Washington Post

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.) appeared Saturday to secure the 60 votes needed to move an $848 billion health-care reform bill to the Senate floor for debate, as the last two holdouts in his Democratic caucus said they will not join in a Republican filibuster.

After days of indecision, Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Mary Landrieu (La.) declared that they will vote to advance the bill despite reservations. Reid now expects all 60 members of his caucus to vote yes at 8 p.m. Saturday, clearing the way for amendment deliberations to begin after the Thanksgiving recess.

Reid is aiming for final passage before Christmas. The House has already passed its version of the bill.

In announcing her support for bringing the bill to the Senate floor, Lincoln told her colleagues: "The truth is this issue is very complex. There is no easy fix and it's imperative that we build on what's already working in health care in America."

Continue reading.

Labels: Abortion, abortion rights, Catholic Church, healthcare reform

The New York Times

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, fresh off their abortion victory on health care legislation in the House, has joined the battle in the Senate and called for the same amendment that it pushed through the House.

In a letter Friday (PDF) to senators, the bishops said that the language in the current bill put forth by Democratic leaders violates the principle that federal funds should not be used for abortions. If it is not amended, they said, the bill should be opposed.

The letter appears to be the opening salvo in what is expected to be a major battle over abortion in the Senate in the coming weeks.

Continue reading.


The Christian Post
President Obama in a rare interview appearance on Fox News this week said language used in the pro-life Stupak amendment in the House health care bill is not balanced.

Fox correspondent Major Garrett asked Obama during an interview that aired Wednesday night if he would sign a health care bill that included the Stupak language.

Obama initially gave a long-winded response saying, “I think there is a balance to be achieved that is consistent with the Hyde amendment – what existed before we reformed health care."

“I believe in the basic idea that federal dollars shouldn’t pay for abortions,” he continued. “But I also think we shouldn’t restrict women’s choices, so, I think there’s some negotiations going on, not just on the Democratic side, but I think among people of good will on both sides, to see if we can arrive at something that meets that criteria and I’m confident we can do that.”

Garrett then pressed Obama for a yes or no answer on if he thought the Stupak language “strike that balance.”

“Not yet,” Obama said.

Continue reading.

The Detroit News

The fight over federal funding for abortion moved to the Senate on Thursday as opponents targeted provisions that are not as restrictive as one written by a Michigan lawmaker into the version passed by the House.

Provisions that don't include a ban on federal funding aren't acceptable to anti-abortion lawmakers, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Menominee, said Thursday, adding the fight will likely have to be resolved in a House-Senate conference committee.

"The leaders of the Congress should listen to the American people. The American people want health care reform, but they want it without federal funding of abortions," said Stupak, whose last-minute amendment to the House bill two weeks ago set off a firestorm of criticism and pressure on the Senate to follow suit.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's bill would permit abortions in a government-run plan if the Health and Human Services secretary could ensure that no federal money is used, and anyone receiving federal subsidies would have to pay for an abortion with her own money. A woman receiving federal subsidies could buy a private plan that covers abortions, but would have to use her own money to pay for such a procedure.

Continue reading.

Labels: Abortion, abortion rights, Catholic Church, healthcare reform

The Catholic Church's heavy-handed lobbying to remove abortion coverage from any major health care reform is still center stage as the Senate readies to take its first vote on the issue. Here's a sampling from newspapers around the country:

The PressDemocrat (Santa Rosa, CA.)
From parish pews to the halls of Congress, Catholics are caught up in a debate that challenges their core beliefs on two central tenets: health care for all and protecting the unborn.

The internal tensions are being met with equal amounts of public scrutiny over the church’s efforts to influence health care legislation, bringing harsh criticism from some who accuse church leaders of overstepping their authority.

The church’s official position, advocated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is that federal insurance subsidies contained in any health care legislation be prohibited from funding elective abortion.

Continuing reading.

The New York Post President Obama’s effort to reform the health-care system could blow up in a holy war with the nation’s Catholic bishops over the historically hot-button issue of abortion.

The Catholic Church claims the Senate bill introduced by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) would permit insurance coverage for certain abortions.

By comparison, the church applauds a measure passed by the House of Representatives that calls for a blanket ban on abortion for health plans that receive federal subsidies.

The Senate measure — which has gained the support of the White House — would allow a new government health-insurance plan to cover abortions and let private insurers that receive federal subsidies offer plans that include abortion coverage.

But women seeking abortions would have to foot the bill from their premiums — and not use federal dollars.

In an address that opened the semiannual meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, implored 300 fellow bishops to "look for ways to strengthen church unity."

"Since everything and everyone in Catholic communion is truly interrelated," George said, ". . . an insistence on complete independence from the bishop renders a person or institution sectarian, less than fully Catholic."

Continue reading.

Associated Press

The White House is on a collision course with Catholic bishops in an intractable dispute over abortion that could blow up the fragile political coalition behind President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

A top Obama administration official is praising the new Senate health bill's attempt to find a compromise on abortion coverage — even as an official of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says Sen. Harry Reid's bill is the worst he's seen so far on the divisive issue.

The bishops were instrumental in getting tough anti-abortion language adopted by the House, forcing Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to accept restrictions that outraged liberals as the price for passing the Democratic health care bill.

Reid, D-Nev., now faces a similar choice: Ultimately, he will need the votes of a handful of Democratic senators who oppose abortion to get his bill through. Republicans hoping to block the health bill in the Senate are relishing the Democrats' predicament.

Continue reading.

Boston Globe

Representative Louise Slaughter has a consistent record advocating abortion rights. So the New York Democrat was stunned recently to receive, for the first time, a letter from a Catholic diocese in western New York, demanding that she explain her vote this month against a health care amendment prohibiting insurance companies from paying for abortions.

Labels: Abortion, abortion rights, Catholic Church, healthcare reform

The Colorado Independent 11/13/09

Is the Catholic Bishops' strong opposition to a healthcare reform bill that does not exclude abortion strictly a moral stance, or is it something more?

Pass the kind of national health reform that brings in the vast ranks of the uninsured and you increase the number of consumers in the health care industry.

