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posted by janrinok on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:33PM   Printer-friendly
from the how-many-women-voted? dept.

Iowa approves one of strictest abortion bills in US

The US state of Iowa has approved one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country, banning most abortions once a foetal heartbeat is detected. Republican lawmakers, who control both chambers, passed the bill in back-to-back votes, sending it to the governor's desk to sign into law.

If [signed], the bill would ban most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Critics argue the bill makes having an abortion illegal before most women even realise they are pregnant.

[...] If [Governor Kim] Reynolds signs the bill into law, it will likely be challenged in court for possibly violating Roe v Wade, the US Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion in 1973. [...] Some Republican lawmakers welcomed the challenge. "I would love for the United States Supreme Court to look at this bill and have this as a vehicle to overturn Roe v. Wade," Republican Senator Jake Chapman said.

Also at NPR, Reuters, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier, and The Hill:

Nineteen states adopted a total of 63 restrictions to the procedure in 2017, which is the highest number of state laws on the issue since 2013, according to the Guttmacher Institute. State legislatures have proposed 15 bills that would ban abortions after 20 weeks and 11 bills that would ban abortions if the sole reason is a genetic anomaly like Down syndrome.

Related: Ohio Bill Would Ban Abortion when a Prenatal Test is Positive for Down Syndrome
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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:09PM (8 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:09PM (#675311) Journal

    Yet, they had a concept of conception. The idea that life started well before the baby took it's first breath. It took Science a long time to pinpoint at what exact point Life starts.

    --
    Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:37PM (5 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:37PM (#675331)

    It took Science a long time to pinpoint at what exact point Life starts.

    You're the one that decided to cite the Bible to justify your viewpoint.

    I should also point out that abortion was a known practice during the time the Bible was written, and yet the Bible is silent on the subject. The first Christian opposition to abortion comes about a century after Paul, and decades after the Book of Revelations was written, and even then it's not really until the 1800's that opposition to abortion prior to "quickening" (i.e. first noticeable movements of the fetus in utero) became a common religious doctrine. Before the discovery of the human egg, the idea was that before "quickening", the fetus hadn't gotten a soul yet, and thus killing it would be either not a crime at all or a relatively minor property offense.

    In short: A lot of people who oppose abortion on religious grounds do so not because of what the Bible said, but because of what their religious leaders say the Bible said. Which, in my experience, are frequently at odds with each other.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:51PM (4 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Thursday May 03 2018, @09:51PM (#675343) Journal

      No, I was responding to Azuma Hazuki's comment on what the Bible says or doesn't say about abortion.

      I have no disagreements regarding your thoughts on what and how (at least some) people have expressed their opinions on abortion in the past.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday May 04 2018, @04:09AM (3 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday May 04 2018, @04:09AM (#675481) Journal

        Jeez, you're a slippery little fuck. You're wrong, okay? You're wrong, science says you're wrong, your own Bible says you're wrong, and no matter how much you repeat otherwise and how much you hide behind a mask of feigned civility and calmness, you are not one whit less wrong for it. You're getting your ass kicked up and down the room here and you don't even have the humility to admit it. Wasn't there something about Pride being one of the worst sins...?

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 1, Troll) by Freeman on Friday May 04 2018, @02:52PM (2 children)

          by Freeman (732) on Friday May 04 2018, @02:52PM (#675678) Journal

          Science doesn't say anything about the ethical, moral, or legal policies involving abortion. Science on the other hand does prove that Life begins at conception. The Bible says in multiple places that X person conceived and bore a child. The Bible points to the fact that He cares about us, no matter what stage of development we are in. He cares for all creation. Why would He not care that we are killing innocent unborn children? There's definitely a number of places that the Bible warns against being proud. Proverbs has quite a few examples.

          Matthew 6:26 "26 Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?"

