Matt Bors for April 03, 2013

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    Uncle Joe Premium Member almost 11 years ago

    Actual size is about a quarter of an inch & looks like this:

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    Dtroutma  almost 11 years ago

    And earthworms have a similar “heartbeat”.

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    ConserveGov  almost 11 years ago

    So if you ^^ had a pregnant wife (somehow) and she was shot and your soon to be daughter was killed in the womb, you would just say “Oh well, it was just a tiny worm-like creature”?

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    lbatik  almost 11 years ago

    No it isn’t. It is not only fact-based, it is entirely relevant to the point of “when human life begins.”

    We say that a life has ended when there is no brain activity detectable. It doesn’t matter if the heart is beating or not; all the heart needs to beat is enough cells and a calcium ion gradient. But whether or not the brain is functional, matters.

    So for what reason would we define a life as beginning before there is a functional brain? Why would we define it as “a life”, rather than as “the possibility of a future life, and currently living cells”, when there is no brain activity, and no functional brain?

    And explain to me, seriously, why a person, with a functional brain to the point of having even rudimentary consciousness, is not more important than a group of stem cells?

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    ossiningaling  almost 11 years ago

    I’m with you, Lynne. Thanks for contributing to the dialog.

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    Fourcrows  almost 11 years ago

    Aside from a hysterectomy, no birth control method is 100%. Condoms break or leak, diaphragms and IUD’s can shift, pills are based on modifying hormones and menstrual cycles, and even vasectomies are capable of self-repair. Also, rape happens, and date rape, where a woman is taken advantage of in a less than cohesive state. For many couples, a child (or an additional child) means severe financial consequences, resulting in another family on welfare, or another unloved/unwanted child more likely to become a criminal, or another child who ends up a ward of the state because not every child can be adopted. If you want abortion to be 100% illegal, than you must also increase the percentage of our tax dollars to go towards our welfare system, to ensure that every child born can be well cared for and educated. Also increase the money to our public healthcare system, so these expectant mothers are fully cared for with no need for an abortion. In other words, provide a viable, working alternative to abortion, and don’t complain about your tax money going to support welfare babies and moms.

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  7. Froggy ico
    lbatik  almost 11 years ago

    True.

    Not to mention that a far larger part of their business, and one that they do get funding for, is preventing unwanted pregnancies through appropriate and affordable contraception, and health services (including prenatal) for women.

    In a culture which genuinely valued life, they would be celebrating the existence of any organization which did so much to help women prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, as well as look after women’s health. They would want to see it better funded and more accessible, rather than trying to demonize or deny what it actually does, and by defunding it make unplanned pregnancies in fact all the more probable.

    There is an interesting perspective here, on a former pro-life woman who came to see some of the problems.

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    Stormrider2112  almost 11 years ago

    Mother > fetus. I’ll never have to make that decision (sterile guy parts, and sex reassignment doesn’t create internal organs), but you can’t tell me that a decision that isn’t your’s to make should be up to the government to decide.-The woman, doctor, and possibly father (if it were consentual sex) should be the only parties making that decision. I’m pro-choice because that’s what it is. It’s not my choice to make.

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    hippogriff  almost 11 years ago

    Throughout history, the Abrahamic religions (that’s Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), have claimed fetal rights start at quickening. A few years ago, a scientist studying fetal brain activity, discovered an instant in which an inert brain suddenly becomes functional. I awaited more media coverage, but it only got the one-day treatment reserved for stories to earth-shaking to be covered. Neither religious doctrine nor biology support the gynaphobic assertions made by “right-to-life” politicians also noted for supporting war, capital punishment, machineguns for crooks, and withholding medical care from women.

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    I Play One On TV  almost 11 years ago

    Thank you Lynne B. Your points are well taken, well-researched, and well communicated.

    I find it curious that most anti-abortion people, or at least the most vocal, are male.

    I am male, and I am willing to say that I can never be in the position of facing the results of an unplanned/unwanted pregnancy. If I don’t want to be a dad, I can just disappear. The woman cannot.

    To my fellow males: Until you can be put into the position of having to make those life choices, I recommend you keep your collective mouth shut.

    Western religions and Republicans have very similar characteristics: Strong Paternalism, Inflexible, and Absolutely Convinced of Infallibility. No wonder they think they need to prevent women from thinking for themselves.

    We’re a far ways from equality for women, and I don’t see quick remediation. Remember a few years ago when the world got all worked up over the Taliban’s plans to destroy Buddhas made of rock? Granted, they were very old, and were a part of history. But they beat their women and treat them as possessions. These are rocks, folks; those are people. How can we be more concerned about rocks?

    Sometimes I’m embarrassed to be part of the human race.

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    SClark55 Premium Member almost 11 years ago

    Gee, where would women be without Matt Bors to stand up for their rights?

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    Quipss  almost 11 years ago

    and if you are a male born by rural parents in bejing, you will never go to school because civil laws there forbid you from doing so, you grow up doing child labour and breathing in air that according to the governments own statistics

    has reached a point of being toxic 1/3 of the year

    where the smog gets thick enough that planes can’t land. or acidic enough that goggles are one of the most common items purchased

    China is far from a vanguard for human rights for anyone

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  13. Froggy ico
    lbatik  almost 11 years ago

    All I can say is thank you for the discussion, all of you. If there are points that make sense to you, excellent.

    This is something that’s important, to a lot of people’s lives.

    Oh, but ansonia: I never said that the clump of cells which becomes, at some point, ideally, a human being, isn’t already “human.” But it isn’t a human. Not yet. It might grow into that. But in the early stages, there is still the difference between “life” (and my retinal cells represent “life”) and a life. This difference, no matter how much you like to call it “opinion”, is in fact still science fact.

    I have offered facts to support this argument, at least, including why a heartbeat does not define a life.

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    Quipss  almost 11 years ago

    After all 80% to 500% of all abortions occur in the third trimester.

    just ignore the statistics that say it is <2%. I personally would agree with third trimester bans were it not for the fact that from that point 97% is for medical reasons.

    if you feel that the mother’s life should be put at significant risk so as to give the baby a chance at survival that is the point of which we break into opinion. My personal feeling is that I would rather simply save 1 life then have a significant risk of 2 deaths.

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    markjoseph125  almost 11 years ago

    Ansonia, I hate to be the first to tell you this, dude, but you challenging Lynne B on the scientific facts just showed up in my on-line dictionary of idioms as an illustration of the phrase “completely out of his league.”

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    markjoseph125  almost 11 years ago

    Hey, OC, the idea of a catholic (inquisitions, holy wars, pogroms, ad infinitum) talking about the dead conscience of those who endorse the killing of human beings just broke the needle on my irony meter. And here I didn’t think you had a sense of humor…

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    dannysixpack  almost 11 years ago

    ^I am curious what drugs are you recovering from? It seems they may have done some permanent damage.

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