post. Posted June 8, 2006.
http://www.alternet.org/rights/37219/
As a female friend of mine says: "No one with a penis has the right to make reproductive decisions for women."
Posted by: George | August 13, 2006 10:30 PM
Oh my goodness. The infamous Dana L story? A thesis on self-forgiving rationalization.
http://demolition65.wordpress.com/2006/06/04/virginia-woman-blames-bush-for-her-getting-an-abortion/
Posted by: hoody | August 13, 2006 11:38 PM
So people with vaginas have that right? I rather thought the position favored would be that no one has the right to make reproductive decisions for other adults. I guess genitalia is somehow relevant.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 14, 2006 12:29 AM
Plan B is a progesterone only contraceptive. The risks of "cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, blood clots, heart attack and strokes." as claimed in the editorial are actually risks associated with combination estrogen/progesterone oral contraceptives or hormone replacement therapy. Plan B would even be unlikely to cause nausea. It works by interupting the luteinizing hormone surge that triggers release of an egg and will have no effect on a fertilized egg. In fact, reproductive endocrinologists give higher doses of progesterone to IVF patients in an attempt to improve the chance of implantation and to support early pregnancy.
However, the pro-life claims about Plan B are a marvelous example of truthiness.
Posted by: J Bean | August 14, 2006 1:11 AM
sorry to invade the thread.
this is so cool. taxonomy-defying sea spiders!
Posted by: garth | August 14, 2006 4:54 AM
George wrote;
Yes, a woman should have the right to make "reproductive decisions". But reproduction is not the same as termination. Starting a life is not the same as ending it.
Why should being a mother give a woman the right to kill her unborn child if she chooses?
Having said that, Plan B seems to me to be an entirely unobjectionable form of contraception.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 14, 2006 10:06 AM
What is it with the USA and breeding control?
In Britain, and almost all of Europe (some catholic countries are stalling) contraception is available over-the-counter, without question to ANYONE over 16.
In Britain, it is also FREE - paid for out of taxes.
there have been a couple of cases of xtians trying to impede this (as pharmacists' assistants, for instance) and the outcry has soon shut them up.
Posted by: G. Tingey | August 14, 2006 10:33 AM
G Tingey, I hate to say it, but a lot of it's the rich suburban (closet) racists who want to 'outpopulate' the people they're scared of.
Posted by: Stogoe | August 14, 2006 11:39 AM
G Tingey, I hate to say it, but a lot of it's the rich suburban (closet) racists who want to 'outpopulate' the people they're scared of.
Posted by: Stogoe | August 14, 2006 11:39 AM
Plan B is more like 4-fold than twofold. Yes, it is two pills, but back in the day before Plan B existed, the regiman was to take multiple BCP's of the appropriate brand. I can't remember if each dose was 4 pills or if both doses combined were 4 pills. It may have depended on which brand was used.
And yes, it can cause nausea. bad nausea. beats pregnancy, though.
Posted by: frumious b | August 14, 2006 11:41 AM
Ian,
Why should being a mother give a woman the right to kill her unborn child if she chooses?
Um, infanticide (killing a child), already a crime, has nothing to do with abortion (terminating a pregnancy).
Posted by: ema | August 14, 2006 12:32 PM
Love how she throws in "women over 18 (or girls with fake IDs)" just to get in the obligatory "the children! who will think of the children" angle in there.
Posted by: totoro | August 14, 2006 2:11 PM
Ema's right of course but we can't expect those with the Forced Breeding Agenda to not trot out dishonesty.
Posted by: Lya Kahlo | August 14, 2006 3:02 PM
ema wrote:
Kill a child one minute after birth and it's the heinous crime of infanticide.
Kill a child one minute before birth and it's a benign medical procedure called abortion.
Arbitrary or what?
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 14, 2006 4:03 PM
Ian, you don't get to define the termination of a pregnancy as "killing a child" just because you'd like that to be the only way to regard it.
You'd also need to ignore quite a bit of legal precedent to make such a glib claim.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-term_abortion
Posted by: Ken Cope | August 14, 2006 4:37 PM
OK, let's see the logic here.
- Teenage pregnancy = bad.
- Teens more likely to do something stupid.
- Safe, effective emergency contraception will not be available to under 18s.
Houston, we have a problem.
Posted by: Graculus | August 14, 2006 5:34 PM
Didn't you know that they don't have sex. Abstinence only teaching works!
