The Indiana General Assembly never gets tired of trying to legislate scientific facts. Last year, they legislated a fetus into viability at 20 weeks. In 1897 they legislated pi as equal to 3.2. This year, by legislative decree, fetuses feel pain and human life begins at conception. So saith House Bill 1172 (as amended).
House Bill 1172, authored by Representative Harris and co-authored by Representatives Woodruff (of course), Turner and Bischoff would further dictate to a physician on the best way to treat his or her patient before performing an abortion. The physician is required to tell a woman who requires an abortion, among other things, that adoption is an alternative, that a fetus feels pain, and that human life begins at conception.
Let’s go down that list:
1) Adoption is an alternative. Gee, really? How stupid do these guys think Indiana women are?
2) The fetus feels pain. Is this the consensus of the scientific community that studies fetal development or are we just legislating that fact into being? Surely it matters how far along in the pregnancy you are. At 40 weeks – sure (but, obviously abortion is illegal at that point.) At 2 weeks – No. Sometimes real life is messy. Pi equals 3.14159265 etc, not 3.2 — even though 3.2 is much neater. So, even though 3.2 is easier, it was wrong of the legislature to try to legislate the facts of the world into something they’re not.
3) Human life begins at conception. This is a twofer — now we’re legislating science and theology. I’ll grant you that life begins at conception. But a blastocyst is not a fully human life. At that point it’s just a clump of cells with potential. At some level, the right-to-lifers surely know this. If they truly believed that an abortion terminated a fully human life, they would be using all necessary force, including killing anyone and everyone who stood in their way, to put an end to the practice. At least I think that’s what I would do if, to use the Holocaust as an example, I thought they were gassing Jews in the clinic down the street. At any rate, our citizen legislators have no business telling physicians — men and women of science — that they have to represent this assertion as scientific fact and gospel truth to their patients.
Another bass ackward aspect of this bill is that it was placed in and passed by the House Public Policy and Veterans Affairs Committee, not the House Public Health Committee or even the House Family, Children, and Human Affairs Committee, as you would expect.
Hat tip to Lawgeekgurl for the heads up and the excellent post on the topic.
“If they truly believed that an abortion terminated a fully human life, they would be using all necessary force, including killing anyone and everyone who stood in their way, to put an end to the practice.”
I DO believe that abortion is just as bad as the Holocaust. That is why I voted for Bush. Even with all the death caused in our wars over the past few years, I hope that there will be enough change in the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade and end abortion. If so, many times more lives will be saved than lost on either side in those wars.
Do I bomb abortion clincs? No. Scream hate at women walking into a clinc? No. Jesus would not do either of those things, so I should not either.
You have pointed out many times Doug that some Christians don’t follow Christ in their actions. Many times that is the case. However, the fact that there isn’t a physical war over abortion is proof that many Christians DO attempt to shape their actions after Christ.
Leaving my faith aside, I still can’t understand what is different between a two-week old baby that has not been born and a two-week old baby that has been born. Both have a heartbeat. Both are seperate beings from their mother and father, even having a different blood type. Both will die if their parent stops feeding them. Why discrimate on the number of cells? I lost a 8 week old unborn child once. Loosing her HURT just as much as loosing any child would. She was NOT just a clump of cells. (Before I get the “how do you know it was a her” comments, I don’t. More women than men are conceived, so I just assumed)
Many get upset about the loss of the rights of the mother. What about the loss of rights of the father who feels his child is being murdered?
Finally (sorry for the long post, but I’ve withheld many commments on this in the past), I can not understand protection for animals that exceeds humans. For example, it is illegal to harvest sea turtle eggs. Eggs, just a few cells that will one day be a sea turtle. However, when we say that small human, that will grow to a full one, should be protected, it is wrong? I’m not saying that unborn sea turtles should not be protected. However, unborn human children deserve the same protection.
I know that many that read this will not like what I’m saying. If you want to be helpful, please let me know WHY you think otherwise. Comments like “You just want to control women” do not help anyone.
Jason, I respect your beliefs. However, your beliefs may not be my beliefs and you are not me and your body is not my body. You do not bear the risk of injury or death from carrying a fetus to term or giving birth. You do not bear the risk psychological scarring of having to carry a rapists’ fetus for nearly a year. You are not the one that has to potentially carry and give birth to a fetus that is genetically deformed, which may not live or which may live a horrific life of suffering after birth. You are not the one that may face the fact that you know giving birth will kill you, but you cannot terminate the pregnancy. Do not mistake that women who are pro-choice think abortion is easy, or even moral in some circumstances. However, it’s not your body, and I do not believe that the state has the right to trump my right to consult with my doctor and my God and make what is possibly the most difficult decision a woman is faced with. Incidentally, I also believe that the state does not have the right to trump your control of end of life decisions either. The state’s interest in keeping me breathing does not trump my right to end lingering and suffering from a terminal illness. So, at least I’m consistent. (I am not saying that you aren’t.)
