Quick Notes on the Politics of Abortion and Contraception
As always, Ross’s post on Saletan on the politics of abortion is worth reading. Very quickly, though:
But look at American abortion rates by state: The states with the lowest abortion rates are places like the Dakotas, Utah, Kentucky, West Virginia, Kansas, and Mississippi; the states with the most are places like California, Connecticut, New York, Illinois, and Massachusetts. There are liberal states with low abortion rates (your Maines and Minnesotas), and right-tilting states with higher ones, but by and large the most religiously-conservative states seem to be doing a pretty good job on that whole culture of life business already, despite their failure to recognize the moral imperative of welcoming Planned Parenthood with open arms.
It is extremely difficult to get an abortion in the states Ross cites. This article from Evelyn Nieves is a little dated (it was published in 2006), but she notes that:
Even without this latest ban, South Dakota was already one of the most difficult states in the country in which to get an abortion, those on both sides of the issue say. It is one of three states with only one abortion provider (Mississippi and North Dakota are the others), and its one clinic, the Planned Parenthood clinic in Sioux Falls, offers the procedure only once a week. Four doctors who fly in from Minnesota on a rotating basis perform the abortions, since no doctor in South Dakota will do so because of the heavy stigma attached.
Let me hazard a guess that a not inconsiderable number of women living in North and South Dakota are using abortion providers located in Minnesota. It’s also worth noting that these are high-poverty states. My hope is that there is a consensus in these states between conservatives and liberals around providing abortion alternatives and high-quality services for poor mothers, but I’m not sure that’s true — in fact, I doubt it.
Not surprisingly, I think Ross makes a lot of good points, and I think Saletan’s brilliant Bearing Right presents an alternative history of the pro-life movement that I think Ross and I would both find pretty attractive — the Arkansas initiative that sought to sharply increase spending on vulnerable mothers and young children as part of a broader effort to discourage abortion.
Also, I’m not clear on where Ross stands on the contraception question.
Consider, for instance, the idea that the government should dramatically expand eligibility for free contraception through Medicaid, a notion that conservatives objected to when it was tacked onto the stimulus package, and which Saletan links to as part of his latest proposed framework for an Obama abortion agenda.
Ross notes that this would, even in the best case scenario, have a trivial impact on the abortion rate.
That’s not nothing, obviously, but it’s not a whole lot either — and in a country of millions upon millions, where countless trends shift the number of pregnancies and abortions around from year to year, it’s perilously close to statistical noise. When you consider that there’s good reason to think that Roe v. Wade raised the abortion rate by well over 50 percent, I think you can see why most opponents of abortion look at a “more birth control” strategy as a cop-out, rather than a cure.
At the same time, surely this isn’t trivial either:
A recent Brookings Institution policy brief concluded that, in states that have already been granted income-eligibility waivers, this policy led to a significant reduction in the number of sexually-active women who have unprotected sex.
Granted, this is not directly relevant to the abortion question, but I think it’s possible that pro-life conservatives would, as Saletan suggests, build some goodwill by acknowledging that this is a worthwhile goal. Ross writes:
But if religious-conservative objections to contraceptive use were actually a big part of the cultural background to our abortion and out-of-wedlock birth rate, you’d expect to see some actual evidence of it.
I’m inclined to be very sympathetic — but I think we should expand the set of relevant evidence to include the proliferation of venereal disease (including diseases that make it impossible for people to have children, which strikes this pro-natalist as particularly awful), etc. I’m no expert on this issue. That said, I can see why Saletan believes that cultural messaging matters.
Bristol argued that abstinence is not realistic. I’m not inclined to condemn her for saying so. One thing I think people — or rather the people I know — don’t understand about pro-life cultural conservatives is that theirs is not a stance of scolds: teenage pregnancy rates are high in culturally conservative regions in part because teenage motherhood is seen as a familiar but not insurmountable challenge, and that giving birth under difficult or straitened circumstances has follow — there is a tight parallel to what you see in inner-city neighborhoods: as Edin and Kefalas put it, these are Promises I Can Keep.
This is a complicated landscape, and I’m not always sure what I think. I feel tugged between Saletan and Ross.
FYI, Ross is on record as a “personhood-begins-at conception” socon. So he can hardly be a fan of contraception since several commonly prescribed forms of birth control cause failure of the diploid egg to implant…..ie, murder.
Ramesh Ponnuru also is a “personhood-begins-at conception” socon. I think contraception and prevention of unwanted preganacies can make little progress with the conservative base until the rightside “intelligentsia” is disabused of their gallant but misguided crusade for the rights of undifferentiated cell clumps.
— matoko_chan · Feb 25, 02:38 PM · #
Actually, matoko, that is untrue. Ross has written several times that he thinks the best science we have shows that contraceptives don’t have that effect. Yes, he’s not a fan of contraception, but that’s because he’s a Catholic – he’s also written, though, that he thinks contracepting is a much less serious sin than abortion.
