Opinion: The twisted irony in Alabama’s court decision on embryos

No God-Loving Christian could possibly deny that a 5 day-old blastocyst is inherently a full-fledged human being with ALL the rights conveyed by the Bill of Rights. Yet whether measured by mass, weight or diameter, the young blastocyst is about the same size as the single-cell ovum from which it developed. Are leftist scientists going to tell us that the development of a blastula is what separates God's chosen vessel from a mess of lower-creature material? Good grief! "Leftist scientist" has become an oxymoron!

Even those leftists admit that 99.9% of a fertilized ovum derives directly from the unfertilized ovum. Sure God in His Infinite Wisdom made the fertilization act pleasurable and to help ensure Man's dominion over his helpmeets but He has already breathed Life into the Ovum. Life does NOT begin at conception; it begins at ovulation.

Once the U.S. comes to its senses it will realize that an unfertilized ovum is an insult to God, just like a Poke in His Eye. Yet some women -- even some who call themselves Christian -- flush their baby down the toilet once a month, just like clockwork. This is the Crime of Murder. Most women, excepting perhaps those on whom Divine Providence has granted Ugliness for a penance, would have little trouble finding a man to fertilize their ovum. Menstruation is Murder. Once God-fearing White American Christians realize this, ambiguity vanishes. We won't need courts to decide whether life begins at 12 weeks or 11½. Instead of abortion clinics we need clinics where a husbandless woman can pay (or be paid!) for natural fertilization to avoid being charged with murder through menstruation.

Hope this helps.

Jarhyn said:

Loren Pechtel said:

Rhea said:

Well then the lab can certainly drop them at the parents’ house, then, amirite?

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I don't think that would be permitted as the parents will not have the ability to care for the kids. Very few people are equipped to maintain that sort of temperature and I doubt such equipment is even permitted in an ordinary house. (Asphyxiation risk from a LN2 leak.)

Call CPS.

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I can't help but think that this is yet another aspect of degrading government on purpose.

Do something stupid, get sued, say the state is ineffective because there's no money despite taxes, rinse, repeat.

This is like making the USPS carry an untenable burden of prepaying centuries worth of pensions, but with the intent to collapse certain businesses, and, yes, CPS.

Bad religious groups' parents fear CPS, particularly the dominion/quiverfull groups with lots of guns and/or children, and who elect politicians who fight hard against a minimum age to marry, exactly the sorts of parents who shouldn't be parents. And these people vote.

I don't expect this necessarily to be the attack on CPS but it is coming.

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I think you're right. CPS stops them abusing their children in the name of religion, it must go!

However, I wasn't saying the parents had done anything wrong. Rather, that it's inherently impossible for them to care for those children and so they must be turned over to the state. They need institutional care.

Jimmy Higgins said:

The biggest problem with the ruling is that it very much implies birth control (daily pill) is illegal.

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First, the estrogen pills work by blocking ovulation.

Second, that would be a desired outcome, not a problem.

This is a subject which lends itself to facetious comments, along the lines of an egg is now a chicken and so forth, but the idea that an embryo is a person will create an entirely new tree of common law.

Since it's conceded by just about everyone that a child is not responsible for itself, it follows that somebody must be. We have laws which punish parents who abuse their child, either through action or neglect. The key word is "their". A person can be held to account for abusing any child, but neglect is a different matter entirely. In the state of Louisiana, a man is held responsible for any child born to the woman to whom he happens to be legally married. If the baby is not actually his biological offspring, he is still responsible to feed and clothe the baby. The only exception to this is to deny paternity at birth and do absolutely nothing for the child. Even holding the baby is enough to be considered acceptance of fatherly responsibility.

A person cannot be held accountable for neglecting someone else's child, which raises the question, how do we know whose child it is? I'm not sure how many cells must be destroyed to obtain a DNA sample large enough for a reliable test, but a blastocyst only has a couple hundred cells. When this fact is considered, and the complication of being frozen, how can we determine who is responsible for maintenance of a frozen embryo?

Here's another question. Suppose a pregnant woman is drinking alcohol regularly or doesn't eat enough food everyday. How will CPS take the unborn child from her body or will they institutionalize pregnant women who could be "misbehaving?" In Alabama, who gets to define the thresholds of neglect and abuse to the unborn child?

Loren Pechtel said:

Jarhyn said:

Loren Pechtel said:

Rhea said:

Well then the lab can certainly drop them at the parents’ house, then, amirite?

Click to expand...

I don't think that would be permitted as the parents will not have the ability to care for the kids. Very few people are equipped to maintain that sort of temperature and I doubt such equipment is even permitted in an ordinary house. (Asphyxiation risk from a LN2 leak.)

Call CPS.

Click to expand...

I can't help but think that this is yet another aspect of degrading government on purpose.

Do something stupid, get sued, say the state is ineffective because there's no money despite taxes, rinse, repeat.

This is like making the USPS carry an untenable burden of prepaying centuries worth of pensions, but with the intent to collapse certain businesses, and, yes, CPS.

Bad religious groups' parents fear CPS, particularly the dominion/quiverfull groups with lots of guns and/or children, and who elect politicians who fight hard against a minimum age to marry, exactly the sorts of parents who shouldn't be parents. And these people vote.

I don't expect this necessarily to be the attack on CPS but it is coming.

Click to expand...

I think you're right. CPS stops them abusing their children in the name of religion, it must go!

However, I wasn't saying the parents had done anything wrong. Rather, that it's inherently impossible for them to care for those children and so they must be turned over to the state. They need institutional care.

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Well, obviously that's the fundamental reason they hate CPS.

It's inherently impossible for them to care for the children they have, they vehemently reject any such possibility, therefore what they are doing is willful.

It's not unlike the disposition poachers have to the DNR: their only defense is their ignorance of what is wrong and why, or their disagreement with the statement of wrongness. It just makes them double wrong.

That said, I agree they need institutional care rather than "punishment" in all cases, and that the kids need rehabilitative care after any such abuse.

Don2 (Don1 Revised) said:

Here's another question. Suppose a pregnant woman is drinking alcohol regularly or doesn't eat enough food everyday. How will CPS take the unborn child from her body or will they institutionalize pregnant women who could be "misbehaving?" In Alabama, who gets to define the thresholds of neglect and abuse to the unborn child?

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My biological mother had three children while drinking, undereating, and enjoying a life of drugs and partying.

Personally, my thought is that she should have been encouraged to have abortions each time (socially, by her doctor and nobody else), and after giving birth she should have been asked to surrender the child(ren), and offered (not forced into) sterilization services after demonstrating an inability to maintain a fetus's well-being through a pregnancy she planned to complete.

I do think there should be some laws governing things like selling alcohol to pregnant folks, or selling illegal drugs to them, but I would hazard such laws would best be federally driven or restricted by the constitution to apply only to sellers and not to the buyer.

The hard part is that we would have to be particularly focused and walk into any such discussion with the adamant refusal already decided upon for when the GOP in bad faith seeks to warp the language into a weapon against autonomy of "women".

In fact, those who would support this would be well served by preemptively figuring out several adjustments or amendments which would accomplish the above weaponization against women (predict the GOP bad faith request) and be prepared to address them specifically.