Charlotte Allen on Plan B

Well, you can start by not taking Plan B. I guess that won't ever be a problem for you, Greg. I don't know if you have a daughter, but you can instruct her on the evils of the emergency contraception pill since it's POSSIBLE that it could prevent a fertilized egg from implanting. Then you could show her a picture so that she's aware of the growth and development that has already occured. http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_calendar/week2.htmland

If she does get pregnant by some annonymous sicko rapist, you can hold her hand as she relives the experience with each little kick that the growing fetus delivers.

And, of course, you can not shop at any pharmacy or go to any hospital where the employees don't live up to your high moral standards.>

"If she does get pregnant by some annonymous sicko rapist, you can hold her hand as she relives the experience with each little kick that the growing fetus delivers."

I'm sorry, but I am so sick of hearing that argument. It displays a total failure to understand what the pro-life movement is really claiming. What we say is that the fetus is a person, a living human person with a soul.

Now to drive home the point, let me put it this way. Suppose a girl had a three-year-old child on account of rape. (let's say for whatever reason there was no access to Plan B or an abortion) Would you permit her to shoot the kid in the face because it reminds her of the rape? Unless you're an absolute monster, the answer is an obvious "no." You'd charge her with murder and lock her up.

But the pro-life argument is predicated upon the position that the fetus is as much a human being as a three-year-old (though obviously at a different stage of development, just like a three-year-old and a forty-year-old are different, but both fully human). Thus aborting a fetus is as much an act of murder as shooting the child in the face. So why, pray tell, is one ok and the other not?>

Watsy:

You say "extremists", and we say "principle-ists". We simply will not let you redefine the terms in a false, supercharged manner in order to score cheap rhetorical points. We "sacralists" really do believe a human life is at stake. Would you shoot the three-year old for the "mental health" of the mother, or not?>

No, Gary. I would not shoot a 3 year old for any reason. I agree with the system that says that a fetus has the right to life once it's viable outside of a womb. I believe in the basic human right of right to life.

Plan B, at the latest stage of "pregnancy," would terminate the life of a morula. If taken early enough, and prior to ovulation, it can prevent fertilization from taking place.

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/pregnancy_calendar/week3.html

A morula has the genetic make-up of a human, but it's not a "person." It's a gathering of cells that will become a "person" with time. You might think that your views are "principled," but I would not vote for any politician who would be willing to sacrifice my daughter's mental health for the sake of your nebulous principles. It's fine for you to decide that a morula is fully human with all the rights of a 3 year old child, but you shouldn't have a say in what happens in my life or to my morula.>

Rod: Terrific piece by Charlotte Allen. Really an eye-opener. Sacralists' support for Bush is (to put it mildly) undergoing reevaluation, and it isn't going to be comforting for Bush and the RNC. With his contradictory logic, Bush has painted himself into a corner. It'll be interesting to see how/if his administration comes out on the issue of conscience for hospitals and pharmacists who refuse to administer the drug. Where's Terry ("Issues of Conscience") Gross when we need her? :-) Anyone know if the USCCB has issued a statement since the Plan B approval? Their statements leading up to the decision were terrific.>

So we agree that plan B does not end a person's life. We agree that my daughter is not the same as a morula. If we end my daughter's life, we have ended the life of a person. If we end a morula's life, we have ended the life of what would have become a person had we given it the time that it needed to grow and develop.

From kidshealth, "bout 30 hours after fertilization, it divides into two cells, then four cells, then eight, and continues to divide as it moves from the fallopian tube to the uterus."

Plan B can prevent ovulation. If the woman had the misfortune of ovulating prior to being violated(or before having a contraception mishap), she may have a fertilized egg. Biology says that if that fertilized egg is not allowed to implant in the womb, the organism containing cells with human DNA will pass through the woman's body. That's not nebulous. However, biology doesn't say that there's a moral equivalence between allowing cells that aren't developed to pass and terminating the life of an organism that has developed.>

Most voters look at how laws are going to play out in their life. I think that it's out of the mainstream(is that better than extreme?)to not consider the life of a woman when making laws that will impact a society.>

Nan, two words: try empathy. That is the gist of the final paragraph in my last post.

And the way adoption has been promoted leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. It almost seems like the last step in the coercion to bear the child. It sounds alot like: "Abortion is murder, so you must go through with the pregnancy, you must give birth, and you must put the child up for adoption."

Have you ever put a child up for adoption? I hear that the separation trauma is at least as intense as it is for some who've had an abortion.

