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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Why don't Anglicans do enough on abortion?
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
Has anyone mention Doug Gresham, C S Lewis' stepson? I read an interview with him some years ago where he said, in essence, as I recall, that unless we offer to personally take care of a woman and her child, we have nothing to say.
It's tended to inhibit me from saying anything since.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
I ask you to consider the fact that every scientist and it's dog is falling over themselves to do embryonic stem cell research at the moment. Including groups involved in cancer research.
The philosophical proposition that the fetus has no right to life is a primary stepping stone to ethical acceptance of embryo research. If it did not exist, such research could not be ethically allowable.
Hence, every cell biologist who is involved in such research, or thinks they might become involved in it in the future, has to lean towards a pro-choice agenda.
Now let me see if I've got this straight. Inorder for the use of embryonic stem cells to be ethically justified you reckon scientists involved, no matter how remotely, in such fields are automatically biased regarding abortion. What a high regard you have for the objectivity of scientists and our ability to maintain a professional attitude towards our work.
Let us just ask how scientists are using embryonic stem cells, and what for. They use cultures of stem cells - ie a large number of cells from an initially small number of cells (and hence from a small proportion of aborted fetuses). The knowledge gained is hoped to help understand and develop therapies for a wide range of diseases that relate to cell division (eg: cancer). Given that abortion is legal, there is nothing illegal about obtaining such cells. But, more importantly, is it ethical? Many would say yes, even those who object to abortion on ethical grounds, because as the abortion has happened why waste the stem cells that would otherwise be disposed of.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
quote:
Its not up to you to make that decision, matt. You will never have to get pregnant or give birth.
One's own status has never been considered anything except a biasing factor in one's ethical opinions Mike.
If you want to bias the value of opinions on the basis of gender, I would say it is all the more powerful defence of the position for a man to be pro-life.
After all, being being pro-abortion is definitely the easy "no collateral damage" option for any man, certainly, for one who doesn't believe in "no sex before marriage", and even more so for one who claims he does and falls short of his own moral standards with unfortunate conseqences.... ![[Two face]](graemlins/scot_twoface.gif)
matt
As no one else has picked up on this, I’m going to.
I would say that it is easier for a man to be pro-life. A man is never going to have to put his pro-life principles into practice. (Well, not fully ![[Wink]](wink.gif) ).
Most of my female friends are what Paddy would call “anti abortion”. They’re not sure that abortion is entirely right and hope that they’ll never been in a situation where they have to consider having one. But, they can imagine situations where an abortion would be the lesser of all evils – if they were pregnant and alone; pregnant with no financial support; tests showed the child would be extremely handicapped and they didn’t feel they could cope etc.
Unless medical science manages to recreate “Junior”, men will never have to go through the whole being experience that is pregnancy. Men will never have to decide between that and either abortion, adoption or child-rearing. Or live with the consequences afterwards. How many single male parents do you know that aren’t a result of either divorce or death? None I bet ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Martin PC Not, summed it up nicely:
quote:
Has anyone mention Doug Gresham, C S Lewis' stepson? I read an interview with him some years ago where he said, in essence, as I recall, that unless we offer to personally take care of a woman and her child, we have nothing to say.
It's tended to inhibit me from saying anything since.
As a medical person, you get some additional choices:
- Whether or not to perform abortions.
- Whether or not to work in fields of medicine that rely on stem cell research
- If you become a patient, your medical knowledge could be used to decide whether or not you accept methods of treatment that are derived from stem cell research.
As far as I’m aware, none of your options include writing off whole sections of the scientific research community as being too biased and greedy to accurately report their research findings for fear of offending vested interests. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif) ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif)
I’m not sure what took my breath away more – your complete lack of respect for your own peer group OR your assertion that evangelicals would support the racist thugs that make up the BNP because of their stance on specific issues … ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
I’m not sure what took my breath away more – your complete lack of respect for your own peer group OR your assertion that evangelicals would support the racist thugs that make up the BNP because of their stance on specific issues
Wait one second...are you trying to imply I'm a BNP sympathiser now??
Tubbs..that's actually pretty close to libel, whether intentionally or accidently and amounts to a personal defamation of character, by drawing in completely out of context comments I said on another thread you are quite clearly making a personal attack on me rather than addressing the issues of this thread.
I said repeatedly on that thread, that I (as an evangelical Christian) would NEVER consider voting for the BNP due to their racist foundations. Yet anyone reading your post in this thread who had not read my posts in the other thread would not be aware of this and would infer I was a racist.
I am utterly appaulled at suggestion, and as a host I would have thought you'd have a better grip on the 10 commandments than that. May I respectfully request you qualify your remarks.
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Tubbs
Miss Congeniality
# 440
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Posted
I deserved that. ![[Embarrassed]](icon_redface.gif) I didn’t mean to imply that you were a racist and am sorry if you interpreted my post that way.
As this isn’t the right place to discuss this further, I have started a thread in Hell (or I will in a moment) called “Attention Matt The Mad Medic”.
Tubbs
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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am
Posts: 12701 | From: Someplace strange | Registered: Jun 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
No problem Tubbs, my concern was simply that your comment, read by a casual observer in this thread who had not read my posts in the BNP thread would have a very distorted view of my politics! [ ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ]
matt
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
Strangely however, I have never heard a pro-choice campaigner structure their central arguement around refuting this core central statement: "A Fetus is a human being with human rights".
Matt
Never? Right on this thread;[quote
Twilight Posted 12. January 2003 21:22
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Almost everything I've ever heard a pro-life advocate say makes perfect sense, if one agrees that the life of the un-born is of the same value as the life of the born.
Nothing would excuse a mother killing her five year old child; not her miserable circumstances or his disability or whether he was the child of rape or incest - but I do not believe and never will believe that the fetus is the same as that five year old. I don't even think the pro-lifers believe it because the difference between the two keeps peaking out in their speech from time to time. For about thirty-five years now they have been working hard to get us to think of the embryo as a child and I think they have had some success. I'm not surprised that more and more young people are pro-life, but that thinking goes against thousands of years of viewing the embryo,fetus and live birth infant, as different from a five year old in many ways.[/quote]
I agree with Matt that this is the only arguement that counts. I don't think the fetus is a full "human being" with full human rights until it is born.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Whenever I've discussed abortion the beginning and end of the discussion has been whether or not the foetus is a person. Other issues come and go, but that one has always remained central.
For what it's worth, a French thinker (whose name I fail to recall) suggested the phrase personne en devenir , which roughly translates as' "becoming a person". That is, the foetus has the potential to be a person (if all sorts of things work out right) and is therefore worthy of very great respect. However, it is not yet a person, and so should not be seen as equivalent to the life of the mother, or other existing family members.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
Twilight..
quote:
I do not believe and never will believe that the fetus is the same as that five year old
Saying "I do not believe X" is not the same thing as constructing an argument for X.
You are commendable in making your statement that you think it is the only question that matters. However, you didn't construct an arguement, you stated an end conclusion. I couldn't see a conclusive train of thought in what you said.
If you have one, please give us it.
For some time now, I have been considering posting a link to websites featuring videos and pictures of abortion. This would no doubt cause the pro-choice people to roll their eyes, yet, (as twilight would presumably agree) this is fundamental evidence in the key question.
However, in the interests of good manners, I won't. Anyone who wants such a link...PM me.
Instead I shall post a link to a webpage where mothers who have had an abortion can create an internet memorial to their aborted child.
I ask you to go have a look and see how many you can read before the tears start to flow. I believe maintaining a reality check with humanity is important when engaged in an abstract philosophical debate such as this:
http://www.supportweb.org/kgroup/memorials.htm
matt
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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jlg
What is this place?
Why am I here?
# 98
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Posted
I find it very interesting, Matt, that you refute twilight's post showing that your earlier statement was incorrect by citing a technicality about debating standards, and then proceed to bring up the usual emotional tactics of "gory pictures" and sob-stories.
I thought we were having a rational discussion here, not an emotional contest. Do you really think that the "teariness response" is an accurate measure of whether something should be legal or illegal?