Although the bishops’ stand against health reform can not be separated from theology, its ties to Church economics are also very real. The Catholic Church with its hundreds of hospitals and clinics and nursing facilities is in the health care business in a major way. In 2006, Americans spent $84.6 billion on Catholic-affiliated health care. Fact is, the bishops have more at stake in this debate than principle.

The Stupak Amendment, which is designed to cut abortion out of what would be the dominant health-care plan in the nation, may or may not be a moral victory. What it is, indisputably, is genius business strategy, the kind other industries dream of effecting on Capitol Hill.

According to Wendy Norris, a freelance reporter and editor in Denver,

The scale of the church's involvement in the rapidly growing $2.5 trillion dollar American health care industry is staggering.

What the Stupak-Pitts amendment does for the Catholic health care system is omit a competitive advantage secular and other religiously-affiliated hospitals without doctrinal restrictions can use to simultaneously market their services to both the expected influx of newly insured patients and the outpatient medical professionals who will treat them.

By restricting insurance coverage of women's reproductive health care, the competitive barriers faced by Catholic institutions will be eliminated — provided the amendment is not stripped out of the final bill that emerges from House-Senate health care reform conference committee. Which is why pro-choice advocates should expect nothing short of a full-frontal attack by the Vatican on conservative Senators.

Norris further says that "one in six patients are cared for in 624 Catholic hospitals scattered throughout the U.S. in 2006, according to the Catholic Health Association. The church also operates more than 800 post-acute care, senior living and skilled nursing centers across the nation. All told, $84.6 billion was spent on Catholic church-affiliated care."

That's a lot of money, and if healthcare reform adds 36 million uninsured Americans to the ranks of insured, they will, according to Norris, add millions of dollars more to hospital coffers in the short term and have the potential for adding trillions in billable services over their lifetimes.

Looking at the Catholic Church's intense lobbying on the healthcare bill through a business lens shines a very different light on its motives, and should make a lot of people really angry. Let's hope some of them are our Representatives who will see through the Church's moral grandstanding and realize there's something more going on here. Then let's hope they have the guts to do something about it.

Labels: Abortion, Catholic Church, healthcare reform

The following is part of a recent post to a blog called Todd Bradley's Galaxy. Thought it was interesting enough to mention here (and also to comment on, which I did over on his blog site). It contains a series of letters to the editor of his local newspaper (one of the letter-writers is his wife, Beth). Please follow the link and read the letters. Which one do you agree with?

two people in one body?

There was a letter to the editor in our local Broomfield newspaper a few weeks ago. My wife Beth wrote a response. The guy who wrote the original letter then wrote a response to her response and mailed it to our home, which is a little creepy. I guess he looked her up in the phone book. Today, the editorials section has a response to her response. I’ll post the letters here. I’d be curious to hear your opinion on this matter.

—-

From the January 9, 2008 Broomfield Enterprise:

Definition of life must be logical

It is my New Year’s wish that we can finally put to rest the idiotic idea that human life begins at birth. That concept is not logical...If human life ends when brain waves stop, then life begins (at least) when they start. That’s a logical conclusion any child can understand.

With today’s technology, human brain waves have been detected in an 8-week-old fetus. And as technology improves, it’s bound to get even earlier.

From Todd's wife, Beth's, post:

When people say that human life begins at conception, they often fail to mention that defining human life that way changes the definition of personhood under the law. A “person under the law” has certain rights, including the right not to be killed. One’s enemy in war is not a person under the law; nor is someone sentenced to death a full person under the law: Both of them may be killed without that killing being defined as murder under the law.

In the history of U.S. law and English common law, on which it is based, an unborn child has never been defined as a person.

And this from the final letter:

Partin’s point appears to be that legally recognizing human life at conception attaches the legal definition of “person” to unborn human life, making abortion murder. She believes that this would be an undesirable result, restricting women’s access to abortion, and “cause more problems and lead to lawsuits.”

I somewhat agree with her analysis, but not that restriction is an undesirable result. Her belief, in general terms, “We should be careful not to legislate poor public policy.” We might remember that pre-born human beings have no vote. Majority rule can be, and in this case is, absolutism. That is not good public policy.

She fails to distinguish between “human being” and “person.” “Human being” is a biologically defined fact, but has no legal definition; “person” is a legal fiction, created by statute, codifying beliefs of apparent qualities innate to every human being. Is it a person? Biologically, it’s moot.

So what do you think? Check out Todd's blog and read the letters here.

Labels: Abortion, beginning of human life, conception, embryo, fetus

I think it's a good idea to occasionally share with our readers what other bloggers are writing on our subject. As you can imagine, a lot of it supports human life beginning at conception. Although neither Jack nor his two writers (John and Toni) ascribe to that belief, we all still respect those who do. We too respect human life; we just don't agree on when that life begins.

The following is from The Write Bailiwick: Musings on Law and Life. It's written by one Emmel Philips, which the author admits is a pseudonym. What follows is a section of her post from a few days ago:

Anyway, I still believe that those supporting choice are not irrational, but make a fundamental mistake about when human life begins or ensoulment occurs. I assume that abortion supporters stop short of advocating infanticide. I also assume that they do not believe that the status of the (what to call it? every term is loaded!) fetus depends on the intent of the mother to bear or abort. (Really, that’s a lousy argument.) Thus, at some point something actually happens in reality, and everyone (except Peter Singer) recognizes a human person that should not be killed. When is that critical moment? Those supporting abortion rights consider the fetus, at least at early stages, to be just a blob of tissues. Removing a blob of tissues is not morally problematic. Thus, why not abort? I, however, will not support the proposition that the blob of tissues is not a living human being or that it lacks a soul for several reasons. (Caveat: this is a blog post, not a moral treatise, so this is the gist of argumentation, not its most eloquent form. For fuller defenses see here (be sure to click on the titles for the non-summary version of arguments). See also here.) Primarily, when considering critical and unknowable questions such as the beginning of human life or ensoulment, it is most prudent to err on the side of caution. Caution dictates that conception is the moment at which all the genes come together to create a unique person, distinct from the mother or father, not just an Aristotelian potential. Science also continues to reveal more and more about fetal development that suggests an early beginning of life. Ending another person’s life is morally problematic, unlike removing a blob of tissue.

