Alabama votes no more abortion!

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I am rather disappointed by Governor Ivey’s comments, “No matter one’s personal view on abortion, we can all recognize that, at least for the short term, this bill may similarly be unenforceable. As citizens of this great country, we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions.”

I highly doubt that Governor Ivey would be saying that “we must always respect the authority of the Supreme Court” if the Court decided tomorrow that blacks were not citizens. She would fight it and declare the Court’s decision null, as would every other governor in the country. Ultimately Governor Ivey will allow abortions to continue to be performed in Alabama without any negative legal consequences whatsoever for those who participate in them because Governor Ivey does not have the desire to enforce the very law she signed.

The Supreme Court is composed of fallible men and there is no reason why citizens must blindly submit to whatever the Court decides. In the Middle Ages, Catholics understood that an unjust “law” is not truly a law and possesses no binding force. If this principle is ignored then citizens have no effective recourse against a corrupt governing body.
 
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Economist said:
This gives us a little hope. The law is so incredibly crazy - no exception for rape and incest??? - that it will be struck down by SCOTUS - hopefully! It should be a wake-up call for the women voters all across the country. Go out and vote against all who want to take away your reproductive rights, who want to make you to become breeding sacks without any regard for your freedom.
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Lots of hysteria, little substance here.
  1. If an unborn child is a person, it does not unbecome a person just because the father forced himself on the mother. It is still a person, and an innocent party. It’s called logic.
  2. Not one single person is going to suddenly force women to have as many children as possible just because they won’t be able to legally kill their “mistake” children anymore.
 
I am not really a fan of Kay Ivey. She is basically governor by virtue of the last governor being run out of office for cheating on his wife with a member of his staff and using state assets to do it, like helicopter flights and stuff. Ivey was the Lt Governor, so got bumped into the position. She then ran basically unopposed in the Republican primary in a deep red state, and more or less default- beat the Democrat candidate. She is wishy washy on a lot of issues and I’d rather see someone else in the office. But she knows if she didn’t sign this bill her butt was out of office come the next election.

As an aside, it is notable how the Georgia and Alabama laws are reported by members of the local media. I was flipping radio stations and the between-the-hour newscast, which is supposed to be neutral, did nothing but highlight that Democrats opposed restrictions on women’s reproductive health and that they “felt sorry for women in Alabama and Georgia”. Then later the hosts of whatever morning show it was were ranting about how they didn’t understand why people wanted to control women’s bodies. Real subtle messaging there. :roll_eyes:
 
I figured this law would bring out all those who like to hide behind being nominally pro-life but when push comes to shove really aren’t.
 
I applaud Alabama for its ruling and pray every State follows its lead.
 
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ATraveller said:
Plenty of women on CAF, likely the majority, are opposed to unrestricted abortions.
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And no one would dream of forcing them to have abortions. Their decision must be respected. The point is that those women who get pregnant against their will, and do not WANT to carry it to term are FORCED by this law." And even though the majority of women on this board might be against abortions, the majority of Catholic women and the overwhelming majority of ALL women do not share this attitude.
FirstFiveEighth said:
If an unborn child is a person, it does not unbecome a person just because the father forced himself on the mother. It is still a person, and an innocent party. It’s called logic.
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The operating word is “IF”. The only difference between a blob of cells (tumor) and a blastocyst is that the tumor cannot become a child (as far as we know), but the blastocyst can. If you are a Thomist, you need to understand the difference between the “potential” and the “actual”. A zygote is a potential human being, and IF it does not get flushed out from the woman’s body, IF it gets implanted into the uterus, IF it grows properly, IF there is no spontaneous abortion, IF it successfully emerges from the vagina during the birth… THEN the potential becomes actualized, it will become a person, who has a biologically independent existence from the mother. The fact that it still needs assistance to survive has nothing to do with the biologically independent existence. It is not a coincidence that in Judaism it is the first breath that separates the fetus from the child. After all God breathes the “soul” into the nostril of Adam, which makes him a human being (or person).
FirstFiveEighth said:
Not one single person is going to suddenly force women to have as many children as possible just because they won’t be able to legally kill their “mistake” children anymore.
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If only you would follow the Thomistic concept of “potential” vs. “actual”. we might have something to talk about. 🙂 But that sounds unlikely. Have a wonderful day.
 
