Outcomes of Overturning Roe Vs. Wade

[HondurasKeiser]

You kill thousands of human cells every time you scratch your nose or sneeze. Your body sheds about 50 billion human cells every day. Does that make you a mass murderer? Those cells have a nucleus with chromosomes, a cell membrane, organelles like mitochondria and ribosomes exactly like a human zygote. Genetically speaking they are identical to a human zygote with the same number of chromosomes and DNA. They can even be cloned and induced to reproduce.

Scientifically speaking (and I note we are big on science when it comes to defining male and female) there is no beginning to a human life. Life is not linear, it is a cycle. Every living cell including human zygotes come from the division of other living cells. Sperm and eggs are just as alive as a fertilized zygote. And they all came from the division of other living cells in an endless cycle back to the dawn of time.

So again, what makes a human zygote different from any other human body cell, or from sperm and egg cells for that matter? It is just a cell with a nucleus and DNA like any other. It has no tissue, no sensory organs, no nervous system, no brain cells. It is not self-aware. Functionally speaking it is no different from a protozoa. And about three fourths of them die naturally without any human intervention.

I wonder if when your wife first became pregnant with your daughters that you thought of them as akin to and of equal value with skin cells or with the similar disregard that we treat hair follicles?

My wife's first two pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

I don't have all the answers as to when in the cycle of life a single cell or cluster of cells becomes a self-aware human being with a soul. But then neither does religion or the law. I personally do not believe that a human being develops a soul until it is developed enough to be self aware and capable of thought and sensation. So no, I don't believe single cells or microscopic clusters of undifferentiated cells have souls. Any more than sperm or eggs have soul despite the fact that they are clearly living and human. But I also don't try to impose that view on anyone else. That is the difference.

I am very sorry about that, Ken. My wife and I have also experienced 2 miscarriages and they were deeply tragic. Likewise, nothing is more joyous than the news that my wife is pregnant. That joy and that tragedy are indicators of our innate recognition that a new life, unique to our own, is at work independent of whether or not we believe it's endowed with a soul, is wanted or is in some way deformed.

I'm curious about this phrase: "I personally do not believe that a human being develops a soul until it is developed enough to be self aware and capable of thought and sensation."
Psychology tells me that self-awareness begins around 9 months. Is that what you mean then, that babies younger than 9 months are soul-less?

[HondurasKeiser]

My wife's first two pregnancies ended in miscarriages.

That mattered to you and her didn’t it? Regardless of where we are in this argument… it’s hard with loss.

We’ve lost one due to miscarriage and one to a truck. Both we valued as our children but I can’t say I miss our child that was never born the way I miss my first born.

Of course it was difficult. The first happened when we were overseas. There was a lot of pain and a lot of blood and it was a very long night. But do I think God murdered our children and that we will see them again in heaven? Or that my wife murdered our children through some act of her own? No. Do I ever think about it 20 years later except when the topic comes up like here? No.

I personally oppose abortion and would not want one for my wife unless it was medically necessary. But I also don't think it is appropriate to wield the enormous coercive and punitive power of the state to impose one particular point of view here. I also think that a real culture of life is not one in which a government imprisons women for things that happen before birth, and then completely neglects the struggles of young mothers afterwards.

What in the world are we talking about at this point? God murdering children? Your wife murdering children? Women being locked-up for poor prenatal care? I'm confused. Who has suggested anything of the sort?

[temporal1]

What in the world are we talking about at this point? God murdering children? Your wife murdering children? Women being locked-up for poor prenatal care? I'm confused. Who has suggested anything of the sort?

The talking points, exaggerations, lies enlisted to convince people they’re too helpless to choose before conception are extraordinary. i believe i’ve read about all of them, and i’ve seen videos of women+teens appearing as though the gov subsidized right to kill their unborn is so important, without it their lives will collapse, not without angry screams+tears. It’s all recited on MN.

The power of propaganda.

[Josh]

Interestingly this is an area where I strongly disagree with Trump, but Trump and Ken find themselves in agreement.

I'm not sure how anyone can agree with Trump. He is constantly flip-flopping and doesn't appear to have any coherent position. He just flip-flopped back to supporting Florida's 6-week ban after getting pushback from evangelical supporters. He doesn't appear to have any core beliefs. Everything is transactional and for sale, whatever gets him the most votes.

