Alabama Supreme Court Affirms Fetal Personhood

On February 16th, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen human embryos are people, “extrauterine children,” so In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) clinics destroying unused frozen fertilized eggs are guilty of wrongful death of a minor under state law. The decision cites the Alabama State Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, Blackstone, Genesis, Jeremiah, Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Petrus Van Mastricht, and Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. This ruling overturns those of two lower state courts. Alabama Supreme Court members are elected in statewide elections, and all are Republicans.

Technically, the biological items in the case are blastocysts, clusters of cells 1.0mm to 2.0mm (0.0394 inches to 0.079 inches) in size, produced about 5 days after fertilization. A successfully implanted blastocyst isn’t considered a fetus until after the 8th or 9th week of pregnancy.

IVF clinics are understandably freaking out, since they sort through patients’ blastocysts to find ones most likely to produce successful pregnancies and screen for genetic abnormalities. Surplus blastocysts are often discarded as medical waste or used for research or medical treatment. Keeping all such unused matter frozen in perpetuity would be impossible, unless the state’s Supreme Court wants to pay for it.

To put things in perspective, in unassisted natural reproduction, most eggs (70%) are not fertilized; of those that are and develop into blastocysts, half do not implant in the uterus. Many fetuses don’t come to term and get delivered as actual living, breathing human babies. But when fundamentalist judges practice medicine, life begins at conception.

The ruling is not just bad science, bad medicine and bad law, it’s bad politics. The U.S. fertility services market is $7.9 billion annually, and wields considerable influence. And while many abortion patients are low income, minority single mothers, 75% of IVF patients are well-off and white, with much more political clout. Take away their hope like this, and they’re bound to use it.

More:

“Alabama Supreme Court rules frozen embryos are children, cites the Bible in opinion,” Josh Moon, Alabama Political Reporter

“Alabama Supreme Court Ruling Compromises Access to IVF,” Veronica Salib, Life Sciences Intelligence

“Alabama patient says embryo ruling has ‘derailed a lot of hope’ as hospital halts IVF treatments,” Sara Moniuszko and Meg Oliver, CBS News

“’Extrauterine Children’ and Other Nonsense Wrought by the Fetal Personhood Movement,” Joanna L. Grossman and Sarah Corning, Verdict

“The Alabama Chief Justice Who Invoked God in Deciding the Embryo Case,” Rick Rojas, New York Times

“Alabama ushers in the theocracy,” Ruth Marcus, Washington Post

“Republicans Increasingly Reveal They Barely Know Where Babies Come From,” Nicole Lafond, TPM

Related:

“It is worth repeating: ‘life begins at conception’ is a religious, not scientific, concept,” Richard J. Paulson, MD, M.S, Fertility & Sterility Reports

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Image ( “Bama Blastocyst On Board”) by Mike Licht. Download a free copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Coach Tuberville: Weak On Defense

Senator Tuberville plays political football with the U.S. Armed Forces

U.S. Senator Thomas Hawley “Tommy” Tuberville (R-AL), a retired football coach, is running an awkward play with Armed Forces appointments and promotions. He has put a hold on any on them until the Department of Defense changes a healthcare policy, one which pays servicewomen for out-of-state transportation if they need reproductive health services not offered in the states where they are posted. It doesn’t cover the actual medical services, just travel, But Senator Tuberville claims this supports abortions, and he’s agin that.

Tommy Tuberville is an expert on defense, having played two years as a free safety for the Southern State College Muleriders. He is equally qualified on the subject of women’s health, earning a B.S. in physical education from SSC in 1976.

The senator has put over 300 senior military promotions on hold. A member of the Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support, he claims his holds have no effect on the nation’s military readiness. Others disagree.

So Tommy Tuberville must have written a bill to change the Pentagon travel policy, right? Wrong. He wants Democrats to do that for him. After all, Coach T. is retired. The Alabama senator doesn’t even live in Alabama anymore. He sold up and moved to Florida.

More:

“Tuberville’s hold on military promotions would take hundreds of hours to process individually, memo says,” Natasha Bertrand, CNN

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Image: Tommy Tuberville, official U.S. Senate portrait.