I love when Republican's get cornered as asked if they follow that.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 14, 2006 5:57 PM
Kill a child one minute before birth and it's a benign medical procedure called abortion.
I love it when people make irrelevant philosophical arguments about abortion, using examples that have nothing to do with what happens in real life. It's not like it's an issue that actually affects anyone.
Posted by: junk science | August 14, 2006 6:38 PM
Ian,
Kill a child one minute after birth and it's the heinous crime of infanticide.
Kill a child one minute before birth and it's a benign medical procedure called abortion.
Arbitrary or what?
Once again, "Um". There is no such thing as "a child" in utero. There's a pregnancy--uterus (or whatever maternal organ), a placenta, cord/membranes, and a fetus--and an abortion terminates that pregnancy.
It's not a question of semantics; it's anatomy/physiology. You can have a pregnancy without an embryo/fetus, but you cannot have a pregnancy without the maternal/placental component [no free-floating kids in utero].
Posted by: ema | August 14, 2006 7:59 PM
Ian seems to be under the impression that women give birth mere minutes after coitus.
Clearly, the science education in this country is sorely lacking.
Posted by: Aman | August 14, 2006 10:50 PM
"Today's (8/13) Philly Inquirer included a letter to the editor by a pointy-head who claimed Plan B killed fertilized eggs. Rebuttal has already been sent."
Oh, good. One less thing for me to do! Although I probably should send one just in case . . .
Posted by: Dan S. | August 14, 2006 11:36 PM
ema wrote:
Ummm, from Merriam-Webster:
Calling the unborn offspring a 'fetus' or 'embryo' does not make it any the less the child of its parents.
Using euphemisms like 'abortion' or 'termination' does not alter the fact that the unborn child is being killed.
The fact that the mother's body is intimately connected to the fetus and acts as a 'life support system' for it does not mean that the fetus is equivalent to an internal organ or a tumour.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 1:16 AM
Aman wrote:
I don't know where you got that idea.
The women I've discussed this with have left me in absolutely no doubt that pregnancy is a long, extremely distasteful and very painful process which no one should ever have to endure.
Under the circumstances, it's amazing the human race has got as far as it has.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 1:25 AM
Ken Cope wrote:
Of course I do, and I have dictionary definitions to back it up. Just like you get to cast your arguments in any form that you choose. It's called freedom of expression.
What neither of us have any right to expect is that our views should have legal force simply because we hold them. For that to happen, we would have to persuade society that it would be beneficial for our views to be enacted as law.
My view seems to be in the minority at the moment so I have to accept that.
It doesn't mean that I can't argue for change, though.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 1:38 AM
Anybody who has to rely upon a prescriptivist dictionary definition to make a point hasn't got much of one in the first place.
In almost every response you've gotten to any of your posts, Ian, you've been reminded repeatedly that the only person with the right to decide whether they have a pregnancy they need to terminate, or a child to whom they desire to give birth, is the one with the uterus. You appear to have a problem with that, for no particularly consistent or well-articulated reason.
Taking issue with a woman's right to choose tends to narrow a guy's reproductive options. I don't think I've ever met a female anti-choice atheist, although I suppose there may be more than a few. I doubt that telling a woman that, once she's carrying a blastocyst she should have no option other than to carry it to term or you're going to regard her as a murderer, is a very good way to get a second date.
It doesn't mean that I can't argue for change, though.
Not according to the evidence.
Ian, before you can argue for change, you'll have to learn how to argue at all, instead of incessantly repeating your position, especially when it's incoherent even to you:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/bye_bye_ra.php
Posted by: Ken Cope | August 15, 2006 3:19 AM
"Using euphemisms like 'abortion' or 'termination' does not alter the fact that the unborn child is being killed."
Ah, but deliberately using the incorrect terms to amp up the emotionalistic and manipulative propaganda is a-ok. Talk about arbitarary.
Posted by: Lya Kahlo | August 15, 2006 10:27 AM
Incorrect? Perhaps not, but I think it involves an equivocation on child. One meaning simply means "the offspring of". For example, I am the child of my parents. Another meaning is that of a stage of biological development, which is not true in my case. Yet another meaning might be the legal meaning.