So let’s get our facts straight, no?
— John · Feb 25, 06:15 PM · #
No, he wrote that most contraceptives in current use are progesterone based and suppress ovulation.
Douthat absolutely believes the personhood-at-conception ignorant calumny and so does Ponnuru.
— matoko_chan · Feb 25, 08:58 PM · #
For example, RU-86, the morning after pill, prevents implantation of a fertilized egg.
That is how it works.
So in Douthat and Ponnuru’s utopian post-Roe Handmaid’s Tale America, RU-86 is murder.
lol.
— matoko_chan · Feb 25, 09:03 PM · #
Right. Which is just to say (indeed, this is what Ross said) that he doesn’t think they amount to murder, no?
Ignorant calumny, indeed …
— John · Feb 25, 09:04 PM · #
But RU-486 and the morning-after pill are not the same thing. I’m sure that Ross does think that RU-486 causes an abortion – indeed, that’s precisely the thing it’s designed to do. He doesn’t, however, think that the same is true of the MAP.
— John · Feb 25, 09:08 PM · #
Oh, for crying out loud, matoko.
First of all, for someone who apparently loves to call other people’s intellect into question, you might want to be a little more precise in your language. How, for instance, is the belief that personhood begins at conception a “calumny?”
Second, to believe that personhood begins at conception is a value judgment and thus cannot properly be described as ignorant. Indeed, if we’re going to travel that road, I might suggest that it’s rather more “ignorant” or illogical to suggest that there’s some sort of disjunction between a human being in the earliest stages of its development and “personhood” or to claim that one’s personhood depends on qualities (sentience, cognition, ability to feel pain, etc.) that are in some sense alienable from one’s body.
— Kate Marie · Feb 25, 09:19 PM · #
Kate Marie……a fertilized oocyte is an undifferentiated cell clump.
Anyone with a bare minimal understanding of cellular biology knows this.
A diploid complement of DNA is a blueprint for building a homo sapiens sapiens, and can in no way be confused with an actual homo sapiens sapiens, any more than a blueprint for building a house is an actual house.
Unless of course you are a moron, or have been pithed by Jesus.
I’m summoning up my search-fu to go get Douthat’s actual words.
— matoko_chan · Feb 25, 11:06 PM · #
How’s that going? Want me to provide the links?
By the way, it’s entirely possible to think that abortion is always wrong even if one doesn’t think that “personhood begins at conception”; after all, many things are commonly thought to be wrong (even very very wrong) that don’t involve killing persons. I’m not sure where RD stands on the issue of personhood, but such a position is certainly in the space of logical possibilities.
— John · Feb 25, 11:52 PM · #
Yes, he’s not a fan of contraception, but that’s because he’s a Catholic – he’s also written, though, that he thinks contracepting is a much less serious sin than abortion.
there ya go.
The Church position is life-at-conception.
I love whole “lesser sin” concept.
Contraception is a “lesser” sin than abortion, lol.
Plan B is a lesser sin than RU-486.
Riddikkulous.
Either the zygote is a person, or its not.
Its binary.
Ross’s argument….is sooo DarkAges, medieval even.
— matoko_chan · Feb 25, 11:58 PM · #
No thanx John, I’ve read enough of Douthat’s Drivel.
What is he but the Official Gimp Apologist for everything from Sarah Palin and the Bad Shepherd (Benedict) to that well-intentioned evangelical bumbler GW and Kylon and the Democrats….erm ……I mean the socons?
Ditch the elephant….the new republican symbol is a pitchfork crossed with a torch rampant.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 12:06 AM · #
matoko, I wasn’t aware that upper right tail scientists like yourself had definitively answered the questioned. Chalk it up to my socon ignorance.
Could you point me to the scientific article that defines personhood and explains exactly when — scientifically speaking — personhood begins?
Much obliged.
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 12:16 AM · #
sry Marie, all we are arguing about is personhood/life-at-conception.
And yes, i think science has definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 12:27 AM · #
The more interesting question is whether or not Ross Douchat is a person…
— Tony Comstock · Feb 26, 12:29 AM · #
And just to make sure I’m not misunderstood:
If a person is a person at conception and I knock up my wife and then she aborts, can we still take a dependent deduction on our income taxes? Can someone put me in touch with Professor Yoo?
— Tony Comstock · Feb 26, 12:32 AM · #
haha, yes, I should have said……teh Horrorshow-that-is-Sarah-Palin.
See….that was when the can opener of epiphany opened up my brain.
When you guys began constructing “serious” defenses of an aging ex-pageant contestant with a severe lack of substrate and a family full of highschool dropouts and unwed mothers.
“The Meaning of Sarah Palin”!!
LMFAO!
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 12:35 AM · #
Again, I wasn’t aware that the upper right tailers had definitively defined “personhood.” Much as I’d like to take your word for it that the question has been decided, I would like to see the peer-reviewed article which contains a scientifically sound definition of personhood. It seems to me that any proof of what does not constitute a person should contain a pretty scientifically, upper-right-tail-esque defintion of what a person is.
