“Rest in Peace, my potential son”
From the a press release from Ohio’s Attorney General, Mike DeWine:
(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine today announced that his office has concluded its investigation into the alleged sale of fetal tissue by Planned Parenthood affiliates. While the investigation did not find any indication that fetal tissue was sold by Planned Parenthood affiliates in Ohio, the investigation did reveal that that aborted fetuses from Planned Parenthood facilities are ultimately disposed of in landfill sites.
…Mike DeWine directed his Charitable Law Section to investigate whether Planned Parenthood affiliates … were violating Ohio law by selling fetal tissue…in violation of Ohio Revised Code 2919.14….The investigation showed that the disposal methods documented by the Planned Parenthood affiliates violate Ohio Administrative Code 3701-47-05, adopted in 1975, which requires that a “fetus shall be disposed of in a humane manner.” Specifically:
- All three Ohio Planned Parenthood affiliates have sent fetal remains to companies which disposed of the fetuses in landfills.
- Additionally, the Planned Parenthood facility in Bedford Heights stated it uses only one company for disposal. However, that company stated to investigators it does not accept fetal remains for disposal as a corporate policy.
Interesting!
Whether or not Planned Parenthood is breaking the law in Ohio (the organization denies it) the practice of disposing of human—we can agree that the fetuses are human, right?— remains in landfills returns us to the significant revelations of the series of guerrilla Planned Parenthood videos released earlier this year by the Center for Medical Progress. They showed various Planned Parenthood executives talking about abortions like normal people talk about cold cuts.
This organization, and presumably others involved in providing abortions, regard human fetuses as unworthy of dignity, respect or concern, the equivalent of warts, tumor and polyps. Indeed, that’s what the law allows. The question the videos would have raised for public debate if 1) the abortion-favoring news media hadn’t buried the story as quickly as it could, and 2) silly Republicans had restrained themselves from distracting from the real issue by focusing on weak evidence that Planned Parenthood was trafficking in “baby parts,” was that Planned Parenthood turns future live babies into present dead baby parts, raising the question, for those who have never given serious thought to the human trade-offs in abortion (which is to say, most Americans), of whether this is really an ethical practice.
Given what the videos showed, should it be a shock that Planned Parenthood sends the fetal parts it can’t give away to researchers to the dump? I guess it shouldn’t be, but DeWine’s release made me nauseous anyway. I know, I know, that’s just the Ick Factor. Just as gun opponents depend on emotion to carry away citizens who can’t engage in dispassionate analysis, anti-abortion activists use the Ick Factor to make converts. Here’s how DeWine described his findings at the press conference:
“I think it will come as a shock to Ohioans to find out that fetuses are being cooked and then they’re being put in a landfill and they’re going to be mixed in with yesterday’s garbage.”
Is that a fair description? It’s an ugly one for sure, but it is fair. From the AP story:
“During DeWine’s investigation of the tissue sale issue, he said his office found that Marietta, Ohio-based Accu Medical Waste Service Inc., a waste disposal company used by Planned Parenthood affiliates in Cincinnati and Columbus, sent the remains to a Kentucky landfill. An Accu Medical official told DeWine’s office that his company uses a standard treatment for biological waste called “autoclave” involving a high-pressure steam treatment to kill infectious material.”
I’d say describing “a high-pressure steam treatment” as cooking isn’t misleading; it just removes all the euphemistic jargon for clarity.
As with the videos, Planned Parenthood’s response to the accusation has to make one wonder.
“Planned Parenthood said DeWine, a Republican, was making another politically motivated attack on abortion and called the report “inflammatory and false.” The agency didn’t deny that remains went to landfills, but said it followed Ohio law and uses the same practices as hospitals and ambulatory surgical facilities, which generally contract with outside companies to dispose of all medical waste.”
That is: “It’s legal, and if it’s legal, it’s ethical.”–-Rationalization #4 on the Ethics Alarms Rationalizations List. Before stooping to Wall Street’s favorite rationalization, though, Planned Parenthood began with an ad hominem attack against DeWine, a logical fallacy, and also a euphemism for “Humunahumana..,“ Ralph Kramden’s iconic babbling that could be loosely translated “What do I say? I’m caught like a rat in a trap!”
Then Stephanie Kight, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Ohio, says, risibly, “We handle all fetal tissue respectfully. That’s our commitment to our patients.”
Yup—we handle the aborted babies respectfully, then let them be dumped to rot with old tires, auto parts, rags and Mafia hits. Shouldn’t such a ridiculous statement even make Kight’s ethics alarms ring?
No, not really. Planned Parenthood has to pretend that it gives a damn about the fetuses because not being seen as monsters is crucial to staying in the abortion business. But its staff doesn’t think of fetuses as human, does think of them as meat, treats them as meat, and sees nothing wrong with that. To them, the argument is silly. OK, we stick the massacred fetuses in landfills: so what? They don’t care: they never could think even while they were living! We’re pretty sure their mothers don’t care: if they cared about their unborn kids, they wouldn’t abort them. Who kills human beings they care about? No, only you Bible-thumping conservative nut jobs who worship fetuses care, and the Supreme Court says you’re wrong.
To abortion advocates who support abortion knowing full well what is involved, this isn’t even icky.
It’s icky, and wrong to anyone who thinks of aborted human fetuses as human lives ended for a mother’s convenience.
If dumping “high-pressure steam” treated unborn-baby-parts in a landfill seems icky to you and you are pro-abortion, it is probable that you really haven’t thought about what abortion is sufficiently to hold the position you do.
_______________________
Pointer: Newsbusters, AP, Ohio Attorney General
Ethics Alarms 
But, but 90% of what Planned Parenthood does is not abortion. Should that not count for something?