Posted by: Keith Douglas | August 15, 2006 10:42 AM
Fair enough. However, my point is that on this topic using anything other than the proper medical terms is merely one's agenda showing through. Calling it "killing a child" conjures a decidedly different mental image than "terminating a pregnancy". That is their goal - to make abortion seem to be something that it's not, in order to lay blame and shame on those seeking or in support of the procedure.
Posted by: Lya Kahlo | August 15, 2006 11:08 AM
Yep.
Should we call appendectomies "abdominal mutilation," "desecration of precious human tissue," or "gut gouging by quacks"? With the proper ideological frame, one could make an argument that any of those descriptions is perfectly accurate, after all.
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 15, 2006 11:24 AM
Ken Cope wrote:
My understanding is that dictionary definitions are descriptive rather than prescriptive. They list usages but they don't tell you which one you should use.
I simply quoted from Merriam-Webster to show that my usage of "child" is a currently accepted one.
In most if not all countries unlawful killing is prohibited. This is evidence that the human right to life is as near to being a universal right as anything can be.
The same cannot be said of abortion.
A woman's access to abortion varies widely from country to country and jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In some places it's available more or less on demand, in others it's completely banned. So it is far from universally agreed that the woman has an absolute right to decide what happens to the fetus.
Nor, in my view, should a woman have such a right if the fetus is regarded as an individual human being entitled to the right to life rather than just being equivalent to an appendage or tumour.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 12:22 PM
Lya Kahlo wrote:
Pro-choicers use "abortion" and "termination" to avoid the emotional connotations of a description of what is actually involved in the procedure.
Are you denying that an unborn child is killed when an abortion is performed?
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 12:32 PM
Are sperm unborn children? Are ovum?
Depends on what constitutes a "child".
Posted by: Steve_C | August 15, 2006 12:44 PM
"Pro-choicers use "abortion" and "termination" to avoid the emotional connotations of a description of what is actually involved in the procedure."
Are you seriously trying to condemn someone for using the correct medical terms? Since you've apparently missed it:
Me:"However, my point is that on this topic using anything other than the proper medical terms is merely one's agenda showing through. Calling it "killing a child" conjures a decidedly different mental image than "terminating a pregnancy". That is their goal - to make abortion seem to be something that it's not, in order to lay blame and shame on those seeking or in support of the procedure. "
PZ: "Should we call appendectomies "abdominal mutilation," "desecration of precious human tissue," or "gut gouging by quacks"? With the proper ideological frame, one could make an argument that any of those descriptions is perfectly accurate, after all."
You can hide behind this goofy emotionalism all you like, it only serves to make you sound like a quack.
"Are you denying that an unborn child is killed when an abortion is performed?"
Case in point. Thank you for proving me right.
Posted by: Lya Kahlo | August 15, 2006 12:49 PM
Lya Kahlo wrote:
Yes, I have an agenda. So do you.
Terms like "abortion" and "termination of pregnancy" might be medically correct but they are also used to camouflage the unpleasantness - to put it mildly - of what is actually involved.
Why try to hide it unless you're afraid that most people, if confronted with the reality of abortion, would find it offensive?
PZ Myers wrote:
I thought you were all in favour of calling a spade a spade. Abortion is the killing of an unborn child, isn't it? What's wrong with saying so?
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 12:52 PM
Steve_C wrote:
Depends on what constitutes a "child".
True.
I'm using it in the broadest sense of "offspring" or "child of parents".
In that sense, neither sperm or ova are children but a fertilized egg is the starting-point of the child.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 1:02 PM
Ian,
Some dictionaries are prescriptivist (more) some are descriptivist (more). Your choice of that definition of child is accepted by some people and not by others.
What you seem to be missing here is that abortion is lawful in this and many other countries.
If universal agreement is necessary for women's rights, then women are screwed enternally. Some places do not protect a women's right to vote, or be educated, or safe from rape.
What is agreed in the US is that citizens have the right to make decisions about their own bodies, and that no one else may make those decisions against the body-inhabitors will. I cannot remove your kidney, I cannot withdraw your blood, even if it is neccessary to save someone else's life. And yet, some people seem to think that there is one case where bodily integrity should not be honored: that women should not have the final decision about what happens within their bodies. Why is that?
Yes, well, get back to me on that if/when it ever happens. When fetuses start holding rights seperate from their mothers I'll be interested in hearing about it.