I'm not sure how anyone can agree with Harris. She is constantly flip-flopping and doesn't appear to have any coherent position. She just* flip-flopped back to supporting fracking after getting pushback from Pennsylvania voters. She doesn't appear to have any core beliefs. Everything is transactional and for sale, whatever gets her the most votes.

Nonetheless, it appears that you do agree with Trump in the area of abortion, or you did until last week, which is why I pointed out what I did.

*since the 2019 primary debates

I don't have all the answers as to when in the cycle of life a single cell or cluster of cells becomes a self-aware human being with a soul. But then neither does religion or the law. I personally do not believe that a human being develops a soul until it is developed enough to be self aware and capable of thought and sensation.

I have a friend who takes care of a child they fostered/adopted who has a severe neurological and developmental problem and probably is not self-aware, although there is no way to know for sure. However I think their foster child is fully human and I also think if someone decided to kill her, it would certainly be an act of murder. This human being may never develop enough to be self aware, have thoughts, although she probably does have sensations since she responds to basic stimuli, but by that standard, so do plants, embryos, and viruses.

[Josh]

So Trump is very much like middle America. Not grounded in any fundamental truth, allowing external pressure guide his moral compass, ultimately looking only to the law as an arbiter of right and wrong. And when the law changes, the line between right and wrong change too.
Trump is merely quicker to adopt the changes, although not terribly much quicker, really.

I view the general middle, center-left, or center-right American as having no core beliefs either. Consider what the left and right stood for 25 years ago, and look at them today. They drift like a feather in a foolish wind.
The only ones with any somewhat enduring principles seem to be on the extreme right and extreme left. And even there, I find unexceptionable levels of pragmatic compromise. (Not that I support their positions, I just find even there to be a foundation-less aspect.)

Well said, RZehr - I think this is why Trump represents middle America and resonates with them so well. Middle America doesn't think all abortion should be illegal, but abortions in the third trimester make them uncomfortable. So they're okay with bans after 26 weeks or viability.

Middle America thinks abortion should be entirely legal in the first pregnancy, so they're comfortable passing 12-week legalisation, as is Trump.

Likewise, Middle America used to be opposed to gay marriage. Nowadays, they are uncomfortable with transsexual men pretending to be women playing in high school sports, but are entirely comfortable with gay marriage. Trump is, likewise, in the same position.

As Christians, I feel we should be focused on "reforming society" by focusing on reforming the individual: leading souls to Christ, and then the witness of such eventually transforming people around us, even if they do not fully adopt 100% Christian views on every thing.

[Josh]

I personally oppose abortion and would not want one for my wife unless it was medically necessary. But I also don't think it is appropriate to wield the enormous coercive and punitive power of the state to impose one particular point of view here. I also think that a real culture of life is not one in which a government imprisons women for things that happen before birth, and then completely neglects the struggles of young mothers afterwards.

What in the world are we talking about at this point? God murdering children? Your wife murdering children? Women being locked-up for poor prenatal care? I'm confused. Who has suggested anything of the sort?

I'm not sure what we're talking about either. I live in a state that tried to pass a 6 week abortion law (apparently, it being OK to murder babies who have existed for 4 weeks or less, but it not being OK after that).

But the accusation that "completely neglects the struggles of young mothers afterwards" is in complete conflict with what our supermajority, veto-proof Republican legislature, senate, Supreme Court, and governor have done:

