A Simple Test That Defines How Pro-Life You Are

[Econoline]

(NOTE: this test works best if the author of the message shown below is atop a 10-story building (or a 10-storey building if it's not in the U.S.). In thought-experiments, large buildings are cheap and easy to build; give it a try.)

[Rick]

Another test:

A baby is crying

The person that presented the original above is about to jump off a building

Which one would I try to console

[Joe Guy]

Which one would I try to console

The person with the most poop in the pants.

[dgs49]

Please point me to the organization that believes that a fertilized egg in a petrie dish is the same as a human baby.

I want to sign up.

[MajGenl.Meade]

No, it said "an embryo". Not an egg, fertilized or otherwise. As far as I am aware, all living embryos are inside women, so this person is standing on a tall building with a baby in one arm and a pregnant woman in the other. He/she/it intends to drop one. I shoot him/her/it.

[Rick]

Well that and it really didn't indicate what type of embryo it could be a corn embryo and be in a petri dish.

[Econoline]

As far as I am aware, all living embryos are inside women, so this person is standing on a tall building with a baby in one arm and a pregnant woman in the other.

Aren't living human embryos that aren't inside women at the heart of the controversy over stem cell research?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Picky, picky. Yes of course but I think that one in a petri dish on top of tall building is probably not alive at the time. I suppose perhaps in a glass tumbler with a lot of ice cubes.... What I was failing to emphasise, I guess, is the falseness of the argument. "I am going to drop one of these two" and "You must decide which one".

No I mustn't. YOU (the dropper) decide. Then I'll shoot you. It is a false dilemma.

A better dilemma posits "You are the only doctor in the world. Your female patient will die if her pregnancy continues. Do you abort or not abort?". It does at least try to suppose a reasoned value judgement, even though it too is nonsense.

[Econoline]

Dave: I think you already have signed up for that organization...but there are others.

Meade: thought-experiments, top 10 most famous. (But you knew all that already, didn't you?)

No I mustn't. YOU (the dropper) decide. Then I'll shoot you. It is a false dilemma.

Well, I guess that answers the question: you won't try to influence the decision but instead you'll shoot "(the dropper)" regardless of which decision she or he makes.* (I would think that flipping a coin might be easier--and certainly less noisy--but I guess that's just me. [Maybe you have a gun, but not a coin, in your pocket? Would you like to borrow a coin? Or are you just happy to see me?])




* I was going to write "they make"--but that would just have been cruel...

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK the shooting part was not seriously meant. But you are correct - I refuse to take responsibility for another person's choice of action. Therefore, even as a thought experiment, one answer indeed is "You're holding the baby - not me. You decide".

And I'm not sure it is a genuine thought experiment as given. It would IMO be more valid if the person holding the baby and the embryo (huh!) was a rabid anti-abortion Christian (or non-Christian of the same opinion, if such there be) and was told to choose which one he or she would drop, presumably at gun point since otherwise the choice is not forced. The observer is then asked which choice the potential-dropper should make, given the set of held beliefs.

Even then, since it is clear that the embryo is not sentient (and destroying it does not break the law) whereas the baby is sentient (and killing it is illegal), the R.A-A.C or R.A-A.NC should decide that the baby stays and the petri dish sails off in to the wide blue yonder. Sad but there it is.

FWIW, of course there is a difference - I doubt that any thinking person does not believe that to be so. Hmm, maybe someone from Westboro might be flakey enough.

Remind me to stay away from tall buildings.

[Lord Jim]

I refuse to take responsibility for another person's choice of action. Therefore, even as a thought experiment, one answer indeed is "You're holding the baby - not me. You decide".

That's the correct answer to this puzzle...(and any other similar moral hypothetical...)

"I'm not the one in the position to make that decision; that's on you..."

(But Econo, it was a nice try... )

[Scooter]

Please point me to the organization that believes that a fertilized egg in a petrie dish is the same as a human baby.

I want to sign up.