It’s very anti-socon of me not to take it on faith, I know, but humor me, matoko . . .
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 12:38 AM · #
Stop moving the goal posts KM.
Diploid oocyte!=person.
I guess we can use what my nonparametrics professor called the “farmer” method.
Look at it.
Insensate, non-motile, sub-sentient scrap of protoplasm.
Of course the socons postulate this fertilized egg has a “soul”.
Religion is science-substitute for the IQlimited, who don’t have the substrate to understand Real Science.
lol.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 01:30 AM · #
Young chan, again I refer you to the Princess Bride:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk&feature=related
— Tony Comstock · Feb 26, 01:44 AM · #
Aww la pauvresse ….poor Kate Marie is really still smarting over the IDT movement’s lack of prestige (and peer reviewed articles).
Here is an interesting peer reviewed article from a prestigious journal for you Kate Marie.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 01:45 AM · #
Check your driver’s license. It’ll have the day your life began, either explicitly or implicitly as a function of a characteristic we call “age”, which is a measurement of the number of days you’ve been alive.
Ask your parents, then, what happened on that date. They were there. If their answer is “you were born” then there you go! You have your answer about when personhood begins.
Strictly speaking, nobody would write a peer-reviewed article just to define a term. There’s plenty of science we accept that doesn’t appear in peer-reviewed research. For instance, there’s no peer-reviewed paper that defines Hooke’s Law, or that determines that the electron has negative instead of positive charge. What you’re asking for is such a trivial scientific fact – like the Earth is a sphere, not a disk – that, quite frankly, there’s no need for it to be in the literature.
— Chet · Feb 26, 02:54 AM · #
I really don’t know what we did for comments before all these brilliant science types rode into town.
— Matt Frost · Feb 26, 03:49 AM · #
Chet — um, thanks. Argument by drivers license. Is there a Latin term for that? You’ll notice, when you look again at that statement of mine, that I asked for an article that contained a definition of personhood, not an article that was written expressly to define a term. If what I’m asking for is a trivial scientific fact, then provide some other scientific source —it doesn’t have to be peer reviewed — which defines what a person is and proves that a fertilized oocyte is not a person. While we’re at it, have scientists proven when personhood begins, since they seem to have proved when it does not begin?
Matoko, for all your self-proclaimed brilliance, you haven’t been able to rise above the Beavis and Butthead argument — to wit, “Heh, heh, you’re stupid.” I’m not moving the goalposts — you’re refusing to kick the ball. You can prance and bray, but you can’t hide.
I don’t know what the IDT movement is. And no, this isn’t an argument about “ensoulment.” If you want to characterize the socon’s (or the Catholic socon’s) claims, you might want to make sure you understand what they actually are. But that would require actual thought, rather than unmerited intellectual preening and smug sloganeering.
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 03:51 AM · #
Check your driver’s license. It’ll have the day your life began
Um, no — it’ll have your “date of birth“. Are you saying that you’re not alive before you’re born? I suspect that a majority of scientists (even pro-choice ones!) would disagree with that.
— kenB · Feb 26, 04:14 AM · #
“what a person is and proves that a fertilized oocyte is not a person”
nope, how ‘bout chu prove that a fertilized oocyte is a person please.
A fertilized oocyte is a haploid gamete with the additional complement of 23 chromosomes from a male gamete.
Is a zygote made from cow gametes a person?
Why not?
They look the same, they have the same range of functionality.
Whats the difference?
Guess what, conlaw fans?
The constitution defines when a zygote becomes a citizen….when its born !
LOL!
Yup, I am an elitist intellectual snob, and proud of it.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 04:32 AM · #
“I don’t know what the IDT movement is.”
Lol!
Pardon, I guess you are a Young Earth Creationist then.
My bad.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 04:35 AM · #
Here’s the money quote (ie, abstract) from my link above.
“The present study examined whether IQ relates systematically to denomination and income within the framework of the g nexus, using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97). Atheists score 1.95 IQ points higher than Agnostics, 3.82 points higher than Liberal persuasions, and 5.89 IQ points higher than Dogmatic persuasions. Denominations differ significantly in IQ and income. Religiosity declines between ages 12 to 17. It is suggested that IQ makes an individual likely to gravitate toward a denomination and level of achievement that best fit his or hers particular level of cognitive complexity. Ontogenetically speaking this means that contemporary denominations are rank ordered by largely hereditary variations in brain efficiency (i.e. IQ). In terms of evolution, modern Atheists are reacting rationally to cognitive and emotional challenges, whereas Liberals and, in particular Dogmatics, still rely on ancient, pre-rational, supernatural and wishful thinking. “
Lol, can the genetic determinism of political affiliation be far behind?
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 04:57 AM · #
Shorter matoko: “I can’t prove my bald assertion by citing scientific evidence/articles, but I can spend three comments calling you stoooooopid! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!”