This sort of emotional manipulation is why I refuse to debate the abortion issue. As I stated above to Paddy Leahy, I am tired of people telling me that I don't know my own mind and feelings.
Posts: 17391 | From: Just a Town, New Hampshire, USA | Registered: May 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
I find it very interesting, Matt, that you refute twilight's post showing that your earlier statement was incorrect by citing a technicality about debating standards,
If I understand you correctly...
I said I have never heard a pro-choice campaigner start their case for an argument that the fetus is not a human being
Twilight said she had done this. She had not. She had started by stating a belief that the fetus is not a human being. To her credit she candidly stated it was a neccessary belief in order to hold a pro-choice view, but she didn't give a rational argument leading to the statement of that belief.
That's hardly a "technicality" of debating standards. The difference between making a statement based on argument and making a statement based on assumption is profound.
quote:
and then proceed to bring up the usual emotional tactics of "gory pictures" and sob-stories.
The "gory pictures" to me is not an "emotional tactic", the physical reality of abortion is a fundamental part of the debate.
In a murder trial, I have never heard of the defence objecting to the jury being shown images of the crime scene and the body on the grounds it was an "emotional tactic". It may be a fundamental piece of evidence in many cases.
And, keeping emotion out of it seems suspicously close to saying we should keep gut-instinct moral conscience out of it.
Amongst people, including my medical peers, I know of very few who deny, when witnessing terminations, that their gut moral instinct doesn't trouble them. Eventually you get used to it..desensitized might be a better word. I worked in an antomy lab with numerous aborted fetuses in jars on the shelf next to me every day for two years. Eventually I barely noticed they were there. I'm about as desensitized as you can get emotionally.
quote:
I thought we were having a rational discussion here, not an emotional contest. Do you really think that the "teariness response" is an accurate measure of whether something should be legal or illegal?
No, but I think all moral debates have a tendancy to move to the abstract. exposing oneself afresh to the reality is usually a good idea.
Once we move abstract debate, things tend to turn into "point scoring".
I find it amusing that originally on this thread I was accused of being too theoretical with concerns about the fetus and not being practical and caring about women enough etc.
I post something about the "human" side and the effect on women, and now i'm just playing the emotional card?? That seems a tad unfair.
Actually I posted the link for the beneft of both sides in the debate to read anyway.
I hope for the pro-lifers that page would encourage them to remain sensitive to the feelings of the women involved, as many pro-lifers disregard this.
For the Pro-choice group, I hope that in some way the page may open themselves to the possibility of thinking...just for a moment..of the 1.2million abortions in america per year as 1.2 million tragic deaths.
Not in order to make them believe this is the case, but just merely so they entertain as a hypothetical that it could be the case and mull over the moral consequences of that.
Every pro-choice christian must surely recognise the profound nature of the moral burden they are therefore taking upon themselves.
Let me put it this way, if you *think* a fetus is *probably* not a "person".....then you should seriously contemplate that 1.2million lives per year hang in the balance on the strength of your "probably".
Which means you need to be damn sure of your "probably".
matt
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Matt quote:
However, you didn't construct an arguement, you stated an end conclusion. I couldn't see a conclusive train of thought in what you said.
No, I didn't state an end conclusion I stated a belief. I didn't attempt an argument to prove that the embryo isn't the same as full human being anymore than you have presented proof that it is. Part of the reason that concrete proof of either theory is almost impossible is that we don't have a solid definition of "human being".
Matt quote quote:
And, keeping emotion out of it seems suspicously close to saying we should keep gut-instinct moral conscience out of it.
It's surprising how many things we agree on Matt. I think tradition and gut-instinct are very important in all this. That's why I think it's important to note that until abortion became such a hot issue in recent years, no one seemed to question that an embryo was less than a full human being. Why else was there no attempt by religious leaders to bury the aborted fetus on hallowed ground or give them last rites? Why aren't they listed in family bibles as children who have died? Thousands of years of gut-instinct and religious practice said that the embryo was not a full human being.
As to your sad stories of women who regret their abortions, I'm sure we can find just as many sad stories by women who wish just the opposite. In fact I think the main reason that women who have had abortions feel such guilt is that the right to life people have worked so hard to make them feel that way. But that's just a guess.
Matt: quote:
Every pro-choice christian must surely recognise the profound nature of the moral burden they are therefore taking upon themselves.
I've always thought it was the pro-life person who is taking upon themselves a profound moral burden. The pro-choice person is saying that each woman should be free to make her own moral decision. The pro-life person is saying to the woman (for example) whose embryo is horribly mal-formed and will have to live a life of pain, that they have made the decision for her that she cannot abort. Surely that decision should be made by the mother, father and doctor and not by the government.
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
No, I didn't state an end conclusion I stated a belief. quote:
I didn't attempt an argument to prove that the embryo isn't the same as full human being anymore than you have presented proof that it is.
The problem here seems to be the lack of a testable hypotheisis. I think both sides are equally guilty here.
You tell me what criteria would achieve full human status for a fetus, and then we have something to work on.
quote:
Part of the reason that concrete proof of either theory is almost impossible is that we don't have a solid definition of "human being".
This is scarily true, once one moves away from "that which exists once sperm meets egg", but I would argue, if that definition is abandoned, the definition is no more solid for a born human being than an unborn one. I cannot think of a single criteron which, applied to the unborn, could not also, in some circumstance apply to a born human.
Matt quote
quote:
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And, keeping emotion out of it seems suspicously close to saying we should keep gut-instinct moral conscience out of it.
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quote:
It's surprising how many things we agree on Matt. I think tradition and gut-instinct are very important in all this. That's why I think it's important to note that until abortion became such a hot issue in recent years, no one seemed to question that an embryo was less than a full human being.
But this "no one" view is simply not true.
It is given status in Psalm 139v13 "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb...v16 your eyes saw my unformed body,. all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be"
NOTE - I am NOT using this as a "religious" argument..I'm quoting the bible purely as a historical source on ancient attitudes to the unborn.
quote:
Why else was there no attempt by religious leaders to bury the aborted fetus on hallowed ground or give them last rites? Why aren't they listed in family bibles as children who have died? Thousands of years of gut-instinct and religious practice said that the embryo was not a full human being.
How about, because abortion has always, as far as possible, been kept secret? And what does that fact tell you about gut moral instinct?
Historically, the hippocratic oath of doctors says "I shall not give a woman a pessary to induce abortion". (although this is a late insertion, it is not that late)
In addition, it is only wonderful modern science that has opened up the possiblity of abortions in the second and third trimester.
It is with these abortions that the real "gut instinct" of evil kicks in.
On the other hand, modern science has given us a far better understanding of fetal development, and, the general tone of this has been the discovery of how quickly it advances.
For example we know a 10 to 11 week fetus sleeps and wakes, (evidenced by REM sleep) and sucks it's thumb. This relatively recent knowledge.
quote:
In fact I think the main reason that women who have had abortions feel such guilt is that the right to life people have worked so hard to make them feel that way. But that's just a guess.
I find the argument that "society is to blame" for personal guilt to be very weak on any issue. It sounds like just the sort of excuse someone who knows deep down they are in the wrong would make.
In addition it could be used for any example of guilt "I wouldn't feel guilty about cheating on my wife if SOCIETY didn't say it was wrong" etc etc.
Usually, if someone is angry at you for "making me feel guilty" it's because all you have done is make plain to them something they jolly well know they should feel guilty about and were trying to avoid.
quote:
I've always thought it was the pro-life person who is taking upon themselves a profound moral burden. The pro-choice person is saying that each woman should be free to make her own moral decision.
Well, you are right in one sense, but a non-decision is a decision. I conceed that the pro-choice is essentially "washing one's hands" of the ethics and leaving it to the individuals.
But you would do well to consider where that phrase comes from...and how history recorded that man's moral opt-out policy.
quote:
The pro-life person is saying to the woman (for example) whose embryo is horribly mal-formed and will have to live a life of pain, that they have made the decision for her that she cannot abort.
But this is a straw man! The key issue is abortion on demand of healthy fetuses which form the VAST majority of abortions.