You need a few more words. Right now, the word I'm getting is "heartless".>

Susan: Once again, it's not "extremism." It's principle. :-) John Henry Newman made a marvellous, if unsettling, comment (and I paraphrase from weak memory): "They say we carry things too far when we carry {the principle} home to themselves." Watsy: Please read Charlotte Allen's post. She offers a starkly different picture of the biology. Franklin: Ought those who believe chattel slavery to be morally acceptable, be tolerated? Or do you favor the tyranny of the majority which forced its abandonment? And, yes, it would be a very difficult thing (emotionally, physically, etc.) to carry to term the child resulting from rape. But the child is not at fault, and adoption is a ready option.
Thanks for your comments. We're right along the fault lines of the culture wars. And I'm glad to be engaged with you.>

I don't know what to say, Mr. Seaton. Charlotte's not a good biologist. The fact that she thinks that fertilization is instantaneous doesn't make it so.

Sperm can live up to 72 hours in a woman's reproductive tract. An oocyte is viable 12-24 hours. It takes one to two hours for the sperm to complete the journey up the tract.

The makers of plan B have always said that time is of the essence. A man can rape a woman on Monday and fertilization can take place on Wednesday(or Thursday) if she ovulates on Wednesday or Thursday.

That's one of the reasons that hospitals and pharmacists shouldn't be permitted to not dispense plan B. Women don't have time to be running all over the country looking for people who are as concerned about her health as they are the zygote.>

WASTY-not "wat." I can't win.>

Don't be a fool, Wastsy. Making Plan B OTC has absolutely nothing to do with making Plan B available to rape victims who, if they had wanted Plan B, would receive it at the emergency room. It has everything to do with offering narcissistic white middle class suburbanites a "Plan B."

Although it's true that Americans are pragmatic and will in most cases choose what works over what is good, it's hardly a complimentary characteristic. And it's not like Americans don't recognize principles when they see them. They certainly do. They just tend to prefer things that are more useful. Like ice makers built into refrigerators, and detergents that can clean AND brighten.

But the fact that many defenders of the innocent and unborn engaged in an incrementalist approach over the last 30 years has seriously damaged pro-life arguments in the eyes of pro-aborts. Because pro-lifers have grudgingly accepted the "three exceptions" and have accepted or remained silent regarding the use of abortifacient contraception, many moderate pro-deathers have become convinced that we do not truly believe that life begins at conception (in its ordinary use of fertilization rather than the politically redefined concept of implantation). The deathers figure that if the defenders of the innocent really believed that life begins at fertilization they would be as adamantly opposed to abortifacient contraception as they are to late term abortion.

So, putting to one side the moral rectitude of the position that preventing implantation is ripping apart a 12 week babe is immolating a 26 week kid in some weird pagan ritual celebrated by Franklin Evans is shooting a 3 year old in the face, from a political perspective it is very important that the defenders of the defenseless are coherent and consistent in their defense of the unborn.

In a nutshell, then, Americans are dirty and nasty. No doubt arguments that fail to appeal to increased pleasure for them and apparati useful to them face an uphill battle. Nevertheless, even at their worst Americans recognize principle. And, sometimes, can even be convinced to choose the good. So it's important that there are people out there persuading the dirty monkeys to choose the good, even if Watsy and Susan and Franklin find it all very droll and unfashionable and embarrassing.

So keep up the good work ye defenders of truth.>

Franklin, you dirty monkey. :)>

Fool,
I agree that this issue is difficult for people in the pro-life position because it requires different tactics to make your point. Normally, you could show a picture of a late term abortion being done to a 24 wk fetus(without letting us know why it took place)and everyone would agree that pro-life people have principles and pro-choice people don't seem to care about the fetus. You even get away with using terms like pro-death.

However, plan B sort of reverses things a little. It's hard to be viewed as "pro-life" when you show such disregard for women(especially, American women). Women's lives matter even when they aren't raped. Women living in the suburbs matter and they might have to go for plan B if they've experienced contraceptive failure(broken condom). They might resort to plan B if they got drunk and had unprotected sex and wised up in the morning. Sometimes being pro-life is about wanting children to be born into homes where the parents know that they are physically, mentally, and financially able to give a good life to a child.>

Rape victims often do not end up in emergency rooms.>

Sarah,
You're against the pill because you think that it changes the physiology of a woman. Do you think that, based on your belief, American women should not have access to the pill?

I agree with everything that you said in the last paragraph. It's really, truly, a pro-life position. It's not one that you hear often from people who take the high ground based on "principles." It's interesting that the same political group who is often pro-life in the anti-choice sense of the word often belong to the same political party that looks down their nose at social programs.>