No. That is and has always been a dumb defense. If 10% of one company’s business is unethical, and 100% of another company’s business is identical and also unethical, and the volume of unethical business is the same for both, both companies are doing the same amount of wrong.
And yet, apologists for Planned Parenthood expect that defense to be convincing.
I wonder why.
They say that only 10% of what they do is not abortion by lumping in very small, superfluous activities and giving them the same weight as an abortion. This kind of logic would require you to say that marathon organizers are primarily in the service of providing water, as opposed to setting up marathons because they hand out millions of cups of water in a single marathon.
Abortion is actually 3% of what they do, and I think you got your percentage reversed, HT, but an easy mistake to make.
However, to say that the other 97% is small and superfluous is absolutely wrong. That money goes to testing for STDs, contraception (which is an important way to prevent abortion), cancer screening and other health services. Not small and superfluous to women. I am not addressing the “ick” factor or the seemliness of the disposition of fetal remains, but the accuracy of the services Planned Parenthood provides and their importance.
I think you missed the forest for the trees, although I will cop to an embarrassing percentage reversal.
I’m not saying that they don’t do other medical procedures… But let’s be real here: Pro-life activists don’t picket your average HMO, They choose PP clinics because that’s where the majority of abortions in America are performed. As to the 3/97 split… The things we’re talking about ARE small and superfluous. To get to the 3/97 split, PP will include the consultations to get an abortion, the administration of anesthetic used in the abortion and the disposition of aborted tissue as separate procedures, and not count them in as abortions. This goes back to my marathon example… you can count each dixie cup handed out as a unit of work and compare that to the number of marathons held and assume that Walk for Life is in the business of handing out water… But you’ve really missed the point. If PP was so interested in women’s health outside the paradigm of abortions, and abortions were such a small percentage of their workload, they could choose not to perform them. Lets be real, again: In the vast majority of abortions, there wasn’t a medical risk to the mother that made that abortion necessary. The whole paradigm of “women’s health” in this context is somewhat of a red herring. “Women’s autonomy” “women’s choices” sure. Their health? Pfft.
I believe you’re wrong that the consultation prior to an abortion and the procedures associated with them are counted in the 97%, but I’ll wait for you to back that up with facts. It’s part of the 3%.
Your other comments simply add to the supposed myth of the “War on Women.” Cancer screenings? STDs? Contraception? Pfft. These things are 97% of what they do. They are health services unrelated to abortion.
You brought “War on women” to Ethics Alarms?
Jan… the “3%” being based on an amalgamation of small procedures isn’t even in contention. You pretending it is just slows down the conversation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/08/12/for-planned-parenthood-abortion-stats-3-percent-and-94-percent-are-both-misleading/
For instance, does a great job, and I think they’re pretty bipartisan about it. They still show that every prescription counts as a service, every consult counts as a service, and every birth control test counts as a service. With just as much weight as an abortion.
“When all services are counted equally, abortion procedures do account for 3 percent of Planned Parenthood’s total services.
But there are obvious differences between these services. For example, a first trimester abortion can cost up to $1,500, according to the Planned Parenthood Web site. Yet an emergency contraceptive pill costs around $45 and a urine pregnancy test costs around $10 at a pharmacy. An abortion is a different type of procedure than a vasectomy, or testing for sexually transmitted infections or diseases, or a vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV), and so forth.”
Meanwhile, if you look at the expenses incurred by services used by women who are already pregnant, it amounts to 94% of those department’s income statements.
“Susan B. Anthony List’s ‘94 percent’
SBA List, which opposes abortion rights, arrives at its 94 percent figure by comparing abortions to two other categories of services that are provided to pregnant patients — or “pregnancy services.”
Recall the earlier breakdown of Planned Parenthood’s services. SBA List compares abortions to the number of prenatal services (18,684) and adoption referrals to other agencies (1,880). Using this measure, abortions do account for 94 percent of the combined three categories.”
I can see the logic of the fact checker’s argument. Three percent is not a pure percentage, but the article also debunks the 94% SBA List percentage, doesn’t it? They both got three Pinocchios. Proving that you can make statistics say anything you want.
Since this is a diversion from the point of the post, I simply want to reiterate that Planned Parenthood provides valuable health services to women, services that may be unavailable from any other source. Whether these services are provided in tandem with an abortion or not, they are essential to women’s health. You may despise abortion, but it is, at least for now, a legal and, according to the Supreme Court, constitutional right guaranteed to women. The fact that PP also performs abortions does not diminish the value of these services.
It debunks it the way SBA put the statistic forward, but my qualifying language actually represents the truth. Abortion services represent 94% of the funding for services given to women after they become pregnant. SBA tried to spin that 94% of PP funding was to abortions and that’s just wrong. Interestingly, no one actually does state the percentage of PP funding that goes towards abortions… When you count a $10 pregnancy test in the same class as a $1500 procedure to get the 3/97 split, I’d be genuinely surprised if it weren’t a strong majority.
Regardless.
You’ve mentioned “women” as if you were talking about a class twice now, and That’s like saying “Beetlejuice” around me. Once more, and I’m in. All I’m going to say in the meantime is that when you have privilege, it’s very hard to see that privilege, and this conversation is happening against the backdrop of specialized health care facilities specifically for women that provide services that are not exclusive to women, paid for with public tax dollars. Nothing that PP does cannot be done at other facilities, and because PP has some massive holes in it’s balance sheet where money seems to magically disappear, it’s probably cheaper to provide those procedures elsewhere. You need to stop pretending that this is about women’s health… If it actually is, then PP is holding your health hostage at the alter of dead babies, because no one is talking about cancer screenings or pap smears except the supporters of PP. If by some miracle PP actually gets defended, you’ll still get served, you’ll just have to stand in line with the men at all the normal facilities. The horror.