I think, actually, that to persue this argument that you are shooting yourself in the foot philosophically.
What you are really saying is that we have a responsiblity to the fetus to ensure it does not have intolerable future suffering.
In which case, what you are saying (since responsibilty is reciprocal with rights) is that the fetus has a right not to be put through future suffering.
If this is the case, then it is not so much an argument for the woman to have choice whether to abort, but rather for the government to tell her that she must abort in order to protect the right of the fetus to not suffer.
Else what you are really saying is that a mother has the right to choose whether to put her child through a life time of suffering, which would, if you are to be consistent, imply there is no ethical problem with parental child abuse.
It seems you are making a philosophical U-turn. On the one hand, for abortion on demand, your argument hangs on saying the fetus has no rights, for eugenic abortion, your argument hangs on saying the fetus does have rights.
matt
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Matt quote:
You tell me what criteria would achieve full human status for a fetus, and then we have something to work on.
I would say full human status is a born infant. I agree with the French doctor quoted above that up until then the fetus is only in the process of becoming a full human being.
Matt quote:
I cannot think of a single criteron which, applied to the unborn, could not also, in some circumstance apply to a born human.
How about - can live outside the mother's body?
Matt quote:
It is given status in Psalm 139v13 "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb...v16 your eyes saw my unformed body,. all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be"
I read this passage as a poetic statement of the fact that God has made us. It could just as well say "God knew us before our parents met."
Twilight: quote:
Why else was there no attempt by religious leaders to bury the aborted fetus on hallowed ground or give them last rites? Why aren't they listed in family bibles as children who have died? Thousands of years of gut-instinct and religious practice said that the embryo was not a full human being.
Matt answers: quote:
How about, because abortion has always, as far as possible, been kept secret? And what does that fact tell you about gut moral instinct?
Sorry, I was unclear, I was talking about the spontaneous abortion of miscarriage here. It has never been kept secret but was never given last rites and buried by priests - the same priests who now tell us that the embryo is the very same as a child.
(Matt, I don't want to get into 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions with you; I'm mainly against them.)
Matt quote:
The key issue is abortion on demand of healthy fetuses which form the VAST majority of abortions.
I don't think that's the key issue at all. I think the key issue is if the government should decide whether or not a woman gets an abortion (healthy fetus or ill fetus).
Matt quote:
What you are really saying is that we have a responsiblity to the fetus to ensure it does not have intolerable future suffering.
I said no such thing. I said that "we" have no business interfering with the decision that this fetus' parents have to make.
Because I think good parents probably will consider whether or not their fetus will live a life of pain is not inconsistent with my belief that the embryo is not a full human being. Remember that the "life of pain" is going to happen to a born child, not the embryo.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Matt, by definition you know far more about medicine than I do, so anything I say could well be shot down in flames. However, as for the dividing line betwenn foetus and person, I would suggest two possibilities.
Brain wave - an independent brain wave can be detected, I believe, at about 12 weeks. Given that the lack of a brain wave is often used to determine when a life support machine should be turned off, it seems a reasonable indication to me of a human life truly beginning.
Viability - when does the foetus have a reasonable chance of survival outside the highly specialized environment of the womb? This is the arguement the law recognises, and it currently stands at 24 weeks (in UK anyway, don't know about USA).
I give two alternatives, not only because I am a wishy-washy liberal, but because I genuinely don't know. This is why I find the concept of personne en devinir so helpful - we are talking about something that is on the way to becoming human. Therefore it needs to be treated with the greatest of respect (like you I am horrified by the total figure for abortions in the UK), but does not have the same status as a full human being.
(And I found Twilight's point about the way miscarriages - spontaneous abortions - have been treated a very helpful one, in this context.)
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Has *anyone*, especially Matt, read the Easterbrook article I linked to -- it holds what I consider to be a compelling legal and medically based argument for allowing abortion to about 11-12 weeks and no later, based on current medical understanding. I don't link to articles I think are stupid.
And Matt, as to gross-out; I watched a pretty disgusting medical procedure the other day -- my natural disgust at its nastiness doesn't make surgery wrong. Our gut instinct is only so/so as a guide.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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JimT
Ship'th Mythtic
# 142
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Posted
Laura, I read the article, enjoyed it immensely and agree very much with the framework. My question for you is why you stick to the end of the first trimester (12 weeks) as the latest possible time for elective abortion when the article argues for the end of the second trimester (24 weeks)?
For the benefit of those on the thread, I'll summarize what I think are the very high points.
1. Conception leads to implantation in only 50% of fertilizations.
2. Implantation leads to live birth only 65% of the time.
One and two mean that it is impractical and perhaps impossible to grant full legal protection from conception because nature does not allow it.
3. If death is legally defined as cessation of brain function, then life should be defined as the beginning of brain function.
4. Complex, "fully wired" brain function starts at 24 weeks.
Three and four imply that life should be protected starting at 24 weeks, the beginning of the third trimester.
Posts: 2619 | From: Now On | Registered: May 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Argghhh! JimT, you're right, sign of brain decay setting in from severe sleep deprivation over the last few days. It was twenty-four weeks in the article; though, personally, *I'd* set it earlier, in order to be certain not to go crossing into viability territory. As a matter of legal line-drawing.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
When is the legal time limit on abortion in the USA? Over here it is 24 weeks, having come down from the original 28 weeks. Both of these are based on viability.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I would say full human status is a born infant. I agree with the French doctor quoted above that up until then the fetus is only in the process of becoming a full human being.
Define "born" please??
What about abortions resulting in live birth? Should the abortionist suddenly "turn caring doctor" if the baby is still alive after abortion?
Live birth is a recognised "complication" of late 2nd trimester abortion.
And of course, we have the ethical dilemma of "partial birth" abortion. At the moment,if Bush gets a partial birth abortion ban, you get the right to life when your navel is born into the world. Hurrah for lunatic legislation.
These situations highlight the fact that saying right to life begins when "born" is not sufficent as a "defining criteria".
quote:
How about - can live outside the mother's body?
But the problem here is "with what assistance?" A 9 month baby can't live outside a mothers body, unless it is artifically kept warm, fed etc.
The limit of viablity at the moment is 24 weeks.
However, this is only a limitation due to insufficent lung development. Within the next couple of years, systems of gas exchange direct with the bloodstream will dramatically push back viability, well into mid-second trimester.
In any case, A fetus could, on this measure, be "Ethically" aborted in 1970 at 30 weeks, but only aborted at up to 23 weeks in 2003? The question is, in the subjective experience of the fetus, does it care tuppence about the hypothetical question: "if removed from the womb now, would you survive?".
quote:
Sorry, I was unclear, I was talking about the spontaneous abortion of miscarriage here. It has never been kept secret but was never given last rites and buried by priests - the same priests who now tell us that the embryo is the very same as a child.
I have endevoured not to make a specifically religious case, however, since we are mentioning priests, and religious ritual it seems only fair to assess the situation from the priest's religious perspective:
The question here is surely one of God's sovreign reign over life?
If God ordains that a woman should have a miscarriage, then the preists logic is presumably that the fetus was never intended to live a life.
On the other hand, with an abortion, the fetus would have gone on to have a life, intended by God, with all it's days ordained before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139 again).
quote:
(Matt, I don't want to get into 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions with you; I'm mainly against them.)
Very commendable. Your position is very close to what I wish I could take as my own. I quite agree, I find it very hard to maintain a strongly anti-abortion stance with early (pre 9 week) abortion, or (at the extreme) the morning after pill.
Yet, I feel I must, and the reason is that, as soon as we allow abortion at one point but not another, we are drawing a line. At some arbitarily chosen hour of some day of gestation, we would be drawing an ethical line at which the fetus becomes a human being when it crosses it.
The precise drawing of this line, is necessarily arbitary,(if only due to the impossiblity of knowing exactly when conception occurred) and this raises a profound question for all human life everywhere: If we ever choose to draw a line between what is human and what is not, on a purely arbitary line, how can we not simultaneously devalue the distinction between humanity and inhumanity?