FirstFiveEighth said:
I figured this law would bring out all those who like to hide behind being nominally pro-life but when push comes to shove really aren’t.
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Career politicians can’t ever solve the abortion problem, just like they can’t ever solve racial problems, or poverty problems, or whatever…

I mean, c’mon. Solving real problems just means voters have one less reason to vote for you, right? 😉
 
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Economist said:
And no one would dream of forcing them to have abortions. Their decision must be respected. The point is that those women who get pregnant against their will, and do not WANT to carry it to term are FORCED by this law." And even though the majority of women on this board might be against abortions, the majority of Catholic women and the overwhelming majority of ALL women do not share this attitude.
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With the exception of rape, no one forced them to get pregnant.
Your original post pretended as if all women were for abortion for any reason. Stop speaking as if you speak for all women. You don’t.
Economist said:
The only difference between a blob of cells (tumor) and a blastocyst is that the tumor cannot become a child (as far as we know), but the blastocyst can.
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The differences are much greater than that.
The efforts to minimise the differences to treat the unborn as if he or she is a parasite or tumour never ceases to amaze.
 
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You aren’t applying that correctly.
Economist said:
The operating word is “IF”. The only difference between a blob of cells (tumor) and a blastocyst is that the tumor cannot become a child (as far as we know), but the blastocyst can.
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Yeah…not true. There are many differences between a blob of cells (tumor) and a blastocyst. The big difference is that a tumor is an abnormal growth of an individual’s own cells, and a blastocyst is a human being in an early stage of development that passes quickly. A tumor is an unhealthy development on a person’s body. A blastocyst is the picture of perfect health for both itself and the mother.

The primary reason that “as far as we know” a tumor can’t become a person, is because it is not a person. It is an abnormal growth of skin, brain, liver, etc cells. Cells that are subcompnents of one individual. A blastocyst does become a person, because it is a person. It is completely distinct from its parents with its own DNA sequence. It contains its own code for skin, brain, liver, etc cells. Within 4-5 days, it will be an embryo. Then a fetus. Then an infant. Then a toddler. Then a kid. Then a teenager. Then an adult.

You were once a blastocyst. At no point were you, nor could you ever have been, a tumor.

You are trying to smudge lines that can’t be smudged. The fact that you are trying to frame unborn children as virtually indistinct from tumors is quite frankly disgusting, let alone factually incorrect on basically every level.
 
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ATraveller said:
With the exception of rape, no one forced them to get pregnant.
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But the Alabama law does not make that an exception.
ATraveller said:
Your original post pretended as if all women were for abortion for any reason. Stop speaking as if you speak for all women. You don’t.
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I did not pretend to speak for all woman. But I do speak for all those women who do not wish to be forced to become mothers against their wishes.
ATraveller said:
The differences are much greater than that.
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That is the basic difference. The difference between “potential” and “actual”. Even though the Catholic Church has no official philosophical underpinning, it relies heavily of Aquinas and his Thomistic philosophy.
ATraveller said:
The efforts to minimise the differences to treat the unborn as if he or she is a parasite or tumour never ceases to amaze.
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The effort to equate a zygote with a human person never ceases to amaze me. What now? There can be no person without a functioning brain, which is able to perform the higher functions of the brain, like conceptualizing - and that is a scientific fact. A fully developed bonobo or a chimpanzee has the brain power of a 4 years old human child - are they considered persons? I would so stipulate.
 
