An Illinois judge declares that an early embryo is a human being, allowing a couple to sue a clinic for destroying a fertilized egg.
A U.S. senator suggests that couples seeking fertility treatment should not be allowed to produce more embryos than they wish to implant simultaneously.
Anti-abortion activists picket a fertility clinic in Virginia, proclaiming, “IVF kills babies.”
Here's to hoping we'll look back on this moment as the time the anti-abortion movement jumped the shark: while a pretty sizable chunk of Americans have some qualms about destroying something that looks more-or-less like a baby, only the wingnuts seem to care about clusters of a couple cells, especially when those clusters are created to save and create lives.
PS I don't think I'm going to use the term 'anti-abortion' anymore. 'Anti-choice' is good, as is 'anti-autonomy', but at the moment I'm in a crappy mood and 'coathangers' seems most appropriate. As in 'these fucking coathangers are so pro-life they want to see women bleeding to death in alleys'. What do you think? Too obscure?
4 comments:
Did this clinic destroy her fertilized egg? I am no lawyer, but if you are trying to have a baby and you are having invetro to have that child that you so desperately want and have tried all sorts of measures to have and a doctor kills your fertilized egg, I think you have a decent arguement. But like I said, I am no lawyer. You also don't have link to an article or any such thing so we don't have all the facts.
Never mind about that link...I am an idiot
In regards to the first thing, presumably the couple does have the right to sue for destruction of property, or something along those lines, if the fertility clinic destroys one of their embryoes without permission. It's the fertilized egg=person thing that links this to the other two, and is the wingnuttery that's going on here.
I think anti-autonomy is a little over the top considering that some pro-lifers (yeah! political euphimisms, still, it's no worse than pro-choice)simply seem to consider the baby an autonomous being. 'Coathangers' probably isn't the best thing if your goal is productive discussion, but if your just pissed off and looking for a fight, i think it would work quite nicely.
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