(04-02-2019, 08:07 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: Let's expand on your thinking here.

Oh so if a woman is a stay at home mom and contributes zero $ to the finances, then she should have No Pay/No Say over how the money is spent right???

Should someone that has never owned a gun before, shot one or been injured by one have a say in restrictions of Gun Laws? They are not impacted by restrictions placed on guys as they don't have one to begin with so No Gun/No Say.

Let's take things back to No Property/No Say? Back to when women couldn't vote? But hey, I'm sure you understand that women were given the right to vote .... by men.

Let's look at the Civil War, the North was not impacted by the freeing of Slaves, as was the South.  So why wasn't it No Slaves/No Say??

In all of these instances, It's all about Equality for both sides. You can harp all you want about how unfair it is that the mother sacrifices her body, but the truth is, that's how we were created so take it up with whoever created us.

The problem with the whole abortion thing, is it's used for "ooops" and that's not what it should be used for. We have all kinds of population control methods. Use them appropriately and don't have to worry about "ooops".

(05-03-2019, 09:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote:  Mine is more concerned about equal rights to the man and women. 

(05-06-2019, 01:16 PM)fredtoast Wrote: No it is not.  


You are against abortion even when both parties agree.

(05-03-2019, 09:32 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I didn't say the sperm wasn't a gift; I simply asked why couldn't the female be the one providing the gift.

Quote:Sure I can make the connection but it's not been the foundation of my stance. Mine is more concerned about equal rights to the man and women.

Quote:Perhaps you should combat the religious angle to someone that is using it. But it still wouldn't make your cited example any more relevant.

Quote:You are providing other examples to prove yourself wrong.

(05-07-2019, 02:43 PM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: I wanna do Xmas with you this year.  You get me some socks for Xmas.  I get you some socks for Xmas.  I keep the socks you give me.  I keep the socks I give you.  Yeah . . .


Equal rights in Alabama?  The same state that refuses to recognize the separation of church and state? Where Roy Moore refused to follow court orders to take down a Ten Commandment display in a courthouse?  Or refused to recognize federal court orders regarding marriage equality?  Without even getting into the whole civil rights debate.

This is not about equality any more than The War Between the States was about state's rights.  This is about another effort by conservative Christians in the Bible belt to chip away at Roe vs. Wade to legislate their religious beliefs upon others.  Period.


The religious angle is completely relevant because conservative Christian ideology is the basis for why this is happening in Alabama and why the governor of Georgia just signed a new abortion bill into law.  If Christians want to follow the Bible, then let's follow the Bible.  And in this case, since the woman involved isn't a virgin we have to stone her to death IAW the Bible.


I'm providing examples of virgin birth mythologies and why Christians shouldn't legislate their religion anymore than the ancient Egyptians.

(05-07-2019, 06:21 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Sure you can have the socks back after I'm gonna beat the hell out of them first

The rest is just more condemnation of religion and I asked you take up with someone making their stance on that merit. I still see you trying to draw feeble correlation the the unrelated bible verse you cited. "A" for effort.

(05-08-2019, 12:30 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Remind me why you don't think abortion should be legal.

(05-08-2019, 06:20 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Because an innocent child is killed. 

(05-08-2019, 07:00 PM)fredtoast Wrote: And here is usually where religion enters the argument.  Almost no one considers a clump of cells to be a "child" except religious people who believe in a "soul".

I don't want to put words in your mouth, but how do you define "child"  At what stage of development do you consider the fertilized egg to be a child?

(05-08-2019, 07:35 PM)bfine32 Wrote: At conception. 

(05-08-2019, 08:11 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Again, I am not saying what you think, but I don't see how anyone could define a fertilized egg as a "child" without the religious element of a "soul" being involved.

A seed is not a tree.  A clump of cells is not a human.

(05-08-2019, 08:21 PM)bfine32 Wrote: I'm just going by biology and when a human life begins. It's really the one element that is not subjective.

(05-08-2019, 08:11 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Again, I am not saying what you think, but I don't see how anyone could define a fertilized egg as a "child" without the religious element of a "soul" being involved.

A seed is not a tree.  A clump of cells is not a human.

(05-08-2019, 08:37 PM)fredtoast Wrote: But it is subjective.  A tree begins as a seed, but a seed is not a tree.  A diamond begins as a lump of coal, but a lump of coal is not a diamond.

A human life may begin as a fertilized egg, but a fertilized egg is not even close to what people call a "child".  You are using a very subjective definition of "child".


Q:  "What type of child has no head, body, limbs, skin, bones, blood, brain, or organs?"
A:  "A pro-life child." 

Quote:Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services released a draft of its latest strategic plan, which will guide the agency from 2018 to 2022. Near the top of the document, the agency presents its mission statement: HHS activities “cover a wide spectrum of activities, serving and protecting Americans at every stage of life, beginning at conception” (the emphasis is mine).