The Roman Catholic Church, of which you profess to be a member but of whose doctrine you demonstate you know less than nothing, has this to say about the "murder" of a fertilized egg:

2272 Formal co-operation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence. The Church attaches a canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. 'A person who procures a complete abortion incurs excommunication latae sententiae", 'by the very commission of the offence', and subject to the conditions provided by Canon Law.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, Revised Edition. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1999, p. 489.

Barring the murder of the pope, no other form of homicide carries such an onerous penalty. Far from viewing a fertilzed egg as the same as any other human being, the RC Church clearly sees the fertilized egg to be an exalted form of human life, whose "murder" must be punished more severely than that of almost any other born human.

[rubato]

"....
Barring the murder of the pope, no other form of homicide carries such an onerous penalty. Far from viewing a fertilzed egg as the same as any other human being, the RC Church clearly sees the fertilized egg to be an exalted form of human life, whose "murder" must be punished more severely than that of almost any other born human.

Not only will they choose to kill a woman for a viable fetus they will risk the lives of women for a fetus with no chance of survival whatsoever:


http://www.nwlc.org/our-blog/catholic-h ... ves-should

Catholic Hospitals' Treatment of Pregnancy Complications: Practices That Endanger Women's Lives Should Not be Below the Radar
Posted on January 27, 2011 |
Posted by:
Jill C. Morrison, Senior Counsel

If you have any social life whatsoever, eventually you will find yourself talking about what you do for a living. My day job is making sure that women’s access to reproductive health care isn’t compromised by the religious beliefs of their hospitals and health care providers. If you don’t think this is great cocktail party fodder, you have different friends than I do.

There is compelling evidence that Catholic hospitals sometimes delay or deny treatment to women with certain pregnancy complications. Why? Because doctors can still detect a heartbeat, but we are talking about cases where there is no medical treatment that would allow these pregnancies to continue. These women are experiencing what is called in the medical literature an “inevitable abortion.” Ectopic pregnancies (those that grow in a fallopian tube) are also never viable. The standard of care requires medical intervention to end these pregnancies because the patients are at risk for hemorrhaging, infection, or in the case of ectopic pregnancies, a tubal rupture that could be fatal. Regardless of where someone stands on the abortion issue, every person I’ve ever discussed this with has been absolutely appalled that this happens.

We are greatly encouraged that this issue has caught the attention of the Washington Post and the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof .To put an end to these practices, NWLC is asking the Department of Health and Human Services to find that these practices violate federal laws that protect patients’ right to receive the standard of care, emergency care, and adequate information on their treatment options. We urge you to share your story if you’ve been denied appropriate treatment of your pregnancy complications, to take the pledge to get informed, and to let others know about this issue. We hope that these dangerous practices won’t be Below the Radar for much longer.

Recent cases in Ireland are even worse.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21353977

Do religious restrictions influence ectopic pregnancy management? A national qualitative study.
Foster AM1, Dennis A, Smith F.
Author information
Abstract
INTRODUCTION:

In the United States, ectopic pregnancies are relatively common and associated with significant maternal morbidity and mortality. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (the Directives) govern the provision of care in Catholic-affiliated hospitals and prohibit the provision of abortion in almost all circumstances. Although ectopic pregnancies are not viable, some Catholic ethicists have argued that the Directives preclude physicians at Catholic hospitals from managing tubal pregnancies with methods and procedures that involve "direct" action against the embryo.
METHODS:

We undertook this qualitative study to explore the relationship between the Directives, hospital policies regarding ectopic pregnancy management, and clinical practices. We recruited participants at non-Catholic, longstanding Catholic, and recently merged facilities and conducted focused interviews with 24 physicians at 16 hospitals in 10 states.
FINDINGS:

Participants from three Catholic facilities reported that medical therapy with methotrexate was not offered because of their hospitals' religious affiliation. The lack of methotrexate resulted in changes in counseling and practice patterns, including managing ectopic pregnancies expectantly, providing the medication surreptitiously, and transferring patients to other facilities. Further, several physicians reported that, before initiating treatment, they were required to document nonviability through what they perceived as unnecessary paperwork, tests, and imaging studies.
CONCLUSION:

Our findings suggest that some interpretations of the Directives are precluding physicians from providing women with ectopic pregnancies with information about and access to a full range of treatment options and are resulting in practices that delay care and may expose women to unnecessary risks.

