Contraception, Abortion and Komen – Discussion

On February 9, 2012 I posted my commentary "Contraception, Abortion and Komen" and on February 13, 2012 I posted my commentary "Contraception, Abortion and Komen (Continued)." I urge readers to re-read these commentaries before reading the discussion, which follows.

Albert Nekimken of Vienna, Virginia, enthused:

I read your original blog after receiving today's comments on it. Bravo to you for exposing this covert religious effort to demean and endanger women by eviscerating hard-won rights.

Irving Lesnick Esq. of Boca Raton, Florida brought us this insight:

On the subject of when human life begins, there is a statement in the Bible on the subject:  Genesis Chap 2, Verse 7: And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed life into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This seems to say that a fetus becomes a human when it starts breathing, which is when it is born alive.

I never understood why this verse is never referred to in the "when does life begin argument."

To which I responded:

Thanks so much for your input. 

It is startling to find that not only does the Bible not support the theory that life begins at conception, but it actually supports the view that life begins when the fetus begins to breath on its own, i.e., when the umbilical cord is cut.

It appears that the fundamentalists not only ignore science, but even the Bible, that they claim to revere.

Finally Professor Robert Malchman of Brooklyn, NY made this contribution:

"I think that even during the time when abortion was always illegal, and even birth control was a violation of law; it was when the fetus is capable of existing outside the womb, i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut." If I recall correctly, there was also a distinction made when the fetus "quickened," that is, could be felt to move. Killing of a quickened fetus had more substantial penalties than pre-quickened abortions. Now, of course, a fetus can live as a baby outside the womb by the third trimester. Roe v. Wade allows states to prohibit abortion in the third trimester and although viability is not the sole basis for the trimester system Roe creates, it has a logic to it. If the fetus can live, one shouldn't have the right at that point to choose an extraction process that kills it. What will be interesting is when science, as is inevitable, can grow a fetus outside a woman, a true "test-tube" baby. At that point, it will be interesting to see if extraction is permitted, but abortion forbidden (i.e., the woman has a right to remove the fetus, but not to terminate it), or if the debate shifts from a woman's right to control her body to the right to choose whether to bring a life into the world. If it becomes the latter, it will also be interesting to see what rights, if any, fathers may acquire -- of course as it stands now in the body-control regime, there are none.

To which I responded:

Thanks for your comment. You raise some interesting questions. I don't think I agree with some of your moral conclusions. I don't agree with the Sup. Ct. holding that viability controls. Even then I wouldn't want to criminalize it. As for a test tube baby, I would assume if it became possible, it would be made illegal. As for the father, that opens up a whole new debate, but I don't believe that under any circumstances, anyone but the person who is carrying the fetus should be allowed to determine how her body is to be used. The fundamental right has to be the women's right to control her own body and all that resides within it.

Additional comments received on or before February 20, 2011 will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified. 

Contraception, Abortion and Komen (Continued)

I posted my commentary entitled "Contraception, Abortion, and Komen" on February 9, 2012.

In response thereto one of my subscribers who does not want to be identified commented:

Excellent letter. I think that women have just gotten tired of trying to talk to men with closed minds; the men do not want to hear what really happens at Planned Parenthood. I volunteered for a year after retiring as a nurse, and gave it up because I could no longer stomach the youngsters coming in with STD's; many of them had more than one, and they were so out of touch. Pregnancies were few, and requests for abortion even less frequent. But women who work with women know the facts and I think that is one of the reasons that there was such an outcry. Women could not believe and could not accept that a women’s organization did not know what Planned Parenthood is all about---which is women’s health care. Komen made a big mistake---turning their back on women who need help. I am not sure that they will be quickly forgiven. Omit my name please---I like talking with you, a breath of sanity in a world of viciousness. 

Allow me to add:

Comments are welcome and will be distributed with attribution, unless the writer requests that he/she not be identified.

