'Repeal the 8th'

[wigginhall]

They're God's little abortions.

[Alan Burns]

Woman-hating bullshit.

This is a totally unjustified accusation Rhi.
I know of many young mothers who share the same views - could you call them woman haters?
Ons such woman is Bernadette Smyth, director of the Precious Life group in Northern Ireland, who has campaigned tirelessly for many years, showing tremendous love and compassion for both the mother and her child.  Many of the young women she helped have become active supporters in her group.

[Rhiannon]

This is a totally unjustified accusation Rhi.
I know of many young mothers who share the same views - could you call them woman haters?
Ons such woman is Bernadette Smyth, director of the Precious Life group in Northern Ireland, who has campaigned tirelessly for many years, showing tremendous love and compassion for both the mother and her child.  Many of the young women she helped have become active supporters in her group.

It’s woman-hating to claim that childbirth isn’t forced (it is if you don’t want it and can’t get a termination) and it’s wrong to claim it is natural and non violent. Early terminations, by contrast, are not only more humane than a lot of birth procedures but they are not carried out by force.

Your god is brilliant st designing childbirth where babies suffocate, get their heads wedged, where women are led with fissures and anal and bladder incontinence. My totally unnatural c-sections saved my kids and saved me from god knows what (my body failed to naturally go into labour so my child would have died in my womb) but I’m aware that women (in the West as well as in the developing world) sometimes have to put their fingers into their vaginas to dig out faeces because of damage done in childbirth, for example, or permanently leak urine. Most of the time it can’t be fixed, and as we’ve seen with the mesh scandal it can make things even worse to try. Women often suffer humiliation and pain and even attempt and commit suicide because of the damage that comes with ‘natural childbirth’ - all designed by your god.

And you have the nerve to say that abortions involve deliberate force.

[Enki]

I couldn't agree with you more, Rhi. Nuff said.

[SusanDoris]

Woman-hating bullshit.

Strongly seconded.

[wigginhall]

Good post, Rhiannon.  What enrages me is that childbirth is still painful and dangerous, and in many parts of the world very dangerous, (it's the way God makes it), yet these pro-lifers pontificate about the sanctity of the foetus, and make mealy-mouthed points that of course we care about mothers.   Centuries of control of women's bodies are being over-turned, and the misogynists don't like it. 

[Dicky Underpants]

It does not matter when the soul comes into existence - the fact that process of life has begun is the important factor from which all other things come.  The consequence of terminating the life of the unborn child will inevitably prevent it's soul from existing in our world.

Now that you've committed yourself to a total dualism in your thinking, you are no longer at liberty to state that the moment of conception or any other point (e.g. Aquinas etc believing the moment was "the quickening") determines personhood. If you believe that the 'soul' is pre-existing and waiting its moment to piggy-back onto a fertilised egg, foetus, embryo or whatever, then that soul will have plenty more chances to get into this world in other situations. Unless you think that God has previously determined the circumstances for that particular 'ensoulment'. This would seem a little haphazard on his part, since large numbers of fertilised eggs never develop in any case, without any direct measures to abort them.

[wigginhall]

Interesting stuff, Dicky.   Christians such as AB seem to  get into a right fandangle with biology, souls, God, wombs, women, babies.  Do they actually understand what they are saying?

[jeremyp]

It does not matter when the soul comes into existence - the fact that process of life has begun is the important factor from which all other things come.  The consequence of terminating the life of the unborn child will inevitably prevent it's soul from existing in our world.

Half of all conceptions are spontaneously aborted before the mother is aware she is pregnant. Why does your god murder so many babies?

[jeremyp]

Childbirth is invasive, violent and very often there is nothing ‘natural’ about it. Although to be fair if it was left for the ‘natural’ process to take place (as Alan believes his god designed it) more women and babies would die in agony, so I guess we should be grateful.

Prior to the advent of modern medicine, one in four women died in child birth. So I guess we can be thankful we don't leave it to God anymore.

[Spud]

There is a difference between something that has the potential to develop into something and actually being that thing.

An acorn has the potential to develop into an oak tree, but that doesn't mean that an acorn is an oak tree.