Put another way, how can we in one instance uphold the right to life as the most sacred ethic, while in another freely admit we give or withold it on the basis of an arbitary legal fiction?
quote:
I said no such thing. I said that "we" have no business interfering with the decision that this fetus' parents have to make.
It is by definition somebodies business, whether it is the parents, or the governments. (Induced) Abortions don't happen by themselves!
There are two grounds on which a mother may choose to abort an ill fetus, one is in her best interests, the other in the fetus' best interests. Your phrasing implied you were thinking primarily of the latter.
Hence, in the case of a fetus "destined for a life of pain", somebody is making a decision on behalf of that fetus.
Now, "On behalf" means "to act in the best interests of..". You cannot do this in the case of something which does not have the right to the consideration of it's best interests.
If you say the parents should in these cases, act in the best interests of the fetus, then you are saying they have a responsiblity. And if they have a responsibilty, the fetus has a reciprocal right.
(The reciprocation of X's responsiblity to Y with Y's rights with respect to X is an axiom of ethics)
quote:
Because I think good parents probably will consider whether or not their fetus will live a life of pain is not inconsistent with my belief that the embryo is not a full human being.
Again, in many cases, major fetal abnormality is not picked up till second trimester. You're use of "Embryo" is thus misleading, and would seem to conflict with your previous statement on 2nd and third trimester abortion.
quote:
Remember that the "life of pain" is going to happen to a born child, not the embryo.
I see a philosophical problem here with making choices supposedly in the interests of the fetus:
The parents of the unborn will presumably believe one of two things about what happens to the fetus if aborted:
1) Goes to some kind of heaven/eternal existence
2) Consigned to eternal oblivion of non-existence.
The problem, if you believe the first of these, is that, logically, abortion would be in the best interests of the fetus for every unborn, since all of us are destined to suffer a good deal of pain in life, and for a fair proportion of us, that may involve years of physical pain at some point during our lives.
Far better simply to go directly from the womb to eternal bliss? For all individuals?
Presumably pro-choice people believing this argument should be campaigning and forming pickets outside maternity wards on the basis of the suffering being inflicted?
The problem with the second position is a little more abstract, but, if one takes the decision to abort, obstensibly on the behalf of the fetus, then what one is saying is: "It would be better, for you, if you do not exist".
But in what sense "for you" if there is no "you"???
It is just the same in the first person. I cannot say "It would be better for me if I did not exist" because there would be no me for it to be better for.
The parents can logically say "It would be better FOR US, if you do not exist" (Or "for society" etc.."), but it is a philosophical non-starter to say "for the fetus". This doesn't necessarily make it wrong, but we should state the case accurately.
On to Laura:
quote:
Has *anyone*, especially Matt, read the Easterbrook article I linked to -- it holds what I consider to be a compelling legal and medically based argument for allowing abortion to about 11-12 weeks and no later.
Yes Laura, I read it, I meant to reply, but got distracted by defending myself from allegations of BNP membership! ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
It was a very good article in many respects, but, fell into a few classic "Theories of Mind" traps with respect to EEG which I will comment on properly later.
As a brief example of the inherent flaws in his brain-wave paradigm: A fitting epileptic, will go into EEG "flatline"...they are not brain dead. There are many other examples. The whole issue of fetal monitoring (both ECG and EEG) and it's interpretation is hot potato at the moment, and his intepretation of the EEG is, shall we say "creative". I will follow this up.
quote:
And Matt, as to gross-out; I watched a pretty disgusting medical procedure the other day -- my natural disgust at its nastiness doesn't make surgery wrong.
I find it mildly insulting you think my objection would be on the grounds "it's gross". I'm probably the only person in this discussion to hold half a human face in my hands i a medical school dissection lab.
When you see piles of emaciated corpses on footage from auchwitz, your reaction is not to be sickened because it's "gross" is it?? It is to be sickened because it is an obvious affront to humanity.
Images of a fetus, killed by saline abortion, it's skin burned in manner similar to a napalm victim, (leading abortionists to refer to such fetuses as "Toffee Apple Babies"...charming people!) are not sickening because they are "gross". They are sickening because they are an affront to our humanity.
Finally..to Wanderer:
quote:
When is the legal time limit on abortion in the USA? Over here it is 24 weeks, having come down from the original 28 weeks. Both of these are based on viability.
I wish!!! In practice the 1990 act in the UK increased the abortion limit. the original 1967 abortion act was pretty strict on 28 weeks.
The 1967 act (as ammended 1990) has the following provisions (Number in brackets is the number of abortions carried out under that provison in 2000:
A)Risk of life to the Mother (141)
B)To prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the mother (1654)
C)Risk of unjury to the physical or mental health of the mother great than if the pregnancy were terminated (170,167)
D)Risk of injury to the physical or mental health of existing children (9593)
E) Substantial risk of the child being born seriously Handicapped (1833)
F)In an emergency - to save the mothers life (1)
G) In an emergency -to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the mother (2)
In 1967, the 28 week limit applied to most catagories, but in 1990 the 24 week limit was applied to only Catagory C and D.
The consequence is, that all a doctor has to do is tick the Catagory B box post 24 weeks rather than the Catagory C.
The problem is "grave permenant injury to MENTAL health" in B is entirely subjective assessment of the doctor ticking the form.
1654 abortions were performed in the year 2000 under provision B.
A fair percentage of these are probably late "abortion on demand", because if there was a real threat to the mother's physical health the doctor would go for A, F, or G.
matt
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Basket Case
Shipmate
# 1812
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Posted
If fetuses are as fully people as, say, my next door neighbor, how about “spontaneous” abortions – the number of which is very high?
Should we fish them out of the toilet and bury them?
I am sorry to be so graphic and gross, but as fertile women know, life is pretty gross, if you define life in terms of tissue rather than relationships.
And, I have heard that Jews have an ancient custom of not praying Kaddish for infants until they are 30 days old – by which time their family has formed a relationship with them (I assume that’s at least part of the reason).
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Xavierite
Shipmate
# 2575
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Posted
People spontaneously die throughout life. The fact that many don't make the first hurdle doesn't reduce the worth of their lives.
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Matt, I don't want you to think I've rudely quit reading your painstaking posts but I am going to quit replying to this thread because I believe I'm just repeating myself now and others (like Laura's link) say it better.
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
What Twilight said. I've explained my position, you don't accept it, you've explained yours, I don't accept it. I think we'll just have to leave things there.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
If fetuses are as fully people as, say, my next door neighbor, how about “spontaneous” abortions – the number of which is very high?
Should we fish them out of the toilet and bury them?
Threefold reply:
First, some people do choose to hold a memorial of some kind for miscarriages or in some way "mark" them.
Second, Burial rights as an indication of humanity seems false to me. Both because a) some sentimental people bury cats and dogs with ceremony and b) because some people dispose of humans with virtually no ceremony.
Your correlation between burial rites and human rights seems highly questionable therefore.
Third, to someone who believes in a God with for-knowledge of events, an spontaneous and induced abortion are manifestly different events.
In the case of an abortion, either God intended it to become a person (in which case abortion should not be performed) or he would have miscarried it anyway (in which case the abortion is unneccessary).
The third of these points is an openly religious argument, and hence I have not used it before on this thread, but the question is openly religious. (refering to burial rights etc).
matt
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Merseymike
Shipmate
# 3022
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Posted
'become' a person - exactly.
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Christianity is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be experienced
Posts: 3360 | From: Walked the plank | Registered: Jul 2002
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
'become' a person - exactly.
The part you quote out of context is from a theological argument.
Being a nice sort of chap, while taking up the theological side of things I hypothetically conceeded to the pro-life view from a physical/secular ethics perspective.
I suppose you could phrase it as: "Even if on a secular basis we say that the fetus is not yet a life, on a religious one, the case to be proved becomes even tougher due to God's fore-planning. A fetus which is yet to "become" a human being physically is already concieved as person in the heart of God."
I don't actually believe the "Even if" myself, religion set aside. I raised a religious response to a religious question (about ceremonial burial).
As I said, I wouldn't do so, except in response to a religious argument.
matt
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3M Matt.