This is a religious definition of life, not a scientific one. Health and Human Services is a government organization. Its actions should be evidence-based, not faith-based, and this decidedly unscientific language should be eliminated from its strategic plan.

As an infertility specialist, I witness human fertilization in the laboratory every day. The human egg is a single living cell and it becomes a one-cell embryo if it successfully combines with a live sperm. No new life is formed — the egg and the sperm were already alive — and fertilization is not instantaneous. Nearly 48 hours pass from the time sperm first bind to the outside of the zona pellucida, the human eggshell, until the first cell division of the fertilized egg. The two newly formed cells then have the potential to give rise to a human being, but only if they are appropriately nurtured so that they continue to divide and then successfully implant in the uterus.

As women age, the proportion of eggs with chromosomal abnormalities increases dramatically. If such eggs are fertilized, they implant rarely, or result in a miscarriage. In vitro fertilization has shown human reproduction to be a highly inefficient process. Even a chromosomally normal embryo will successfully implant and result in a live birth only about half the time. This is true whether fertilization takes place in the body or in the laboratory.

The multicellular pre-implantation embryo cannot be equated with a human being. It is a collection of stem cells, each of which has the capacity to grow into any part of the placenta, as well as fetal tissues and organs, but it is not itself a new human life. It is also potentially more than one individual, since identical twins are the result of a single implantation.

From a scientific perspective, life doesn’t begin at any one point, it is a continuum. For HHS to define it as beginning at conception is a transparent attempt to justify restrictions on certain contraceptives as well as abortion. It may also have an unintended consequence: the restriction of infertility treatments, especially in vitro fertilization.

Now nearly 40 years old, IVF has revolutionized infertility treatment. More than 7 million babies have been born worldwide as a direct result of this technology, though it fails as often as it succeeds. If a pre-implantation embryo were to be considered a human being, then its lack of implantation during IVF would logically have to be considered a human death. Fertility clinics would not be able to function if they could be accused of harming human life in the process of trying and failing to achieve a successful pregnancy.

A preimplantation embryo has the theoretical potential to become a human life, but it cannot be considered on the same moral plane as a human life. We should insist that the Department of Health and Human Services be driven by science and data, not faith-based belief. All those concerned with the unscientific nature of the current HHS strategic plan draft have until Oct. 27 to email their comments to HHSPLan@hhs.gov. We need to embrace the founders’ doctrine of separation of church and state, to keep faith and religion separate from the administration of our nation’s healthcare.

Dr. Richard Paulson is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at USC, the director of the Keck School of Medicine’s infertility program, and the president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM.org). @DrRPaulson

Quote:The announcement that Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy will retire at the end of the month and President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to take his place has spurred concern over the future of women’s reproductive options. Not only is the legal status of abortion at stake, but the concept of embryos as “persons” could be decided by the next Supreme Court.

Despite the explosion of genetic technology that has revolutionized reproductive medicine over the past decade, I fear that an answer to the question of personhood based on faith rather than science could hinder our ability to improve the chance of having a healthy child.

Louise Brown, the first “test tube baby,” turns 40 this month. Since 1978, more than 8 million babies have been born using in vitro fertilization (IVF) and other assisted reproductive technologies. Couples who never would have conceived due to blocked Fallopian tubes or severely low sperm counts can now have children of their own.

Many of my patients have chosen to use preimplantation genetic testing to avoid severe, often life-threatening inherited conditions in their children. Some of these families have already suffered the loss of an affected child and want to avoid experiencing that heartbreaking situation again by selecting an embryo that does not carry a harmful genetic condition.

The process works like this: After in vitro fertilization, several embryos are grown in the laboratory for five to six days. A few cells are removed from each embryo for genetic analysis, after which the embryos are frozen. The DNA from each embryo is carefully assessed for a variety of genetic disorders. A single genetically normal embryo can then be thawed and returned to the prospective mother’s uterus.

This process is not for everyone as some women may not produce adequate numbers of eggs and embryos to select for an unaffected one; also, some do not have insurance coverage for IVF or cannot afford this costly procedure.

The goal of this process is to achieve a healthy child, which now occurs at a remarkably high rate. For specific genetic disorders, preimplantation genetic testing can reduce the odds of having a child with a lethal disorder from 25 to 50 percent to less than 1 percent.

Medicine’s ability to culture embryos and select healthy ones has improved dramatically in the last few years. A clinical trial that I led several years ago showed that transferring a single genetically tested normal embryo resulted in the same delivery rate as transferring multiple untested embryos. When genetic testing is performed, it is now standard of care to transfer just a single embryo at a time — gone are the days of risky triplet and high-order multiples after IVF. Actual babies, not embryos, are being spared from dying from the complications of genetic diseases and severe prematurity thanks to the increased use of single-embryo transfer afforded by preimplantation genetic testing.

