Hard News: Medical Matters
588 Responses
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@ Grant Dexter:
Your sarcastic complements to Peter Ashby for knowing what he is talking about:
Amazing, Peter. I've never seen that many words in one place before! Truly you are on a plane of your own!
followed by a claim such as:
I haven't studied in a lab for endless hours as you have, but I do speak in nothing but facts when I say that at conception a baby is alive and human.
indicate a profound ignorance about the difference between knowledge and belief.
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Jeremy Eade:
" in the hopes of encouraging more actively responsible attitude towards sexual intercourse." MT
This seems to be Marks real problem.Casual Sex. Jeez how boring do you want to make life?
so boring that people wear condoms. call me unrealistic or whatever but i don't think 80% of New Zealand adults having oral herpes and 20% having genital herpes is a great selling point for the NZ sex industry.
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Interesting, Tony. If a PhD claimed the Earth was not round, in a discussion between lay persons as to things relating to the solar system, would you be as equally critical of the different terminologies. Or would you think it was no big deal?
I claim a baby is alive at conception. Peter has a graded definition of what is alive (from what I can tell). How about you? Do you think a baby at conception is alive or not alive? Or are you willing to defend or explain sensibly a view that I think says things can be more, or less, alive?
Similarly I claim a baby is human at conception. Peter made no comment in his last post to this. How about you? Do you think a baby is human at conception? If not, what is it?
I stand accused of being sarcastic. I guess I might be read that way, but I am trying to state the facts as clearly as I can first and foremost.
I also stand accused of being ignorant of the difference between fact and opinion. I see no evidence, whatsoever, that my opinion (baby is alive and human at conception) is not true. Therefore I am completely justified in stating my opinions (limited as they have been kept) and using scientific fact to back them up.
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@ Grant Dexter
If a person with a PhD claimed that the earth was not round I would expect them to know that such a claim was not a fact until followed up with evidence. Saying repeatedly "the earth is not round" is not evidence.As for the relative claims of yourself and Peter: So far you have claimed that a single fertilised human germ cell is a human. Peter has claimed that they are not a human until a much later stage of proceedings.
His evidence is the fact that those cells cannot survive outside of the womb, have no consciousness, and due to the high rate of natural spontaneous abortion in humans likely to turn into a human in only around 60% of pregnancies.
The evidence that you have presented so far is a claim that any fertilised cell is a human. Do you see the difference?
I refuse to use your terminology that calls a fertilised cell a baby because there is already a wealth of specific scientific literature which uses precise terminology to describe the various stages of animal embryonic development. This exists precisely because there are number of stages which an embryo must pass through before it can become a fully developed animal. There is no value in calling all embryos in the lab "mouse" or "monkey" because they are patently not such a b=creature at that point. They are potentially a mouse, or a monkey, but first they must undergo massive growth in just the right conditions.
I claim a baby is alive at conception. Peter has a graded definition of what is alive (from what I can tell). How about you? Do you think a baby at conception is alive or not alive? Or are you willing to defend or explain sensibly a view that I think says things can be more, or less, alive?
At no point has there been any claim that fertilised cells are not alive. But because they are human cells, and they are alive, does not make them a human. My prostate is made of living cells. Living human cells. But my prostate is not a human.
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The evidence you support to deny that babies at conception are alive and human:
His evidence is the fact that those cells cannot survive outside of the womb
That's a bizarre thing to say! How is the fact that a baby can die evidence against the fact that a baby is alive and human!?!?have no consciousness
Is consciousness a pre-requisite for being human? How does that work?and due to the high rate of natural spontaneous abortion in humans likely to turn into a human in only around 60% of pregnancies.
Again with the "They can die so they are not human" reasoning. How is the ability to die evidence against humanity?How about looking at the DNA of a baby at conception. Whose DNA does he have?
The evidence that you have presented so far is a claim that any fertilised cell is a human.
That's not evidence. That's a statement of fact. You might like to call it an opinion for safety's sake.Do you see the difference?
Sure. My position is simple and matches the scientific data we can collect. Yours is dependent on things we cannot measure directly like consciousness or bizarre claims that the ability to die denies humanity and life.. -
At no point has there been any claim that fertilised cells are not alive. But because they are human cells, and they are alive, does not make them a human. My prostate is made of living cells. Living human cells. But my prostate is not a human.
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Excuse the long post but I think it is an important point that living human cells cannot be considered to be a human being for the following reasons:
Foetuses are uniquely different from born human beings in major ways. The most fundamental difference is that a foetus is totally dependent on a woman's body to survive. It is common to argue that born human beings can be entirely dependent on other people too (__e.g.__ disabled persons), but the crucial difference is that they are not dependent on one, specific person to the exclusion of all others.
