My home state joins the 21st century

[ZiprHead]

Never understood why christians are so against abortions. Have they never read the bible?

 

[Keith&Co.]

People tend to celebrate their birthdays on, well, there birthdays,

In cultures where we track that thing, yes. In some cultures, the actual day of birth is not celebrated. The birthday is associated with the nearest Saint's Day, and they celebrate then.
Other cultures did not even care about the date or the season, but tracked how many harvests a child lived through before their manhood ritual.

To say "arbitrary" has a connotation about it that seems to be of lesser value somehow.

Well, yes. The opposite of arbitrary would be birth. There are things you can do to a fetus that you cannot do to a baby. Because they are on opposite sides of an event which includes significant changes to the individual. Umbilical, breath, the ability to piss on daddy...

But picking one date out of a sequence of largely indistinguishable days (at least between the day before and the day after) is a lot less significant. If I show you the MRI scans of a pregnant woman taken the 89th, 90th, and 91st days of her pregnancy, you probably could not even put them in the right order just by looking at them.
But the law changes how we treat the fetus, in some places, based on the 90th.

You appear to recognize the target I'm aspiring to shoot for by speaking of bandwidth, yet there's no denying your point about there being no great significance between an actual date and some time just before or after it.

There's no great physical significant change between the end of the band and the next day outside the band.
But there is a line set, there, for legal purposes. Which is a different significance. it's just not the magical even Lyon was asking about.

The usage of arbitrary that seems to allow both reason and lack of is what keep me reeling over it.

Humans like lines. That's why we celebrate birthdays so much. Yesterday you were too young to drink responsibly, today you have everything you need to do so.
Unless we crossed the international date line. Then, TODAY, we might find that you WERE old enough yesterday, except yesterday was two days ago, and they kicked you out of the ship's lounge for being too young...

But that isn't really a reflection on YOU, it's a general line drawn for convenience. We treat everyone as, on average, achieving a certain maturity by a certain time, because it's easier to check the number on your ID than it is to perform a maturity test at every licensed establishment to see if you're adult, yet.


My kids started driver's education at 16. I started at 14. It's not that kids in Idaho grow up any faster, but because it's an agricultural area, more kids are needed to drive farm equipment a lot sooner than most kids in Massachusetts. So, I have met 13 year olds I would trust with a half-million-dollar combine, and 18 year olds I do not trust with a tricycle. So, all in all, the age for driver's Ed can seem pretty arbitrary.

Because it's looking for one day in the life of ALL the teens, where their ability is assumed, but not independently verified. As opposed to, say, the bar for practicing law. Each individual has to meet the prerequisites, and pass the testing, no matter what age they might be.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Never understood why christians are so against abortions. Have they never read the bible?

Why would they? People have been telling them what's IN the Bible since before they could read. They're all really sure they already know everything important in there.

 

[phands]

Never understood why christians are so against abortions. Have they never read the bible?

Why would they? People have been telling them what's IN the Bible since before they could read. They're all really sure they already know everything important in there.

On many occasions, priest and pastors and other such liars-for-jebus have been urging the sheeple NOT to read the bible....instead they want the sheeple to let them read (cherry pick) and interpret it for their victimsflock.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's not me who loses.

A point that might shock you: Abortion rates are on average lower where it is legal than where it is illegal.

Furthermore, the best way to reduce the abortion rate is good, comprehensive sex ed coupled with making contraception, especially long acting contraception easily available. Until the anti-abortion crowd starts favoring policies that actually reduce the need for abortion they don't deserve the time of day.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Never understood why christians are so against abortions. Have they never read the bible?

To understand the real situation, back up. It's not about abortion.

Christian positions on sex can be predicted with basically 100% accuracy by looking at how the issue impacts non-reproductive sex. Anything that lowers the risk of non-reproductive sex is seen as bad. This yardstick is far more predictive than looking at the Bible.

 

[atrib]

My beliefs don't change with the zeitgeist
...unlike QLD politics

Your zeitgeist tells you to worship an alien supernatural skycreature that allegedly killed every human on the planet, but you have a problem with women making a choice to terminate the existence of a zygote or an embryo in their own own bodies? Talk about fucked up priorities, and what religious belief does to some people.