If you feel so strongly about abortion, you should move to end it outright. Bills like this one, which presume that someone faced with a tremendously difficult and life-altering decision has not thought about these things, which is insulting and belittling to the woman who chooses to undergo this procedure.
Incidentally, I am not pro-abortion. I think abortion should be safe, legal and as rare as possible. I just think that the way to achieve that goal is to concentrate on ending unwanted pregnancies rather than ending a legal practice for those in true distress.
First, I have no reason to believe that you want to control women, and I believe your sentiments are heartfelt and genuine.
Second, I think it’s an interesting question as to whether Jesus would or wouldn’t support a physical war to stop systematic murder of innocent people. Regardless of what Jesus would or wouldn’t do, I would support violence, if necessary, to stop the systematic execution of Jews (just using the historical example) if it were being done, like abortion, on a daily basis in numerous parts of this state and the other states. Maybe I’m wrong, but if that hypothetical came to pass, I tend to think that most citizens would feel likewise and would support similar action if the government was unresponsive. So, I think that if one truly believes that a fetus is fully human and entitled to all of the rights and privileges of other humans, one is obligated to act on the fetus’s behalf in the same way one would act on behalf of an innocent 20 year old who was about to be executed in cold blood. Similarly, I don’t think one can believe that a fetus is fully human at conception and, at the same time, tolerate an exception to abortion for cases of incest or rape.
Why don’t I think a fetus is fully human? Because I think there is more to humanity than simply the biological fact of life. There is a biographical component to humanity that involves things like emotions and sensory perceptions and cognition. I don’t pretend to know when the merely biological transcends into the biographical. But, the first trimester test seems like a good one to me.
The biological/biographical distinction also leads me to support euthanasia where life has ceased to have any personal meaning to the individual (regardless of the meaning the biological life might have for friends and family.) That’s why I thought the Schiavo affair was a ghoulish spectacle. Biologically she was still alive, but biographically she had died long, long ago. In my opinion, keeping the husk alive was disrespectful to the person who used to live in it.
I’d love to go on. This subject fascinates me, but work calls.
lawgeekgurl: I agree with you about this law. A total ban is what I desire, however I feel that now is too soon. All such a move does is put more heat on Alito’s nomination. I also do not make such an exception for rape or incest. That is still a child, regardless how terriable he/she was formed. As to the health of the mother, I agree there are times that the child will die regardless. If the mother dies, the child will die with her. In those cases abortion is needed to save a life. As to your point on PREVENTING unwanted pregnancies, I agree. One solution that I would love to see more science poured into is the “Snowflake” baby idea. There have already been 40-60 children born to parents that have not been able to conceive that were donated by women who did not wish to raise children but did not want to see them destroyed. Would you opose a law that required clinics to donate the children to couples that wanted to raise them? I have to imagine that with all the people I know that have waited YEARS to adopt that this should work!
Doug: There are other cases now where our government has been unresonsive and the people also did not take action. Seen “Hotel Rwanda”? You and I agree that what happened over there was horriable, but neither of us grabed a rifle and got on a jet to stop it.
As to the life vs humanity debate, I think your point highlights my own. All three of us agree the laws should be consistant. Why should one thing that is only “alive” and will never be “human” have more rights than somthing that is currently “alive” and will eventually be “human”? Also, what about those who are very disabled? Are they entitled to “human” protections if they can not feel and think they way a “human” does? Or, could a concerned mother or father put that person “out of their misery” since they really are just alive, not a “human”.
As for Shivo, I have no problem with allowing the dying to die if THEY wish. I don’t think her case was clear cut, and no one will really know what she wanted. Everyone should have a living will to get that issue resolved.
As for assisted suicide, I feel that is something that is not moral, but since it only harms the person who has made that decision, I would NOT want any law to block it. I would support a law that requires the person who is killing him/herself to be able to commit the act on their own, so that you don’t have a doctor giving lethal injection to someone who is not aware of what is going on.
Thank you both for your constructive input!
It is absolutely disgusting and stomach turning to me that anyone would say that abortion is as bad as the Holocaust. It is unconscionable to compare the extinction of something that doesn’t even know it exists to the systematic torture and slaughter of fully cognizant human beings.
You can believe that abortion is wrong and I will respect that belief. But the medical procedure that terminates a pregnancy is NOT the same as kidnapping someone, letting them starve while making them lie in their own urine, feces, and vomit for days on end, until you shut them in a closet with a few hundred other people and kill them. It’s not the same, and it really shows a great disrespect for the people who experienced it.
I leave abortion chat to women, then it dies out fast.My sister once told me the view I think most thinking people have,especially women. ” I’d never have an abortion,I dont want anyone telling me I can’t.’