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from the from-the-"be-careful-what-you-vote-for"-department dept.
Once upon a time in a strange land (actually, Indiana in 1897) the government tried to pass a law making pi = 3.2.
Ohio is now trying to pass a law doing the impossible — require the implanting of ectopic pregnancies.
A bill to ban abortion introduced in the Ohio state legislature requires doctors to “reimplant an ectopic pregnancy” into a woman’s uterus – a procedure that does not exist in medical science – or face charges of “abortion murder”.
This is the second time practising obstetricians and gynecologists have tried to tell the Ohio legislators that the idea is currently medically impossible.
The move comes amid a wave of increasingly severe anti-abortion bills introduced across much of the country as conservative Republican politicians seek to ban abortion and force a legal showdown on abortion with the supreme court.
Ohio’s move on ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants on the mother’s fallopian tube rather than her uterus rendering the pregnancy unviable – is one of the most extreme bills to date.
“I don’t believe I’m typing this again but, that’s impossible,” wrote Ohio obstetrician and gynecologist Dr David Hackney on Twitter. “We’ll all be going to jail,” he said.
The new Ohio HB413, p.184: To avoid criminal charges, including murder, for abortion, a physician must “…[attempt to] reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the women’s uterus”
and
“There is no procedure to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy,” said Dr Chris Zahn, vice-president of practice activities at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. “It is not possible to move an ectopic pregnancy from a fallopian tube, or anywhere else it might have implanted, to the uterus,” he said.
“Reimplantation is not physiologically possible. Women with ectopic pregnancies are at risk for catastrophic hemorrhage and death in the setting of an ectopic pregnancy, and treating the ectopic pregnancy can certainly save a mom’s life,” said Zahn.
What's not mentioned is that even if implantation into the uterus were possible, there would have already been so much damage done by malnourishment outside the womb that it would most likely die and spontaneously abort anyway.
Now, why don't they do something useful and square the circle. That ought to keep them out of trouble for a while.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday December 02 2019, @12:46PM (16 children)
What is the deal with lawmakers wanting to control everyone's uterus the last few years?
While this is an issue that has no perfect answer, it seemed like there had been a balance that made most people happy. But all of a sudden, retards who want to protect every egg have crawled out of the woodwork.
Is religious retardation increasing that much? If so, I should remind them that their magic sky fairy does not exist, and life is not the precious thing their ~2000 year old book of molestation implies.
Are law makers just so bored they have to try and pass all kinds of Brawndo laws (laws not based on reality) to justify their existance?
It does seem all science and technology has left this country in a hurry lately. (What's a "science"?!). So much for the promises about keeping American jobs.
How about a law to have ALL humans spayed or neutered? That should take care of every legal problem after a while.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Bot on Monday December 02 2019, @01:28PM (11 children)
you are referring to the book instructing people to return to caesar what is caesar's. If abortion is murder, you don't do it whatever the law says. If lack of abortion is double murder instead of murder, you don't do it whatever the law says...
If religion is the problem with oppressive laws, then math is the problem with financial crises and tech is the problem with pollution, else hypocrisy looms.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by FatPhil on Monday December 02 2019, @04:27PM (10 children)
False analogy. Religion (the relevant one to this story) explicitly dictates moral and thus ethical guidelines that should be imposed on all.
Maths doesn't tell you what kind of contrived derivative instruments should be investable in in your financial system, nor on what things you should gamble.
Tech doesn't tell you what machinery should be built, what raw material should be consumed, nor what waste products should be produced, and where they should be disposed of.
There's literally no overlap at all, it's an apples to orangutans comparison.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday December 02 2019, @06:37PM (9 children)
You take the inherent universality of ethics and morals (which is an obvious corollary of defining stuff wrong or right) and you use it against a religion which gives different teachings?
Rich guy goes to Jesus, get advised to follow commandments, wants more, gets invited to give all to the poors, goes away. Nobody stops him.
Jesus tells disciples, if they don't LISTEN (not convert, mind you, listen), shake the dust off your sandals and go.
Jesus use the verb convert which has a defined meaning, and never forces anyone.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @08:33PM (1 child)
Time to cut down on the C11H15NO2.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday December 02 2019, @10:53PM
Right decision you took, at last.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @10:41PM (3 children)
Except moral choices are inherently individual choices. Even identical twins, raised together, sharing just about everything, may make different moral choices when faced with the same situation.
As such, there is no such thing as a "group" or universal morality. They are individual choices made by individuals when a particular situation calls for such a choice.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday December 02 2019, @11:06PM (2 children)
All choices are individual, because forced choices by a collective depend on the guy who decide to force you and similar choices are simply parallel ones. All are done according to individual perspectives like you said, but I was stating something different. Ethics, and morals are universal. The thief must go to prison. Sometimes they don't look universal (the armenian christian must be genocided, the sovereignity of the state stops at its border, we are the chosen people) but they are. All these are absolutes and when you take exceptions, because you save the armenian pretty blue eyes, you know you have made an exception to the universal rule no matter how hard you try to rationalize it.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @03:33AM (1 child)
While there may be broad agreement as to appropriateness/acceptability of some things, ethics and morality are most certainly *not* universal.