 

[bilby]

My beliefs don't change with the zeitgeist
...unlike QLD politics

Your zeitgeist tells you to worship an alien supernatural skycreature that allegedly killed every human on the planet, but you have a problem with women making a choice to terminate the existence of a zygote or an embryo in their own own bodies? Talk about fucked up priorities, and what religious belief does to some people.

The idea that QLD politics is subject to frequent or whimsical changes is hilarious. Our state is infamous for its conservatism and backwardness.

The old joke is that during daylight saving in NSW, they have a sign at the border that says "Now entering Queensland - Please turn your watch back twenty years".

 

[ZiprHead]

My beliefs don't change with the zeitgeist
...unlike QLD politics

Your zeitgeist tells you to worship an alien supernatural skycreature that allegedly killed every human on the planet, but you have a problem with women making a choice to terminate the existence of a zygote or an embryo in their own own bodies? Talk about fucked up priorities, and what religious belief does to some people.

The idea that QLD politics is subject to frequent or whimsical changes is hilarious. Our state is infamous for its conservatism and backwardness.

The old joke is that during daylight saving in NSW, they have a sign at the border that says "Now entering Queensland - Please turn your watch back twenty years".

I could see putting that sign up on I75 on the southern Ohio border.

 

[Patooka]

My beliefs don't change with the zeitgeist
...unlike QLD politics

Your zeitgeist tells you to worship an alien supernatural skycreature that allegedly killed every human on the planet, but you have a problem with women making a choice to terminate the existence of a zygote or an embryo in their own own bodies? Talk about fucked up priorities, and what religious belief does to some people.

The idea that QLD politics is subject to frequent or whimsical changes is hilarious. Our state is infamous for its conservatism and backwardness.

The old joke is that during daylight saving in NSW, they have a sign at the border that says "Now entering Queensland - Please turn your watch back twenty years".

Yeah, I was a bit nonplussed about that statement as well. I don't associate Queensland with "dynamic". Last time I checked, you bastards don't even have to go to a mechanic every year to get your car's rego renewed! That's why I like going there on my holidays. Everything is on pause and everything is cheaper.

 

[Angry Floof]

"...When the bill was passed, dozens of people in the packed public gallery broke out into loud cheers and applause, with several women crying and hugging each other."

Men cheering that they can get women pregnant and avoid being fathers.
Women crying and hugging because men tell them to "get rid of it"

And ignorant zealots cry because they can't take rights away from women. Die mad about it.

 

[bilby]

The idea that QLD politics is subject to frequent or whimsical changes is hilarious. Our state is infamous for its conservatism and backwardness.

The old joke is that during daylight saving in NSW, they have a sign at the border that says "Now entering Queensland - Please turn your watch back twenty years".

Yeah, I was a bit nonplussed about that statement as well. I don't associate Queensland with "dynamic". Last time I checked, you bastards don't even have to go to a mechanic every year to get your car's rego renewed! That's why I like going there on my holidays. Everything is on pause and everything is cheaper.

Yup. You can drive your car until it falls apart. Lots of people do.

 

[lpetrich]

"...When the bill was passed, dozens of people in the packed public gallery broke out into loud cheers and applause, with several women crying and hugging each other."

Men cheering that they can get women pregnant and avoid being fathers.
Women crying and hugging because men tell them to "get rid of it"

So no woman would ever get an abortion on her own initiative?

Seems to me that they were celebrating having greater control over their bodies.

 

[Patooka]

Yup. You can drive your car until it falls apart. Lots of people do.

*raises hand* I don't know why, but I have a throbbing erection for Datsun 180Bs. As a result, near enough is just going to be good enough.

 

[lpetrich]

What magical event happens at 22 weeks that removes a QLD woman's right to have an abortion without getting someone's permission?

It's an arbitrary line, like deciding when gray stops being black and starts being white.

On the late end of pregnancy, it would be when a fetus becomes able to survive outside the womb. But "preemies" often need a lot of care.

On the early end of pregnancy, it would be when an embryo starts looking like a tiny baby, thus becoming a fetus.