Another key difference is that a foetus doesn't just depend on a woman's body for survival, it actually resides inside her body. Human beings must, by definition, be separate individuals. They do not gain the status of human being by virtue of living inside the body of another human being. At some point the embryo is capable of surviving without it's mothers womb. I would argue that this is closer to the point when an embryo becomes a human being.
Early embryonic forms do not share basic commonalities that define us as human beings. For example, zygotes and blastocysts are barely visible to the naked eye and have no bodies, brains, skeleton, or internal organs. Foetuses cannot breath or make sounds, and they cannot see or be seen (except by shadowy ultrasound). They absorb nourishment and expel waste via an umbilical cord and placenta, not via a mouth and anus as do all other human beings. At various stages, foetuses have eyes on stalks, notochords (instead of spines), fish-like gills, tails, downy fur, distorted torsos, spindly legs, giant heads, and alien-looking faces. Finally, the foetal brain is not yet capable of conscious thought and memory (which aren't fully actualised until two or three years after birth). But our complex brains are what set us apart from animals and define us as human beings. The human brain is the essential seat of our humanity.
This is not to say that human life doesn't have value. Of course it does, but only the value that we bestow on it - in biology, life is cheap, life is wasteful, and death is vital. Nature does not value humans any more than worms, and in all species, vast numbers of eggs and seeds don’t stand a chance of reaching maturity. Life has been cheap throughout human history too - it's only modern medicine that has allowed us to keep most of our babies alive for the first time. All human beings are valuable, important and special. But (of course) not all human cells are necessarily human beings.
An acorn isn’t an oak tree and the egg you had for breakfast isn’t a chicken. Neither is a blastocyst a human being.
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Grant Dexter misunderstood as follows:
I understand conception as a sequence of events that generates a human being. I haven't studied in a lab for endless hours as you have, but I do speak in nothing but facts when I say that at conception a baby is alive and human.
Your statement shows clearly that you have not understood. Try reading what I have written again. I did not ask you to choose amongst events, but *processes*, it is processes all the way down. The cortical reaction for eg is clearly a process since there is a time window within which if another sperm binds before the calcium wave reaches that part of the membrane it too will fertilise the egg resulting in polyspermy and an inviable conceptus/embryo.
You seem to have some graded scale for life which is an interesting thing to have. Why would you need that? I see things and I think, "Rock. =not alive. Tree. =alive."
Then you are unaware of the raging debate in science over the fact that we have been unable to come up with a working, bulletproof definition of life. All the ones we have break down when it comes to the viruses. After all some are no more than naked rna, which is why incidentally we secrete RNAase from our skin. I have isolated and indeed made RNA many times without ill effects so clearly there is something about some RNA sequences that make them viruses while others are harmless. RNA is just a chemical polymer, you can crystalise it, turn it into a rock iow. Still sure you know the boundary between what is alive and what is not? care to share your definition?
You seem to think that calling a baby at conception "alive" equates to believing a virus is "alive". They are both alive, you know? But why would you compare a baby with a virus? A baby isn't a virus, Mr. Smith!
Ah but without viruses you would not have a baby. Not only is there a surge of endogenous retroviral expression post fertilisation but there is good evidence that the mammalian placenta owes it existence to a viral infection. Which is just part of the reason biology views mammalian embryos/foetuses as parasites since that is in fact how they function, even using similar tricks to turn the maternal immune system down so it doesn't cause rejection of the foreign tissue.
But you go on portraying your ignorance, it is most amusing. BTW your ignorance has now been officially upgraded to wilfull. Ignorance is allowed, wilfull ignorance is a terrible crime against the wonderful learning instrument between your ears.
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Grant, you're using some pretty conveniently twisted logic there.
You say: 'How is the fact that a baby can die evidence against the fact that a baby is alive and human!?!?' But the argument was that there is no way to actually keep these embryos alive outside of the womb. Completely different.
You say: 'Is consciousness a pre-requisite for being human?' Maybe not, but a lack of conciousness doesn't necessarily make you human either. What's your point?
You say: 'How is the ability to die evidence against humanity?' You know that wasn't the point being made.
You say: 'My position is simple...' You got that right, at least. What a shame we don't live in a simple world.
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Not sure if anybody else noticed it, but apparantely in the USA now to activate your iPhone you will HAVE to go to an AT&T store.
Might stifle the hackers some, but will be interesting to see. I just wish we had more widespread wifi around, because even 3g is going to be slow - and not great for any VoIP applications that get released.
Oh; and a question for anyone with a Mac - have you been able to get 3 News' live stream to go? Im stuck watching One News and its driving me mental.
Im sure i've got Flip4Mac installed correctly, but whenever I go to their live page nothing happens even though the player loads. It seems it could be similar to RadioNZ's setup, so I might see if Radio NZ's tips about using VLC could be used as well.