Thanks for bringing it up. Planned Parenthood provides services to men, including colon, prostate and testicular cancer screenings, erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation services, routine physical exams, jock itch exams, infertility screening and referral, and STD screenings among other services. Again, I will emphasize that objection to abortion should not be used to deprive women or men from having access to health care they may not be able to get any other way.
Oh come ON, Jan… If I’d countered “Attempts to defund Planned Parenthood is indicative of the War on Women” with “But Planned Parenthood serves men too… So it’s not gendered.” What would you have said?
HT–I did not equate anything with the war on women. What I said was your arguments could be used to bolster those who say there is one.
My arguments were focused on women’s health because abortion is pretty much restricted to women, right? If a woman goes in for abortion counseling and finds out she has an STD, or learns about birth control options, that’s a good thing, isn’t it? If she goes in to have an abortion and gets screened for breast cancer, then referred to a physician, that’s a good thing, too. Abortion isn’t the only reason women go to PP. I had my pregnancy test there when I was pregnant with my first child. I was happy about it and no one tried to talk me into having an abortion.
You’re the one that brought up the privilege issue. I’m sure Planned Parenthood is predominantly used by women, so defunding or closing centers would affect them more, but men would lose out, too. I go back to my original premise, which is that the overwhelming number of services PP provides are not related to abortion, although they may occur in that context, as you have rightly pointed out. I encourage you to continue to fight against something you feel strongly about, but don’t take women’s (or men’s) health options away in the process. My opinions about abortion have changed over the years and we would probably have some common ground.
For some reason I could not reply to your reply to my reply, so hope you can figure out where this goes in the conversation.
“HT–I did not equate anything with the war on women. What I said was your arguments could be used to bolster those who say there is one.”
What you said was “Your other comments simply add to the supposed myth of the “War on Women.”” and when I said that the “War on Women” should be seen in the light of a privilege women already have over men, you countered with “Planned Parenthood provides services to men.”
Reconcile those statements. I admit I could have misread them… especially that first one. On a second reading, it might appear to someone reading the comment out of context that you agree with me that the WoW is a myth. But I don’t think you meant that (And if I’m wrong, I apologize, and read no further.). If I’m right, what you seem to be saying is that you think there is a war on women, and that my comments against PP’s non-abortion services outline that. If you feel that PP’s services to men is sufficient to derail my argument that women are disproportionately privileged by PP, then how do you justify saying that attacks on PP are indicative of the WoW?
“If she goes in to have an abortion and gets screened for breast cancer, then referred to a physician, that’s a good thing, too.”
PP refers breast cancer screenings. They do not own a mammogram. This literally cannot happen.
“I’m sure Planned Parenthood is predominantly used by women, so defunding or closing centers would affect them more, but men would lose out, too.”
Planned Parenthood has about 52,000,000 visits a year, of which about 230,000 are men. That’s 0.4% of visits. Based on the 700 clinics PP operates, that’s about a visit a day per clinic. That’s the number.
“I go back to my original premise, which is that the overwhelming number of services PP provides are not related to abortion, although they may occur in that context, as you have rightly pointed out. I encourage you to continue to fight against something you feel strongly about, but don’t take women’s (or men’s) health options away in the process. My opinions about abortion have changed over the years and we would probably have some common ground.”
And I’ll go back and expand my original comment: Abortions are not healthy. Abortions are a right, they are a choice, but they are not an indicator of good health. And in the vast majority of cases, are not made necessary by risk to the mother. Margaret Sanger would be rolling in her grave if she knew what PP was up to. She was a pro-life eugenicist who thought that abortions were a disgusting waste. No one is picketing PP because they disagree with cancer screenings or contraception, they’re picketing the abortions… And so the people actually putting women’s health at risk is PP, by continuing a program that is contrary to it’s founding principles and deeply, deeply divisive.
Hey, that’s the same kind of accounting you see from the left in the gun control debate.
I’m having trouble finding where to respond to you, HT, but I’ll try here.
I do not believe there is a War on Women. I stated it badly in my original post, and should have clarified earlier. I believe Republican policies are bad for men and women. In differing ways, of course. Defunding Planned Parenthood would disproportionately affect women, as your statistics prove. All I’m asking is that you don’t throw out the baby with the bath water (sorry, bad metaphor, but I couldn’t think of another) because they do lots of good things. I am totally with you in the need to eliminate the need for abortion through education and contraception, but do not believe it should be criminalized.
I can understand that you don’t know the difference between a breast cancer screening and a mammogram. I clearly stated that PP performs breast cancer screenings and refers to a physician for a mammogram. They are two different things, a screening probably involving a manual breast exam and a family history.
On the issue of “abortions being healthy,” this is probably something we will not be able to reconcile. I don’t believe a two-week-old fetus is a person. The point at which the fetus becomes viable has become the line for me between the right to have an abortion that is medically necessary and one that is not. That point has moved backward as medical science has advanced. If there is a choice between saving the mother or the fetus/baby, I believe the mother should be saved. I believe abortions should always be available in cases or rape or incest, as there is a question of mental as well as physical health. It should not be used as a form of birth control.
I have learned a lot from our back and forth, especially appreciate learning the way PP and SBA compute their statistics, those damned things. Thanks for that.