- Expanded Medicaid under the ACA to include so many Ohioans that the majority of medical care in Ohio is provide via Medicaid, Medicare, or related programs like HCAP.
- Expanded HCAP to cover labour and delivery for pregnant moms who don't have any insurance including Medicaid.
- Greatly expanded funding to Community Action Agencies and staffed them, including grants to hospitals to hire social workers, to help eligible Ohioans apply for Medicaid. To give you an example, I was on the heart floor after an elective surgery last December. There were 3 social workers on staff on the floor. One of them was working with my hospital room-mate and his family to help get him on Medicaid, SNAP, and HCAP including to see that he could get in-home care once he was out of the hospital.
- Expanded WIC to include up to $75 of fresh produce per month per an option provided by Congress and also provided state funding to expand WIC to cover purchases at farmers' markets on a county-by-count basis.
- Staffed WIC with more nutritionists to ensure appointments are quickly available and avoid long waits for appointments after a mother has a baby.
- Expanded HCAP to cover 100% of care for the tiny NICU patients.
- Transformed state Medicaid into an MCO-based plan with 6 different insurers, making almost any medical provider in at least 1 (and usually more) of those 6 networks, with an option for Medicaid patients to change plans if they run into trouble getting care, with the MCOs being reimbursed using a capitation model.
- Expanded Medicaid to cover transportation to and from medical appointments with the cost shifted onto the insurers running MCOs.
- Expanded Medicaid to cover Behavioural Health Crises for minors and then extensive follow up programs to help minors with substance abuse or behavioural health issues.
- Expanded WIC to cover Lactation Consultants at no cost.
- Expanded Ohio's state-paid daycare system to cover any moms who work to have up to 100% of daycare costs paid for, depending upon income, and also expanded programs to help small in-home daycares and small church-run daycares qualify to greatly expand the options working mothers and fathers have who need to put their children in daycare.
- Expanded the Ohio paid daycare system to cover private preschools and early kindergartens.
- Cover up to $7,500 of the cost of tuition in private K-12 schools per student per year, including a special expansion to non-accredited schools to help people who homeschool or use small homeschool co-ops pay for educational expenses.
- Extended EBT/SNAP eligibility to cover virtually any family with children under certain income thresholds, even if one or both parents work, making it easier for needy families to afford groceries.
- Expansive community colleges and state universities, including in very needy areas, with special programs to improve affordability for needy families both for working moms and for their children when they become college age, and in particular rooting out corruption at some community colleges where I live and transitioning students and facilities into a better-run state institution with better accountability and ensuring no student got left behind in the middle of their college career.
- An aggressive state and county level Child Support Enforcement Agency that ensures parenting orders for support are followed and conducting wage garnishments, bank levies and attachments, and other enforcement action such as via suspending driver licences to ensure needy custodial parents receive the child support it has been determined they need.
- An extensive Guardian Ad Litem program with both volunteers and paid attorneys to ensure a child's interests are represented in family court in a variety of proceedings ranging from divorces to foster situations.
- An extensive foster care system, including inflation and cost-of-living adjusted payments to foster parents, for children whose birth parents aren't able to be there for them in the ways they need.
- A wide range of assistance with housing, mortgage assistance, subsidised rent, etc. but I do not have enough personal experience with it to comment further. Overall, I think a child's father should be the one putting a roof over their child's head.

Ken, could you tell us how the above "completely neglects the struggle of young mothers afterwards?" Could you tell us what programs you think are missing? I am not necessarily endorsing all of the above, but it seems like the "red state" I'm in that is controlled by a supermajority of Republicans seems to be providing a lot of services for moms throughout their child's life, even up to age 17.

[Ken]

That mattered to you and her didn’t it? Regardless of where we are in this argument… it’s hard with loss.

We’ve lost one due to miscarriage and one to a truck. Both we valued as our children but I can’t say I miss our child that was never born the way I miss my first born.

Of course it was difficult. The first happened when we were overseas. There was a lot of pain and a lot of blood and it was a very long night. But do I think God murdered our children and that we will see them again in heaven? Or that my wife murdered our children through some act of her own? No. Do I ever think about it 20 years later except when the topic comes up like here? No.

I personally oppose abortion and would not want one for my wife unless it was medically necessary. But I also don't think it is appropriate to wield the enormous coercive and punitive power of the state to impose one particular point of view here. I also think that a real culture of life is not one in which a government imprisons women for things that happen before birth, and then completely neglects the struggles of young mothers afterwards.

What in the world are we talking about at this point? God murdering children? Your wife murdering children? Women being locked-up for poor prenatal care? I'm confused. Who has suggested anything of the sort?

Women have indeed been locked up for miscarriages. This is real. And it is one endpoint of criminalizing all aspects of abortion. For example: https://apnews.com/article/ohio-miscarr ... 80cf3f27ce and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/the-i ... iscarriage

And yes, the Bible talks about God causing miscarriages. For example, Hosea 9:10-14. Is that just fiction? If God causes miscarriages is it murder? If a woman does something that leads to a miscarriage is that also murder? We would consider it so if it was a child and some form of neglect or overt act lead to the death of a child.

These and other reasons are why I think the criminal justice system is ill suited to arbitrate this issue. You start going down rabbit holes very quickly and end up with absurdities such as the notion that 80% or more of the population of heaven will be composed of embryos.

[Josh]

Women have indeed been locked up for miscarriages. This is real. And it is one endpoint of criminalizing all aspects of abortion. For example: https://apnews.com/article/ohio-miscarr ... 80cf3f27ce

She wasn't locked up for a miscarriage.