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“so boring that people wear condoms. call me unrealistic or whatever but i don't think 80% of New Zealand adults having oral herpes and 20% having genital herpes is a great selling point for the NZ sex industry.” - mark
Well I’m not talking about the sex industry, rather human nature ……but yes to contraception in all forms including the morning after pill and no to male dna concerns in laws dealing with what a woman does with her life.
“so boring that people wear condoms” mark.
Well men wear condoms, so your saying it’s a male problem? -
" At various stages, foetuses have eyes on stalks, notochords (instead of spines), fish-like gills, tails, downy fur, distorted torsos, spindly legs, giant heads, and alien-looking faces."
That explains Paul Henry then.
Grant, somethings will be denied to you in this life , like the ability to grow any life inside of you if you are male. Abortion is rational progression in society ,as we move away from sex rules set down by a jewish hill tribe thousands of years and embrace the reality of our fleeting, bizarre and finite existence in this universe.
Abortion law is a consequence of an understanding of our own bizarre , ultimately useless chemistry (we all die and measured in a universal sense, it's fast).
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There's a great deal of pontificating going on here. Anyone have some actual life experience?
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Oh; and a question for anyone with a Mac - have you been able to get 3 News' live stream to go? Im stuck watching One News and its driving me mental.
Im sure i've got Flip4Mac installed correctly, but whenever I go to their live page nothing happens even though the player loads.
I get the same thing -- although not on all clips, oddly.
There is a complicated workaround: what I do is view the page source, look around for the relevant .wmv file, copy it, choose "Open URL" in QuickTime (with Flip4Mac installed) and paste in the URL. The clip duly loads.
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" Anyone have some actual life experience?"
I presume everyone has.
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as we move away from sex rules set down by a jewish hill tribe thousands of years [ago]
Abortion really only became criminalised in the nineteenth century, with the professionalisation of medicine. I imagine the process was a little like what this thread has become - a bunch of middle-class guys arguing about what women's bodies are for. ;) (I'm kidding. At least, I'm kidding about the guys on the side of choice. Fight the good fight, comrades!)
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That's a statement of fact. You might like to call it an opinion
That's exactly the point. You keep mislabelling your personal definitions as "facts". (e.g. "human life" starts at conception -- by your definition). Making such a statement is not sufficient to make it true; which is why you have been asked to provide some supporting argument. Replying by a re-statement is, not surprisingly, unconvincing.
Combined with the repeated dismissal of others' observation-based statements (which might be rather better candidates for factual status!) as "so many words" ... it just screams "troll".
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I have been told (and do correct me if I'm wrong) that up until about 14 days after conception, there's no difference between tissue that will become the placenta and tissue that will become the embryo, and that prior to 14 days, it's still possible for it to divide, making twins. If this is true, it means that at conception, the "baby" is not a distinct organism, and is potentially, well, "babies".
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Having a termination is not always about ending the culmination of a stray root with a stranger after too many cocktails.
Sometimes it is a necessary, very conscious, and ultimately heartbreaking decision made by two people, already loving parents, for the greater good. I don’t know how to articulate my argument except to explain a real story from a real person’s life – mine, as it happens.
This year I had an abortion at 23 weeks 5 days gestation. The reasons and the process was this: I had low amniotic fluid caused by bleeding (placental abruption) from 13 weeks. Amniotic fluid is required for lung development and lack of it causes premature labour. Despite good growth of our baby girl, the amniotic fluid was depleting fast.
At 23 week 3 days gestation we were told by a specialist at the fetal medicine clinic that the likelihood of our baby developing lungs was 2%. At which point we were offered a termination, based on severe fetal abnormality, if a second specialist agreed. We decided that because of this and the baby would be born close to viability (24 weeks) and with the premature problems associated (Cerebral palsy or death) that we would terminate.
To do this we had to get the support of the second specialist. The following day, based on the notes only, the second specialist was more positive about the chances of survival. We had already made the decision to terminate (and told family and come to terms with our decision) based on the previous specialists advice, so were flummoxed by the second specialist’s more positive prognosis.
We spent an hour being given false hope. Once a room became available for an ultrasound scan the second specialist examined me. She told us what little amniotic fluid detected the previous day by the first specialist had completely gone and she apologised profusely and agreed a severe fetal abnormality was the likely outcome.
The problem now was convincing the hospital bureaucracy -- because a termination at 23 weeks 5 days was just two days before it was illegal (i.e. the baby was considered viableat 24 weeks). We had to move quick, otherwise the option would be gone to us. The specialists advised us that a termination in these circumstances was preferable for all concerned because the trauma, for the mother and medical staff of the baby crying at birth, then inevitably dying.