So, what exactly is that point? Is it on the end of an infinitely sharp, perfect pinpoint in time, or something measured with Planck’s constant, or is it really just a fairly wide bracketed area based on an educated guess, given today’s technology? What happens to personhood in that interval? Do we then use integral calculus to zero in on it, to get close to that precise instant, or does the baby’s personhood exist in a smear of being both alive and dead, like Schrodinger’s cat? I’m not trying to be showy with the math and physics, but this seems like the only way of getting this thing down to brass tacks. And why is a living being’s personhood defined by our technological ability to care for it outside the womb, when it would continue to grow if simply left alone? The last is an incomplete thought. Hopefully I’ll have some time to clean it up soon.
So what is the solution? Should the aborted embryos be given funerals? What about the thawed embryos from fertility centers?
I think there are probably far more embryos in our sewer system than our landfills, as most miscarriages happen early and are flushed out as either a heavy period or unavoidable miscarriage.
I think its mostly just the ick factor at work here. The embryos are not classified or treated as human remains (nor at that stage should they be, for practical and philosophical reasons), so they should be treated the same as any other human medical waste in disposal.
That’s integrity and rationality from an abortion supporter, deery. You pass.
That’s a good point. Saying they treat them with dignity puts the claim that they’re not human on shaky ground.
My point.
Im a little slow; the chemtrails, you know.
I recall using an incinerator to dispose of miscarried or ectopic fetuses at a naval hospital. Seems like that would be a lot more palatable and in keeping with their “dignity” claim.
As we found, you need a very high temperature incinerator to deal with hospital waste. It’s just not practical to separate the various categories of biohazards.
Prions in particular have to be completely denatured.
It’s reasonable to treat amputated body parts, even whole corpses, with dignity. If you don’t, that way lies Auschwitz, and that’s one slope, slippery or not, we want to keep well away from.
Cremation, and burial in specialised landfills – which we call “cemeteries” – is deemed adequate. Putting them in with other waste is not.
This, despite the fact that cemeteries are routinely dug up and used for other purposes after a “decent interval” has elapsed, with recognisable remains – bone fragments – sometimes interred en masse elsewhere, but often ending up in landfill.
We just try not to think about this too much, nor that the fine almost monomolecular powder from VHT incineration has ferrous metals magnetically separated, then precious metals removed via flotation, and the rest often used as construction material or just dumped.
This is a major ick for me. It reminds me of how the Nazis disposed of their victims after they were gassed. After useable parts were removed such as gold teeth, until the crematoriums were built, the bodies were thrown into mass graves and quicklime was used to dissolve bones and tissue.
They also claimed their victims weren’t human, using similar rationalizations.
“Similar rationalizations?” The Nazis claimed that Jews had no functioning brains or perception, and had to live inside the bodies of others to survive?
Now, now, play fair. Any metaphor can be attacked like that. Both Jews and embryos were called less than human and parasites. No, nobody ever said that fetuses charged usurious interest rates, either.
Didn’t see this. Now you know the minimum time needed for me to construct 2 or 3 run-on sentences in block form is 8 minutes.
Yup. The Jews were parasitic, underdeveloped organisms, not quite human. Same with the mentally ill, the malformed, and the mentally retarded, a detriment or inconvenience to its host. They even used clinical terms to insulate themselves from the monstrosity of their acts. Similar rationalizations are used by proponents of euthanasia, yet another idea with widely variable definitions of acceptability. So, at what precise moment does a fetus have a functioning brain or perceptions? Why is that even a consideration if, as most abortion proponents claim, it’s a matter of feeling pain? Seems to me that you could “terminate” a fetus painlessly to a point well beyond the age of viability (another moving target used by your crowd, among others), which points to the hole in your argument about needing to live in someone else for survival. Yes, a premature baby needs a great deal of care, but so does a full-term newborn.
The operative term here is rationalizations.
Perhaps it would be useful to examine exactly what an autoclave, without the quotes, actually is, and what it’s original purpose is. An autoclave is actually a device used to, I suppose “disinfect” or sterilize, hard laboratory or surgical/medical instruments. It is, physically, a large tube, roughly 3 feet long, a foot and a half or two feet in diameter, with very thick (2-3 inches) walls and back. The door, which is the entire front, is pressure-sealable (Joe, you would recognize this from your time on subs) and looks a bit like the pressure door on a torpedo tube. The object of an autoclave is to subject the hard instruments to high-pressure steam, because steam, unless it is under pressure, will never go above 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea, of course, being to kill any foreign organisms on the surgical steel or glass instruments. To be honest, I have no recollection of how high the pressure is nor what the terminal temperature inside an autoclave is, but it is NOT designed to treat organic (once living) material. It’s sole purpose is to guarantee that the scalpel the surgeon uses to cut you open is free of germs, such at staph, that would be detrimental to your health. Or, to be certain that the Petri dish used for your culture is not contaminated with some outside biologic. Joe, I think you’ll be in agreement with me on this…to use an autoclave on discarded baby parts is useful solely to disguise them, in that the pressure and temperature involved would so “cook” them as to make them unrecognizable.
Ick.
Exactly. Steam autoclaves were used because they could not only kill run of the mill pathogens, but also get those spore-forming anaerobes like the Clostridia. We haad a small one on the boat, but we used ethylene oxide at the naval hospital i worked at. For disposing of human flesh, it would work by denaturing proteins rather than combustion. I wouldn’t want to see the end product.
To be honest, I have no recollection of how high the pressure is nor what the terminal temperature inside an autoclave is, but it is NOT designed to treat organic (once living) material. It’s sole purpose is to guarantee that the scalpel the surgeon uses to cut you open is free of germs, such at staph, that would be detrimental to your health. Or, to be certain that the Petri dish used for your culture is not contaminated with some outside biologic. Joe, I think you’ll be in agreement with me on this…to use an autoclave on discarded baby parts is useful solely to disguise them, in that the pressure and temperature involved would so “cook” them as to make them unrecognizable.
