If that’s the case, then you are pro-killing of human beings, no matter how much YOU sugarcoat it

Can’t deny the accusation, I see, so you have to go back to the old “baby-killer” line. Come on. Can you really believe that a thing with no self-awareness, no consciousness, no brain, indeed, no neurons or differentiated tissue of any sort at all is a baby? Ok. It’s an interesting definition of personhood and one that leaves an interesting problem at the end of life (when do you declare someone dead?), but beliefs are beliefs. But why don’t you want to save the sick babies as well as the ones in danger of violence? I’m not saying that you have to consider the two problems equally morally relevant or even equally important, but ignoring one totally is just bizarre. It’s not how people normally behave in other areas of life. People spend time and money arguing for both health care reform and ending the death penalty, to give another example of how to lobby to decrease death by both disease and murder…if you really believe that the act in question is murder.

Perhaps they don’t consider it a solvable problem at the current time.

Err…maybe you need a little general science background as well as medical background. The point of research is to understand an area that is not currently understood. The specific point of medical research is to improve survival in diseases that are not currently well understood or curable. If the reasons for all miscarriages were understood I would be asking you why pro-life groups don’t spend money on helping women get proper treatment so that they wouldn’t miscarry. Or maybe not worrying about it at all because they were doing all they could to lobby for health care for pregnant women, etc (though that is unlikely to say the least.) However, the etiology of most miscarriages is unknown. Hence, the need for research into the problem. Again, if 80% of babies died of an unknown disease in the first two weeks of life, would you really not want to do anything to find out why they were dying just because infanticide also happened at times? Well, according to your belief system, that is just what you are doing.

Surely anyone who sincerely believed in the personhood of single celled organisms would be interested in both curing the disease that causes so many deaths and stopping the murders. Most people can manage to concentrate on two things at once, you know, even in the face of limited funds. For example, in the 1980s gays lobbied for both status as a protected group under hate crime laws AND funding for research into AIDS. Today, many cities and states include sexual orientation in their hate crime laws and bar discrimination based on sexual orientation. At the same time, our ability to treat HIV has expanded enormously. HIV is now a chronic disease which kills over decades rather than (as it did initially) over months. Furthermore, we can now sometimes prevent infection of exposed individuals by post-exposure prophylaxis. This works especially well in newborns. Proper treatment can drop the rate of vertical (mother to child) transmission of HIV from 50% to 1-2%. This progress occured thanks largely to groups like ACTUP which fought for better funding of research into the cause and treatment of AIDS. I know that conservatives don’t like to take gay folks as an example, but there you have it: an example of how to successfully reduce death from both disease and violence simultaneously. So, why doesn’t the “pro-life” movement want to devote any time to working to prevent the majority of “babies” from dying in miscarriages? If you’re claiming that they’re simply too stupid or too lazy to do both simultaneously and therefore have decided to concentrate only on one…well, you said it, not me.

If that’s the case, then you are pro-killing of human beings, no matter how much YOU sugarcoat it. Are you beginning to understand why we use the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life” as a convenient courtesy to those who prefer to be called those things, as opposed to “woman-haters” and “baby-killers”? (Actually, I doubt that you get it yet, but I’ll continue trying.)

“bmmg: Are you trying to be stupid or is your righteous anger getting in the way of your reading comprehension?”

I was less stupid with my response than you were with your comment with regard to miscarriages.

“Ok, maybe you just don’t know anything about biology or medicine. Here’s the background: It is estimated that somewhere between 60% and 80% of pregnancies end before the pregnancy is “clinically apparent”. That is, before the woman has a missed period or other signs or symptoms of pregnancy (but after, obviously, high sensitivity HCG tests can pick the pregnancy up). Most of these miscarriages are due to failure of implantation, though other factors may play a role.”

I was aware of all of that, but thanks for taking your time.

“So where are the pro-life foundations dedicated to ending this plague?”

Perhaps they don’t consider it a solvable problem at the current time. You seem to think that because several unborn children die of natural causes it should be perfectly all right to kill them intentionally. Would you then favor infanticide in nations where the infant mortality rates are very high? (And, lest you folks are having difficulty with the concept, that’s not a straw-feminist argument; it’s the extension of your own “logic.”)