Read the entire post.

Labels: Abortion, beginning of human life, fetus

Not everyone's happy with the recent stem-cell breakthrough. Read on:

Baptist Press, Jan 21, 2008, WASHINGTON (BP)--Scientists used cells from aborted babies in recently reported research that has been hailed as a breakthrough in the ethical development of embryonic-like stem cells.

Pro-life advocates decried the abortion connection, but bioethicists said the newly successful technique could be utilized without the employment of such cells and thereby be considered ethical.

Research teams in Wisconsin and Japan reported in November they had converted adult skin cells in human beings into the functional equivalent of embryonic stem cells. Pro-lifers hailed the development because the scientists had found a way to produce the stem cells with seemingly the most potential for providing therapies for debilitating afflictions while avoiding the destruction of human embryos.

Children of God for Life, however, reported Jan. 8 the researchers had used cells from aborted fetal cell lines to produce a virus to reprogram the adult cells into embryonic-like stem cells. The organization, which monitors stem cell research and the presence of aborted fetal cells in medical products, said the Wisconsin team also utilized material from embryonic stem cells in its research.

"Using aborted fetal and embryonic stem cells from deliberately destroyed human beings is certainly not any kind of moral victory," said Debi Vinnedge, director of Children of God for Life.

Southern Baptist bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell said, "The principle is clear: Science should never perform an evil act -- or contribute to evil acts -- in order to achieve good ends. So, deriving therapies from electively aborted fetuses ethically taints the discovery.

Continue reading.

Labels: Abortion, embryo, embryonic stem cell

When considering the thorny dilemmas behind this blog's general topic -- "the beginning of human life" -- our tendency as Westerners, specifically Americans, is to think of them in the context of religion (specifically Christianity) vs. science. But there are other way of thinking about the issues, viewpoints not quite so irreconcilable.

The oldest surviving Buddhist school, according to Wikipedia, is the Theravada school. Within this form of Buddhist teaching and practice, the term bhante is used as a polite form of address for a Buddhist monk (something like "Father" for a Catholic priest, perhaps). In New South Wales, Australia, is a Buddhist monastery known as the Santi Forest Monastery, and one of the monks there -- Bhante Sujato -- has attempted a statement of how Buddhists might think of abortion in specific, and of the beginning of human life in general. He begins:

The sanctity of life is the core of our moral consciousness. But 'life' has fuzzy edges. It is no easy matter to define precisely where life, in the moral rather than biological sense, begins and ends. For Buddhism this fuzziness is normal, for we are accustomed to view the world in terms of interrelated processes rather than independent entities. Yet our need for clarity in deciding delicate moral questions is no less. In this essay I will analyze some strands of the debate on the inception of life and the ethics of abortion. I will suggest that a Buddhist approach provides us with useful tools that can steer away from moral extremism and focus on a compassionate response to the real issues.

Bhante Sujato leads the reader through six sections in considering the question:

• The Eternal Soul and the Sanctity of Life
• The Emergence of Consciousness
• Avoiding the Extremes
• Why Believe in Rebirth?
• The Social Dimension
• Living Wisdom, Choosing Compassion

As is often the case when trying to reconcile divergent philosophies, what he comes up with will satisfy neither extreme. For starters, he uses two terms to describe these two extremes which will make their adherents bristle, for quite different reasons. What might typically be called the "right to life" extreme, he calls "eternalists": "The word 'eternalism' refers to the belief that the self exists eternally." Note that this is a specifically Buddhist term; it is not meant pejoratively, or in anything like a scoffing sense. The "right to choose" extreme he calls "annihilationism," potentially even more inflammatory. But again, he means it more objectively: "The word 'annihilationism' refers to the belief that the self will perish, usually at death."

Here's his concluding paragraph:

in this essay I have attempted to sketch an outline of a Buddhist approach to abortion. I examined some of the prevailing arguments and concluded that the polarization of positions into 'Life' and 'Choice' can be traced back to incompatible philosophical paradigms, such as the eternalist viewpoint of the Christians and the annihilationism of the scientific materialists. Buddhism offers a middle way that treasures the sanctity of the life in the mother’s womb from the time of conception, yet recognizes a gradual growth in the moral gravity of the act of killing. On the practical side, we must employ the twin virtues of compassion and wisdom, providing care and support for mothers and children, and ensuring the parents are provided with the information and advice they need to make a mature decision. I would like to finish with a verse from the Mangala Sutta.

Service to mother and father

Cherishing of spouse and child
Ways of work without conflict
This is the highest blessing

I highly recommend reading the entire piece. Before you do so, though... please leave your preconceptions at the doorstep! Remember that the point of view espoused here is expressly not a classic Western point of view.

Labels: Abortion, beginning of human life, Buddhism

...does it follow that there's a baby inside? Must your doctor tell you so?

By the time you read this humble little blog post, you'll almost certainly have read or heard about this week's ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court, regarding abortion but -- more importantly over the long run -- also regarding the issue of when a human life can be said to be a human life. From the New York Times:

Because there is no consensus on the issue of when life begins, a doctor does not have to tell a woman considering an abortion that the procedure would result in "killing an existing human being," the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday, rejecting a woman’s arguments in a medical malpractice suit.
...
In its unanimous decision, the New Jersey court ruled that, contrary to what the woman’s lawyer had argued, her doctor had "no legal duty" to tell her that her six-to-eight-week-old embryo was "a complete, separate, unique and irreplaceable human being."

(Read the official summary and complete opinion here (71.4KB PDF).

The plaintiff, one Rose Acuna, had sued her doctor, one Sheldon C. Turkish, for malpractice, wrongful death, and emotional distress. The suit stemmed from an abortion which she underwent in 1996. Ms. Acuna claimed that Dr. Turkish had counseled her, in response to her question "if it was the baby in there," "Don't be stupid, it's only blood."