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jlg
What is this place?
Why am I here?
# 98
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Posted
Posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
quote:
quote:
[(Matt, I don't want to get into 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions with you; I'm mainly against them.)
Very commendable. Your position is very close to what I wish I could take as my own. I quite agree, I find it very hard to maintain a strongly anti-abortion stance with early (pre 9 week) abortion, or (at the extreme) the morning after pill.
Yet, I feel I must, and the reason is that, as soon as we allow abortion at one point but not another, we are drawing a line. At some arbitarily chosen hour of some day of gestation, we would be drawing an ethical line at which the fetus becomes a human being when it crosses it.
The precise drawing of this line, is necessarily arbitary,(if only due to the impossiblity of knowing exactly when conception occurred) and this raises a profound question for all human life everywhere: If we ever choose to draw a line between what is human and what is not, on a purely arbitary line, how can we not simultaneously devalue the distinction between humanity and inhumanity?
[emphasis added]
I think you have finally shown your true colors, Matt. All this time you have been arguing a very hard line, and it turns out you don't 100% believe in it yourself. But you have beaten the rest of us over the head with long, tedious posts trying to get us to agree that legal life begins at conception. But despite your personal justification for "conception", you are just drawing an arbitrary line, too.
Perhaps if you had been honest from the beginning, instead of taking a hard-line stance, this could have been a genuine discussion and debate about the difficult issue of deciding where to draw the line in that gray area between conception and birth. I doubt we would have come to any definitive agreement, but I suspect there would have been a more inclusive discussion and perhaps more shipmates would have seriously pondered how they felt. As it is, this is just another "he says, she says" pseudo-debate and 99% of us will go away unchanged or even hardened in our pre-existing views and opinions.
Posts: 17391 | From: Just a Town, New Hampshire, USA | Registered: May 2001
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jlg
What is this place?
Why am I here?
# 98
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Posted
Oh, and by the way:
quote:
Posted by Matt the Mad Medic:I see a philosophical problem here with making choices supposedly in the interests of the fetus:
The parents of the unborn will presumably believe one of two things about what happens to the fetus if aborted:
1) Goes to some kind of heaven/eternal existence
2) Consigned to eternal oblivion of non-existence.
You forgot option #3) Believes in some form of re-birth/reincarnation.
I haven't brought this up until now, because I presumed that arguments in this thread were intended to be based on the Christian belief in a single after-life. But if you include #2, you need to include #3.
And also #1A) Belief that miscarriages, stillborn babies, unbaptized babies, etc., go to some non-Heaven afterlife (e.g., Limbo, Purgatory, or even Hell?).
Posts: 17391 | From: Just a Town, New Hampshire, USA | Registered: May 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
quote:
I think you have finally shown your true colors, Matt. All this time you have been arguing a very hard line, and it turns out you don't 100% believe in it yourself.
Not at all...my comment "find it very hard to maintain a strongly anti-abortion stance with early (pre 9 week) abortion, or (at the extreme) the morning after pill." was a comment on my emotive response. Of course, I find it much harder to feel a “gut instinct” response against seeing someone flush out a test tube with a microscopic zygote in it, than seeing a 20 week abortion. That was all I was saying. Late abortion is a no-brainer in that sense.
Ethically, and theologically, there are arguments which apply identically to both.
quote:
debate about the difficult issue of deciding where to draw the line in that gray area between conception and birth.
The very act of "drawing a line", wherever that line is drawn, brings into play the idea of having "qualifying criteria" for full humanity status.
This concept is a profound undermining of all ethical principles and creates a paradox.
The paradox is founded in the fact that ethics only apply to people. If an entity is not a person, then ethics don't apply to it. Hold that thought.
When we debate what criteria define “personhood” therefore, those criteria cannot themselves be ethically derived, since this would create a circular argument. (Ethics only apply to people, and it is in debate whether the entity in question is a person, so to use ethics in deriving the criteria puts the cart before the horse)
This means, it is, by definition, impossible to “draw a line” based on ethics.
The line is, in itself, the very definition of who ethics does and doesn’t apply to. Hence the placement of the line can never be “unethical”. It serves as the marker of where ethics begins.
The impact of what intially seems a trivial logical anomaly is disturbing, because once we understand that the location of the line is not, in itself, an ethical decision, the position of that line becomes ethically completely fluid. You can set it wherever you like: At birth, at 2 years old, 20 years old...
It goes further: You can put in any criteron you like: eg. “you must have blue eyes to qualify as a person”. Your “line” will never be “unethical” because it is the only marker of where ethics begins...if you are on the wrong side of the line, ethics don't apply to you, because you are not a person.
Hence, the only ethical solution for coherent ethics is to abandon the idea of “drawing a line” at all and move instead to the concept of prima facie right to personhood.
Yet this principle of prima facie right is made null and void by a pro-choice stance, since this (as we all seem to agree) involves drawing a “humanity line” somewhere, and in the process draws a line right through the idea of ethics altogether.
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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3M Matt
Shipmate
# 1675
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Posted
Well, heck..I thought my posts were overlong and pedantic enough already...but since you asked:
quote:
You forgot option #3) Believes in some form of re-birth/reincarnation.
Actually, I considered it...but it goes with out saying,from the fetus perspective you might send it on to something better, or send it to something worse, if worse see my next comment..if better, see comment about heaven.
quote:
go to some non-Heaven afterlife (e.g., Limbo, Purgatory, or even Hell?).
Hell?? I felt it was a pretty safe bet that a mother who believed having an abortion would send her baby to the fiery pits of eternal hell probably wouldn't have an abortion on the grounds of "The fetus' best interests".
This sort of seemed to go without saying, and I thought it might have been insulting to most people's intelligence to include it.
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3M Matt.
Posts: 1227 | From: London | Registered: Nov 2001
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Matt the Mad Medic:
A fetus could, on this measure, be "Ethically" aborted in 1970 at 30 weeks, but only aborted at up to 23 weeks in 2003?
Matt,
You may have reached the logical conclusion of a philosophy which thinks in terms of an absolute right to life.
But not all of us think that way. Suppose that one thinks about ethics in terms of weighing up the available options and selecting the best (or least worst).
With that as a paradigm, then it doesn't seem logically incorrect to argue that advances in technology, by opening up additional options, change which is the "least worst" option, and therefore the ethically best decision.
If killing the fetus is a worse option then letting it live, but for the State to compel a woman to continue to carry a fetus is worse than leaving her free to choose to discontinue, then a viability criterion may represent the best legal option, depending upon the degree of weight that people give to these two principles.
The fact that children can't survive on their own until age whatever is beside the point - the point is that once they can survive outside the womb then expelling them does not equal killing them; the two principles (the life of the fetus and the woman's autonomy over her own body) are no longer totally opposed.
You may say that the horrific reality of present day abortion is a long way from philosophical niceties.
But at one extreme (killing a viable baby without extra-ordinary justification - such as the life of the mother being at risk) I think most of us would agree that it's wrong.
You seem to be saying that you have to "hold the line" in the case that represents the other extreme (the morning after pill) because your ethical system can't cope with grey areas.
Russ
PS: neat name, Twilight. Life is more complex than light and darkness. Wish I'd thought of that...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
{Secret cry for help; please send Matt and me to a clinic for people-who-can't-stop-talking-about-this.}
I read a good book a few years ago about the whole abortion stalemate and our inability to reach a compromise. The writer, whose name I've forgotten of course, said that our biggest problem was this fear both sides have of "opening the door." Pro-Choice can't disallow late term abortions because it would "open the door" to ending legal abortion. Right to Life can't allow morning after pills or stem cell research because it would "open the door" to a mind set that allows abortion.
I agree with the writer that we don't need to fear each other and that we can start chipping away at the ends off our time lines and someday meet in the middle.
What we usually can agree on is that there are far too many abortions each year. I'm shocked at the number of young women who seem to use abortion as a form of birth control. If both sides would work harder to encourage the use of reliable birth control, abortions could probably be reduced by about 90%.