I don’t know of anyone who is in favor of women suffering miscarriages.

bmmg: Are you trying to be stupid or is your righteous anger getting in the way of your reading comprehension? Ok, maybe you just don’t know anything about biology or medicine. Here’s the background: It is estimated that somewhere between 60% and 80% of pregnancies end before the pregnancy is “clinically apparent”. That is, before the woman has a missed period or other signs or symptoms of pregnancy (but after, obviously, high sensitivity HCG tests can pick the pregnancy up). Most of these miscarriages are due to failure of implantation, though other factors may play a role. Many of the concepti have genetic defects, but not all. Not much is known about them because the funding for studying them is rare to non-existent. It’s generally not considered much of a public health problem. Yet if all concepti from fertilization on are babies then it is really a huge problem. As many as 80% of babies are dying! So where are the pro-life foundations dedicated to ending this plague? Why don’t Focus on Family and Operation Rescue send out emails asking their contributors to lobby congress for more funding of the problem? In short, why are you concentrating on a few “murders” when most people die of disease? Inconvenient question, isn’t it?

Project much?

Not nearly as much as you seem to. So what’s your answer to my question: If you care about every blastulocyte, why aren’t you screaming for research into ending the death of up to 80% of “babies” in the first two weeks of life? Seriously, if you believe in “snowflake babies” how do you possibly justify ignoring this pandemic?

If one of your daughters was raped and became pregnant, would you try to force her to bear her attackers child? If so, then you are pro-enslavement of your daughters, however you sugarcoat it. (Hey, don’t feel too bad. You’re in good company: Thomas Jefferson enslaved his children too.) Would you demand that one of your daughters carry a child to term even though it was highly unlikely that she would survive the pregnancy? If so then you’re in favor of murdering your daughters, no matter what your rationalization for that belief. Would you want your daughter to maintain a pregnancy even though the pregnancy was destroying her liver, kidneys, or other organs? Then you’re in favor of maiming your daughters, no matter what your reasons.

Or would you make an exception just for your children and perhaps yourself? That’s not uncommon for “pro-life” women: the desire to forbid all abortions but the ones they or their families desire. Every person who works in a women’s health clinic inevitably has stories about women who sneak into the clinic, have their abortion, and return to protesting out front.

If you can demonstrate exactly where anyone has said it should be illegal to kill unborn children but legal to kill born ones, then you will have a cogent point. Until then…

“BTW, I LOVE the massacre of logic, bmmg39.”

By the looks of things here, where allegedly millions of Americans wish to see women maimed and killed, if you’re a regular poster here, logic might not be your forte.

“At least in this case. I notice that you’re afraid to answer the question about why the so-called ‘pro-life’ movement isn’t interested in stopping early miscarriages.”

As you place quotation marks around the term above, it doesn’t come to a surprise to me that you allege another position to a movement that hasn’t actually come forward with it. I don’t know of anyone who is in favor of women suffering miscarriages.

“I love it how you compare a woman having an abortion to a rapist.”

I don’t mention rape lightly, and many pregnant women feel the anguish of their decision when considering an abortion, but the two are similar in that there is an aggrieved party with each.

“Empowering women makes your nation more prosperous. Treat them like human beings.”

And we do not treat women like human beings when we tell them that their pregnancy is a disease that must be irradicated, when we tell them that a woman’s biology makes her inferior to a man, when we pit mother against her child. The early feminists recognized that fact, and many pro-life feminists do today. Sad that so many don’t grasp it.

If you try to legislate away a necessity or pass a law that 90% of the population privately regards as bullshit, or not for them, or extremely detrimental to their families, it’s not going to work. That goes doubly when you can’t control black-market availability of the banned good or service or effectively monitor likely purchasers of said good or service.

As a pro-lifer, I am *definitely* for the enslaving, maiming and killing of my three daughters… (catch the sarcasm there?)

Get real Dianne. Project much?