Responses from both sides of the issue have been fairly predictable. Brigitte Amiri, an ACLU attorney, said:

We are pleased that the court dismissed this frivolous lawsuit, which had no basis in law or medicine... This case was nothing more than an underhanded attempt to turn doctors into ideological mouthpieces and subject women to non-medical moral judgments.

Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, countered:

This court has placed itself embarrassingly behind the times by failing to hold doctors accountable for telling patients what grade school children already know about when a human life begins. Moreover, abortionists are tearing arms and legs off of children in the womb, not destroying some unidentified mass of tissue whose species scientists don’t know how to figure out.

I know it's a foolish leap of imagination on my part, but I'd kinda hoped the decision would be welcomed with relief by both sides -- along the lines of, Thank GOD the issue is now formally out of the hands of the instruments of the state and we can return to being human and making painful decisions about our privates lives on our own. Silly rabbit.

Labels: Abortion, beginning of human life, courts

I read an interesting blog entry a little while ago and wanted to share it with you, for reasons which will be obvious. But first, I wanted to describe its author, one James M. Branum. Here are some excerpts from his "Who is J.M. Branum?" writeup:

A 31 year old guy who lives in the Lincoln Terrace Neighborhood of Oklahoma City. Like most native-born Okies, he is a mix of white and American Indian ancestry.

He works as a solo practice attorney with his own firm... He is also still licensed as a pedicab driver in Oklahoma City (working with Bricktownpedicabs.com but doesn't have time to get to ride that much anymore).

Religiously, he is a member/lay minister at Joy Mennonite Church but before that was part of several charismatic/non-denominational churches (including Hope Chapel, Hope in the City and Shekinah Fellowship) as well as the Churches of Christ (where he grew up)...

Educationally, he graduated from Newcastle High School in 1994, from the Institute for Christian Studies (now Austin Graduate School of Theology) with a B.A. in Bible with an emphasis in Christian Ministry in 2000, and from Oklahoma City University with a Juris Doctorate in 2005.
...
He is currently a religious studies major at Tulsa Community College.
...
Current interests of the moment include: activism, organic gardening, latchhook, , watching movies, reading and blogging.

He is member of the Green Party of OKlahoma, the Industrial Workers of the World, the National Lawyers Guild, the Oklahoma Food Coop and the Oklahoma Committee for Conscientious Objectors.

That's some resume, eh? And what makes it even more interesting is that Branum doesn't mention here the specifics of his political odyssey. You might focus in the above on his apparent religiousness; you might also see the references to the Greens, the IWW, conscientious objectors, and so on, and come up with an entirely different guess about his stance on the beginning of human life, abortion, and so on.

As we can learn from OkInsider.com's guide to the most recent (2006) election cycle, Branum ran for Congress last year, as an independent endorsed by the Green Party. But look where he started out, and where he's headed, and why (emphasis added):

Prior to his membership in the Green Party, he was a Libertarian from 1999-2001 (during which he received over 17% of the vote as a candidate for Constable in Travis County, Texas), and was a Republican from 1994-1999.

J.M. Branum says his evolving political philosophy has been primarily shaped by his faith and by life experience. "As a college student I first was involved with the Republican party because of the hot button issue of abortion and because of my admiration of their small-government philosophy. Later as I discovered that the teachings of Jesus were pacifistic, I became a Libertarian, and then after I discovered that Jesus was most definitely not a capitalist I became a Green.

"Today as a Green, I share much common ground with both liberals and conservatives. I share common ground with many liberals on the issues of civil rights and their concern for the poor, while I share common ground with many conservatives in their belief that government should best be done at the local level. It has been said that Greens are neither left or right but rather out in front, and I think that is true."

In short, in almost 15 years he's been all over the map politically. So what does somebody like him think about the issues which we've been dealing with here? It's quite a post (and you were wondering when I'd link to it, weren't you?):

As I see it, I find the following propositions to be true on the issue of abortion . . .

1. My #1 guiding principle is that of valuing human life. Any ideology that devalues human life is flawed.
2. Women should have the right to control their own bodies and to be free to take control of their own destinies. Women have the right to the best information available so that they can make informed decisions. No decision is more sacred than the right ton control one’s own medical decisions.
3. The beginning of human life is a mystery. I think that a person becomes a “person” long before birth, but I’m not convinced that it becomes a “person” at conception either.
4. I believe that every human life is sacred and should be protected. No one should be seen as “disposable,” whether be poor, disabled, or not yet born.
5. I believe that any economic system that leaves mothers in poverty if they choose to not have an abortion is immoral. “Choice” within such an economic system is a fiction.

So where does that leave me… definitely not on the extreme of the pro-life side of the argument. I do not feel it is right to interfere in the most basic of decisions about one’s own body and autonomy, and I certainly don’t think a woman should be forced to have a child which is the result of rape or that might endanger her own life. I also think that a woman should not be doomed to a life of poverty if they choose to have a child, yet that is the reality for many women, both here and in other countries.

I also can’t embrace the extreme of the pro-choice side of the argument. I cannot embrace the idea that there are no ethical concerns over the question of abortion. No one except God knows when human life truly begins (in the sense of the existence of a soul and spirit), but I do know that at some point it does begin and at that point, a person’s life is at stake and should be protected.

As for me, John, here on Jack Sisson's site, I don't want to point out anything I agree or disagree with in Branum's conclusions. All I want to draw attention to is the nature of his struggle to reach those conclusions. You can think about this stuff all day -- think hard about it -- and you can spend years or even decades arriving at something like a conclusion. And when you get there, you suddenly realize the conclusions are messy and ragged. It must be nice to be 100% clear-eyed on these issues, to be able to take a stand firmly on one side or the other without hesitation. I haven't made that leap yet, and neither has James M. Branum. And (I suspect) neither have the majority of Americans, no matter what you might forecast from their political and religious affiliations (or lack of them, as the case may be).

Labels: Abortion, beginning of human life, morality, politics

You probably know of the satirical "publication" The Onion, one of my favorite sites. If so, you probably think of its point of view -- understandably -- as leftist, for the most part. (Among the featured headlines for this week: "Heartbroken Bush Runs After Departing Rove's Car.")