You should study this more closely. Mothers who do commit infanticide by abandoning their child after birth are not usually tried or convicted for 1st degree murder. Society doesn't approve, but is fairly understanding that there is a compelling reason for such crimes.
Besides the fact that this statement requires birth to be an absolutely determined and determinably point, which, clearly, it never is, it is also wrong in the subjective "benign." Actual patients and medical personel who are involved in the extremely rare decision to terminate a pregnancy at any time after assumed viability, would cetainly not characterize the procedure as benign. For the patient it is every bit as painful and difficult as a live birth, with the specific horror of having had to make that decision, as the result of some agonizing life/death scenario.
No more arbitrary than it being permissable to remove someone's organs (with permission) once the body is "brain dead" but not before. No more arbitrary than deciding that the third time someone's heart cannot be restarted she is dead, which, legally, she wasn't just a second ago when her heart couldn't be started for the second time.
Actually, the fetus is attached to the mother, not the mother to the fetus. Weird, huh? Why isn't the fetus equivilent to an internal organ or a tumor? You said it's not, but you didn't say why.
Distasteful? How so? The most crucial point you seem to be overlooking is that while a pregnancy is time-limited, its effects are not.
Posted by: Kaethe | August 15, 2006 1:05 PM
Lya Kahlo wrote:
Ad hominem apart, I note that you are still tap-dancing around actually answering my question.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 15, 2006 1:05 PM
Ian is still playing his word games huh?
I'll play a little too.
No, an unborn child is not necessarily killed when an abortion is performed. But I'm using a rather loose definition of abortion... or strict definition of killed, take your pick.
Posted by: D | August 15, 2006 1:20 PM
As I have noticed that you're tap danced around every rebuttal to your opinion on this thread. How many times does your statement need to be debunked before you stop repeating it?
And, I called your reliance on emotional blackmail to make your point "goofy" but that isn't an ad hom.
~~~
"Terms like "abortion" and "termination of pregnancy" might be medically correct but they are also used to camouflage the unpleasantness - to put it mildly - of what is actually involved.
Why try to hide it unless you're afraid that most people, if confronted with the reality of abortion, would find it offensive?"
First, your opinion of 'what is actually involved' has already been repeatedly debunk so I don't know why you thought I'd fall for that. Second, no one is so stupid as to not know "what is actually involved", and I can only hope they are too smart to fall for your propaganda. Third, as PZ pointed out, your overblown language can be used to make anything sound like evil incarate.
My only "agenda" is to ensure that every woman who walks through the door gets EXACTLY the care she needs, despite you and your ilk. I am not afraid of people finding out anything because I trust that they know, and are adults fully capable of making their own decision independent of any outside opinions - when given the choice (you know, the choice you would deny them, because apparently only you are smart enough to know "what is actually involved'). I am not worried if they find it offensive because they are completely free not to have one.
Posted by: Lya Kahlo | August 15, 2006 1:29 PM
The question is so poorly formed and presumes far too much. My answer is that there is NO SHARP LINE. It isn't fertilization, it isn't quickening, it isn't brain activity, it isn't birth. Development is a long, slow process, and the whole problem is pig-ignorant people who insist that there must be one specific instant where 'humanity' is made manifest in the zygote/fetus/embryo/child.
Complaining that people haven't answered a question that is built on a faulty premise is an attempt to cajole validation of your question out of them. It is right to refuse to do so.
Posted by: PZ Myers![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/nav-commenters.gif)
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August 15, 2006 1:35 PM
hoody: "Oh my goodness. The infamous Dana L story? A thesis on self-forgiving rationalization."
Well, we can agree that the 42-year old married mother of two made some poor choices: neglecting to insert her diaphragm in a sudden rush of passion, and then - when she was unable, after several attempts, to get a prescription for Plan B - basically hoping that the problem would just go away. Certainly we never make poor choices!
(I'd also note that Dana is well-educated (a lawyer), presumably at least relatively financially/ occupationally stable (although she does feel that she can't take two days off because of work and children), and in what, as described, sounds like a supportive relationship (she makes the decision to abort with her husband). It's worth considering what the story would be like without these advantages.)
Let us note, though, that on your blog you engage in a bit of selective quoting. You have, as her reaction upon ending up pregnant:
implying, for the casual reader, that this is the sole reason for her decision. You somehow neglect to include quite a bit of the rest of that passage:
I guess space was at a premium. The idea that you cherry-picked what you might conceivably see as the weakest, most petty reason is clearly unfounded suspicion. Shame on me!
