Journal Safe Sex Goddess's Journal: Women's civil rights & the declining state of science in 12
In the news it seems that all of the big investments and discoveries in science are coming from other countries. While here in America the Super Conducting Super Collider is just a hole in the ground and we can't even get the 30 year-old technology space shuttle to work properly.
But the attack on science is not only about technological superiority. Most people don't realize that the extremist religious right attack on science is directly affecting women's health and civil rights. I don't see any quick way to win the War on Women, but I've been talking with a friend and we do have a three point battle plan.
1. Build credibility for science fact and discredit faith-based science fiction.
2. Use science to establish when human life begins. Choice will never win if a human life is involved.
3. The government has no right to interfere with a woman's civil rights when there is not another life involved.
First, we need to stop talking about choice and start talking about science. The best weapon to use against the right wing extremists is the truth. And truth is what Science is all about. The extremist Christian right is anti-science because they know they can't win against the truth. We automatically reduce the credibility of faith-based science fiction by building up the credibility of science and science facts.
We need to make these messages a part of our every day life. Waiting in line is one of the best places to plant seeds by striking up conversations with those near you. When the opportunity opens to introduce a political thought, do so! But don't force it unnaturally. A couple of the things I do whenever someone brings up creationism is to ask, "Aren't those the ones who still believe the earth is flat?" I also like to reframe it as devolution because their thinking is taking America backwards. Devolutionists may look like men, but they think like apes. Their backward thinking is trashing the scientific foundations that took America to the moon and made us one of the strongest nations on Earth. Have we done anything amazing since the moon?
Second, we need to establish when human life begins. After establishing science as the authority on the physical world and religion as the authority on our spiritual life, we use science's credibility to establish when human life begins. Observing how our bodies work tells us spontaneous natural abortions of a fertilized egg occurs about 50% of the time. A spontaneous natural abortion is the loss of a fetus during pregnancy due to natural causes.
If God intended human life to begin at conception then why does God's creation spontaneously naturally abort 50% of those fertilized eggs? Spiritually that raises the question of whether God wastes souls. If our faith tells us that human life is precious, and science tells us that half of every conception ends in a spontaneous natural abortion, then Human life doesn't begin at conception.
Let us use our intellect to end this debate with a summit of recognized scientific experts from around the world to determine when human life begins. Until that question is answered, we cannot win the fight to keep government out of our health decisions. Nor should we want to win that fight if it means the taking of a human life.
Third, after it is determined when human life begins, it's a simple enough case that the government should not interfere with women's civil rights. If human life does not begin at conception, the government has no jurisdiction over a woman's medical decisions. It's her body, it's her right.
When life begin (Score:2)
This debate ended, long ago, when conception was captured on video. Biological life begins at conception, after which a new organism begins gestating. To deny that a human embr
Re:When life begin (Score:1)
With 50% to 80% of fertilizations being spontaneously naturally aborted there is a lot of leeway for when personhood begins. All the more reason that it should be left up to the individual to make her own decision.
This is from Dr. Vanessa Cullins. She expresses much more eloquently than I could:
What we are all sure about is that a pregnant woman is a person. We know for
Re:When life begin (Score:2)
The classic counter-example is someone who, by their religious or otherwise cultural beli
Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
No, all of the contributors to conception are alive. Life is a continuous process.
Even after conception, the embryo is not an individual. It can split into twins, or merge with another to make a chimera. If you say otherwise, you have to explain how a "human life" is create
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:1)
I disagree, since anything that can theoritically happen to a blastocyst (twinning and cloning) can happen to an adult as well - you are after all talking about hypotheticals. Human cloning is on the horizon, and who knows that science will develop with regard to
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
Oh, really? Show me how you can merge two adults to form a chimera without either one of them suffering any harm - even in theory. (Since you appear to have no concept of what a chimera is, you should at least read the Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] before continuing.)
It happens naturally with human blastocysts [telegraph.co.uk]. The legal and religious implications are obvious; until they are past the point of merger or twinnin
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
It happene
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
You expect the second sentence to excuse the first?
If you think that anything which can be worked into a Hollywood plotline (no matter how impossible now, or ridiculous in the future) requires your political action to protect against, I have a number of words which describe you.
Deluded. Fantasy-prone. Paranoid. And that's without getting to the strong ones.
Watching you expound on the legal restrictions which oug
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
Whatever man - you asked me to proposes a theoritical mechanism, so I did. There is no reason for you to be so disrespectful. People claim the existnce of natural cloning (twinning) proves that a blastocyst is not a human indiviudal. I feel that artifical cloning (somatic cell nuclear transfer) demonstrates that it is quote possible for a "person" or "human being" to be
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
What you proposed came nowhere near to the status of "theory". How could you unify two differently-connected neural networks to yield one which has most of the capabilities of both, or is even functional at all? What weights should the various synapses have? If you can't answer those things, you don't have a theory; you have a fairy tale.
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
Who said anything about religion? I imagine that 99% of Americans, both religious and secular, would judge the moral status of a premature infant surviving outside the womb as the same as any adult. In fact, a current Drudge Report headline described a such an infant as a "B [thesun.co.uk]
Re:Life does not begin or end (Score:2)
Who said anything about religion? I imagine that 99% of Americans, both religious and secular, would judge the moral status of a premature infant surviving outside the womb as the same as