Since then the controversy has escalated, and now swirls around the Health Insurance Reform, under which, among many other provisions, all insurance policies must include coverage for pre-existing conditions, primary care, and birth control, at no additional cost. Opponents of birth control now have escalated this into a religious issue because the Department of Health & Human Services has refused to exempt religious institutions from its provisions. Let me make clear that no institution is required under this law to provide contraceptive services. This is only about insurance. If you choose to sell or provide insurance to your employees all must comply with the law.

Nevertheless, the administration has now exempted religious institutions from having to pay or insure women for birth control. This will be done only by insurance companies, but will, in fact have no cost in the long run, because like all preventive health care, it reduces the cost of health care in the long run.

But the hysteria on the part of Republican Presidential candidates has, if anything, escalated. According to Planned Parenthood:

Mitt Romney told his supporters "This same administration said that in churches… that they have to provide for their employees, free of charge, contraceptives, morning-after pills — in other words abortive pills…  

 This is flat out untrue. 

Here's the truth. Nearly every sexually active woman — including 98 percent of Catholics — will rely on birth control at some point. It's basic preventive care — not just as a contraceptive, but for women who use the birth control pill to manage ovarian cysts, endometriosis, and other conditions. The health care reform law requires employers to provide coverage for preventive care with no co-pays. While churches, mosques, and other religious institutions do no have to abide by this requirement, the Obama administration has decided that religiously affiliated hospitals and universities with large numbers of employees of different faiths can't impose their ideology on those employees. It's simple: your boss can't decide whether you have access to birth control with no co-pays.

The Republican agenda becomes more and more radical, and more and more oppressive. The liberties, not only of women, but of all are at stake. Romney, the ultimate opportunist, is willing to sell his soul in his lust for power and prestige, to add to his billions of dollars.

Finally, I have been trying to understand where the fundamentalists get their concept that life begins at conception. In this connection I entered into a discussion on this with a friend a while ago. 

Without going into what prompted my discourse I think my response may be of interest:

What I think you are suggesting is that the point of the Right's position on abortion is to require women to be continuously pregnant, i.e. to be plentiful, and there is support for this in the Bible. Genesis 1:28 “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 

           

But what I hear them saying, does not suggest that to me. I rather hear an anti-sex message. More than anything I hear abstain from sex outside of marriage, and this too has support in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 7:1-40 and to have sex only to procreate.

           

But while I think this underlies their views, they rely on the idea of "when life begins," for which I can find no support in the Bible. Furthermore, the idea that "life" must be protected is silly, since life exists in the form of a mosquito, and surely they do not mean that mosquitoes, or for that matter bacteria, which too is life, must be protected. What they must mean, though they never seem to say it, is that human life must be protected. They then postulate that human life begins when the sperm fertilizes the egg. But that is completely arbitrary. The egg looks no different after fertilization than before. If they argue that this ultimately leads to human life, than it can equally be argued, that the sperm itself, or the egg itself, leads to human life, and there is no doubt that the sperm is alive, even before it enters the egg. 

           

What really drives this, outside the hard-core fundamentalists, is that traditionally, abortion was frowned upon, and the physician who performed them illegally was looked down upon as the lowest of the low. But this always coexisted with the dangerous back-alley abortion, or self induced abortion, and the abortion sought by those with the means to go to a jurisdictions where it was legal. 

Just as we have learned, that many prejudices of the past don't make sense, whether it was that left handed is unacceptable, to that being gay is not normal, or that contraception is immoral, so it is simply moving with the reality that abortion is simply a late term contraception.

           

The question is not when does life begin, but rather when does human life begin. While abortion was frowned upon in past generations, it was never considered the killing of a person. It was never murder. The introduction of the idea that a human life begins at fertilization of the egg, inevitably leads to claims of murder, but it has no basis either in the past, or in logic.

           

The fertilized egg is no more a human that a tadpole is a frog, or a fertilized hen egg is a chicken, and I think few, if any, would claim that to be so.

When does human life begin? I think that even during the time when abortion was always illegal, and even birth control was a violation of law; it was when the fetus is capable of existing outside the womb, i.e. when the umbilical cord is cut.

           

Any other approach has no basis in religion, in the Bible or in precedent.