You can justify killing an acorn, or a tree at any stage of its development, though, because it is a plant.

[jeremyp]

You can justify killing an acorn, or a tree at any stage of its development, though, because it is a plant.

But an acorn isn't an oak tree, which is the point you are deliberately failing to confront.

[Harrowby Hall]

This would seem a little haphazard on his part, since large numbers of fertilised eggs never develop in any case, without any direct measures to abort them.

Indeed, in fact several hundred.

I know that this thread is specifically concerned with women's role in reproduction, but I am also minded of the priest in his pulpit (I don't know - I might actually have been there in early adolescence) fulminating about "when you throw away a condom you are throwing away a child".  No way, when you throw away the condom from a young man in good health you are throwing away - potentially - hundreds of millions of children.

I do recall a sermon in which a priest advised his congregation not to use a certain gentlemen's  hairdresser because there was an advert for Durex on the mirror.

[Rhiannon]

This is where it all gets even madder, doesn’t it? You can’t have an abortion, but you also can’t prevent conception to begin with.

[ProfessorDavey]

This is where it all gets even madder, doesn’t it? You can’t have an abortion, but you also can’t prevent conception to begin with.

That's right - you would have thought that anyone who opposes abortion would be the strongest proponent of effective contraception, which makes abortion unnecessary. But they typically aren't - those that oppose abortion often oppose effective contraception too. It's all about having lots and lots of children.

[Rhiannon]

That's right - you would have thought that anyone who opposes abortion would be the strongest proponent of effective contraception, which makes abortion unnecessary. But they typically aren't - those that oppose abortion often oppose effective contraception too. It's all about having lots and lots of children.

Or abstinence. Well, on the woman’s part at any rate.

[Spud]

But an acorn isn't an oak tree, which is the point you are deliberately failing to confront.

Okay, and likewise an embryo isn't a child. But it's still human, so we are prohibited from killing it, unlike an acorn, which is a plant.

[Rhiannon]

Okay, and likewise an embryo isn't a child. But it's still human, so we are prohibited from killing it, unlike an acorn, which is a plant.

Prohibited by who?

[ProfessorDavey]

Okay, and likewise an embryo isn't a child. But it's still human, so we are prohibited from killing it, unlike an acorn, which is a plant.

Currently in the incubators of my research group human cells are growing which are used in medical research. Those cells are demonstrably human and demonstrable also alive. Am I prohibited from killing those cell cultures Spud?

[Spud]

Currently in the incubators of my research group human cells are growing which are used in medical research. Those cells are demonstrably human and demonstrable also alive. Am I prohibited from killing those cell cultures Spud?

Personally I would say yes.

[ProfessorDavey]

Personally I would say yes.

So you are claiming that every single living human cell shouldn't be destroyed.

So for example if someone gives a blood sample (which will contain millions of living human cells) and the diagnostic test needing to be performed will necessarily result in those cells being destroyed, that that in your bizarre opinion isn't permissible.

How about if someone has their leg amputated - there will be billions of living human cells - we must therefore keep that amputated leg alive as we aren't permitted to kill those cells.

[wigginhall]

The traditional example was a tumour, which presumably Spud would keep alive.

[Spud]

So you are claiming that every single living human cell shouldn't be destroyed.

So for example if someone gives a blood sample (which will contain millions of living human cells) and the diagnostic test needing to be performed will necessarily result in those cells being destroyed, that that in your bizarre opinion isn't permissible.

How about if someone has their leg amputated - there will be billions of living human cells - we must therefore keep that amputated leg alive as we aren't permitted to kill those cells.

I thought you meant stem cell research using human embryos.

[Robbie]

He didn't say that nor anything like that so why you thought it I don't know.
If it was stem cells, which are harvested and used to greatly benefit people with various diseases, so what?  The days of using stem cells from human embryos are over.

I think you and Alan B (& probably Nicholas M for different reasons), live on another planet and might well form a little mutually congratulatory cell of dreamers somewhere far away, out of reach of the general public.

[Spud]

The days of using stem cells from human embryos are over.

What do you mean?