You do the upper right tailers proud.
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 06:18 AM · #
I’m saying the law pretty clearly makes that assertion – ergo, we determine the length of your life from your day of birth, and abortion is legal.
It’s amazing to me that people could think that the beginning of personhood is a question that is somehow up in the air, yet they carry around a document in their pocket that pretty clearly says that, legally, their lives began on their first birthday. (Or zeroth birthday, if that’s less ambiguous.)
It looks to me like the “beginning of personhood” question has been settled for, oh, about 7,000 years. Even the extreme pro-life supporters calculate their age from their zeroth birthday, not the event of their contraception. I think that shows the essential bankruptcy of their position – even they don’t really believe it.
There’s really no ambiguity in our culture about when personhood begins, except for the false ambiguity manufactured by the anti-abortion industry.
— Chet · Feb 26, 03:24 PM · #
“I’m saying the law pretty clearly makes that assertion – ergo, we determine the length of your life from your day of birth, and abortion is legal.”
— Wow, with flawless arguments like this on the side of science and reason, do those benighted anti-choicers stand any chance?
Next thing you know, the courtroom doors are going to open and some representatives from the DMV are going to prance in, carrying huge canvas sacks overflowing with drivers’ licenses and dumping them on the judge’s desk. There will be a general hubbub in the courtroom and the judge will bang his gavel and declare, “If the state of New York declares that a human being’s life begins on the day of his birth, this court will not argue with them. Case dismissed.”
In the words of the inimitable matoko chan, “LOL!”
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 04:32 PM · #
Kate Marie, lissen up.
and, in particular Dogmatics(that would be fundie xians and devout catholics like YOU), still rely on ancient, pre-rational, supernatural and wishful thinking.
Like….creationism, life-at-conception, the virigin birth, jesus-the-godhead, the “holy ghost”, etc, etc.
LOL!
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 06:41 PM · #
I read it before, Matoko. I even understood it.
Shorter Matoko: “You’re still stoooopid!”
Wow. I had no idea those upper right tailers were so sophisticated in argument.
LOL!
P.S. Still waiting for that article.
P.P.S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 06:48 PM · #
Let’s consider Kate Marie a field lab experiment in cognitive behavior.
Unable to give a rational explanation of why a zygote should be considered a “person” at fertilization, she resorts to claiming the burden of proof falls on the rationalists.
ie, prove a a zygote is NOT a person.
This is the corrollary of the argument about the existance of god.
The argument of the primitves is “prove god DOES NOT exist”!!!
Otherwise we shall continue to believe in god.
But that is not how science, reason, and logic work.
The IQ limited can only fall back on pre-rational, supernatural, and wishful thinking.
— matoko_chan · Feb 26, 09:09 PM · #
That’s two comments, now, where you’ve implied there’s something wrong with the argument, yet haven’t actually said what it is.
I’m supposed to hold up both sides of this conversation, Kate? Provide the arguments and refute them for you, as well? Are you here to do anything except toss around lame insults?
Well, it’s been nearly 30 years since Roe V. Wade re-legalized abortion in the United States, and abortion remains legal (in some form) in all 50 states.
So, no. Looks like they don’t stand much of a chance. Thank goodness.
What courtroom? What case is being tried? The trial of a woman for murder, because she sought an abortion? To suggest that would even make it as far as a real courtroom deserves a “LOL.”
— Chet · Feb 26, 09:33 PM · #
Am I getting my dependent deduction or not? Chet? Young mako? Kate? Anyone?
— Tony Comstock · Feb 26, 09:47 PM · #
Um, Chet, the courtroom reference was a little pop culture joke. You didn’t get it (Maybe you’re too young — that would explain the argument by driver’s license.)
As for your “argument,” it isn’t one. It’s a scientifically trivial fact, for instance, that a fetus is “alive.” Beyond that, though, you (and your right tailer pal) seems almost entirely unfamiliar with the most basic moral and philosophical premises of both sides of the abortion debate. I’m not going to provide the premises or the context for you. The best I can do is have a little fun with the kind of ignorance that tarts itself up in cheap, shabby “points” and goes prancing and braying across this thread as though the mere fact of declaring oneself a Champion of Science makes you the smartest person on the internet.
Matoko,
Still haven’t found that article for me, huh? You’re the one who made the intitial bald assertion about what science had unequivocally proven about personhood and non-personhood. I asked you to back up your assertion. Over the course of several repetitive comments, you’ve been unable to do it. And every time I ask again, your brilliant response is, “Well, you’re stooooopid! And religious! So there!” How utterly scientific and rational — how rippingly Upper Right Tail — of you!
P.S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 26, 09:50 PM · #
Kate,
I figured chet and young mako were too young so I tried to find the Miracle on 34th St. scene on YouTube, but I failed. Now am I getting my tax deduction or not?
— Tony Comstock · Feb 27, 12:15 AM · #
Thank you, Tony.