Visible Embryo Home Page has lots of nice pictures and descriptions of growth stages.

• 0 - 1d: Egg cell fertilized
• 1 - 3d: First divisions into a mass of cells
• 4d: Ball of cells that gets an outer layer and an inner layer
• 5 - 6d: This ball sticks to the womb lining
• 7 - 12d: The outer layer starts making the placenta, while the inner layer gets an inward dent. At that dent, it gets an additional layer that becomes the embryo and the amniotic sac. The rest of the layer becomes the yolk sac.0
• 13d: the embryo starts out as a disk, and it gets a "primitive streak" where cells move inward and through it. The embryo now has three layers: ectoderm (makes the skin and nervous system), mesoderm (makes the heart and muscles and urogenital system), and endoderm (makes the gut).
• 17 - 19d: embryo starts getting elongated and infolded with the endoderm on the inside.
• 19 - 21d: somites (muscle blocks) start to appear.
• 23 - 25d: embryo starts getting a baby-like shape, though still very undeveloped. Its heart has started beating, but its eyes are still forming, and it has a tail.
• 25 - 27d: embryo starts getting upper limb buds.
• 31 - 35d: eyes start taking shape, lower limb buds appear.
• 37 - 42d: brain takes shape.
• 51 - 53d: the embryo starts to move on its own, tail now gone.
• 56 - 60d: end of the embryonic period: fingers and toes formed, and bones are getting mineralized, though the eyes are still on the sides of the head
• 10w (70d): face has human appearance, and the fetus looks much like a baby, but the fetus has the size of the outermost segment of an adult thumb.
• 14w: external sex organs now clearly visible
• 20w: bone marrow starts making blood cells, testicles start descending
• 24w: sensory responses start: sight, hearing, touch.
• 26w: lungs become capable of breathing air
• 28w: brain surface starts getting folded
• 32w: immune system starts to develop
• 36w: lots of body fat
• 40w: ready to be born

 

[ronburgundy]

What magical event happens at 22 weeks that removes a QLD woman's right to have an abortion without getting someone's permission?

It's an arbitrary line, like deciding when gray stops being black and starts being white.

On the late end of pregnancy, it would be when a fetus becomes able to survive outside the womb. But "preemies" often need a lot of care.

On the early end of pregnancy, it would be when an embryo starts looking like a tiny baby, thus becoming a fetus.

Visible Embryo Home Page has lots of nice pictures and descriptions of growth stages.

• 0 - 1d: Egg cell fertilized
• 1 - 3d: First divisions into a mass of cells
• 4d: Ball of cells that gets an outer layer and an inner layer
• 5 - 6d: This ball sticks to the womb lining
• 7 - 12d: The outer layer starts making the placenta, while the inner layer gets an inward dent. At that dent, it gets an additional layer that becomes the embryo and the amniotic sac. The rest of the layer becomes the yolk sac.0
• 13d: the embryo starts out as a disk, and it gets a "primitive streak" where cells move inward and through it. The embryo now has three layers: ectoderm (makes the skin and nervous system), mesoderm (makes the heart and muscles and urogenital system), and endoderm (makes the gut).
• 17 - 19d: embryo starts getting elongated and infolded with the endoderm on the inside.
• 19 - 21d: somites (muscle blocks) start to appear.
• 23 - 25d: embryo starts getting a baby-like shape, though still very undeveloped. Its heart has started beating, but its eyes are still forming, and it has a tail.
• 25 - 27d: embryo starts getting upper limb buds.
• 31 - 35d: eyes start taking shape, lower limb buds appear.
• 37 - 42d: brain takes shape.
• 51 - 53d: the embryo starts to move on its own, tail now gone.
• 56 - 60d: end of the embryonic period: fingers and toes formed, and bones are getting mineralized, though the eyes are still on the sides of the head
• 10w (70d): face has human appearance, and the fetus looks much like a baby, but the fetus has the size of the outermost segment of an adult thumb.
• 14w: external sex organs now clearly visible
• 20w: bone marrow starts making blood cells, testicles start descending
• 24w: sensory responses start: sight, hearing, touch.
• 26w: lungs become capable of breathing air
• 28w: brain surface starts getting folded
• 32w: immune system starts to develop
• 36w: lots of body fat
• 40w: ready to be born

Although, those delineations shouldn't actually have much to do with when abortions are allowed. The question of whether it's an embryo, fetus, or human is largely irrelevant, but unfortunately pro-choicers sometimes get dragged into making that the issue.
The issue is that until "it" (by any name) is outside of the mother's body it is part of the mothers body, and therefore she must have final say in whether it remains part of her body and how she wants to remove it. Rights to control one's own body is the most fundamental of all human rights on which all others depend.

