Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy has a penetrating and thoughtful article about proposition 48 in Colorado. This proposition would declare a fertilized human egg "a human", thus elevating nonpersons such as zygotes and blastocysts to full human status. This is an obvious ploy to outlaw abortion and embryonic stem cell research without challenging them directly. Read the article, and if you are a Colorado voter, please, come down on the side of reason, not religion:

When is a human human? (Bad Astronomy):
…There are other vital issues, like how granting civil rights to a collection of cells takes away many civil rights of women, and the huge increase in governmental involvement this would mean in people’s lives. These are important to be sure, but not the point I want to make here. Also, these are age-old arguments, and in fact I can see where intelligent people can come down on opposite sides of them.

The real point is, Prop 48 isn’t about science, and it’s not even about legal issues. It’s about religion. This proposition is obviously based solely on religious beliefs; there is little reason outside of that to even bring the argument up that a fertilized egg is entitled to rights as a human being. It is only the belief that the human soul enters the cell at that moment that this is an issue at all.

Proposition 48 is religion trying to create legislation, pure and simple.…

Today the Supreme Court upheld the federal ban on "intact dilation and extraction" abortion procedures, termed "partial birth abortions" by those given to inflammatory speech.  Yet another backward step to thank our President for. From the New York Times article Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Abortion Procedure:

...Today's decision gave the anti-abortion forces what they had hoped for with the more conservative makeup of the high court since Justice Alito replaced Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Abortion opponents are sure to be pleased by some of the language in Justice Kennedy's opinion, including his observation that "the government may use its voice and its regulatory authority to show its profound respect for the life within the woman."...

..."I applaud the court for its ruling today," Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican minority leader in the House of Representatives, told The Associated Press. "My hope is that it sets the stage for further progress in the fight to ensure our nation's laws respect the sanctity of unborn human life."

But Eve Gartner of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said the ruling "flies in the face of 30 years of Supreme Court precedent and the best interest of women's health and safety." The ruling sends the signal that "politicians, not doctors," will make health-care decisions for women...

...Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition of America, said: "With today's Supreme Court decision, it is just a matter of time before the infamous Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 will also be struck down by the court."

Y'know I dismiss slippery slope arguments nearly all the time, but it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that these folks come flat out and say they want to end all abortion by taking away a woman's right to choose what happens inside her body.

It's also hard to ignore that the Supreme Court of the United States of America, after 34 years of upholding a woman's right to choose as more important than the right to life of an unborn fetus/embryo/zygote, has now done an about-face and approved a ban on certain types of abortion procedures, procedures that are considered necessary by many in the medical professions.

Late term abortions are pretty controversial in my book, and I have a lot of trouble accepting the practice, which is to say, I don't like it at all.  But I still feel the ultimate decision lies with the pregnant person herself, not the government, and certainly not a religious fanatic who is trying to enforce his or her morals on the pregnant person via the government.

I view today's court decision as a profoundly disturbing mistake.  I hope it does not become a wedge used to erode women's reproductive rights further in the future, as the anti-abortionists seem to hope it will.

I'm also fed up with the inflammatory anti-abortion/anti-stem cell research rhetoric.  I'm sick of hearing abortion opponents decry that young pregnant women are "lining up to kill their children" and other such bullshit.  If you sat down in a restaurant and ordered fried chicken, anti-abortionist or not, you'd complain if you received a plate of fried eggs because you know damn well that eggs aren't chickens.  Scrambling an egg is not the equivalent of killing a chicken, anymore than cracking open a chestnut is the equivalent of felling a tree.

Zygotes and embryos are not human beings.  They are a form of human life, yes, but they are not humans.  Through the fetal stage they become human beings, but it isn't clear exactly when.  This is why I have moral issues with late-term abortions.  If at the conclusion of a normal pregnancy, what emerges from the mother's birth canal is a person, then surely it was a person sixty minutes earlier.  The question of exactly when does a fetus become a person plagues me.

It would be great if ultimately there were no abortions (which is why birth control should be readily available in this country, and taught in school), but at some point a medical professional may decide that a woman's life is in serious danger unless she receives an abortion.  I don't think that the law should be tying his hands or hers, no matter when during the pregnancy that conclusion is reached.

Ron of Ron's Blog notes that we are going to be paying for the Bush court for a generation.  No lie, say I.

New South Dakota bill would ban abortion.  Welcome to George Bush's new America folks.

Republican Sen. Bill Napoli of Rapid City said, "This bill is as straight forward and as honest as it can be. It just says no more abortions unless the life of the mother is threatened."

And a hearty "go fuck yourselves" to the knuckle draggers who supported this bill.  Keep pushing on the pendulum guys... I'm really going to enjoy watching how far it goes when it swings back.

This seemed the most appropriate issue to follow my last article on abortion, obviously the two are linked because both involve the destruction of a proto-human. Taking a humanist viewpoint, this is actually an easier issue to deal with than ...   more »

As the election is rapidly approaching, I've decided to write a series of articles in which I ponder the various issues and put forth my position. It is not my intention to use this as a springboard to stump for ...   more »