As for the tax deduction, I’m inclined to say no dice (if you’re leaving it up to me), since the person who depended on you (a.k.a., the dependent) got terminated with extreme prejudice (only in your hypothetical, of course).
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 12:25 AM · #
No, I got it. Miracle on 34th St isn’t exactly an obscure reference, even to 30-year-olds. It wasn’t especially clever, is all.
Sure, in the same way my pancreas is alive.
Neither one of us were talking about what was alive or not. We were talking about the beginning of personhood, remember? Well, you can keep pretending that it’s still an open question, but why would the rest of us believe anything that stupid? How could society go on not knowing, precisely, when people started? How could we determine how many people existed if we didn’t know which human bodies were people and which weren’t? How could we know that someone was old enough to drink, or vote, or bear arms in the military if we truly had no idea or consensus about the beginning of personhood?
Obviously the question has been settled. The proof of that is in your billfold, on a document that bestows privileges at least partially dependent on there being a specific minimum number of years between today’s date and the day you first became a legal person.
And that’s why abortion is still legal, too – because fetuses have not yet become people. Otherwise, how could abortion be anything but murder and therefore illegal? I mean you wouldn’t even have to have new laws against it, it would be covered under the statutes against murder. Paying someone to kill another person is already a crime. Yet abortion has been legal since it was re-legalized by Roe V. Wade. If that’s not society sending a pretty clear message about the consensus view of fetus personhood, I don’t know what is.
I’m familiar with all of them. They’re just linguistic legerdemain, logic-chopping word games. They’re irrelevant; it’s a discussion about a “question” that has never been a question in the entire history of human civilization.
…or a rebuttal, or contrary evidence, or an intellectual argument of any kind, or basically anything except cheap shots, nonsense about arguments you think I haven’t heard (but aren’t going to tell me), and, of course, playground insults.
Well, that’s fine. What else should I expect from someone who thinks a fetus is a full human person but still refuses to eat cake on her own Conception Day? Certainly not intellectual honesty.
— Chet · Feb 27, 02:54 AM · #
Kate this is the same tedious argument.
We don’t care that you’re religious, just keep it your pants and quit trying to force religious mores on other citizens.
Your arguments for the personhood of a zygote are isomorphic with xian arguments for the existance of god.
Nonexistant.
You demand we prove the contraposititive.
That isn’t how proofs work.
Roe v Wade is going nowhere.
So women will continue to have the right to choose an sovereignity over their own bodies.
The socons used mob rule to force religious mores on unwilling citizens in the past…..those days are done.
You are no longer the biggest mob.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 03:02 AM · #
Also….I’m not the one you need to convince……take your non-argument to the Supremes.
Good luck with that.
;)
We really don’t care what you believe, only that you try to force your ignorant superstious beliefs on other citizens.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 03:23 AM · #
Chet, so until the birth certificate is signed, the proto-human is fair game? If the legs are out, can I still reach into the birth canal and stab it in the head?
Yet abortion has been legal since it was re-legalized by Roe V. Wade. If that’s not society sending a pretty clear message about the consensus view of fetus personhood, I don’t know what is.
Apparently you don’t know what is. I think most people would say that the decision of seven unelected people wearing black robes is not “society sending a clear message”. Society sending a clear message would be abortion legalized by the legislatures in all 50 states with no serious opposition.
— kenB · Feb 27, 03:23 AM · #
matoko,
Just wondering if you realize that, between you and Kate, you are the one making a religion-based argument and she is the one asking for an argument based on science?
Additionally, my impression is that the debate is about whether increasing the availability of contraception is a viable, if utilitarian, method of reducing abortions. This may be true, much the same way that abortions reduce the crime rate (as presented in Freakonomics), but it may not be the most desirable or moral solution.
— DKH · Feb 27, 03:42 AM · #
I don’t believe I said anything about “birth certificates.” I was talking about birth. And I don’t know what “proto-human” is supposed to mean.
It’s not the role of legislatures to create rights. And no law to completely prohibit abortion has succeeded in any state.
— Chet · Feb 27, 06:28 AM · #
Chet,
This is getting tedious. But I’ll throw out a little tidbit using your own “argument by driver’s license” method. A few years ago, in the state of California, Scott Peterson was convicted of first degree murder in the death of his pregnant wife and second degree murder in the death of his unborn son. I thought this was all a settled question?
And you didn’t answer Ken B.‘s question.
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 07:23 AM · #
That’s tautology given that the Supreme Court has declared abortion a fundamental right. That isn’t a clear, country-wide, pro-abortion message. It just means that no set of 9 persons has gotten into the right position to reverse the previous decision of 9 other persons. (And yes, the Roe ruling is common law, but is it necessarily superior to what the common law would be if the Roe ruling went the other way? I don’t see that such is true, other than the say-so of 9 persons.)