This is not true. Autoclaves are often used as a healthier alternative to incinerating medical wastes, especially in the last ten years or so. It is also considered more environmentally friendly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waste_autoclave
Most abortions (about 90%) happen before 12 weeks. Most people would not be able to distinguish an embryo at that stage, as it would be anywhere from microscopic, to mostly resembling a small blood clot. You don’t really to “cook” anything at that stage to make it unrecognizable, so I doubt that is the aim of the autoclave, especially since it used for most medical wastes, not just ones that result from abortions.
Which means that those abortions aren’t germane to the issue.
Odd, because hospitals use the same technique on amputated body parts etc.
I don’t think they should, myself. Such biological waste should be separated then cremated in a very high temperature incinerator, as is legally required where I live.
But that would increase costs. What difference is there between an amputated gangrenous toe, a blood-soaked bandage, and a bloody sanitary pad that if you happened to examine it microscopically, contained a fertilised egg that didn’t implant?
According to some, the third would deserve a funeral. As would the various locusses of a vermiform carcinoma, as they too are a “product of conception”.
As for “selling body parts” of foetuses – PP was doing what is considered standard hospital practice. So while there’s a case for saying that it’s wrong, there’s no case for saying that it’s OK and perfectly acceptable for hospitals, but somehow heinous for PP and only PP.
That’s dishonest.
1. Dead fetuses are analogous to human corpses, not toes.
2. I don’t think the videos proved selling of fetus organs for profit, so its not an issue.
3. But there’s a big difference between selling organs of deceased patients whose lives the hospitals were trying to save, and selling organs of human beings Planned Parenthood kills. See: “Coma” and “The Island.”
Careful, Jack. Make too much noise,and you might find yourself being wheeled into OR 8.
1. Evidence please. I happen to agree with your assertion, but only when the foetus has passed a certain level of development, so it would be deemed “alive” rather than “brain dead” if not in the womb.
2. It most certainly *is* the issue, Jack. The hoax is still being promulgated, and at this stage, no amount of debunking or fact will change opinions.
3. I was referring to foetal tissue from ectopic pregnancies and the like. Deliberate abortions that almost all hospitals perform, though that’s starting to change.
As an aside – we had 13 miscarriages before our son was born. One of them during an ultrasound to detect foetal heartbeat, so it was all recorded, we gave permission for the recording to be used for training purposes. Trying to give the finger to the Universe and salvage something from the tragedy.
I watched it as it happened, and had to be very, very careful driving home from the imaging lab, keeping my attention on the road and not disintegrating into a blubbering mess until I wasn’t a danger to others.
But the miscarried foetus was just dead, malformed tissue, medical waste. The important thing was the extinction of hope.That hurt, and still does.
1. Wait, what proof is needed? The fetus is alive until it;s aborted. It is growing, which is a marker of life. It is a whole, discrete organism, not a part of one.
2. Not the issue here. Not the issue ion the post, and no longer the issue once the matter was investigated. Not that there wasn’t loose talk on the videos a.bout choosing methods to preserve useful organs, which raised legal issues (but no other ethical ones)
3. But to fairly determine the ick-unethical state, you have to go to the toughest call (the recognizably human late term aborted fetus) and not the other end, the early stage, tiny, unformed group of cells.
Deemed? Well, at least that’s honest. I’d still love to see the futuristic technology that allows the “deem”-ers to pinpoint that magical instant.
Did you read your link, and just expected we wouldn’t? Or did you not read it and assumed it said what you needed it to? There wasn’t a single reference to medical uses in the entire article, nor was there a reference to human remains, aborted or otherwise. Foul.
…There wasn’t a single reference to medical uses in the entire article…
The article I linked to talked about uses of the autoclave in organic material waste disposal. For medical wastes specifically, you can also follow the link to the main article about autoclaves:
Autoclaving is often used to sterilize medical waste prior to disposal in the standard municipal solid waste stream. This application has become more common as an alternative to incineration due to environmental and health concerns raised because of the combustion by-products emitted by incinerators, especially from the small units which were commonly operated at individual hospitals. Incineration or a similar thermal oxidation process is still generally mandated for pathological waste and other very toxic and/or infectious medical waste.
“For medical wastes specifically, you can also follow the link to the main article about autoclaves”
You actually can’t, because there is no such link. You CAN search autoclaves discreetly, and come up with the article you quoted. I’m left wondering if this was intentionally misleading, or just sloppy citations. This was a case study in how not to provide citations, regardless.
The Wikipedia article to refer to, without actually linking, does indeed say what you quoted, but it really doesn’t say what you need it to. Dragin’s point was that while it might make the aborted fetus sterile, and perhaps disguising it to look less… I don’t know child-like, it doesn’t actually dispose of the tissue the same way a crematorium does. If your point was that an autoclave is standard usage for medical waste, I don’t think anyone would disagree with you… I personally think there’s a difference between “medical waste” and a “dead baby”. And so this really boils down to the fundamental difference between the life and choice sides; Are unborn children people?
The assertion was that autoclaves were used only to sterilize inorganic materials and that there could be only nefarious reasons to use the autoclave on embryos:
An autoclave is actually a device used to, I suppose “disinfect” or sterilize, hard laboratory or surgical/medical instruments… The object of an autoclave is to subject the hard instruments to high-pressure steam, because steam, unless it is under pressure, will never go above 212 degrees Fahrenheit. The idea, of course, being to kill any foreign organisms on the surgical steel or glass instruments. To be honest, I have no recollection of how high the pressure is nor what the terminal temperature inside an autoclave is, but it is NOT designed to treat organic (once living) material. It’s sole purpose is to guarantee that the scalpel the surgeon uses to cut you open is free of germs, such at staph, that would be detrimental to your health.