Now of course, I could go on like this (you think doctors should be able to refuse to give prescriptions on what is almost certainly religious grounds? Have you ever been in this situation? What happens if you are trying to get treatment for depression and your doctor's a Scientologist? Or treatment for anything, and they're a Christian Science adherent? Given that Dana refers to her (non)healthcare providers as only "partially responsible," (emphasis added) isn't it at least possible that she places some of the responsibility on herself, and is engaged not in a "profoundly pathological need to place the blame elsewhere?" but a relatively detailed analysis of the wider system and how it affected her options, as opposed to one that singlemindedly limited itself to individual choices? Since you repeatedly refer to her decision to have an abortion in what was almost certainly the first trimester as "kill[ing] the baby" and suchlike, what would be your reaction if somebody handed you a first-trimester fetus, or you peered into a stroller and found one there?)
But that's boring. The bottom line is that Dana L. made some stupid choices. As a result at least in part of Bush administration policies, and of the prolife movement more generally, she was unable to get emergency contraception - Plan B - which if you follow the links in PZ's post, almost certainly - indeed, from what I've seen, by most practical standards of certainty -works by preventing fertilization, and appears carry little to no risk of "post-fertilization events." So instead she ended up having an abortion. Again, bottom line: It is clear that she did not desire and was not planning to give birth. That wasn't going to happen. As a result of not being able to get Plan B largely as result of Bush Administration policies and appointees, she ended up aborting a fetus - as you conceive it, killing a baby. Bottom line again: there were in reality two practical choices:
1) she gets a prescription for Plan B and (as long as it works) by suppressing ovulation, prevents her husband's sperm from reaching her egg - hence no fertilization.
2) she gets an abortion.
Which would have you preferred?
Now, it's clear from your post that you're annoyed, to the point of diagnosing an "all time high" of "Bush Derangement Syndrome," that Dana L. is (indirectly) blaming the Bush administration for her abortion. That annoyance is understandable, perhaps - again, she certainly made some dumb decisions. But again, having made those two dumb decisions - skipping contraception, and not spending the next 72 hours calling every doctor in the phone book (after her health providers wouldn't/couldn't help) to find one (presumably not covered)) that would give her a prescription (ER visit?) - which she is quite upfront about - well, that having happened, then what?
You say "Um, nope. That came about because your husband and you engaged in intercourse during your fertile period. Which you could have either avoided [Dana notes that as both her and husband work, they don't end up with a lot of time together - won't get into the issue of rhythm-method style contraception], or taken the time to use those contraceptive methods that you already partake of. Blaming the doctor is a classic case of shifting the responsibility."
Fair enough: you know how she ended up with her husband's sperm and her egg about to get together, because she goes right ahead and tells you. Again, given that she was kinda dumb - and I'm sure that sometime today, some two people are going to be kinda dumb, because even with our best efforts we don't get through life without screwing up at least a little - why couldn't she just head over to the pharmacy, get some Plan B, and ensure that this little meeting never happened? Because of the Bush administration. Blame her for being human, sure - but that's not the only blame there is here. Sounds a bit like you want to make sure she has to face the 'consequences' of her mistakes.
"So to sum up: We have a married woman (and she is to be applauded for being married) engaging in intercourse with her husband, but wanting to have that without the attendant responsibility of future pregnancy. She normally takes steps to avoid same, but bails on them this time, scrambles to address the situation, is halted by a combination of poor timing and those pesky morals of her doctor, gets pregnant, kills the baby, and then blames Bush . . ... I am truly sorry for the position the woman is in, but she placed herself there, all on her lonesome. What I am MORE sorry about is the fact that the woman had a tremendous opportunity to bring a new life into her world."
Except both her (the major bit) and her husband decided that having another kid was a bad decision, not what was best for their family. They already brought two new lives into the world; she states quite specifically that they didn't feel they had the resources, life-wise, to care for three as they would have wanted - besides the other concerns. If she had been able to get Plan B, she would have (if it worked) prevented two zygotes from joining together. (Are these two zygotes more important than her and her husband's decision about family planning?) Instead, and again, she ended up having to have an abortion.
Presumably the least bad realistic outcome, for prolifers, would have been that fertilization never happened, rather than what is being thought of as a baby was destroyed. But I dunno:
"We have a married woman . . . engaging in intercourse with her husband, but wanting to have that without the attendant responsibility of future pregnancy."