 

[Jarhyn]

My beliefs don't change with the zeitgeist
...unlike QLD politics

Well, plainly put, they should. Most people are mostly right most of the time, and it is ridiculous to think that an idea or model that was produced when the species was more ignorant will somehow be more refined than one produced when the species was less ignorant. so while the rest of us get less ignorant over time, you will not. You will literally be left in the past. Notable examples of such include: slavery, flat earth theory, astrology, the fluid theory of disease (hooray leeches), etc.

Your refusal to change, learn, and grow as a person is exactly why you are wrong. So while you are sitting over there in your PRIDE and NARCISSISM, we'll continue moving forward. Personally, I see the charge to reject ignorance and learn about the universe and to improve our ethical models to be a holy mandate... because I think that if there is a god, the fact that doing so WORKS for the benefit of all to be a clear message written into the universe itself, more immutably than any book ever written by men, that it is gods will that we do it.

 

[lpetrich]

(me on embryonic and fetal development snipped for brevity)

Although, those delineations shouldn't actually have much to do with when abortions are allowed. The question of whether it's an embryo, fetus, or human is largely irrelevant, but unfortunately pro-choicers sometimes get dragged into making that the issue.
The issue is that until "it" (by any name) is outside of the mother's body it is part of the mothers body, and therefore she must have final say in whether it remains part of her body and how she wants to remove it. Rights to control one's own body is the most fundamental of all human rights on which all others depend.

But if it can live on its own, then that complicates the issue, because instead of abortion one could have premature birth.

 

[bilby]

(me on embryonic and fetal development snipped for brevity)

Although, those delineations shouldn't actually have much to do with when abortions are allowed. The question of whether it's an embryo, fetus, or human is largely irrelevant, but unfortunately pro-choicers sometimes get dragged into making that the issue.
The issue is that until "it" (by any name) is outside of the mother's body it is part of the mothers body, and therefore she must have final say in whether it remains part of her body and how she wants to remove it. Rights to control one's own body is the most fundamental of all human rights on which all others depend.

But if it can live on its own, then that complicates the issue, because instead of abortion one could have premature birth.

It doesn't complicate the issue much. If a patient has a choice between having a leg amputated, or having it treated (with the expectation that, if saved, it may never be useful for walking or balance*), then that choice is for the patient alone to make. They may consult with any number of experts; But the fact that the leg could be 'saved' doesn't make the decision any less the sole preserve of the patient himself.

I could save a life by giving a kidney to someone who will die without it. But I am not obliged by this fact to donate my kidney.

Unless and until the abortion and the birth options are identical in terms of invasiveness and risk to the patient (and I doubt that they ever could be), it's the patient's choice alone which she wants to do.









*Not a hypothetical; I know a guy who was among the last polio sufferers in the UK, and he had exactly this choice to make as a young man. He chose amputation, and until his retirement, worked as a rehabilitation physiotherapist teaching amputees how to use their new prosthetic limbs. Had he kept the leg, he would likely have been considerably less mobile than he is with an artificial one; But of course, he will never know for sure.

 

[lpetrich]

What's the situation in the rest of Australia? What are the abortion laws like? Is abortion a big political issue?

Is it only the United States that has suffered from abortion being a big political issue for a long time? It started being one in the mid-1970's, and it has been one every since -- over 40 years. I think that the undecided state of abortion was a casualty of it coming toward the end of the Sixties reform era. The US has had previous reform eras, but they have been hard to sustain for much more than a decade. Another casualty of its end was the Equal Rights Amendment, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." It almost passed, but in the late 1970's and early 1980's, opponents kept it from being ratified in the last few states.