In some places, it is "moral" to murder a female family member to maintain the family "honor."
In other places, it is "moral" to imprison, or even kill, people who choose to ingest certain chemicals.
In still other places, it is "moral" to kill someone who wanders onto your property without determining what their purpose might be.
All of the above are immoral in my mind. Which negates your argument pretty thoroughly.
I suggest that you not mistake your own trained-in prejudices for the laws of nature.
(Score: 1, Redundant) by Bot on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:17PM
You still not get it? Let's use one of your supposed counter-examples.
Math says 1+1=2, that is valid here, there, today, tomorrow.
Law says thief is to be punished, this is valid here, there, today, tomorrow.
Religion says murder family member to maintain the family honor, this is valid here there today tomorrow.
In fact, when law stops you, you still consider it no less wrong and try to do it anyway.
An exception to the absolute nature of morals is Islam, where IIRC you cannot drink alcohol but you can during holy war.
You cannot destroy the koran but you can during the holy war (else a cardboard tank made with the pages of a koran would be unassailable). You can tell bullshit for the greater good (also true for Jesuits, right?). But I consider the moral systems based on Islam a superstructure on theocratic political movement more than a religion, so this relativism is natural.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @01:37AM (2 children)
> Jesus use the verb convert which has a defined meaning, and never forces anyone.
Seems that can be parsed two different ways:
If you are trying to argue that Christianity is good, and Christians are evil, well, I'll give you the second point.
If you are claiming that Christianity was spread peacefully, you should study your history. Christianity is the most bloody, violent religion of any that men have come up with yet. "Spread by the sword," never so aptly described any religion, as it does Christianity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @07:31AM
Islam.
(Look at which religion gets voluntary converts.)
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday December 03 2019, @06:04PM
I claim nothing. The bible says who is Christian, and the bible says what a Christian should do.
You claim you are christian? no cigar
You make miracles in the name of the lord? no cigar
You follow the teaching and the example of Christ? bingo.
What I was claiming is that Christ, math and law provide an ideal and absolute structure (note that ideal and absolute does not imply everybody agrees on the same structure), so if their (mis)applications result in disaster they all must be considered responsible in the same way. It's stupid to counter BUT MATH CAN BE VERIFIED in the century where laws and movements are proposed based on the outcome of a mathematical model of a chaotic process like climate.
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday December 02 2019, @03:49PM
Some will disagree. But I think this act is an important part of Republican policy. If you deny people sex education about how their bodies work, and also deny them contraceptives and expect them to live
chasedchaste lives in a monastery before graduation or in adult life, then unwanted babies might be conceived. Some of these conceptions will be ectopic pregnancies. Citizens should remain ignorant of ectopic pregnancies and biology just as legislators are.What doesn't kill me makes me weaker for next time.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by nobu_the_bard on Monday December 02 2019, @03:52PM
It's not that people are getting dumber, its that a side effect of certain processes that have been going on in government reward extremists much more than moderates, such as increased transparency.
A moderate that tries to come up with the best policies based on available information by necessity sometimes changes course or makes mistakes. In the old days these got forgotten or concealed. Nowadays it's not so easy to do those things, so an erroneous policy that they've already abandoned sticks to their record. While it is good this makes it easier to find the fools, it also means the wise that were merely mistaken can be confused for fools. For example if some moderate politician really supported this law out of ignorance, then a biologist explained why it was dumb and they actually abandoned it as a result, you can bet everyone would remember how one time they supported this law rather than that they listened to reason and changed course.
An narrowly focused extremist doesn't have this problem. Every obstacle they encounter is a barrier deviously crafted by their enemies to oppose their perfect ideology. Errors or missteps are dismissed not as mistakes on their part or flaws in their methods or ideologies, but as enemy action. Because of their devotion to the Cause, and all actions they take are in service of the Cause, they are always thought of by their supporters to be right.
I suspect this is because most people seem to value loyalty or devotion a lot more than reason or data.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday December 02 2019, @06:51PM
The American religious right has been wanting to control everyone's uterus since at least the 1970's. It's one of the few things that they're completely consistent about. What's changed is that they now believe that they might have the political power to actually do it now that there are 5 people who were picked out by religious right activists now serving on the Supreme Court.
A good way of understanding these people is to watch The Handmaid's Tale, and realize that they see Gilead as a utopian society.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 03 2019, @01:21AM
> What is the deal with lawmakers wanting to control everyone's uterus the last few years?
The far right is afraid that _white_ women are not making enough babies, and that their "white race" is going to become extinct-- so, force women to have babies, since non-white women are going to have babies anyway. Yes, it is stupid, but everything these asshats believe can be described that way.
If contraception and abortion were only for ethnic minorities, the right (minus some of their true religious zealots) would be on-board-- as evidence, look up "Rubbers Bush", Grandpa Bush's nick name when he was president of planned parenthood.