Especially given the whole tone of your post - irritation at this "idiocy;" that she's trying to fob off her blame and responsibility - it sounds as if you also criticize her for having sex all selfish-like, obstinately shirking "the attendant responsibility of future pregnancy." Is this the case, hoody?
Posted by: Dan S. | August 15, 2006 2:25 PM
Kaethe wrote:
Evidence, nonetheless, that my usage is current and not something I made up to suit my argument.
Not so. I am well aware that elective abortion is lawful here and in other countries.
I just think it is wrong.
I think that the notion of "women's rights" is as suspect as that of 'positive discrimination'. However well-intentioned, both are forms of unjustifiable discrimination in that they privilege one group over another.
That said, there is no doubt that women in various parts of the world are suffering outrageous oppression.
What is being violated, though, are their human rights.
1) I believe that people should be entitled to have their personal privacy and physical integrity respected.
2) I believe that no one should be compelled to suffer personal injury or death to save the life of another.
3) I believe that no one has the right to take the life of another, other than in certain exceptional circumstances. Personal convenience is not an exceptional circumstance.
How to resolve the conflict between 1) and 2)?
3) trumps all others.
Women who abandon their children do not necessarily do so with the intention of killing them.
But suppose Andrea Yates had been found legally sane and responsible for drowning her children. Would that not have been a heinous crime?
I characterized abortion as "benign" because, by intent, it is. That is in contrast to the intent of someone who deliberately kills an infant which might fairly be described as 'malign'.
"You say pot-ay-to and I say pot-ah-to..."
If you let a tumour grow you get a bigger tumour.
If you let a fetus grow you get an adult human being, eventually.
Don't blame me. I was just conveying the impression I got from the comments of a number of women with whom I discussed this before.
Still not a good enough reason to kill an unborn child.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 16, 2006 3:20 PM
Ian is still playing his word games huh?
D wrote:
Okay, I'll bite. So what does happen when an abortion is performed?
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 16, 2006 3:30 PM
A human zygote or embryo is removed. A pregnancy is terminated.
A planned miscarriage?
Take your pick.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 16, 2006 3:40 PM
Lya Kahlo wrote:
I haven't seen anyone debunk the claim that an unborn child is killed in an abortion.
You think the average layperson knows all about MVA, EVA, D&E or D&C, for example? You have a higher opinion of them than I do.
In what way is the claim that an unborn child is killed in an abortion hyperbolic?
I have no idea where you work or what you do.
If it is some sort of general-purpose clinic or hospital I would expect that everyone - whether male or female - get the best possible treatment.
If it is some sort of women-only facility then I'm glad to hear that your patients get the care they need, as well as all they information they need to make an informed choice.
I would hope that also includes the alternatives to abortion as well.
Since you're "not afraid of people finding out anything".
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 16, 2006 3:51 PM
So, abortion should be allowed if the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother? What if it threatens her sanity? What it it may lead to long-term disability?
What *exactly* should count as an exceptional circumstance?
Posted by: wintermute | August 16, 2006 4:01 PM
PZ Myers wrote:
Sperm and ovum are brought into proximity.
Sperm fail to make contact with ovum - no individual human being.
Sperm enters ovum and 'fuzes'with it and the long, slow and enormously complex process of development can begin which, with luck, will lead to an adult human being.
Human rights are the entitlements of individual human beings.
For the purpose of entitlement to the right to life only, when does an individual begin?
If you're going to draw a line anywhere then fertilization seems as a good a place as any and better than most.
Yes, you're entirely within your rights to refuse to answer. And I'm within my rights to think it sounds like the equivalent of "taking the Fifth".
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 16, 2006 4:24 PM
Steve_C wrote:
The effect on the zygote or embryo being...?
And a "human zygote or embryo" is not a child - in the sense of 'offspring of human parents' - how exactly?
Miscarriages are not usually the result of human intervention so rights are not violated.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 16, 2006 4:30 PM
wintermute wrote:
This is the awkward grey area and can only really be decided by the doctors.
My view has always been that if there's a clear threat to the mother's survival then the pregnancy should be terminated. I also think we should allow abortion where there is a risk of permanent injury to the mother's physical or mental health.