Most abortions are due to unwanted pregnancy and most unwanted pregnancy is a result of insufficient birth control. What if we really worked to teach young people the importance of responsible birth control? What if we told them that while condoms are good at preventing disease they aren't very good at preventing pregnancy? What if we told girls that trusting their boyfriends to "take care of that side of it" was risky business indeed? What if we told them that their boyfriends were actually likely to love then less if they got pregnant? What if we told Christian girls that seeing a doctor to get Norplant or the pill before starting a sexual relationship with their boyfriend was not evidence of a pre-meditated watonness but evidence of a responsible young woman? What if we encouraged use of the morning after pill? What if we worked to find a better pregnancy test so that girls could find out whether they were pregnant after the first missed period? If we could reduce abortion in large numbers then maybe we would have a better chance of keeping it legal for the women who really need to have that option open.
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
I'd stop you, Twilight, but rereading this thread has sapped my will to live. So you'll just have to stop yourself. If you really want to.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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duchess
Ship's Blue Blooded Lady
# 2764
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl - Liberal Backslider:
quote:
Doctors never declare a person dead if they are brain dead since their other organs are still active.
Bzzzzzt!! Wrong. But thank you for playing. Brain death is exactly the criterion doctors use to ascertain that someone is dead.
http://www.transweb.org/qa /asktw/answers/answers9509/braindeath.html - I draw your attention to the following:
quote:
Brain death is defined as the irreversible loss of all functions of the brain.
and:
quote:
A person who is declared brain dead is legally dead.
In Iowa (and most other states) two physicians must declare a person brain dead before organ donation can proceed.
Now, how accurate are your other statements I wonder?
I do trust you haven't come here merely to crusade?
I have not had time to keep up with this thread (Direct TV went out of business darn it and I am waiting for SBC yahoo to send out their equipment), I am jumping on here off and on SoF from work. I am though going to send my mom an e-mail since this is so her...she is a neurologist and she hails from Iowa. I will report back her answer later since you got me curious.
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♬♭ We're setting sail to the place on the map from which nobody has ever returned ♫♪♮
Ship of Fools-World Party
Posts: 11197 | From: Do you know the way? | Registered: May 2002
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Ms Byronic
Apprentice
# 3942
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Posted
I cannot let Laura's postings about the relationship between abortion and breast cancer go unchallenged.
With respect, they were the most appallingly inaccurate, biased, misleading surveys of the scientific evidence I have yet come across.
Laura's posts would fail to pass muster in the editorial pages of the most blatantly 'pro-choice' publications as their inaccuracy would leave the publication open to legal challenge.
The fact of the matter is that THE VAST MAJORITY OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE have found a link between induced abortion and breast cancer.
Some 28 out of 37 worldwide studies have found an increased likelihood of breast cancer among aborting women.
Before I indulge in a little block quoting of my own let me first turn my attention to the work of Professor Joel Brind, which was disparaged by Laura.
Joel Brind's work was comprehensively examined by the British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG).
The RCOG concluded that Brind's epidemiological studies into a link between abortion and breast cancer 'had no major methodological shortcomings' and 'should not be discounted' which is just as well since Professor Brind is a respected academic and authority on the subject.
Most of the studies into the abortion breast cancer link have been conducted by abortion supporters. The first study was published in an English publication in 1957 and focused on Japanese women. It showed a 2.6 relative risk or 160% increased risk of breast cancer among women who'd had an induced abortion. [Segi et al. (1957) GANN 48 (Suppl.):1-63]
These studies suggest that an induced abortion cause biological changes to occur in a woman's breasts which make her more susceptible to breast cancer. This is one of two ways in which abortion causes breast cancer. Delayed first full term pregnancy is a second way in which abortion causes this disease.
Abortion is an "elective surgical procedure and a woman’s exposure to the hormones of early pregnancy -- if it is interrupted -- is so great, that just one interrupted pregnancy is enough to make a significant difference in her risk" [Professor Joel Brind, President, Breast Cancer Prevention Institute, Endeavour Forum Public Meeting, August 24, 1999, Malvern, Victoria, Australia].
Because western women already face a high lifetime risk of developing breast cancer of about 12.5 percent, boosting that risk by even a small percentage through the procurement of a single induced abortion is comparable to the risk of lung cancer from long-term heavy smoking. Approximately 1 in 100 women procuring an abortion is expected to die as a result of abortion-induced breast cancer.
An Authoritative Medical Text for doctors who specialize in breast diseases discusses the causes of breast cancer. It states that the exposure of the breasts to oestrogen for long periods of time proportionately increases breast cancer risk, and it specifically identifies abortion as a risk factor. It says, "Long-term exposure to endogenous oestrogens (early menarche; late menopause; late age at first full-term pregnancy; and being overweight, leading to increased aromatization of circulating androgens to oestrogens) appears to increase cancer risk. Risk is decreased only with early menopause (natural or artificial) and childbearing. However, first-trimester abortion increases risk." [Robert B. Dickson, Ph.D., Marc E. Lippman, MD, "Growth Regulation of Normal and Maglignant Breast Epithelium," The Breast: Comprehensice Management of Benign and Malignant Diseases, edited by Kirby I. Bland MD and Edward M. Copeland III, MD; (1998) W.B. Saunders Company; 2nd edition; Vol 1, p.519.]
The Medical Text cited the Henderson lecture to support the statement that "first-trimester abortion increases risk." Henderson said, "Recently, we found that a first-trimester abortion, whether spontaneous or induced, before the first full-term pregnancy is actually associated with an increase in the risk of breast cancer." [Henderson, B.E., Ross R., Berstein, L.; "Oestrogens as a cause of human cancer," The Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award Lecture, University of Southern California School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California: Cancer Res 48:246-253, 1988]
The Henderson Lecture was published in 1988. The statement asserting that abortion is linked with increased breast cancer risk was based on two studies, the first of which Henderson co-authored and was the first published American study. [Pike MC, Henderson BE, Casagrande JT, et al. "Oral contraceptive use and early abortion as risk factors for breast cancer in young women," Br. J. Cancer (1981) 43:72-76; and Hadjimichael OC, Boyle CA, and Meigs JW, "Abortion before first live birth and risk of breast cancer," Br. J. Cancer (1986) 53:281-284.]
Scientists from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, Bruce Stadel and Phyllis Wingo, and two other prominent epidemiologists were convinced of a link in 1986. They co-authored a letter to the British journal, Lancet, and said, "Induced abortion before first term pregnancy increases the risk of breast cancer." [Feb, 22, 1986, p. 436] They acknowledged the independent effect of an induced abortion on breast cancer risk at a time when there were only two American studies linking abortion with the disease. [Pike et al. (1981)
Dr. Janet Daling, an abortion supporter, and her colleagues at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center were commissioned by the National Cancer Institute to conduct a study to determine if induced abortion raises breast cancer risk. The study found that, "among women who had been pregnant at least once, the risk of breast cancer in those who had experienced an induced abortion was 50% higher than among other women."
High Risk Groups
Daling identified 3 high risk groups and reported these findings:
1) Women under the age of 18 or over the age of 29 who obtained induced abortions have more than a twofold increase in risk.
2) Women with a family history of breast cancer who procured an abortion were found to have statistically significant risk increases of 80 percent.
3) Teenagers with a family history of the disease who procured abortions before the age of 18 were found to have incalculably high risk. All 12 women in Daling's study with this background were diagnosed with breast cancer by the age of 45. [Daling et al. (1994) J Natl Cancer Inst 86:505-14.]