— DKH · Feb 27, 07:32 AM · #
Chet,
Here’s a rundown of fetal homicide laws in 36 states:
http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/fethom.htm
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 09:20 AM · #
Matoko said this:
“And yes, i think science has definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.”
And Matoko said this:
“You demand we prove the contraposititive.
That isn’t how proofs work.”
So are you retracting the former statement?
Your little analogy between my challenge to you to prove scientifically that a diploid-oocyte is not a person (which you claimed science had “definitively” done) and the believers’ sometime challenge to atheists to prove that God doesn’t exist is ridiculous, by the way.
Presumably we already agree that persons exist. Presumably we already agree that diploid-oocytes exist. No one is asking you to prove that something doesn’t exist. I’m asking you for the evidence that “science has definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.” You made the claim, Matoko.
P.S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 09:47 AM · #
It is exactly the same.
Prove a zygote is NOT a person is exactly the same as prove god DOESN’T exist.
I’m sorry you don’t have the substrate the substrate to understand that.
“Presumably we already agree that persons exist”
Sure, but since neither science nor the law recognizes a zygote as a person, Roe v Wade stands.
Only superstitionalists recognize a zygote as person, like Ramesh Ponnuru and the Catholic Church.
I don’t see the point of your argument.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 12:11 PM · #
This is your basic problem, Kate.
We don’t care if you believe in god, and we don’t care if you think a zygote is a person.
Hysterical demands that we prove god DOESN’T exist or a zygote is NOT a person, have zero impact.
If you want us (or the Supremes) to believe a zygote is a person, or that god exists, the burden of proof is on you.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 02:52 PM · #
Matoko said this:
“And yes, i think science has definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.”
So you’re retracting then? Hello? Matoko? Anyone? Anyone?
I’ll try the Matoko method:
It is not exactly the same. Prove a zygote is not a person is not exactly the same as prove God doesn’t exist.
I’m copying the Matoko Method. Asserting it makes it so!
But, Saint Matoko of the Substantial Substrate, as I said before, I’m not in the mood to take it on faith (how distressingly Upper Right Tail of me). If you simply define for me, scientifically, what a person is, you will be able to show that a zygote does not fit that definition.
I await your answer.
P.S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 02:56 PM · #
Ah, Saint Matoko of the Substantial Substrate, please forgive my boldness, but you see, it was not I who, over and over again, made assertions and felt no need to back them up. It was not I who, over and over again, repeatedly said “You’re stooooopid!” by way of refutation. Those “methods,” O Saint Matoko of the Substantial Substrate, seem hysterical to me. They also seem rather Unscientific.
P.S. What do you mean “we,” kemosabe? Are you the head of some Science Posse that rides around the internet apprehending those of lesser substrate?
P.P.S. You’ll notice that I’ve made no claims about what I believe or don’t believe theologically. You have made assumptions. Again, not very Scientific, but apparently Saint Matoko of the Substantial Substrate reserves the right to be inconsistent in her methods and pronouncements.
P.P.P.S. LOL!
In any event, if you
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 03:12 PM · #
This really gets to the “Calvinball”-like nature of arguing with anti-choicers. You’re using a law passed for the sole purpose of being used as an anti-choice canard as an anti-choice canard. Color me unimpressed. The only reason so-called “fetal homicide” laws exist – a miscarriage of justice akin to being prosecuted for “pet murder” – is as a beachhead for an assault on abortion. There’s no way to commit “fetal homicide”, after all, without assaulting a woman; that, apparently, isn’t considered enough of a crime to the anti-abortion industry.
Because it was irrelevant and stupid, and proceeds, again, from the false premise that the beginning of personhood is an open question in our society.
What anti-choicers would like to do is redefine personhood for our society, for everyone, without a compelling reason, secular or otherwise, why the rest of us should simply accept that. Rather, they insist that their opponents do all the heavy lifting of justifying a convention that has endured for all of human history: human personhood begins at birth, not conception.
Calvinball isn’t a game I’m interested in playing, Kate.
— Chet · Feb 27, 03:22 PM · #
Pardon, Kate, as a scientist I have to rely on empirical data.
The data certainly seems to show that you are indeed…..stupid.
;)
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 03:36 PM · #
Wow, Chet, you and your Pal of the Substantial Substrate really like asserting things without backing them up, don’t you? Color me unimpressed.
As for the 36 fetal homicide laws I cited, I’m “using” a law that a majority of democratically-elected state legislatures passed (without any public uproar). You’re using a law that nine people (or was it five people?) passed. You claimed this issue was settled. It isn’t. You don’t get to cherry pick your examples — especially since one’s birthday was never meant to be a commemoration of one’s “personhood.” It was meant to be a commemoration of, you know, one’s birth. And perhaps you’re unaware, since you’ve made the “convention that has endured for all of human history” claim, that remembering birthdays (and celebrating birthdays) is a fairly recent convention. In fact, if a date associated with one’s infancy was going to be remembered, it was much more likely (except fairly recently) to be one’s baptism that was recorded and remembered.
