In vitro fertilization is murder.
The Alabama Supreme Court closed the trap on the "pro-life" movement. Now "pro-life" politicians need to face the simple fact that IVF kills babies.
A fertilized egg is entirely different from a sperm, which men create and discharge by the millions, and an unfertilized egg, which women create and dispose of monthly. Sperm and eggs are incomplete. But a fertilized egg has it all, and it promptly begins dividing and growing. It has everything that a baby has, except that it is younger. A religious person can believe it is sacred, that it has a soul, and that it is created in the image of God. The Alabama Supreme Court believes that.
Tens of millions of Americans believe life begins at conception. I don't share that view, but I understand it. My wife experienced a miscarriage. Something real started then died and disappeared. It feels odd to say it, but I mourn the loss. For those who believe life begins at conception, abortions are murder.
Hormone preparation for IVF implantation creates possibly 20 eggs, expressed at once, and retrieved. Those get fertilized in a Petri dish. Of those, some are discarded as weak-looking, but two or three are implanted. Usually no more than one grows to become a live birth. If that is successful perhaps a second batch of two or three are implanted for a second baby. Eventually all the unwanted ones are discarded. A cold, hard look at IVF means that a dozen or more fertilized eggs -- human beings with souls -- are killed to try to make one or two babies.
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| Medford street protester, April 2023 |
A morally consistent person would oppose IUDs (which stop implantation of a fertilized egg); abortion pills that cause an early miscarriage; and any abortion of a pregnancy resulting from rape. They would also oppose the entire IVF procedure, which inevitably kills a dozen or more human souls in order to try to make one.
The "pro-life" movement is in the process of making a distinction based on the presumed moral validity of the mother. It isn't a save-the-baby issue; it is a good woman/bad woman issue. It is about slut-shaming, and deciding who is unworthy. A woman who wants a baby is legitimate, even if her effort to get pregnant kills multiple babies locked in a freezer. Nikki Haley had two children by IVF. She is thought good for creating life -- two lives -- even, presumably, at the expense of many others. A woman who wants to abort a pregnancy because she already has three children at home is thought illegitimate. She should have been more careful with sex, or with contraception, or with inviting rape, or with whatever caused this pregnancy. The government concludes she needs to bear the consequences. After all, she is bearing a sacred life. She certainly cannot murder her way out of her jam.
There will be "life begins at conception" purists who will make the hard, politically expensive choice. They will publicly oppose IVF because it murders those tiniest of babies. Most prudent "pro-life" politicians will backtrack and do a carve-out for IVF, as some do now for rape. Pro-life politicians fetishized and made sacred the fertilized egg because it was an easy place to draw a line. Now it isn't so easy.
Women who turn to IVF aren't shamed. They are "good." They are voters. Like women who choose to have an abortion, they are trying to control their own fertility. In that case, the murder of innocents is OK. Hypocrites.
11 comments:
The problem is as you noted: Religion. The anti-abortion politicians want our government to be a theocracy, based on their own particular religious beliefs. The discussion should be based on rational thought and scientific analysis. Rationally we can see that IVF and abortion are not murder, but are tools in having a family. Religious people should adopt their beliefs for their own lives and let others do the same.
The other issue is the discussion of IVF is money. IVF is expensive. Because people with enough money to afford IVF are more politically powerful than lower income women who need an abortion, the fanatics are going to approve of IVF and continue to differentiate the morning after pill.
Men controlling women's bodies are terrible at it.
This argument is about controlling women, the way the majorities have tried to control minorities for decades/centuries. That's all.
Many white males just don't like competion from females, so anything goes in keeping them undereducated and underemployed.
The religious nuts don't see it that way and are doing the bidding of racists/sexists in a manner similar to how corporations convinced religion to do its bidding.
Peter- blog idea.
I'm very happy to see a federal court has upheld the disqualification of the republican lawmakers who walked out.
I did a fist pump when I saw the line about lawmakers being like other civil servants.
So now we will see puppets for these disqualified, whining lawmakers- possibly family members.
I think the Oregon legislators need to address nepotism. In what other public/taxpayer-funded workplace is that allowed?
Indeed it is specifically white male religious nuts who for centuries have been treating women as second class adults. Exclusively, even. To be more, er, inclusive on that score would be cultural bigotry, Islamophobia, etc. Yep.
But seriously, point taken about the contradictory silliness of that "good intent" IVF dodge. And it's hypothetically two counts of murder to kill a pregnant woman....so long as she wasn't planning to get an abortion? Gack.
Oh, oh Alabama, sang Neil Young.
IVF clinics in the U.S. have huge numbers of abandoned frozen embryos they don't know what to do with. Since Alabama has decided they're children, perhaps they should be sent to the state to be raised.
Another example that moral certainty doesn’t require logical consistency: the death penalty. (Some are “pro life” but OK with the death penalty).
Hasn’t there been some paternity issued also raised where the guy doesn’t want the IVF egg discarded, but the woman no longer wants the fertilized egg to be implanted? Some younger women are getting their eggs fertilized when they are still young and healthy as a later possibility of getting pregnant. It’s like insurance to change one’s mind if not sure whether to have children or not. All this stuff gets pretty complicated if the fertilized egg is viewed as alive and human. It’s an example of technology and ethics being difficult to decide what is right. Is it ok to abort a Down syndrome fetus? How about if it’s a girl fetus? The problem for me is that some of these very religious people don’t necessarily have what I view as caring ethics and I write that as someone who considers himself religious.
There is no scientific biological basis for calling a fertilized egg, an embryo or a fetus a sentient human being. It is dependent on the mother while in the womb. Legal viability should be when it is born. Before that it is no more developed than is a puppy or any other animal. And besides, we allow killing of sentient human beings for various reasons, like war, the death penalty, and when a person flat lines and the plug is pulled.
This is just religion ruling over science, and men ruling over women.
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…”
-- RW Emerson
Apropos of nothing, but seen on a bumper sticker: "I oppose capital punishment. Look what happened with Jesus."
If I lived in Alabama and had a few fertilized eggs in the freezer, I would claim them as dependents on my tax returns. After all, they're "children" and can be deducted.
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