I noted that this assertion was not true, that autoclaves are routinely used to treat wastes for organic materials and medical wastes specifically. So yes, some would disagree that autoclaves were being used to treat medical wastes.
As far as this specific issue, I think it is mostly just the ick factor that we have surrounding medical waste, when it comes from humans in general. Even if we were to grant that these are babies ( I don’t), they are getting a far better treatment being buried in a medical landfill than say, we give people on The Body Farm, or that touring body show that was going around a few years ago, or merely being flushed down the toilet, the fate of most miscarried embryos. Is the issue with the autoclave, unlike the incinerator, is that the tissue is not being rendered unrecognizable enough? Why is burning the flesh until it is no longer recognizable and can be compressed worse than steaming it until is sufficiently unrecognizable and can be compressed so much worse? Or are we just used to the idea of the incinerator, so the ick is no longer a factor?
“There are worse things”, not to mention, the treatment of the dead baby pales in significance to the killing that rendered it dead. I dont believe there is any sort of nefarious purpose, other than the fact that treating them in a way we don’t treat “humans” helps salve their consciences. The gas chambers were a giant leap forward for the nazis, not just because of their efficiency, but because good Germans no longer had to endure the psychological trauma of what looked so much like shooting human beings, instead running an operation that looked more like delousing.
I think, like I said earlier, that the argument still boils down to whether we think those are children or not. In the case of a miscarriage… That’s a tragedy. In the case of an abortion, that’s a plan. And maybe it is unrealistic to expect a full burial, especially in early term abortions. But after a certain point, after a certain size, is it really unreasonable to expect a dead human being. (Whether you call them fetuses or babies really isn’t important, we can agree that it’s human, right? Please tell me we can agree on that. Please.) We should treat them with a little bit of human dignity, and not turn them into baby jerky.
The non-religious, pro-choice argument for this appears to me to be that the dead don’t feel what’s happening to them, and therefore it doesn’t matter how we treat our dead. But by this logic embalming or cremating and burial is a horrifically wasteful process. Much more rational, much more logical to grind them up into Soylent Green, or barring that for all the nastiness that can come from cannibalism: dog food. Can you imagine the acres saved, the food not wasted, if only we let something eat us when we died? But of course, we balk at that, even atheists, because morality doesn’t come from religion, it comes from our shared human experience, and of all the people that should apply to, maybe we should apply it to the people who were too inconvenient for us to live with, and so we kept them from being here.
Horrible grammar, I am ashamed.
“But after a certain point, after a certain size, is it really unreasonable to expect a dead human being (Whether you call them fetuses or babies really isn’t important, we can agree that it’s human, right? Please tell me we can agree on that. Please.) to be treated with a little bit of human dignity, and not turned into baby jerky.”
As an aside: I hope I never have cause to type “baby jerky” ever again, for any reason. Why is everything about this topic so absolutely disgusting.
The non-religious, pro-choice argument for this appears to me to be that the dead don’t feel what’s happening to them, and therefore it doesn’t matter how we treat our dead. But by this logic embalming or cremating and burial is a horrifically wasteful process. Much more rational, much more logical to grind them up into Soylent Green, or barring that for all the nastiness that can come from cannibalism: dog food. Can you imagine the acres saved, the food not wasted, if only we let something eat us when we died? But of course, we balk at that, even atheists,
I think funerals are burials are mostly for the living, not the dead. It is designed to give us comfort, and avoid facing the idea of our own eventual mortality. If we are buried, we do eventually become food, if not for dogs, then worms. We are comforted that the process is happening out of our eyesight. That is precisely why places like the Body Farm are considered so horrific, seeing the process of decomposition is very discomfiting to most people.
Logically, of course, there is no difference between “cooking” something with a dry heat, so that the moisture is wicked away, and the solids are then unrecognizable, so that they can be compressed, and “cooking” something with a wet heat, so that the moisture is wicked away, and the solids are then unrecognizable, so that they can be compressed. We are just far more comfortable with the idea of the incinerator, because…mostly I think we just have more time with the idea of it.
Ohio doesn’t in practice allow abortions after 20 weeks, so the late term abortion fetus is a moot point. Ohio mandates that stillbirths be cremated or buried, absent the parents’ choice in the matter, in line with other states.
I also think, as a society, we don’t view fetuses as quite human yet, and thus their remains are not treated as we would human remains. Consider the story of Rick Santorum, who took his dead 20 week old fetus home with him, and insisted that his other children play with it. If it was a “real” dead body, it would never have been released to him in that manner. Or George Bush, relaying the story of his sibling in a jar:
George W. Bush’s pro-life stance solidified when he was a teenager in Texas — after his mother suffered a devastating miscarriage and showed him the fetus in a jar, the former president said in an extraordinary interview that airs tonight.
“She said to her teenage kid, ‘Here’s the fetus,’ ” the shockingly candid Bush told NBC’s Matt Lauer, gesturing as if he were holding the jar during the TV chat, a DVD of which The Post exclusively obtained.
http://nypost.com/2010/11/08/george-w-bush-bares-family-tragedy-that-changed-him-forever/
Interesting anecdote about George Bush…almost as if, when people are exposed to the reality of the life growing inside of a mother, they become less inclined to support the killing of that life.
Very interesting. I wonder why there would be such a clamor to avoid showing the awful effects of abortion or the actual pre-aborted life inside the womb. I wonder why…
‘I think funerals are burials are mostly for the living, not the dead. It is designed to give us comfort, and avoid facing the idea of our own eventual mortality.’
Perhaps, but we still bury the unclaimed. Case in point: The San Bernadino terrorists will still get a state paid cremation and unmarked grave.