But to its credit, The Onion isn't reluctant to poke fun at extremists on the other side of the aisle. This week's edition contains one such article, reducting ad absurdum a certain fringe belief of abortion-rights subscribers: the belief that pregnancies (and babies) are obstacles to a woman's happiness.

Headlined "Woman Overjoyed by Giant Uterine Parasite," the article's tone is one of head-scratching disbelief that the (fictitious) mother-to-be profiled might actually be happy with her future. Excerpts:

"I'm so happy!" Crowley said of the golf ball–sized, nutrient-sapping organism embedded deep in the wall of her uterus. "I was beginning to think this would never happen to me."

Crowley's condition is common and well-documented, with millions of women between the ages of 12 and 50 diagnosed every year. Studies have shown that while the disorder strikes without prejudice across racial, ethnic, and class lines, it bears a very high correlation with the consumption of alcohol at the time of infection. Although there is a low-cost daily medication available that can prevent the harmful symbiote with 99 percent efficacy, many women inexplicably choose not to use it.
...
Crowley has reportedly refused a simple inexpensive outpatient procedure that would completely rid her of the detrimental organism in about an hour, effectively sparing her from the host of complications that will burden her and her family for the rest of their lives.
...
"Just think, in a couple of months I'll be able to feel it kicking," Crowley said of the creature that will soon be writhing restlessly inside her, increasingly and disproportionately robbing her of her strength and stamina. "It's truly a miracle."

Though Crowley is otherwise healthy, the fact that she is in her late 30s makes it much more likely that the parasite has already split and multiplied within her womb.

(Read the whole thing, if you'd like.)

For the record, other stories in this issue also bear (albeit less directly) on the importance of human life:

• This Monster Problem Is Distracting This Town From The Real Issues: A parody of the monomaniacal zeal with which some people pursue their favorite hot buttons.
  People, people, people! Put down your torches for a second. I
  know you're all angry that, after days of bloody and terrifying
  rampage, the monster still hasn't been caught. Your outrage is
  not unjustified; however, it's misdirected... You fear a monster
  you can't see because it lurks in the shadows and strikes from
  out of nowhere. But right under your feet is the real monster:
  potholes.
  
• Texas Executes 400th Convict (this week's Onion "poll"): Says "Jane Davidson, Secretary":
  "I commend Rick Perry for having the courage to protect his
  constituents. Well done, Governor, and please don't kill me."

Labels: Abortion, abortion rights, human life, The Onion

The Associated Press, via USA Today, reports on recent "international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for Health Statistics":

Americans are living longer than ever, but not as long as people in 41 other countries.

For decades, the United States has been slipping in international rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles.

Countries that surpass the U.S. include Japan and most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman Islands.

"Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Dr. Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

A baby born in the United States in 2004 will live an average of 77.9 years. That life expectancy ranks 42nd, down from 11th two decades earlier...

Andorra, a tiny country in the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Maucau, San Marino and Singapore.

Now yes, it's true what Mark Twain said about statistics as the third sort of lie, after plain lies and damn lies. It's also true that for a baby born in the US in 1980 (roughly the "two decades earlier" mentioned in this passage), the life expectancy is 73.7 years -- so the expectancy within the country has indeed gone up by over four years.

And finally, it's true that the heading of this post is deliberately provocative. I know that just because someone opposes abortion and embryonic stem cell research, it cannot be concluded that they care little about quality-of-life issues like poverty and medical care.

But the world of public attention -- and thus how a democratic society allocates it resources -- is measured not by what's in someone's heart, but by how much light and heat and noise is generated by what's in there. By any reasonable standard, the clamor on the part of social conservatives in this country about quality-of-life issues is far out-shouted by their clamor about the evils of abortion and embryonic stem cell research. That Roe v. Wade continues to be the law of the land may or may not be a national shame, as these social conservatives maintain, and history may or may not condemn our society on that basis. But shoddy health care, poverty, widespread nutritional deficiencies, racial and economic injustice, desperately superficial education, a poisonous natural environment -- our attention to those, and to matters like them, are the true reasons why we should fear Judgment Day... and the long memories of our children and grandchildren.

Labels: Abortion, embryonic stem cell research, poverty, quality of life, statistics

Adam Liptak writes a column called "Sidebar" for the New York Times, about legal matters in the news. Unfortunately, the column is stuck behind the Times's "TimeSelect" wall, where many people can't see it.

On the off-chance that you can get to it, though, today's column, entitled "Putting the Government's Words in the Doctor's Mouth," is especially interesting for readers of this blog. The topic under consideration is a cluster of court opinions -- and counter-opinions -- about a disputed South Dakota law, the 2005 "Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act."

Women's health and human life: Who could be against protecting such things?, you might wonder. And then you might reconsider your confusion, having thought separately about the two halves of the act's name. Does "women's health" serve as a common code phrase for anything else? No? How about "human life"?

Oh.

What the South Dakota law will require is that doctors there "tell women seeking abortions that they 'will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.'" (Note: That's a quotation from Liptak's column, not from the text of the Act itself.)

From the "Sidebar" piece:

But there is, according to the federal courts that have so far blocked the South Dakota law, a constitutional flaw in how the state seeks to go about informing women of its views. The problem with the law, the courts said, is that it would hijack the doctor-patient relationship.

"The South Dakota statute," Judge Karen E. Schreier of Federal District Court in Rapid City, S.D., wrote in issuing a preliminary injunction in 2005, "requires abortion doctors to enunciate the state’s viewpoint on an unsettled medical, philosophical, theological and scientific issue — that is, whether a fetus is a human being."

...

South Dakota can, of course, say what it likes about abortion. "If the state wants to have a billboard, good for the state," Timothy E. Branson, a Minneapolis lawyer who represents Planned Parenthood in its challenge to the law, said in an interview. Indeed, as lawyers for South Dakota said in a brief last year, the state publishes pamphlets and maintains a Web site setting out its position (www.state.sd.us/applications/ph17abortioninfo).