The specialist managed to convince the hospital bureaucracy to allow the termination, not on the grounds of maternal mental health, as suggested previously (I wasn’t playing crazy bitch for anyone) but based on very poor fetal prognosis.
The following day we went to have the termination procedure. A dose of Pethadine for me and a needle through the womb, into the heart. It hadn’t occurred to me yet, but I still had to give birth.
I went home and waited for for labour to start. It did 24 hours later. After five hours of painful labour I gave birth. A silent birth. Our baby girl was cleaned and dressed. Photographs were taken. My partner held her, I looked.
Too easy? No. But the right decision. Yes.
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There are very detailed Wiki pages on prenatal development and so on. I'm not qualified to comment on their accuracy, but they're certainly thorough.
According to that, the twin window is shorter - if it happens after day 9, it's more likely to result in conjoined twins.
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I half caught a news story that there were some changes in this matter either happening or in the pipeline. I believe it was along the lines that where the court had reason to believe that a person might not be the father, they could order a parentage test to take place, previously the mother could refuse. I might be telling accidental porkies though.
No, you're right. Up until recently (and I'm not sure if the law change has yet taken effect) a mother had been allowed to refuse a paternity test and that was the end of the matter. Disputing male still on the hook for child support. The "solution" adopted by at least one judge, in the face of such a bollocks situation, was to pass a custody order on the child in question to make them a ward of CYFS, order the test, then terminate the custody order. With the change, a judge will simply order the test and the mother will be in contempt if she fails to have it carried out.
However, as far as I know this doesn't fix the issue of the disputing male having to pay for the test. Which means that the situation is only a little less unfair than it was previously, because at least there was an avenue by which the tests could be ordered even if it was messy. Not having the money is still not having the money. On that, though, I could be wrong.I've been staying away from the latter part of the thread, at least in part because I can't be fucked reading the diatribes from the two trolls who've dropped in (though Grant may just be seriously stubborn). It's interesting that most PA readers, including all the usual suspects, are very moderate on the issue of abortion rights. I think that's probably reflective of the nature of this blog, and I'd love to see the kind of rhetoric being thrown around on KB and WO and the other right-wing blogs. OK, on second thought, maybe I wouldn't. My masochistic tendencies aren't anywhere near strong enough for that!
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Some observers may well be asking:
What is "trolling" anyway?One useful starting definition might be:
Posting for the sole purpose of manipulating readers into a response.So there isn't anything wrong with playing devil's advocate in an argument (i.e., arguing for a position that you do not actually agree with) -- as long as it is done primarily for the purpose of advancing the argument. But if your point is actually to clarify or expose some weakness in someone's argument, it is usually more efficient (and hence, more considerate to readers) to state that more directly. And if your aim is to get someone else to point out that weakness for you, then that's getting closer to trolling. It would be safest for devil's advocates to explicitly signal that stance in advance (as, indeed, most people do here).
What makes PA rather special is that, mostly, we can operate by trusting that positions are honestly held. Trolling is destructive because it betrays that trust.
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Here is a link to a study performed in New Zealand that finds that young women who have had abortions may suffer from increased mental health risks, which undermines the basis for most abortions performed around the world. I think 98% of abortions in NZ and about 90% in the UK are performed on the basis that it is necessary for the mental health and well being of the woman. If this research is confirmed, it will force a major rethink and rewrite or abortion laws.
http://www.chmeds.ac.nz/research/chds/view1.pdf
I think abortion right up to viability, 24 weeks, is grotesque. Killing a baby (and that is what it is at that stage) who can almost survive on its own is so wrong, it is amazing to think that in this day and age, when we are so obsessed with everyone and everything's rights, that we can’t agree that this is wrong.
My second son was born last Thursday so his ultra sounds are very fresh in my memory. With ultra sounds, and especially 3D ultra sound, we can't hide from what an abortion is. I read a description of a partial birth abortion few years ago which changed me from a pro choice position to believing that there needs to be significant limitations to protect unborn children.
I read an article (that I can't find to link to) that stated that current research into fetal pain pegged the 16th week as the time by which the fetus is sufficiently developed to feel pain. So on that basis perhaps a sensible solution would be abortion on demand, surgical or chemical (RU 486) up to 12 or 14 weeks, with counseling and support, and a discussion of alternatives such as adoption. I think in France and Portugal they have a 12 week limit of abortion.
It isn't a perfect world, so there will never be a perfect solution to this issue. Perhaps this strikes a practical balance between the rights of sufficiently developed unborn babies and the needs of women.
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I didn't add medical and rape/incest exceptions to my suggested solution in my previous post.
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Anon, I'm really hoping that James didn't read your post, and is therefore not being a *deliberate* dickhead.
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