During my training as an obstetrician/gynecologist specializing in reproductive endocrinology, I was incredibly optimistic about the future of this field. There was no doubt that we would continue to make IVF safer and more effective, helping more and more people have healthy children, one baby at a time. What could be more “pro” life than that?

But as I’ve watched what has played out in politics and society over the last few years, I’ve grown concerned about the future of reproductive medicine, and worry that doctors and prospective parents will no longer be able to improve this field and select healthy embryos.

Some disorders that individuals carry, like premutations in the long arm of the X chromosome that can cause fragile X mental retardation, do not always cause problems in their children. But the size of the premutation can increase with each ensuing generation, eventually leading to the full fragile X mutation. Children with fragile X can develop severe mental delays, autism, seizures, and other neuro-cognitive disabilities.

I used to counsel patients that by the time their (hopefully healthy) children were ready to have their own children (my patients’ grandchildren), our reproductive technologies would surely be even more precise and safer. Now I feel obliged to counsel them that there is a chance that these technologies won’t be permitted in the future if embryos are considered to be persons and that their children might not have the option to avoid passing down a severe disease trait. Should they do preimplantation genetic testing now to protect their future grandchildren, or risk a future in which their daughter may not be able to use such testing to have a healthy child?

The status of preimplantation testing of human embryos is a complex ethical and emotional issue. Some people believe that life begins at fertilization and, since every life has inherent value, we should not “play God” by choosing not to implant some embryos. Others recognize that embryos have the potential to create a child but require many more steps, and that most embryos are actually incapable of creating a baby.

I side with Dr. Richard Paulson, the former president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, who wrote that there is no scientific basis for the concept that life begins at fertilization. To paraphrase his argument, the egg cell and sperm cell are as alive before fertilization as the embryo that begins to form after it occurs. Melding egg and sperm does not create “new” life. I also believe that selecting a healthy embryo to place back in a woman’s uterus is preferable to possibly terminating an affected pregnancy or suffering the tragic loss of a child due to a lethal disease.

Eleven states have introduced “personhood” bills (none have passed) and more than a dozen court cases have been brought on this issue. The outcome of these cases could significantly limit the ability to practice reproductive medicine techniques such as IVF with preimplantation genetic testing.

If laws or the courts recognize embryos as people, that may restrict how many embryos may be created — if any — or women may be forced to use frozen embryos even after they have completed their desired family. The concept of preimplantation genetic testing itself may be challenged, as some embryos are discarded in the process.

Should my patients seize the opportunity now to avoid transmitting severe disease traits because their own children might not have this option? That and other reproductive issues are likely to be debated by future courts. My fervent hope is that they will be guided by science, not faith.

Eric J. Forman, M.D., is the medical and laboratory director at the Columbia University Fertility Center and assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia Irving University Medical Center.

Quote:We live in a time of unprecedented scientific progress. This is not a remarkable statement, as it could easily have been made anytime during the preceding millennia of cultural evolution. Information grows exponentially, and each era not only has access to more information than the preceding era, but also adds more new discoveries and data. Additionally, the present time has given us unprecedented access to information and rapid communication. Unfortunately, one unintended consequence of our near instantaneous communication is the rapid proliferation and dissemination of misinformation and outright disinformation. Indeed, topics such as false or “fake” news are a common topic of the news media.

Trying to decide whether information is accurate may be challenging. Those of us who live in the world of science and who use scientific journals to obtain information enjoy some protection from disinformation, which is afforded us by peer review and explicit scrutiny of the scientific data presented. Unfortunately, the subsequent dissemination of scientific studies by the lay media has no such protection. And thus, on an almost daily basis, we hear of results of “scientific studies” that seem hard to believe, which are then quickly contradicted by reports of other “scientific studies.” The consequence of such apparent scientific contradictions is that the lay listener develops skepticism about the scientific method, and concludes that science, like the news media, is not a reliable source of information. When we scientists do not speak up to correct the unscientific conclusions attributed to science, we are complicit in the spread of such disinformation, leading to the undermining of science credibility in general.

One observation that has been attributed to scientific consensus—one that is highly relevant to our field—is the concept that “human life begins at fertilization.” This statement is commonly offered by religious organizations and is often cited as the basis for so-called personhood amendments, but the assertion that it is scientifically sound is incorrect. And although it is often offered in the context of abortion, it has profound ramifications for the treatment of infertility, particularly for in vitro fertilization (IVF). We fertility doctors take extreme care to protect and nurture the preimplantation embryos in our incubators and cryotanks. We realize that in almost all cases these aggregates of cells represent the best chance for our infertile couples to realize their dream of building their families. However, handling an embryo with the potential to produce a pregnancy is not the same as handling a human life. If harm to a preimplantation embryo were to be considered the same as harm to a human being, then the demise of a preimplantation embryo—a not infrequent event in vivo, as well as in the IVF laboratory—might well be treated as a human death, perhaps with manslaughter charges brought against the embryologists.

