FishOutofWater on The Daily Kos reports and comments on a convenient bit of insanity:
An abortion ban bill introduced into the Ohio state legislature requires surgeons treating women for potentially fatal pregnancies located outside of the uterus to “reimplant” the pregnancy into the uterus or face “abortion murder” charges. However, there is no such thing as reimplanting an ectopic pregnancy. It is impossible because the fetal blood supply grows over time and grows into the tube or other site it is attached to. Moreover, a pregnancy will not attach to the uterus at this point in gestation because the uterus does not develop the vasculature to maintain a pregnancy when the egg implants ectopically. In fact, a growing tubal pregnancy will rupture the Fallopian tube if it is not treated medically or surgically. Tubal rupture is the leading cause of maternal mortality in the first trimester of pregnancy.
This proposed legislation would criminalize a medical procedure necessary to save a woman’s life under the pretense of saving a clump of cells that has zero chance of survival.
Practicing Obstetrician/Gynecologists (note my wife is an Ob hospitalist now) told Ohio legislators that “reimplanting” ectopic pregnancies is impossible the first time they introduced a similar bill. Again, Ob/Gyns are telling Ohio legislators that there is no such thing as reimplanting an ectopic.
I found the bill here, and the single mention of an ectopic pregnancy is in the context of abortion:
A physician who does all of the following is not subject to criminal prosecution, damages in any civil action, or professional disciplinary action, for a violation of this chapter:
(A) Using reasonable medical judgment, believes it is highly probable that the pregnant woman will die from a certain fatal condition before her unborn child is viable;
(B) Performs a surgery, before the unborn child is viable, for the sole purpose of treating the pregnant woman’s fatal condition;
(C) Takes all possible steps to preserve the life of the unborn child, while preserving the life of the woman. Such steps include, if applicable, attempting to reimplant an ectopic pregnancy into the woman’s uterus.
This ugly bit of right wing rhetoric is an example of following the logic of ill-founded assumptions to its bloody end, isn’t it? Imputing personhood to a fertilized egg on theological grounds is the bad assumption; it leads to all sorts of odd-ball assumptions which roil society in the service of some religious leader’s dubious agenda. I suppose the author would argue that the language merely readies the law for the day that the medical procedure becomes available, but it’s still ridiculous.
But let’s keep filling in the logic, shall we? We’ve already seen miscarriages being used to bring manslaugter charges against mothers who lose their fetus, another bit of madness which essentially condemns the founding assumption[0]. We can say that any miscarriage is thus manslaughter, and the entity responsible should be held liable. I’ve seen estimates of the percentage of pregnancies ending in miscarriage ranging from a quarter to a half of all pregnancies, so we’re not talking small potatoes here.
Since we’re currently in the domain of someone who believes their theology should be law, that lets us place God at the scene of the crime.
Yep, that’s right. If you have God, then God must have planned the whole thing, right? So the old saying goes, at least: God has a plan for everything. God Is Responsible, since miscarriages are, by definition, not induced by humans.
I’m a reasonable person, or at least that’s part of my personal set of delusions, and so I realize that imprisoning a divine, all-powerful being could only occur if he, A) permits it, and B) can be found.
Neither condition seems likely to be fulfilled.
Similar arguments apply to the imposition of fines on the divine being.
Therefore, in order to discourage God from committing crimes in the State of Ohio, I recommend finding his or her or its ordained representatives and imposing appropriate penalties on them. Now, I recognize that, because there are multiple sects involved in the worship of said creature, it’s actually difficult to ascertain which one, if any, is the duly authorized and recognized (by it) representative, in the body of the leader of the sect, and which are merely well-meaning but deluded, psychopaths with agendas, or indolent parasites, nor is it the role of a secular state to make that determination.
But I will not throw my hands up in the air at this conundrum! Instead, let me supply a convenient answer which side-steps the intellectually obstinate theological questions[1] raised above, and that is this:
Let the author of this delusionary segment of the bill be identified; from there, their sect & church may be further identified; and let the fines for the involuntary miscarriages be levied against that sect and its adherents, no matter how large or how small. Let’s be generous to God and impose no more nor less than $5000 per miscarriage. Furthermore, if that sect should disband for any reason, then the section on ectopic pregnancy shall be null and void.
Does this sound like madness? I am a practicing software engineer, logic is my everyday business. I’m simply practicing a bit of logic here. So, if this sounds like madness, perhaps we should go back to the assumption that a fertilized egg is somehow a person, and re-think what I consider to be a specious, and even malignant, assumption.
0 I bring up miscarriage as an ectopic pregnancy is little different from a miscarriage: something has gone wrong with the pregnancy and it must be terminated. In ectopic pregnancy, we must perform the abortion or the expectant woman is at substantial risk of death. The fetus is doomed in either case, for reasons out of our control.
1 While intellectually difficult, or even impossible, to answer, history supplies sufficient and even overwhelming evidence that these questions concerning the propriety of various faiths are easily validated through the use of physical violence. Let not mere questions of actual existence stop us from assaulting our fellow man, eh?