‘If we are buried, we do eventually become food, if not for dogs, then worms.’
Factually inaccurate… Because of the embalming process… we turn into wax and soap. Kind of irrelevant, but in a thread this morbid, buried human candles are the least disgusting thing weève talked about.
‘Logically, of course, there is no difference between “cooking” something with a dry heat, so that the moisture is wicked away, and the solids are then unrecognizable, so that they can be compressed, and “cooking” something with a wet heat, so that the moisture is wicked away, and the solids are then unrecognizable, so that they can be compressed.’
We were talking about respect for the human condition a moment ago, the ceremony of cremation is, and should be, fundamentally different from the process that turns bio-waste into easily squished gobs.
As a separate note… Just to make sure we’re on the same page: Do you actually believe that aborted fetuses are human? I mean… I’ll disagree with a no, but I think that I’d at least better understand where you’re coming from.
‘Ohio doesn’t in practice allow abortions after 20 weeks, so the late term abortion fetus is a moot point.’
Did you pick Ohio because it was the state that had laws most favorable to your argument? I think you did. The polar sides of this debate are: ‘Abortions on demand, any time.’ and ‘No abortions, ever.’ So long as there are still credible voices espousing the first, a single state is really irrelevant to the conversation.
‘I also think, as a society, we don’t view fetuses as quite human yet, and thus their remains are not treated as we would human remains.’
This was a clever duck. I don’t think that way. And I don’t want to speak for any of the other commentators, but I doubt you’ll find that opinion even in the majority. I want to know what you think, deery. Are 7 month old fetuses human? And if not… What are they?
‘Consider the story of Rick Santorum, who took his dead 20 week old fetus home with him, and insisted that his other children play with it. If it was a “real” dead body, it would never have been released to him in that manner. Or George Bush, relaying the story of his sibling in a jar:’
Those morbid examples of nightmare fuel will probably haunt me tonight, thank you. But it’s almost like having actually seen what a fetus is, it was readily apparent that they were actually human. Go figure.
Did you pick Ohio because it was the state that had laws most favorable to your argument? I think you did.
I picked Ohio because that was the state the original article was talking about. This is the state which is trying to sue PP for disposing of fetuses in an “inhumane” manner. PP does not dispose of anything itself. Instead it contracts with a medical waste provider, who disposes of medical wastes in guidelines with state laws. PP has its medical waste license examined each year in Ohio, and it has been deemed compliant. So it was not a random stab in the dark.
We were talking about respect for the human condition a moment ago, the ceremony of cremation is, and should be, fundamentally different from the process that turns bio-waste into easily squished gobs.
As far as medical waste goes, I don’t think there is a “ceremony of cremation.” I think that embryo goes into the fire along with bloodied gowns, empty waste containers, and the like. And then all squished and dumped into a landfill. The major difference really is just dry heat v. wet heat.
As a separate note… Just to make sure we’re on the same page: Do you actually believe that aborted fetuses are human? I mean… I’ll disagree with a no, but I think that I’d at least better understand where you’re coming from.
I’m not sure of the question. Is a foot human? Or stomach cancer cells? Or a fibroid? I don’t embryos are people, but they have cells which contain human DNA, like the other examples. Though even if we were to grant them personhood, I don’t what effect that would have. In that case most “persons” have an undignified burial indeed, being thrown out on top of a maxi pad or flushed down the toilet. Once something has features that look enough like a persons to creep us out, we normally mandate some sort of burial/internment process for the remains. In states that allow for late term abortions, the remains are normally cremated, absent a parent’s directive otherwise. But earlier than that? Not so much.
Of course it can; it’s liquid water that can’t, but that means that steam coming off boiling water is only that hot then. It’s that behaviour of liquid water that’s used in an autoclave, because it allows the water to be heated to those temperatures, which in turn ensures that the steam reaches those temperatures too. Without that, you could still heat the steam to a higher temperature, but you would need a separate superheating system to do it. The pressurising approach is more convenient, right up until it all gets supercritical and the distinction between liquid and vapour vanishes.
It amazes me how far people will go with minute examinations of methods and purposes. The issue really is the dignity of life. There are probably more ways to get away from discussing the real issue, but I don’t really want to hear them. If an aborted baby is considered a life it deserves to be treated with dignity if it isn’t it isn’t. Aborted babies whose bodies are sent to landfills are obviously not considered to have meaning by the people who put them there. So, dehumanizing them is essential. It’s much more than ick. But, if it helps people feel ethical to call those babies waste before they toss them out I guess there is a kind of integrity to that process. It’s the frantic nature of the efforts to deny dignity to those babies that is telling.
The end result of Pro-life is literally life.
The end result of Pro-choice is literally death. The mother making that Pro-choice choice has to live with choosing to kill over allowing to live for the rest of her life.
Abortion is literally choosing to end a life when it is most vulnerable and unprotected by law. What is happening to these aborted lives is immoral!
Can’t remember the exact quote, or who to attribute it to, but it said that a society should be judged by how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable among us. So ironic how so many in the pro “choice” crowd rationalizes the killing of the unborn, but coddles the vipers among us who have made the conscious choice to do evil. That, and the fact that this is one of the few choices that they feel we have a right to, free speech and choosing to protect one’s self not among them.
“The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.” Was actually Jimmy Carter. Go figure.
But before him, in 1877 John Dalberg wrote “The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.” which was the earliest instance I could find… putting almost no effort into it.
Okay, I’m on a cell phone, with the first of 3 finals this week in about 4 hours. Want to switch places?
A very slow cellphone, by the way, that sticks and freezes constantly and makes me want to smash it to pieces.