An additional high risk group was identified by Dr. Amelia Laing of Howard University:
1. African American women had a 50% increased risk before the age of 40, a 180% increased risk between the ages 41 and 49 and a 370% increased risk after age 50 if they'd ever procured at least one abortion. [Laing et al. (1993) J Natl Med Assoc 85:931-9]
A subsequent study by this author comparing sisters, one of which had procured an abortion, reported a 144% increased risk. [Laing et al. (1994) Genet Epidemiology 11: A300]
Jane Orient, MD, a spokeswoman for the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons, told World Net Daily that, “If you look at the number of studies that show a connection, they vastly outnumber the ones that don’t, and the ones that don’t have been criticized for serious methodological flaws.” She reported that the elevated risk is “substantial, particularly in women who abort their first pregnancy at a young age and who have a family history of breast cancer. It’s something like 800 percent.” She added, “I think (doctors) should inform patients about this,” and the information “should include the potential connection with breast cancer as well as the long-term psychological risk.” [John Dougherty, “Can doctors be sued over abortion? Those who don’t inform patients of breast cancer link could be targets,” World Net Daily, <www.worldnetdaily.com>, March 27, 2002]
In short there is very good evidence of a link between induced abortion and breast cancer. Those soi-disant 'pro-choice' activists who decry research results they dislike expose their real contempt for women's health as well as their Stalinist disregard for open debate.
Increasingly the focus is shifting from research into abortion and its contraindications - there are plenty of studies showing links between abortion and morbidity to be getting along with - and towards achieving fully informed consent amongst aborting women.
Off course, groups like the aforementioned Planned Parenthood use every legal ruse to prevent women from accessing accurate, non-biased information about the health and psychological effects of abortion.
But then Planned Parenthood have an ideological (they were founded by racist, eugenicist Margaret Sanger) and financial interest in promoting abortion. So Laura, Planned Parenthood leave a lot to be desired as reliable sources on abortion and breast cancer - as I have shown.
Given the overwhelming evidence of a link between induced abortion and breast cancer - 28 out of 37 worldwide studies - Laura has some chutzpah talking about 'pro-life misinformation'.
I am happy to debate pro versus anti-life positions on various grounds but I will not stand for a willful misrepresentation of the scientific record.
Women's lives are too precious and breast cancer is too deadly to allow honest, accurate discussion into its causes to be stymied by those with an ideological axe to grind.
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Ms Byronic
Apprentice
# 3942
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Posted
On May 17, 2001 Dr Thomas Stuttaford a pro-choice medical columnist and trustee of the Birth Control Trust, wrote in The Times:
“Breast cancer is diagnosed in 33,000 women in the U.K. each year; of these, an unusually high proportion had an abortion before eventually starting a family. Such women are up to four times more likely to develop breast cancer.
“A report by the Royal Statistical Society shows that a termination of pregnancy interrupts the cellular changes that occur in the breast during pregnancy. Once the woman has had children, the effect is less because the cellular changes have been completed....”
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Ms Byronic
Apprentice
# 3942
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Posted
I agree with virtually everything Paddy has written on this thread but for one thing.
He wrote about immigration:
As for accepting more immigrants. There are several major problems:
- We currently need 1.2 million a year. We're only taking in 200,000.
- Doesn't do much good for race relations!
- Migrants tend to settle on the major cities like Birmingham, London, Manchester...but these aren't the areas with population problems. They need to settle in places like Wales. Now presuming you don't believe its right to force people to settle somewhere, we've got a slight problem!
- Also its morally wrong to steal doctors/nurses and other workers off countries that need them more. For instance, we are currently importing a lot of doctors from South Africa (1/4 of the NHS is going to retire by 2005) - but ZA needs these doctors more than we do (AIDS crisis!).
Yes there is a problem with the birth rate in the UK and much of the western world - currently below replacement rate and hence the pensions crisis now and welfare state crisis to come.
Yes we aren't taking in nearly enough immigrants.
BUT NO, TAKING IN INCREASED NUMBERS OF IMMIGRANTS DOES NOT WORSEN RACE RELATIONS.
The only thing which harms race relations is that European disease, known as 'racism'.
There is nothing inevitable about an increase in community tensions with an increase in the number of immigrants.
No, I don't think Paddy is a segregationist, I just think he got his thinking muddled on this one.
That European disease is in many ways, guilty of the current abortion situation of course; many of the activists who campaigned for contraception and the 1967 abortion act were members of the British Eugenics Society (BES).
It is no accident that the Brook birth control clinics were set up by eugenicist, Lady Helen Brook with office space from the BES after she had taken fright at the fecundity of Irish and Afro-Caribbean immigrants compared to the 'native' population.
Turning my mind to some of the earlier posts which expressed the most libellous and silly sentiments against pro-life activists, I must pick up on those made by Elizabeth Anne, Zeke and Merseymike.
They expressed dreary variations on the theme of 'pro-lifers care about life in the womb but not out of it'.
I had thought such ignorant, uneducated thoughts went out with the ark but it appears not.
So just to use myself as an example.
I was a member of the Labour Party but let my membership lapse once the Blair government whipped through reductions to single parent benefit back in '97.
I am a member of the Child Poverty Action Group.
I am also active in Amnesty International.
I believe in redistributive taxation and oppose any cuts in welfare benefits whatsoever.
So put that in your stereotypical pipe and smoke it!
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Having been personally attacked by Ms. Byronic in a most outrageous way, for posts recognized as well-balanced and which were intelligently engaged by everyone else, rather than by fonts of drivel and quotes torn from so-called pro-life websites. I refuse to deal with an insulting crusader of this sort. I expect an apology.
[ 06. February 2003, 04:27: Message edited by: Laura ]
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ms Byronic:
Laura's posts would fail to pass muster in the editorial pages of the most blatantly 'pro-choice' publications as their inaccuracy would leave the publication open to legal challenge.
The fact of the matter is that THE VAST MAJORITY OF SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE have found a link between induced abortion and breast cancer.
Some 28 out of 37 worldwide studies have found an increased likelihood of breast cancer among aborting women.
This is simply not true, as has been pointed out. Hysterical repetitions of studies which failed to take into account critical controlling factors, and which are repeatedly cited by people with an ideological agenda cannot be taken as seriously as those by truly independent organizations. I have no stock in believing one way or another on the breast cancer issue, which is in any case irrelevant, as Matt pointed out.
I'm sure Ms. "Byronic" would not wish us to use the medical risks associated with pregnancy and childbirth against the pro-life position.
Abortion is either right or wrong. Whether it has other risks attached to it is a secondary question not finally of interest from an ethical point of view.
[ 06. February 2003, 04:26: Message edited by: Laura ]
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
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Ms Byronic
Apprentice
# 3942
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Posted
Laura, you weren't 'personally attacked' your posts were disputed in a robust and no-nonsense fashion.
If you are prepared to apologise to the Pro Life Community for your libellous comments about 'misinformation' I'm perfectly prepared to extend the olive branch to you.
The fact of the matter is that you wilfully misprepresented the scientific record in your posts. I thought that deserved a rejoinder.
If you want to take it further and have my posts excised from the thread and my name removed from the list of approved posters you are perfectly free to do so. I would consider such an action to be a Stalinist offence against freedom of speech and unworthy of a 'Christian' website.
I 'engaged' with the discussion on abortion and breast cancer by disagreeing with your post - which I thought dishonest and lacking in rigour.
I commented on the content of your post - as anyone is surely within their rights to do - and countered it with reference to plenty of research studies.
Do I have an interest in the issues? Yes. Four of my close female, first and second degree female relatives have contracted breast cancer. One of them has died from the disease. I am particularly allergic to efforts to stamp on discussion of the causes of breast cancer for political reasons.
And I reserve the right to engage with and challenge individuals who misrepresent the scientific record for their own political purposes.
I will be charitable and assume that you weren't aware of the weight of evidence linking induced abortion with the incidence of breast cancer.
But then before you libelled pro-lifers you should have done your research.
As I said, women's lives, in my case, my aunts life, was too important and breast cancer too deadly a disease for honest and accurate debate on its causes to be shut down by misleading comment.
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Ms Byronic
Apprentice
# 3942
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Posted
Having re-read Laura's post it seems to me that she is in denial.
I'm afraid that it simply IS TRUE that THE MAJORITY OF RESEARCH STUDIES HAVE FOUND A LINK BETWEEN INDUCED ABORTION AND BREAST CANCER.
Some 28 out of 37 worldwide studies have reported an elevated breast cancer risk amongst aborting women.
FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE, I'VE EVEN GIVEN REFERENCES, I'M NOT MAKING THE SCIENTIFIC RECORD UP!