Whether you like it or not, the beginning of personhood is an open question in our society. That’s why the public supports “partial birth” abortion bans and restrictions on abortions — especially on late-term abortions. That’s why the public supports fetal homicide laws — or do you have some evidence that they don’t support them?
I find it ironic, too, that you’re using the argument from tradition — a “convention that has endured for all of human history,” etc. I mean, come on, you sound like Burke or Chesterton . . . er, well, Burke or Chesterton-lite. I thought you science types had no patience for such superstitious, backward-looking claims.
You and Matoko seem inordinately addicted to buzzwords (Matoko more than you, perhaps); it doesn’t strike me as a habit of the intellectually rigorous, but whatever. You don’t want to play Calvinball? Then take your buzzwords and go home.
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 04:03 PM · #
Matoko said this:
“And yes, i think science has definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.”
So you’re retracting then? Hello? Matoko? Anyone? Anyone?
Does that last comment mean you’re not going to answer, Matoko?
P.S. You know, when you make claims about other people’s stupidity, you might want to make sure 1) that you really come across as devastatingly intelligent in your arguments; 2) that you don’t pepper your “arguments” with catchphrases like “substrate,” “socons,” “upper right tail,” “prancing and braying,” “craven cowardice” and “LOL!” 3) that you know how to spell “existence” correctly.
P.P.S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 04:09 PM · #
P. S. to Chet
I forgot to mention that “throughout most of human history” many categories of human beings (slaves, minorities, women, etc.) have not had the legal protections of personhood. We’ve managed to shed those “conventions” (of denying personhood to slaves, women, etc.) only recently. What would you say to a 19th century Champion of Science who defended slavery (or the denial of the vote to women) on the grounds of its existence as a convention throughout human history?
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 04:56 PM · #
And yes, i think science has definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.
/sigh
Both ESCR and invitro fertilization are standard practices in the scientific community that treat diploid oocytes as non-persons. If you wish that to be changed, the burden of proof on you.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 05:38 PM · #
For example, if a doctor believed that diploid oocytes were actual persons, it would be a violation of his Hippocratic oath to make an extra dozen people and cryo them as fertility therapy spares, dooming the ones that don’t get implanted to eventually being discarded when their use-by date runs out.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 06:13 PM · #
Matoko,
I don’t care what any particular doctor believes. I care about your claim that Big Bad Science has “definitively come down on the diploid-oocyte-is-not-a-person side.” I know personally several doctors who believe something entirely different. I can point you to lots more doctors and scientists (including the former director of the Human Genome Project) who believe something very different. Do you know what the word definitively means and how it works in your claim? It may be time to trot out Inigo Montoya again.
Do you actually understand what the terms “person” and “personhood” mean in this debate? Are you going to define personhood, in a scientifically definitive way?
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 06:54 PM · #
See….that is another place BushRove totally scammed the base on culture of LIFE!
If Bush really believed in life-at-conception he would have sought to outlaw multiple-embryo fertility therapy.
It does corroborate my hypothesis on the negative correlation between IQ and conservative party affliation.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 06:55 PM · #
/sigh
Anectdotal data fails.
ESCR and fertility therapy are accepted standard practices in the scientific community that treat diploid oocytes as nonpersons.
I do not see Dr. Collins denouncing multi-embryo fertility therapy, just as Bush did not denounce it.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 07:00 PM · #
Are you going to define personhood, in a scientifically definitive way?
/sigh
I don’t have to have to.
In the case of the scientific AND the medical communities, personhood is defined by practice.
Perhaps your doctor friend might refuse to perform multi-embryo fertility therapy.
But until the AMA condemns it or it is legally outlawed, it remains standard accepted practice to treat diploid oocytes as nonpersons.
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 07:08 PM · #
You don’t have to — how convenient, since you also appear not to be able to. Tell me, is there any other term in medicine or science that is defined by practice, or is it just “personhood?” I mean, one of the “standard practices” of doctors and scientists (not to mention logicians and philosophers) is to come up with precise definitions of terms, processes, procedures, etc. Why is “personhood” an exception here?
What you fail to understand, Matoko, is that personhood is a moral/legal/philosophical term that may be informed by science but not solely defined by it. That’s why you have to fall back on what you infer about what doctors believe.
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 07:25 PM · #
Shorter Matoko: “In vitro fertilization is an accepted practice; I can thus infer that the doctors who perform it believe that diploid oocytes are not persons; ergo, I have defintively and scientifically proven that diploid oocytes are not persons.”
Slap your name and credentials on that and get that baby published!
If that’s what passes for rationality/logic/argument among our current crop of Upper Right Tailers, I tremble for the future.
P. S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 07:31 PM · #
One last time…….in the scientific and medical communities, diploid oocytes are systemically treated as nonpersons….every single day.
That is called a consensus view….it is accepted by nearly everyone in the domain.
There is simply no need to scientifically define diploid oocytes as non-persons.