The 33-year-old Watts, who had not shared the news of her pregnancy even with her family, made her first prenatal visit to a doctor’s office behind Mercy Health-St. Joseph’s Hospital in Warren, a working-class city about 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Cleveland.

The doctor said that, while a fetal heartbeat was still present, Watts’ water had broken prematurely and the fetus she was carrying would not survive. He advised heading to the hospital to have her labor induced, so she could have what amounted to an abortion to deliver the nonviable fetus. Otherwise, she would face “significant risk” of death, according to records of her case.

That was a Tuesday in September. What followed was a harrowing three days entailing: multiple trips to the hospital; Watts miscarrying into, and then flushing and plunging, a toilet at her home; a police investigation of those actions; and Watts, who is Black, being charged with abuse of a corpse. That’s a fifth-degree felony punishable by up to a year in prison and a $2,500 fine.

We go to St. Joe's (as we call it) to get our dental care since it takes Medicaid and they do accept walk in appointments for dental emergencies. One of the families at church goes there to have their babies. It is a very good facility. Our primary care doctor is in the Mercy Health network, and whilst they aren't Cleveland Clinic, I think they run excellent facilities with compassionate care including a strong focus on serving Medicaid and HCAP patients, with a great deal of resources provided for people who don't have insurance and lack ability to pay.

Ms Watts wasn't charged with abortion or a miscarriage, though. She was charged with abuse of a corpse because instead of calling EMS to deal with the miscarriage, like you're supposed to, she flushed it down the toilet. She gave birth past the point of viability; nothing has changed in Ohio law since passing issue 1, since the new abortion rights enshrined in the Constitution run up to the point of viability.

The police officers ended up suspicious when the toilet was clogged and upon fishing the clog out of it, found things like teeth and bones, which is enough to merit an investigation:

“The issue isn’t how the child died, when the child died — it’s the fact that the baby was put into a toilet, large enough to clog up a toilet, left in that toilet and she went on [with] her day,” said Warren assistance prosecutor Lewis Guarnieri.

“This 33-year-old girl, with no criminal record, is demonized for something that goes on every day,” said Traci Timko, defense attorney.

I don't know what kind of odd world Ms Timko lives in, but clogging a toilet with a miscarriage is not "something that goes on every day". We have compassionate care available including free prenatal care in Ohio for any woman experiencing a pregnancy and including lifesaving services available. Unfortunately, this woman chose not to seek any prenatal care until 21 weeks, and whilst that's not a crime, that can lead to limited options to help save the baby. As a society, I think we can agree we shouldn't be flushing fully developed babies down toilets.

[temporal1]

P.27 / Seattle’s (former?) Capitol Hill neighborhood
viewtopic.php?t=2917&start=260

Description:
A Washington pastor has scored a major victory after being arrested at least twice for preaching the Gospel in public.
Pastor Matthew Meinecke's battle against Seattle officials recently came to a close, according to Nate Kellum, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute. The lawyer told CBN News how the situation began in June 24, 2022, how it was resolved — and why it matters.

"What had happened was the city of Seattle effectively made reading the Bible aloud a crime," he told CBN News.
“And it first occurred on June 24, 2022. I don't know if that date sticks out to you, but that was the date that the U.S. Supreme Court rendered the Dobbs decision. That was a decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade." Meinecke was reportedly preaching during a huge protest against the decision in downtown Seattle, and Kellum said the preacher felt it would "be a perfect opportunity to share the Gospel." .. ..

[Ken]

P.27 / Seattle’s (former?) Capitol Hill neighborhood
viewtopic.php?t=2917&start=260

Description:
A Washington pastor has scored a major victory after being arrested at least twice for preaching the Gospel in public.
Pastor Matthew Meinecke's battle against Seattle officials recently came to a close, according to Nate Kellum, senior counsel at First Liberty Institute. The lawyer told CBN News how the situation began in June 24, 2022, how it was resolved — and why it matters.

"What had happened was the city of Seattle effectively made reading the Bible aloud a crime," he told CBN News.
“And it first occurred on June 24, 2022. I don't know if that date sticks out to you, but that was the date that the U.S. Supreme Court rendered the Dobbs decision. That was a decision that overturned Roe vs. Wade." Meinecke was reportedly preaching during a huge protest against the decision in downtown Seattle, and Kellum said the preacher felt it would "be a perfect opportunity to share the Gospel." .. ..

The police in Seattle are really incompetent on a lot of levels.