A new set of health laws that could be proposed by the government sometime in the next few weeks has women's health activists steaming. If the laws are implemented, they claim, women will have a harder time getting access to contraception.
The legislation, a draft of which was leaked last week to the New York Times, stokes the debate over when human life begins by taking the position that birth control that prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg actually results in abortion.
Late last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton called the planned rules (which could be imposed without congressional approval) "damaging" and a "dire threat to women" and warned that contraceptive coverage would "disappear overnight" if enacted.
You can read more here.
Some questions:
-Why do you think the legistlation states life begins at fertilization?
-What are your thoughts on birth control? Is it abortion? If not, when does life begin?
-Should this be legislated to the general public?
-What did women do before the invention of "the pill" to ensure they did not get pregnant- chastity?
-Do you agree with the proposed legislation? If so why? If not, why not?
-Do you see further ethical ramifications stemming from this legislation if passed?
-Has contraception been a good thing for us culturally? Spiritually?
1 comment:
Why do you think the legistlation states life begins at fertilization?
The reasoning behind this, if I understand the context correctly, is that in many forms of birth control there is no actual prevention of the egg from being fertilized. What is prevented by the basic forms of birth control is the prevention of the fertilized egg from being able to attach to the wall of the uterus, essentially allowing the fetus(?) to die due to lack of nourishment.
Therefore the issue here becomes one of whether life begins once the egg is fertilized (what many Christians believe). Generally, most Christians who use oral contracetpives don't know that they aren't preventing fertilization, and that the outcome of taking them is similar (albeit less graphic) to an abortion.
What are your thoughts on birth control? Is it abortion? If not, when does life begin?
I'm one of these weird people that thinks that you can't have things both ways. If terminating a pregenancy after the cell is attached to the uterus is considered abortion, then it is abortion before. And there might be an argument to say it is worse, insofar as a regular abortion is relatively quick (if not painless) whereas preventing a cell from implanting is equivalent to starvation and prevention of respiration. I concede that at the cellular stage we aren't talking about a nervous system, but purely from the standpoint of duration, it seems contraception is a protracted death by comparison.
My personal opinion is neither. Since I think the same test should be used in all applications, I feel that the same measure we use to determine the end of life should be used to qualify its beginning. In other words, since the text we generally use when the questin of someone's passing is brain death, I think life may arguably begin when sufficient structures exist within the fetus for brainwave activity to be supportable. Now, it should be noted that this occurs very early in development, so not much is gained on the pro-choice side of this argument.
-Should this be legislated to the general public?
I don't think so. I think this issue has gone too far and that too many people do not understand the unintentional hypocrisy inherant in using contraception and still being pro-life. The genie may already be out of the bottle on this one. Of course people's convictions are best measured when their daily lives are actually impacted by the stances they claim to maintain.
What did women do before the invention of "the pill" to ensure they did not get pregnant- chastity?
Yes, and to be crass (for lack of a better terminology), the withdrawal method.
Do you agree with the proposed legislation? If so why? If not, why not?
No, as stated above.
Do you see further ethical ramifications stemming from this legislation if passed?
Oh, I'm sure someone can come up with a way to truncate other personal liberties (regardless of whether abortion should be viewed as a liberty) should they find some other behavior offensive. Privacy comes to mind.
Has contraception been a good thing for us culturally? Spiritually?
Yes, insofar as I think that our culture has enough problems suffiently raising 2.3 children per family, let alone the 8-10 that would likely result. Fiscally, most families could not manage the additional burden either. Our school systems would be incapable of managing the sudden increase in children, and health services would need serious retooling. Of course these are cultural, not spiritual problems.
Spiritually, I see no clear advantage to having a large family, other than having more people to pass religious beliefs to, which doesn't seem to fit the issue either. But, clearly there is a downside provided one believes life begins at the moment of conception.
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