That's not hysteria (I'm not having hysterics, I think its tragic) that is a matter of fact.
I think Laura should apologise to me for accusing me of lying.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Ms Byronic, it seems to me that Laura was simply stating the obvious. That despite the studies so far conducted there is no proof either way of a link between abortion and breast cancer.
Now, I'm no expert on epidemiology but the problem all such studies have is that of accounting for other influences. Many different factors will influence the incidence of breast cancer; including such things as diet, smoking, environmental factors (eg atmospheric pollution). Some of these may well be correlated with abortion rates - for example, if abortions are more common among poorer women who are concerned they may not be able to properly care for a child then these women may have poorer diets or live in areas with greater air pollution. If that is the case then a study which doesn't correctly account for such influences will probably produce an apparent increase in breast cancer rates among women who have had abortions. The study will need to be designed to account for these factors (eg: include measurements of air pollution where the subjects live), and preferably involve a large number of subjects. Older studies will often have failed to account for factors only later found to be important, and often the information needed to reanalyse the data taking into account new knowledge will not be available. A statement about 28 of 37 studies showing an effect are pretty irrelevant - you need to know the quality of each study and what factors have been included at the design stage.
Finally, some brief comments that struck me from your long post. To say that abortion increases cancer risk because of delayed first birth isn't relevant - most women who have abortions weren't planning on having a child at that time, so the abortion itself won't necessarily influence when the first child is born.
I find the discussion of hormonal changes during pregnancy and abortion to be a plausible mechanism. But then again, women on the pill are exposed to different levels of hormones - and many of these women will have an abortion if they get pregnant, and I wonder whether the effects of the pill are accounted for. I'd also expect similar hormonal changes, and hence increased cancer incidence, as a result of miscarriage - has anyone conducted any epidemiological study relating natural abortions to cancer?
Alan
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Ah - clears throat nervously - Ms Byronic? On the matter of abortion and breast cancer, I have no idea whether Laura or you are correct. The evidence you both amass is impressive, but I lack the medical expertise to analyse it. However, the tone you are taking is a bit hard to handle. When you say: quote:
I cannot let Laura's postings about the relationship between abortion and breast cancer go unchallenged.
With respect, they were the most appallingly inaccurate, biased, misleading surveys of the scientific evidence I have yet come across.
Laura's posts would fail to pass muster in the editorial pages of the most blatantly 'pro-choice' publications as their inaccuracy would leave the publication open to legal challenge.
you are coming out with all guns blazing. As someone who has no official standing, but who has been around for a while, I'd like to say that this isn't the way debates in Purgatory normally go. We do disagree with one another, very strongly at times, but we try to preserve a tone of calm rationality. Such a full frontal assualt is far more the province of Hell. And by being over emotive in Purgatory you run the risk that folk won't take your actual points as serioulsy as the may deserve.
I'm butting in to say all this. Strictly speaking it is none of my business, and normally I suspect a Host would be having a quiet word. However, I also suspect that - since Laura is not just a Host but an Administrator - if one of them were to speak it might look like "the Establishment" closing ranks. That isn't the way things work round here, but the tone of your remarks also doesn't fit in with what the rest of us are used to. If you could tone things down a little I suspect you would find people here more ready to listen to you.
Hope this helps - apologies if it doesn't.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
Dear Ms. Byronic,
You clearly are unfamiliar with serious, robust debate if you believe what you are doing constitutes same. As Alan pointed out, you (and many pro-life readers) are reading into studies propositions for which they do not stand. You accused me of "willful" dishonesty and incompetence at reading, for which I still await an apology. I have neither slandered the pro-life community, nor the scientists in the studies you mention. I have respect for the principled pro-life position, which it is unnecessary to support with bad science. Whatever any study says about the physical effects of abortion is a secondary matter to its ethicality, which is the primary question. If in the end there does prove to be a link regarding abortion and breast cancer (as there has been for breast cancer and alcohol consumption) this will not affect my position on whether abortion should remain legally available any more than it affects my position on whether alcohol should continue to be legally available.
Further, as to your asserted reasonableness in engaging in debate, I hold this up for all to consider:
quote:
If you want to take it further and have my posts excised from the thread and my name removed from the list of approved posters you are perfectly free to do so. I would consider such an action to be a Stalinist offence against freedom of speech and unworthy of a 'Christian' website.
I've never seen a straw man this big on the Ship-of-Fools. In fact, I've rarely seen one this big in real life.
If you want to attack me personally any further, I'm sure one of my fellow hosts here will tell you to relocate your argument to Hell, so that you will not further distract from the important points being debated here.
And it's an exceptionally cheap shot to bring up a relative with breast cancer as if this is to convince us of the evils of abortion. You are arguing with a person who has two relatives who suffered from breast cancer, and many more who had assorted other sorts of cancers which killed them. A reasoned person does not flog another reasoned person in debate with personal tragedy in order to win points. And frankly, I'm not the person you want to get into a family-tragedy competition with, believe me.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
I initially had some interest in this thread because ++Rowan is a superb theologian, as I previously mentioned. Judging from his past work, I am sure that he would not have seen this topic in isolation. When I periodically visited again, I was struck by an overall impression which by no means applies only to this topic.
In relation to any moral issue, and regardless of one's individual position, it just does not work to argue purely from a standpoint of natural consequences. (I'm sure we all are agreed that it is wrong to steal - that would not be altered by whether or not one was caught.) Many times, during my own lifetime, I have seen theologians (who attempted to write popular rather than scholarly works), preachers, et al, find that the points they were trying to make were lost when a natural consequence they used for illustration no longer existed, perhaps because of a change in society's views.
Despite the C of E's official position 'against,' obviously ++Rowan is in a situation where most people see the availability of abortion as a necessity. On this and any issue, it is always quite interesting to see how a moral point may be treated when it is contrary to general viewpoints.
Those who believe abortion is a murder cannot present (for example) a connection with breast cancer as a logical defence of the argument. There is no logic in that at all.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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John Holding
Coffee and Cognac
# 158
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Posted
Ms Byronic -- "The European disease of racism"?
Excuse me.
Please say that with a straight face to the formerly Indian inhabitants of eastern Africa who were so badly treated by the original inhabitants.
In fact, please say that with a straight face to the members of any minority group that looks different to the majority.
Of course (some) Europeans are racist. So are some of every group on this earth. Racism is, oddly enough, not race-specific. And by suggesting that all, and only, Europeans are racist, you are indulging in a most unpleasent bit of stereotyping.
John Holding
Posts: 5929 | From: Ottawa, Canada | Registered: May 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Newman's Own:
Those who believe abortion is a murder cannot present (for example) a connection with breast cancer as a logical defence of the argument. There is no logic in that at all.
Just so. Because if you do, you end up having to accept the consequences if it turns out that abortion has some beneficial medical effect.
The first question is: Is it right/wrong?
The second is: Ought it be legally prohibited? (there are wrong things that are not legally prohibited).
The third through 5 millionth are: What else do we know about abortion? Is it bad for you? Is it psychologically damaging in the short term? In the long term? Is it what I must do in these circumstances in which I find myself? Is it selfish? Is it courageous? Does it confer any benefits? et-bloody-cetera.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
Posts: 16883 | From: East Coast, USA | Registered: Apr 2001
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Newman's Own
Shipmate
# 420
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Posted
Lest I be misunderstood - the last paragraph of my previous post had to do with faulty construction of logical arguments. I was using an example related to this thread, but by no means implying that logical errors are confined to any particular topic!
I also was referring to such fallacies in any case where anyone is seeking to set forth a logical argument - it was not intended as a lack of awareness of "et-bloody-cetera." Once anyone disregards logic, further development of any theme tends to fall further and further into what is irrelevant (to that argument) in order to keep from contradicting oneself.
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Cheers,
Elizabeth
“History as Revelation is seldom very revealing, and histories of holiness are full of holes.” - Dermot Quinn
Posts: 6740 | From: Library or pub | Registered: Jun 2001
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Laura
General nuisance
# 10
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Posted
I got you, Newman's Own! I was just amplifying.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. - Erich Fromm
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