Lawyers for the state say it is also entitled to make doctors into its publicity agents, though that is not how they put it.

"The point," Lawrence E. Long, the state attorney general, wrote in a brief to the appeals court this spring, "is to require abortion providers to do a better job at what they should already be doing. That is, they should provide their patients with an accurate description of what they are aborting."

The Supreme Court has said that doctors performing abortions may be forced to convey truthful information, and not only about medical issues. In 1992, the court upheld a Pennsylvania abortion law that required doctors to tell their patients that they might be eligible for child support if they decided to carry their pregnancies to term.

But other cases say the government cannot force anyone to disseminate ideological messages.

At the argument in April, John P. Guhin, a lawyer for the state, said doctors could paraphrase the required disclosures, which must be made in writing and signed by the patient on every page. He suggested that doctors could also express their disagreement, though the law requires them to certify that their patients have understood the disclosures. Should there be questions, doctors must answer them in writing. Failure to follow the procedures is a crime.

If you don't see a problem with South Dakota's initiative (or Pennsylvania's for that matter), imagine a completely different situation for a moment: Let's say the state in question isn't South Dakota, but California, or Vermont -- one of those places, y'know, where hippies continue to flourish even in the halls of the Statehouse. Imagine that the legislature there establishes a new law requiring that recruiters for the military (including the National Guard) lay out for potential recruits all the ghastly things that might happen to them in combat. Furthermore, if young men and women insist knowing the reasons to enlist anyway, the recruiters must answer these questions in writing. Recruiters who fail to do so can face criminal punishment.

Or heck, why not force newspaper publishers to notify all readers, "Some of the things you read herein will turn out not to be true." Or force clergymen to point out that none of the assertions which their congregations may hear in church may, in the end, have any bearing on reality. Or...

Okay, okay. Sarcasm off.

Labels: Abortion, Adam Liptak, courts, New York Times, South Dakota

...and forms a picture eerily symmetrical with America's leaky borders.

DeLay, former GOP Congressman and House Majority Leader from Texas, has noticed what he believes to be a non-coincidence -- one which I bet has not been pointed out by your local baby-killing professor of statistics, no sir: a rough correspondence in the number of abortions since Roe v. Wade, and the number of "illegal" immigrants to the US in that same period. In an address to the recent National Convention of the College Republicans organization, DeLay said:

If you believe abortion, if you believe that doesn't affect you... I contend it affects you in immigration. If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 40 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it.

I have thought about it, Tom, although it took your asking the question to open my eyes. Also hauntingly corresponding to that 40 million figure:

• Estimated number of classmates.com users as of February, 2006. Also the number of subscribers to the Xanga "social networking" service as of July 2005.
• Estimated number of deaths required for the Communist Party of China to seize power, according to the late Wáng Zhèn (one of the "Eight Immortals" of the Communist Party there, and presumably a knowledgeable source if perhaps inclined to inflation of the Party's ego).
• Estimated number of deaths in developing countries due to wars and other state-sponsored violence in the post-World War II decades (according to historian Robert McNamara's 1991 paper, "The Post-Cold War World: Implications for Military Expenditure in the Developing Countries," and also according to a 2003 study by Milton Leitenberg of the Center for International and Security Studies).
• Number of stars "in our galactic neighborhood" to be studied by NASA's proposed, but never launched, Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer (FAME) astrometric satellite.
• Number of credit-card holders whose identities were potentially compromised by the hacking of CardSystems Solutions, discovered in June 2005.
• Number of crossings per second made by "bunches" of protons in the beam produced by the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider.
• Estimated minimum number of speakers of Low Franconian languages such as Dutch, Afrikaans, and Flemish.
• Estimated number of people who viewed performances in 2006 by "neo-burlesque" stripper Michelle "Toots" L'Amour, thanks in significant, er, part to her appearances that year on NBC's "America's Got Talent" and the Showtime network's "Sexual Healing."
  
• In perhaps the most sinister -- bordering on the precognitive -- coincidence, the 1995 debut album of rock group The Bogmen was titled Life Begins at 40 Million.
  

[Above items all courtesy of Wikipedia]

(Creepily, DeLay has not been the first -- let alone only -- speaker on the right to make the connection between abortion and illegal immigration. He was preceded a few months back by Zell Miller, former Georgia governor and one-time Democrat. Miller, however, also credited Roe v. Wade for its negative effects on US military strength and the Social Security System, and hence diluted his message somewhat. Miller used a figure of 45 million abortions rather than DeLay's 40 million, and maybe it was the additional 5 million who could have been in Iraq or Afghanistan and/or paying into Social Security -- if only their mothers had cared about them!)

It's possible, we would contend, to discuss reasonably the question of whether there might or might not have been too many abortions (legal or otherwise) in the last 40 years. But tying that discussion to random hot-button issues like "illegal" immigration is cheap, unconstructive, misleading, and flagrantly inflammatory. Not to read too much into the former Congressman's words, but the least stupidity with which we can credit him is to imply that 40 million aborted fetuses might have grown up to occupy the cheap-labor jobs held by so many "illegal" immigrants. They sure wouldn't have grown up to become College Republican keynoters forced out of their elected positions because of finance scandals, eh, Tom?

(By the way, DeLay's "40 years" isn't quite right; it's been only 34 years since Roe v. Wade. Perhaps DeLay's loosey-goosey way with numbers led to some of his off-camera troubles.)

For the record, here's a YouTube video of DeLay's address; advance the time slider to around 3:45 unless you want to see all the stuff that precedes it:

Labels: Abortion, DeLay, illegal immigration, Roe v. Wade, statistics

I love "Seinfeld". My husband John and I now own DVD sets for the first 6 seasons, and we plan to eventually buy them all. The other night, while watching an early episode in season 6, we both suddenly sat up and looked at each other as the show took an unexpected step into the abortion issue. (This was especially interesting to me because I'd so recently posted to this blog a newspaper column from the late '80s in which the author referenced the great divide between pros and anti's. Now here's Seinfeld, in 1994, using making pizza as a metaphor for creating a human being.) And while the show asked, "when does a pizza become a pizza?", this blog continues to ask, "when does an embryo become human life?"