Because that is the preexisting condition, the status quo.
I wonder if the stratification of IQ and SES and assortative mating will eventually cause homo sapiens sapiens to split into 2 sub-species……or perhaps…..in Kate Marie’s case….it has already happened.
lol
— matoko_chan · Feb 27, 07:45 PM · #
Let’s fiddle around with that brilliant formulation of yours and see how it works in another historical context:
“One last time…….in the Nazi scientific and medical communities, Jews are systemically treated as nonpersons….every single day.
That is called a consensus view….it is accepted by nearly everyone in the domain. There is simply no need to scientifically define Jews as non-persons. Because that is the preexisting condition, the status quo.”
Granting your assertion (only for the sake of argument) that it is status quo in the medical community to treat diploid oocytes as non-persons, what’s the chain of causation here? Are they non-persons because they are treated as non-persons, or were they scientifically and definitively determined to be non-persons and then “systemically” treated as non-persons? Do you understand the difference between those two scenarios?
P.S. You are beginning to seem like a semi-bright high school student who has taken an A.P. biology class. I mean, I would have assumed a true Upper Right Tailer could have made B.S. at least seem much more authoritative and convincing.
P.P.S. I wonder, considering my hopeless I.Q., why you continue to engage with me, Matoko? Some insecurity there? In any event, I would have thought your infinitely superior I.Q. would have manifested itself in your being able to make a coherent, catch-phrase-free argument. Pity it didn’t work out that way.
P.P.P.S. LOL!
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 08:05 PM · #
Keeping track of age certainly isn’t a new convention, and I can cite examples through all of English-language literature to that effect, and back even further through Latin and Greek. Even the Bible.
And those ages have always begun at birth. Now, it’s true that day-specific celebrations of birthdays are relatively recent – a few centuries – that’s only because of the historic shortage of accurate calendars. Most people simply didn’t know what day it was, beyond maybe what day of the week.
Is there an echo in here?
I would say there’s been significant uproar. You’ve simply chosen to insulate yourself from it. Obviously, nobody you ever talk to objects to these laws.
That’s transparently stupid, as I’ve shown.
So? There are very good, very conservative reasons to oppose meddling with the status quo, especially in regards to something like “abortion” and creating personhood for blastocysts out of whole cloth and religion. As yet you’ve provided absolutely no reason why anti-choicers should be allowed to impose that view on all the rest of us.
What’s superstitious about acknowledging that such a thing as “history” exists? Your remarks are, frankly, incomprehensible.
That they should have a compelling reason to fuck around with millennia of recorded history, and ample scientific evidence that slaves and women were actually human beings. Which they did in both counts. Which you have not ever done for blastocysts.
“Species” would be a good example, as well as “disorder.” Those are two I could think of in about ten seconds.
— Chet · Feb 27, 08:05 PM · #
Chet,
“I would say there’s been significant uproar. You’ve simply chosen to insulate yourself from it. Obviously, nobody you ever talk to objects to these laws.”
— Plenty of people object to these laws, Chet — just not the majority. Have you seen the polls whenever this question is asked? Does this mean you weren’t able to provide any evidence that the majority of people oppose fetal homicide laws?
Chet, if the question of personhood were closed by consensus in our society, you wouldn’t find the majority of people supporting fetal homicide laws and restrictions on late-term abortions. It is utterly absurd to say it’s a closed question because of Roe v. Wade and our driver’s licenses, for crying out loud, but that widespread support for fetal homicide laws is just an attempt by “anti-choicers” to impose their definition of personhood on society.
“As yet you’ve provided absolutely no reason why anti-choicers should be allowed to impose that view on all the rest of us.”
— I’m happy to take that up with you, Chet, but at the moment you and your Our Lady of the Substantial Subtrate seems to want to argue a very narrow questions — in your case, whether personhood has been definitively shown to begin at birth.
“What’s superstitious about acknowledging that such a thing as ‘history’ exists? Your remarks are, frankly, incomprehensible.”
— I don’t doubt that my remarks are incomprehensible to you. You don’t even seem to understand the thrust of your own argument, which is not about acknowledging that history exists, but about suggesting that “all of human history” should be consulted as Ultimate Authority in this matter.
What would you say to a 19th century Champion of Science who defended slavery (or the denial of the vote to women) on the grounds of its existence as a convention throughout human history?
Again, I think you’re having a problem understanding what personhood means in this context, Chet. In most of human history, slaves and women were not afforded the legal protections of personhood. It’s not a question about whether they were human beings. You assured me you understood the terms of the debate here. Perhaps you should do a refresher course.
So if I look up “species” or “disorder” I won’t find scientific and medical definitions of those terms?
Keep trying!
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 08:25 PM · #
Waiting for Our Lady of Substantial Substrate to chime in with “You’re stooooopid” and “It just is the way I say it is because I’m a Scientist!” in five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
— Kate Marie · Feb 27, 08:33 PM · #