          You can say, I don't care what the Bible says. That's not up to me to decide as we each make our own choices. It's up to me to decide whether I can in good conscientious vote for or against a law that involves abortion. Which is the killing of an innocent unborn child. Abortion is one of the instances where "think of the children" shouldn't be a mocking meme.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday May 04 2018, @07:07PM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Friday May 04 2018, @07:07PM (#675816) Journal

            Your God is ALL ABOUT killing the unborn. Numbers 31 for example. And the threads early on in Hosea, where he seems to delight in telling how he'll have his soldiers rip pregnant woman apart. Then there's "blessed be he who taketh your babes and dasheth them upon the rocks" or so, though those are already-born children.

            You're full of shit and you don't know your own Bible or religion even half as well as you think you do. And what you vomit at me is irrelevant to your case. Again: you aren't arguing in good faith, and every time you embarrass yourself like this, your witness loses more and more credibility. And Augustine (yes Augustine again) way back in the 400s made the point that Christians who look like idiots and don't know their science give the religion a bad name. I recall you saying you were "not sure if [you'd] consider Catholics Bible-believing Christians" the last time I mentioned him; you seem unaware that there was over a millennium between Augustine and Martin Luther...

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by SomeGuy on Saturday May 05 2018, @03:24AM

            by SomeGuy (5632) on Saturday May 05 2018, @03:24AM (#675963)

            Facepalm at all the mental retardation this story has stirred up. Seriously, take your meds.

            Everyone is free to their opinion on the matter of abortion. There simply is no exact "right" or "wrong" answer here. Some legal lines have to be drawn so people involved know if they are violating laws or not. The legal decisions are made mostly through guesswork plus politics, and the results will never make everyone happy. Since you don't understand the science or realities behind it, you err on the absolute side of caution and that is fine. It is a mind-bogglingly complicated matter.

            But quoting bullshit from your magic book or babbling about a magic sky being just makes you sound fucking retarded. I also dare say that it is probably quite insulting to anyone who has had to deal with the topic.

            Science could tell us something about ethical, moral, or legal policies. But you would not like the answers. :P There are many questions science has yet to answer. There are many questions yet to be asked. Having your head firmly implanted up your ass with the belief all answers must come though an imaginary magic sky fairy or from a book of gibberish will never result in any meaningful answers.

            Calculating solution... Optimal solution found: "Remember to have your humans spayed or neutered".

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @09:43AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @09:43AM (#675558)

    The idea that life started well before the baby took it's first breath.

    No. For Jews of the period, the soul is one's breath. The Christian misconception on the subject is actually a Greek & Latin translation issue combined with immaculate birth dogma being heavily affected by pagan stories about how Zeus would change forms and mate with animals to create Gods / monsters. Hebrew didn't even have a separate word for "soul". It literally used/uses "one's breath" (נשמה). It's further exemplified in how the bible idiomatically refers to living people as כל־נשמה in different places. A separate (and likely later though it's debated) Jewish folklore states that an angle descends upon a child's birth and breaths life into their lungs by kissing them similarly to how Adam was made.

    And this is actually the most compatible interpretation with modern Christian values regarding birth. The common Jewish belief, then and now, is:

    “We do not mourn for fetuses (nefalim), and anything which does not live for 30 days, we do not mourn for it.” — Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Aveilut 1:6

    “The infant, for 30 days, even including the full 30th day (if it dies), we do not mourn for it.” – Shulchan Aruch Yoreh De’ah 374:8

    Regardless, mainstream Christianity is so hopelessly removed from the Hebrew sources and biblical studies (let alone science) that it makes the backwater mainstream Rabbinical Judaism look enlightened. Moreover, people forget the information age actually reached biblical scholars and everything they were/are taught by their religious leaders is centuries behind what research now knows and accepts about the scriptures. The understanding of the language in terms of grammar and idioms alone makes 99.99% of Catholicism, Protestantism and no small amount of Rabbinical Judaism simply wrong and obsolete.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday May 08 2018, @04:26PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday May 08 2018, @04:26PM (#677080) Journal

      It wouldn't be the first time that the Jews made a mistake. Assuming the babe in the womb isn't a real person. Why would Elisabeth's baby (John the Baptist) have been noted as having leapt for joy? Please note "Messianic Judaism" is the only sect of the religion that actually believes Jesus was the Messiah.

      Luke 1:41-44
      "41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
      42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
      43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
      44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy."

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"