Economist said:
A zygote is a potential human being, and IF it does not get flushed out from the woman’s body, IF it gets implanted into the uterus, IF it grows properly, IF there is no spontaneous abortion, IF it successfully emerges from the vagina during the birth… THEN the potential becomes actualized, it will become a person, who has a biologically independent existence from the mother. The fact that it still needs assistance to survive has nothing to do with the biologically independent existence. It is not a coincidence that in Judaism it is the first breath that separates the fetus from the child. After all God breathes the “soul” into the nostril of Adam, which makes him a human being (or person).
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Figured I may as well address this too. All you are doing is describing stages of development. “Biological independence” has nothing to do with humanity. An infant is biologically dependent on others, or it will die. Is it not human? Are you a proponent of infanticide? A woman in a coma is biologically dependent on others to survive. Did she cease to be human? Was she ever human? If she comes out of the coma, is she human again? You are drawing arbitrary distinctions around “human” and “person” that, applied consistently, exclude not just the blastocyst or the zygote or the fetus, but many other persons that currently enjoy legal protections by virtue of lingering Christian tradition, not by the applied logic of your position.

By the way, if the zygote is not a human being…what is it? What species does it belong to?
 
Economist said:
That is the basic difference. The difference between “potential” and “actual”. Even though the Catholic Church has no official philosophical underpinning, it relies heavily of Aquinas and his Thomistic philosophy.
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My response wasn’t about philosophy. It was about cellular biology.
Briefly:
The cell membranes of blastocysts and tumours are vastly different. The components are different. There are differences in the lipid bilayers and the proteins that control the movement of ions and other substances.
The arrangement of cells are vastly different. One’s organised and the other is random.
Genetic stability between the two are also different and the epigenetic processes too.
Economist said:
The effort to equate a zygote with a human person never ceases to amaze me. What now? There can be no person without a functioning brain, which is able to perform the higher functions of the brain, like conceptualizing - and that is a scientific fact. A fully developed bonobo or a chimpanzee has the brain power of a 4 years old human child - are they considered persons? I would so stipulate.
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No because other primates aren’t humans. Their DNA are different. The genes are different enough when enzymes translate them to form RNA templates for the arrangement of amino acids in the construction of proteins for tissues, we get completely different results.
 
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Heeeeey! Congratulations Alabama for doing the right thing!

Wonderful news.

God bless.

Cathoholic
 
Economist said:
But the Alabama law does not make that an exception.
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If a woman becomes pregnant as a result of rape and then kills the baby conceived by that act, she is killing the other innocent victim. We do not even think of killing the actual perpetrator of the act, why should we kill another innocent victim?
 
Economist said:
. If you are a Thomist, you need to understand the difference between the “potential” and the “actual”. A zygote is a potential human being, and IF it does not get flushed out from the woman’s body, IF it gets implanted into the uterus, IF it grows properly, IF there is no
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This is where you are wrong: An unfertilized egg or sperm has potential; a fertilized egg has the actuality. Once the sperm and egg have come together, they are a new human being, just a new human being in a very early stage.

All your IFs are spurious, because all they mean is IF the newly-formed human does not die…

There is a difference being dying and being killed. If my grandfather has a heart attack and dies, that is much different than if I take a knife to him or poison him.

You are looking at the newly-formed human as if it were not complete, but it is complete for its stage of development.

We don’t say that because a 2-year-old human lacks the brain power of even an adult bonobo chimpanzee that they are bonobo chimps, do we? We don’t say it’s all right to kill the 2-year-old because it lacks the brain power of an adult chimp, do we?

That is because the 2-year-old is simply where it is supposed to be at its stage of development. The difference between a human 2-year-old and an adult chimpanzee is that they are different species.
Economist said:
… all those women who do not wish to be forced to become mothers against their wishes.
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A pregnant woman is a mother. If she does not wish to become a mother, the time to make a decision is before she engages in the act which makes women mothers.
 
Economist said:
The effort to equate a zygote with a human person never ceases to amaze me. What now? There can be no person without a functioning brain, which is able to perform the higher functions of the brain, like conceptualizing - and that is a scientific fact.
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The zygote has all of the functionality necessary to prove life.
It also is genetically human.

Therefore it is a human life.
 
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