We just cannot seem to resolve this question , can we? Here's part of the Seinfeld episode, "The Couch," which first aired on October 27, 1994, and which features Poppie, Kramer's restauranteur friend, who once grossed Jerry out by not washing his hands after using the bathroom:

JERRY: Poppie, I was just curious...where do you stand on the abortion issue?

POPPIE: When my mother was abducted by the Communists, she was with child...

JERRY: Oh, boy.

POPPIE: ...but the Communists, they put an end to that! So, on this issue there is no debate! And no intelligent person can think differently.

ELAINE (offended): Well...Poppie. I think differently.

POPPIE: And what gives you the right to do that?

ELAINE (standing up): The Supreme Court gives me the right to do that! Let's go Jerry, c'mon.

WOMAN AT NEXT TABLE (to her date): I heard that. Let's go, Henry.

HENRY: But we just got here...

WOMAN AT ANOTHER TABLE: I'm with you, Poppie!

WOMAN AT YET ANOTHER TABLE (to her date): Let's go!

ELAINE (to Poppie): And I am not coming back!

POPPIE: You're not welcome!

JERRY: Well, I'm certainly glad I brought it up.

[Later in the episode, Kramer and Poppie are planning their "Make Your Own Pie" restaurant, and Kramer is making the first test pie when he adds an ingredient Poppie doesn't approve of.}

POPPIE: No, no. You can't put cucumbers on a pizza.

KRAMER: Well, why not? I like cucumbers.

POPPIE: That's not a pizza. It'll taste terrible.

KRAMER: But that's the idea, you make your own pie.

POPPIE: Yes, but we cannot give the people the right to choose any topping they want! Now on this issue there can be no debate!

KRAMER: What gives you the right to tell me how I would make my pie?

POPPIE: Because it's a pizza!

KRAMER: It's not a pizza until it comes out of the oven!

POPPIE: It's a pizza the moment you put your fists in the dough!

KRAMER: No, it isn't!

POPPIE: Yes, it is!

And the debate continues.

If you'd like to see more Seinfeld scripts, here's a link to a site that has all of them.

Labels: Abortion, beginning of human life, embryo, pizza, Seinfeld

The following column ran in the Tallahassee Democrat on Sunday, October 8, 1989. It was written by a local columnist, Mary Ann Lindley, who is now the paper's Editorial Page Editor. Jack, who saves every piece of paper he thinks he might need some day, saved this column. The original, cut from the newspaper long ago, is yellowed with age, creased with accordion folds, and marked with notations in both pen and ink. And when Jack came across it one day last week, he decided its central message is just as relevant today as it was 18 years ago. He thinks this is the day he was saving it for, when it would be needed again. And you know what? He's right. Here it is with Mary Ann's kind permission:

Instead of combativness, seeking common ground

Somewhere a doll lies still; somewhere there's a dress unworn, designer jeans remain upon a shelf. Somewhere a stereo lies silent; somewhere out there's a little girl unborn.

Now that I've met the Lord of the Universe, the Father of all who choose to know Him, I trust that on that day your infant spirit went instantly to be with Him....

Oh, Mandy! How can I tell you how I've wondered about you? Do you have your father's smile or my green eyes? Are you shy and quiet or do you resemble a minature tornado like your brothers?...

How I've longed to hold you, Mandy, and whisper how sorry I am. Will you ever forgive me?

Oh Mandy, my Mandy, though I dare not call you mine -- I gave up that right many years ago. I swapped it for my right to choose. How inconceivable! How unjust!

I didn't know that "He was there with you being formed in utter seclusion; that He made all the inner parts of your body and knit them together in my womb. He saw you and scheduled each day of your life before you began to breathe." (Psalm 139LB)

It's not important how I knew you were a girl or why I gave you a name. It's only important that you know if I could choose again, I'd give up everything to have you back.. Since that cannot be, I'll wait until that day when we meet face to face and I can tell you what I've longed for you to know...That there is a special place in my heart for you, and the world is a little duller, a little emptier, a bit less joyful for never having known the wonder of you....

**********

      For the Tallahassee mom who wrote "A Song for Mandy," the abortion choice she once made for convenience, and then gave no thought to for years, eventually resurfaced.
      "I didn't do it for therapy, but that's what it was," she said of her lyrical confession. Once written, it made clear the reasons for her nightmares, the depression and those days on end when, though by now she had a family, she could hardly bear to be around other people.
      Not every woman who has an abortion is haunted by her decision. Not every woman, by any means, names the child that never was, nor asks its forgiveness.
      But for Elizabeth, writing to Mandy brought tears of relief and the certain knowledge that "we had connected, that she was out there and that she understood."
      "I really became a whole person after that. It's a good feeling," says Elizabeth, which is not her real name.
      A charming, articulate businesswoman who says she used to be "your basic cosmopolitan woman," Elizabeth now aligns herself with those opposing abortion, though she was once unequivocally pro-choice. Now strongly committed to her church, she also understands what it is to straddle metaphysical fences, and she may be one of those rare creatures with compassion for both sides on the abortion debate.
      Just now she's concerned, as a lot of us are, that something be done about the hurtful, unhelpful chasm between the two sides. And she hopes her "Song" might be used as a philosophical vehicle: Its destination would be some common ground where we could all agree that, legal or not, abortion is overused and too often an ill-considered first resort.