That was quite a subtle and unnecessary jab, which certainly represents a “Talent” but certainly not very “Humble”. 😉
I Googled it. It never ceases to amaze me.. We have more access to information at the touch of our fingers than the President of the United States of America had at his entire disposal 20 years ago, but we’re too disengaged to open a new tab and search something. It’s a peeve of mine.
You must be an absolute joy to be around. Is your moniker an inside joke, by the way.
It is. And I am! Glad you noticed.
Well, I’ve discussed it before, but the terms “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice” are obfuscatory propaganda. Better terms are “Anti-Legal Abortion” and “Pro-Legal Abortion”.
I think that’s talking on a different level.
The other side of “Pro-Life” would be “Pro-Death” or “Anti-Life” The other side of “Pro-Choice” would be “Pro-Force” or “Anti-Choice” Obviously, neither side would cop to advocating for a Pro-Death or a Pro-Force platform… so there’s an element of smart branding in play here, but more than that, it shows the disconnect between the sides. I don’t know if “Anti-Legal-Abortion” actually showcases that side’s agenda… It’s more the method by which their goals are achieved. The goal being a drastic if not complete reduction of the purposeful killing of the unborn. Truth be told… it would be nice if the other side could get on board with that. You’d assume that an abortion is such a sad, utterly wasteful thing… And completely preventable. It’s 2015. With contraceptives, birth control, and education. Wouldn’t a reduction in abortions due to lack of demand be a good thing?
Exactly!
Yes!
“so there’s an element of smart branding in play here”
That’s one way of saying propaganda.
And yes, I agree with your gist, that if we must use the currently trendy labels, the term “Pro-Life” is more honest to their platform than “Pro-Choice” is to theirs.
“Wouldn’t a reduction in abortions due to lack of demand be a good thing?”
If you want to use the framework of the Left, sure. I think “reduction in abortions due to people knowing exactly what it is they are doing and what could be the real life and life-creating consequences are” is better phraseology, but that is nitpicking.
Of course we agree.
Except the pro-life people seem to be the many same of ones who oppose contraception. How many pro-choice people do you actually find who don’t think contraceptives are wonderful?
Some specifics are in order here.
1. All anti-contraceptive people are anti-abortion (pro-life is a cover-word: everybody is pro-life).
2. The vast majority of anti-abortion proponents are not anti-contraceptive.
3. Contraception is wonderful. Thinking otherwise is proof of an ossified mind, and a 15th Century perspective.
4. Linking the anti-abortion position (ethical) to the anti-contraceptive position (Neanderthal) is a dishonest and unfair tactic.
5. Not agreeing that contraception is something that tax payers or insurance companies should pay for rather than the individual who wishes to have child-free sex does not make one anti-contraception, anti-sex or anti-woman.
Well, it’s technically forbidden in the Catholic church, at least, but that rule is rarely observed, probably for reasons similar to the ones that the rule prohibiting oral sex isn’t followed. I guess it’s something we’ll have to smooth over with God later.
I wonder why the logic of not “agreeing that contraception is something that tax payers or insurance companies should pay” makes on “anti-contraception” does not apply to other things like alcohol or guns or trips to Lake Tahoe.
Is there some sort of special pleading involved?
They aren’t anti-contraceptive, they are anti-being-forced-to-pay-for-other-people’s-recreational-avoidance-of-responsibility.
Why do these people never apply this same rationale to other things like trips to Lake Tahoe or purchasing ammo or alcohol?
is it some sort of special pleading?
Questions I have put to many of them in the earlier “long” discussions.
By the way, no satisfactory answer was presented that didn’t involve tap-dancing and rationalizations.
What proportion of pro-life people oppose contraception?
Being new here, I wanted to test the waters a bit; I was hoping that my use of Pro-Life and Pro-Choice would inspire a discussion. So I posted and sat back to see what would happen.
Yes Pro-Life and Pro-Choice are propaganda phrases and I’m not real fond of either one. The appropriate non-PC term to use that accurately describes this is Pro-Abortion and Anti-Abortion, legality is secondary to the thought process and only becomes a part of this when society chooses to make it illegal with a law or legal as it did via Roe vs. Wade. Let’s never forget that regardless of what terms is used, abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy; it is literally ending the life, or potential life as some believe, of an actual human being – period.
My personal view is that abortion is literally choosing to end a life when it is most vulnerable and unprotected by law. I view it as a pre-planned intentional taking of a human life and it’s just as morally reprehensible as 1st degree murder.
I’m all for contraceptives that actually prevent a pregnancy from taking place including the Plan B One-Step “Morning After Pill”. I am absolutely thrilled that the Morning After Pill is now over the counter and it’s my opinion that it should be immediately offered to ALL women that claim to have been raped. Contraceptives are a great thing when used; the only real backlash is the fact that due to the availability of contraceptives so many view sex as something with absolutely no consequences, empty of individual responsibility, and a choice detached from morals; these things are simply not reality.
Abortion is NOT a contraceptive, it is an after the fact ending of an actual pregnancy. With the availability of contraceptives and the day after pill in the United States abortions should be nearly extinct but they aren’t and that is a serious social and moral problem.
Rats, a couple of my html tags didn’t work properly; bad, bad typing fingers. 😦
It’s too bad that this thread has gone cold, there was some pretty good conversations going on here.
I’m really appreciating the differences I’m noticing in these comment threads as opposed to how comment threads get WAY out of hand and go right down the crapper on other sites. I think I’m here to stay.
Though this particular thread has “gone cold”… Though I wouldn’t necessarily say it has, you should go back and re-read even a half dozen of the discussions on Abortion in general. Carve out about 2 hours- they have been knock-down-drag-outs every one.
I’m sure there have been some “good” ones but I don’t think I want to dive in and read things from the past, current discussions are plenty good.