What is scientifically incorrect about saying that human life begins at fertilization? First, it is a categorical designation in conflict with the scientific observation that life is a continuum. The egg cell is alive, and it has the potential to become a zygote (a single-celled embryo) if it is appropriately fertilized and activated by a live sperm. If fertilization is successful and the genetic complement of the sperm is added to that of the egg, the resulting zygote is also alive. The zygote has the same size as the egg; other than for its new genotype, the cell (comprising the cytoplasm and the rest) is nearly identical to the egg cell. From a biological perspective, no new life has been created.

Second, “human life” implies individuality, which is also not consistent with scientific observations. In the clinical practice of IVF, we often speak of preimplantation embryos as individual entities, with distinct qualities like a specific genotype (mosaicism notwithstanding), and morphologic and developmental characteristics. But at the same time we realize that each of the totipotent cells that comprise these embryos is, at least theoretically, capable of producing a complete new individual. Indeed, multiple individuals can arise from the implantation of a single embryo, as in the case of identical twins. Therefore, we know that the preimplantation embryo is not actually an individual. The preimplantation embryo is essentially an aggregate of stem cells, which has the potential to produce a pregnancy, including placental and fetal tissues, assuming that it successfully implants in a receptive endometrium. It is only after implantation that the early embryo can further differentiate into the organized cell groups that enable the developing conceptus to progress further in embryonic and eventually fetal development.

“Life begins at fertilization” may certainly be considered a religious concept; because religious ideas are based on faith, no further proof is necessary. It is pointless to use science as an argument against faith-based dictums. For example, it is also not in the realm of science to investigate the nature of life after death or the validity of holy books. The beginning of human life likewise occupies the legal realm, where line drawing can be essential to the application of civil and criminal law. But laws are created by legislators, not scientists. Many attempts already have been made to legally define life as beginning at fertilization. Although the impetus for this type of legislation is likely religious, a supporting argument is often made that this is a scientific fact as well, which is in contradiction to the arguments presented here.

In these interesting times of nearly instantaneous communication and unlimited information, scientific conclusions are easily drowned out by other opinions. It matters to our patients and to us how information about our field is presented in the lay media. We should not quietly ignore the multiple Web sites, lay publications, and other sources of information that claim there is scientific proof that life begins at fertilization. If we do not object, our silence will be interpreted as scientific validation of this wholly religious, entirely unscientific conclusion. We should not be complicit in the dissemination of this type of disinformation and, more specifically, we should not acquiesce to the claim that the concept of “life begins at fertilization” has a scientific basis.

(05-08-2019, 09:38 PM)bfine32 Wrote: The quote you cited states "life" begins at conception. Call it what you will, but it's a human life. It is not subjective. 

(05-09-2019, 12:55 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Q:  What kind of human has no head, body, limbs, skin, bones, brain, or blood?

Quote:After a shouting match broke out, the Alabama Senate on Thursday voted to table an amendment to a controversial bill that would criminalize abortions by making performing the procedure a felony punishable by up to 99 years imprisonment.


A vote affecting the abortion bill was then tabled. Democrats shouted demands for a roll-call vote.

The vote was then moved until next week. The bill would be the most restrictive in the country and would impose what is in effect a near-total abortion ban.



Alabama is among more than two dozen states that have sought to impose new restrictions on abortion this year. Georgia on Tuesday became the sixth state to impose a ban on abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy.



Alabama Rep. Terri Collins ®, who sponsored the bill, said its purpose is to spark litigation that would force the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that guarantees a woman’s right to abortion.



Under the Alabama legislation, doctors will not be able to perform abortions once a fetus is “in utero.”



The version that passed in the statehouse allowed for only a single exception, in cases involving a serious health risk “to the unborn child’s mother.” An amendment added in the Senate would also provide for exceptions in the case of rape or incest. That amendment was the subject of fierce debate Thursday.




Gov. Kay Ivey ®, who has described herself as antiabortion, is expected to sign the bill into law as soon as this week, although she has declined to comment directly on the legislation until it is finalized.

(05-09-2019, 12:55 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Still subjective.  In order to be a "human" life there has to be a human.

Q:  What kind of human has no head, body, limbs, skin, bones, brain, or blood?
A:  EVERY HUMAN AT THE START OF THEIR LIFE


The only way you can call a lump of cells a "human" is if you invoke some religious belief in a soul.  "Life" is not the issue because cells like the egg and sperm are already alive.