Laws aren't the point
      The Legislature is gearing up for its special session on abortion, which is looking more and more like a medieval tent show with too many jugglers, no ringmaster and a lot of mud.
      The Florida Supreme Court, which is rarely flamboyant, has dramatically upstaged the governor by invoking the state's little-used privacy amendment to strike down a requirement that minors get permission for abortion.
      Yet, both institutions are almost irrelevant in terms of changing the way Americans think about abortion. Neither has half the power of ordinary people to make a new attitude become part of the social fabric.
      We're all so touchy about our political position on the subject that we can hardly acknowledge it when "the other side" makes a point. Yet thoughtful anti-abortionists deserve credit for forcing pro-choicers to be less casual.
      They remind us that a decade or so ago, when thousands of women were getting abortions matter-of-factly, when the sexual revolution was at its peak and abortion was almost chic, we were foolish to be so capricious.
      A return to illegal abortion is unfathomable for countless reasons. The psychic pain such as Elizabeth experienced can coexist with any unwanted pregnancy, no matter how it's resolved.
      Yet not enough's being done to make abortion the last resort -- and especially not for very young women, who often can't imagine how long indeed a decision can last.
      Not enough's being done to free ourselves from the thought that just because something's legal, it's necessarily good for us. Not enough's being done to stop conferring a social sanction on abortion.
      That's the kind of work that laws and courts can't do half so well as people like Elizabeth expressing their truest feelings about the consequences of complicated personal decisions.
      If the governor only knew this, the Legislature could stay home.

Labels: Abortion, anti-abortionists, beginning of human life, pro-choice, pro-life

Those of you who've visited this blog over the years know that those of us posting here tend (more often than not) to a left-of-center perspective. But, as our mission statement says, "We hope to both start and then further dialogue regarding the beginning of human life" -- and in order to have a dialogue, we recognize that we have to acknowledge the validity of what might be called "responsible opposing points of view."

One of these points of view, I've always thought, has been the principled stand taken by religious (especially Catholic) proponents of the pro-life/anti-abortion position. Such folks are not fiery, single-issue hard-liners. Rather, they assert not just that abortion is wrong, but so is war, capital punishment, and a host of other "liberal" bugaboos.

Consider the organization known as Consistent Life. Originally, they identified themselves as the Seamless Life Network, taking as their central metaphor an episode from the Gospel of John's account (chapter 19:23-27) of Jesus's crucifixion (emphasis added):

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be."

For an excellent introduction to the "seamless garment"/consistent-life vision, see the 1984 lecture by Joseph Cardinal Bernardin. Also useful are many of the essays published at The-Tidings.com by Father Richard McBrien. (Note: McBrien is often lacerated by more conservative Catholics for his reasonableness -- reasonableness being seen, evidently, as a vice rather than a virtue.)

Here's the Consistent Life mission statement:

We are committed to the protection of life, which is threatened in today's world by war, abortion, poverty, racism, capital punishment and euthanasia. We believe that these issues are linked under a 'consistent ethic of life'. We challenge those working on all or some of these issues to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation, and respect in protecting the unprotected.

While one might take issue with any one of those "threats," it's impossible not to admire the spirit standing in opposition to them.

Labels: Abortion, Catholic viewpoint, Consistent Life, seamless garment

According to LifeNews.com (and I'm sure they're not happy about this): In a speech to a pro-abortion conference on Monday, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer vowed to continue his track record as one of the strongest pro-abortion governors in the nation. Spitzer has come under fire for attacking pregnancy centers and promoting embryonic stem cell research funding with tax dollars.

Spitzer spoke at the annual Family Planning Advocates Conference in Albany yesterday.

He told attendees he was worried about the judicial appointments President Bush has made and said he's concerned they will overturn Roe v. Wade -- saying "we are on the cusp of losing" the landmark case.

He pledged to update state abortion laws to make sure abortion is legal if the Supreme Court ever overturns the decision.

"They do not go far enough and so we will make it our vision this term, this year to expand New York's law to give us all the protections that are necessary," he said.

The governor also told abortion advocates his administration would do more to promote the morning after pill and promote sex education that promotes it instead of abstinence education.

"The best thing we can do for our kids to avoid unwanted pregnancies is educate them," he said. "Education that's based on science, not politics."

Read the entire article.

Labels: Abortion, Roe v. Wade, Roe vs Wade

From the AP:
JACKSON, Miss. — Mississippi governor Haley Barbour signed a bill Thursday that would criminalize abortion in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 decision that legalized the procedure.

The measure would ban nearly all abortions in the state if the court were to overturn Roe v. Wade. In that event, anyone performing an illegal abortion in Mississippi would face one to 10 years in prison. The bill also tightens consent laws for minors and requires abortion providers to perform a sonogram and give the pregnant woman an opportunity to listen to a fetal heartbeat.

The only exceptions to the state ban would be in cases of rape or if the pregnancy threatened the woman's life. The bill has no exception for pregnancies caused by incest.

Proponents of the bill say the ultimate goal is to one day challenge Roe v. Wade. Anti-abortion activists and some lawmakers believe that with the recent appointments of new, conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade could be overturned.

Mississippi is one of many states revisiting the abortion debate. South Carolina lawmakers are considering a bill that would require women to view ultrasound images of their fetuses.

---------------------

Boy, things are looking pretty gloomy when states start positioning themselves for "in the event" that Roe vs Wade is overturned. This would never be happening if Roe vs. Wade was not in some serious trouble. Let's all take a GIANT step backwards, why don't we?"

Labels: Abortion, Mississippi, Roe v. Wade, Roe vs Wade

I didn't think I could lose more respect for Sen. John McCain than I did after the way he let himself be used by Dubya during the last presidential campaign. But now, with his own presidential aspirations at stake, he's saying whatever his advisors deem to be politically expedient, anything to ensure his name on the party's ticket. From CBS News:

Republican presidential candidate John McCain, looking to improve his standing with the party's conservative voters, said Sunday the court decision that legalized abortion should be overturned.

"I do not support Roe versus Wade. It should be overturned," the Arizona senator told about 800 people in South Carolina, one of the early voting states.

McCain also vowed that if elected, he would appoint judges who "strictly interpret the Constitution of the United States and do not legislate from the bench."

Great. Just what this country needs. Haven't the "conservative voters" been paying attention to what's been going on these past few years? Will someone please tell me how this country is better off than it was before Bush took office? In what teensy tiny way are we better off? I sure can't think of one. And now McCain wants to re-enter the Dark Ages and send women back to the illegal and dangerous abortions of the past. I could not be more disappointed.

Read the entire article.

Labels: Abortion, McCain, Roe versus Wade, Roe vs Wade