I accept that this places a heavy burden on the doctors and that it is often difficult for them to assess the severity of the risks to the mother of continuing with the pregnancy.
All I can say is that they should be guided by the principle that both the mother and the unborn child each have a right to life but that, where the two rights come into conflict, the presumption should always be in favour of the mother's survival.
My purpose is to establish that the unborn have a right to life which should be respected where possible but that there are legitimate exceptions to that right based on the mother's health and well-being.
Posted by: Ian H Spedding | August 16, 2006 4:58 PM
Are you saying that you agree with 99% of all ninth-month abortions? If that's the case, why do you keep railing against abourtion "one minute before birth"?
Posted by: wintermute | August 16, 2006 5:33 PM
I don't consider a group of cells the size of a bean or smaller a human child.
If you do, why stop there? Why isn't sperm or an ovum human life?
Posted by: Steve_C | August 16, 2006 6:04 PM
Dan S wrote:
it sounds as if you also criticize her for having sex all selfish-like, obstinately shirking "the attendant responsibility of future pregnancy." Is this the case, hoody?
No.
Posted by: hoody | August 16, 2006 6:33 PM
A pregnancy is ended. That is in fact what is being aborted. Whether the unborn "child" is dead, killed, dies or lives is a separate matter, and all possible. And I don't even have to play word games in saying that. Playing the word game you are, I can truthfully posit that an unborn child is never killed by an abortion.
Perhaps to save some time for everyone, I'll attempt to summarize Ian's thoughts as reveled from a previous post. Ian believes an individual begins existence at the start of the diploid stage of the life cycle, ie fertilization. His justification for such a belief seems to rest fully upon it striking him as the best place and he is either incapable of or refuses to understand the validity of any other demarcation. This is despite the fact that multiple people can arise from a single fertilization and the only difference between a zygote developing into a person vs a sperm and egg is probability. He wishes to equate the potential of the former as being equal to the end product while dismissing the potential of the latter. His conflation of potential with actual I think stems from the inability to see that the value of potential rests fully upon the desirability of the realization of potential.
In terms of when an abortion is acceptable, he seems to think there is some threshold at which pain and suffering to the woman would justify such an act, but that he is the only one that can make such a judgment and he judges that no woman has ever or will ever meet such a threshold, or perhaps some doctor, as long as said doctor agrees with Ian.
And Ian, if you feel I'm being disenginsous with my interpretation, feel free to correct me, but only after you correct your own dishonesty with what you have been told regarding pregnancy.
Posted by: D | August 16, 2006 6:52 PM
Messed up the link it seems.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/bye_bye_ra.php
Posted by: D | August 16, 2006 7:07 PM
If you're going to draw a line anywhere then fertilization seems as a good a place as any and better than most.
See, Ian, this is where you differ from most of the other posters here. Fertilization only seems as good a place as any to you, and seems much worse than others to a lot of other people. I'd say, for instance, that birth seems like a pretty good place to define an individual, since that's when a being detaches and becomes, well, individual. D did a very good job of explaining why fertilization does not an individual make.
A lot of it might have to do with knowledge about reproduction. Many posters here have a biological background, and are well aware of all of the things that can and often do go wrong between fertilization and the emergence of anything that can be considered even vaguely humanoid. In light of that, claiming human rights at such an early stage is just as ridiculous as claiming human rights on the lunch a couple has on their first date, because if things go to completion, they'll eventually have sex and create a zygote that will become a human.
Posted by: Carlie | August 16, 2006 7:36 PM
wintermute asked:
and Ian responded:
So despite your insistence on the supremacy of the genotypic uniqueness of the fertilized egg, and your time-traveling scenarios and all, you actually are ok with choice in some cases, just as long as it isn't made by the woman herself. Understood.
Posted by: RavenT | August 16, 2006 11:09 PM
"And I'm within my rights to think it sounds like the equivalent of "taking the Fifth"."
Yes, you are within your rights to be dishonest.
Posted by: Lya Kahlo | August 17, 2006 7:30 AM
wintermute wrote:
I am saying, although obviously not clearly enough, that I think abortion is permissible where there is a risk of permanent injury to the mother if the pregnancy is allowed to proceed to term.
The "one minute before birth" thing was simply trying to illustrate that there is little difference between a fetus one minute before birth and a baby one minute after.
And, yes, I realise that there are differences but it's not as if we're talking about a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly. The two are pretty much the