Copyright © 2011 Jacobs Institute of Women's Health. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Even breeding stock are treated as more valuable:


http://bixby.ucla.edu/2014/01/03/bixby- ... rnal-care/

NEWS: Bishops, Catholic Hospitals, and Emergency Maternal Care

3 January 2014
Bishops Run Catholic Hospitals—And Should be Liable When Their Edicts

FREEDMAN, New Republic, January 2, 2014

When Tamesha Means began miscarrying in her eighteenth week of pregnancy, the Michigan mother of two went to a Catholic hospital seeking care.

Means’ water had broken, leaving her with a high risk
of infection. If severe, such an infection can cause infertility or even death. No one at the hospital told her that her fetus had virtually no chance of survival at this point, or that the safest course of care would be to terminate the pregnancy. Nor did
they admit her to the hospital to be monitored. Instead they told her there was nothing they could do for her. They sent her home—in pain–and when she returned the next morning, they sent her home again, even though her temperature had started rising. That
evening, on her third trip to the hospital, she arrived with an infection in the membranes that surround the fetus. They were preparing to send her home again when she miscarried the pregnancy on her own.

This might look like a malpractice case over physical and emotional pain and suffering. But Means is not suing the hospital or the doctors. Instead, she is being represented by the ACLU, which has
announced a suit against the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Their rationale: The bishops were negligent because Means was denied care on the basis of the religious directives that governed care at the hospital. Doctors, Means’ side
contends, had withheld treatment due to their understanding of something called Directive 45. It reads: “Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted.”

...

Relationships between bishops and physicians are mediated by hospital administrators and hospital ethics committees. The committees, often led by a clergy member, serve as gatekeepers to prohibited care. Sometimes
their decisions can be made quickly, with no delay in approval and treatment. Other cases have not gone so well.

The scariest story I heard from a physician came during a previous research
project. The doctor recalled a moment when he simply could not get his Catholic ethics committee to approve the intervention he knew was the best treatment:



“I’m on call when she gets septic, and she’s septic to the point that I’m pushing pressors on labor and delivery trying to keep her blood pressure up, and I have her on a cooling blanket because she’s 106 degrees.
And I needed to get everything out. And so I put the ultrasound machine on and there was still a heartbeat, and [the ethics committee] wouldn’t let me [surgically empty her uterus] because there was still a heartbeat. This woman is dying before our eyes. …
She was so sick she was in the [intensive care unit] for about 10 days and very nearly died.” ... "

yrs,
rubato

[Guinevere]

No, it said "an embryo". Not an egg, fertilized or otherwise. As far as I am aware, all living embryos are inside women, so this person is standing on a tall building with a baby in one arm and a pregnant woman in the other. He/she/it intends to drop one. I shoot him/her/it.

Wrongly - embryos fertilized in vitro are placed in women at 3-5 days after fertilization. And there are plenty of (editorializing omitted) people who believe there is no difference between those embryos and a baby.

[rubato]

em·bry·o
ˈembrēˌō/
noun
noun: embryo; plural noun: embryos

1.
an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development.
synonyms: fetus, fertilized egg, unborn child/baby, zygote More

Embryos are created in-vitro and then emplanted.

[MajGenl.Meade]

For the reading-challenged:

As far as I am aware, all living embryos are inside women, so this person is standing on a tall building with a baby in one arm and a pregnant woman in the other.

Aren't living human embryos that aren't inside women at the heart of the controversy over stem cell research?

Picky, picky. Yes of course but I think that one in a petri dish on top of tall building is probably not alive at the time. I suppose perhaps in a glass tumbler with a lot of ice cubes.... What I was failing to emphasise, I guess, is the falseness of the argument. "I am going to drop one of these two" and "You must decide which one".

Perhaps I neglected to emphasise in the original my state at making such an egregious misstatement.

Three cheers and a tiger for Econoline