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Right to Meddle in Women’s Lives Demo in DC

The annual Right to Meddle in Women’s Lives demonstration was held in Washington DC last Friday, sponsored by the Zygote Liberation Front and the Committee to Restrict Women’s Health Care, or something like that. Theme of this year’s pep rally was “Equality Begins in the Womb,” a bid to promote fetal personhood and negate the human rights of the, um, womb-owners. This biology-denying sect is said to have infiltrated the federal judicial branch recently.

More:

“Anti-Abortion Marchers Gather With an Eye on the Supreme Court,” Kate Zernike and Madeleine Ngo, New York Times

“As March for Life returns to D.C., antiabortion activists wonder: Is this the last march under Roe?” Casey Parks, Washington Post

Related:

“Catholic pro-choice activists project messages onto DC basilica in protest,” by Jack Jenkins, RNS, via National Catholic Reporter

“White nationalists are flocking to the US anti-abortion movement,” Moira Donegan, The Guardian

“‘You never forget it’: These are the stories of life before Roe v. Wade transformed America,” Shefali Luthra, The 19th

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100 Years

A century of women’s health care at Planned Parenthood, described by Lena Dunham, Mindy Kaling, Amy Schumer, Tessa Thompson, Meryl Streep, and friends.

Related:

“How Defunding Planned Parenthood Could Affect Health Care,” Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux FiveThirtyEight

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Colorado Springs: God & Guns

It was the home of Garrett Swasey, Jennifer Markovsky, and Ke’Arre Stewart. It’s White Evangelical Mecca, where it’s perfectly normal to walk down the street carrying an AR-15 assault rifle. Welcome to Colorado Springs.

“Colorado’s second largest city, with a population of 445,800, has built itself a reputation as a playground for white, pro-gun, pro-life Evangelical Christians. It is also home to one army base, two air force bases, and an air force.”

— “Colorado Springs: a playground for pro-life, pro-gun evangelical Christians,” Josiah Hesse, The Guardian

So when you visit Colorado Springs, bring your Bible, your ski vest and your flak vest.

Unborn Caucus Scores Big on GOP Platform

Acting on the medical advice of Todd Akin’s gynecologist, the Republican National Committee platform panel added a plank outlawing abortion, even in cases of incest, medical necessity, or “legitimate rape.”

You’d think Republicans would be busy crafting meaningful measures to fix the economy they broke instead of reviving the delusional policies they used to destroy it during the Bush administration. Yet here they are, a week before the GOP Convention, getting between women and their doctors instead. Why? The subversive influence of the Zygote Liberation Front, a Tea Party splinter group, which penetrated the GOP platform committee like an intrustive Virginia ultrasound probe.

Okie Embryos Denied Personhood

A bill to grant personhood to unborn Oklahomans tragically miscarried in the state’s House of Representatives this past Thursday. The legislation seemed perfectly viable in the State Senate two months ago, when it was passed 34 to 8, but the bill failed in caucus before it could become implanted on the House floor for a vote, and has been resorbed back into the body politic. Come to think of it, that’s just like the development of the vast majority of fertilized human eggs, which don’t lead to live birth.

Penetrating Politics in Virginia

Virginia Republicans want to keep government out of your business — except if you’re a woman. Republicans in the Virginia Senate voted to force pregnant women to have ultrasound probes stuck up their ladybusiness before they can terminate pregnancies.

Virginia Republicans are against healthcare mandates — except if you’re a woman. Women would be forced to pay for their own forced transvaginal ultrasound probes, too.

For some reason, Virginia Republicans were surprised when their plans were met with outrage, ridicule, and the withheld affection of their own wives. Governor Bob McDonnell has since withdrawn his support for the forced, intrusive physical violations. It’s a shame, in a way, now that they’ve made up all those Bob McDonnell commemorative transvaginal probes.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Old Men in Skirts & Women’s Health

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is objecting to a recent HHS rulemaking which grants American women equal access to healthcare and directs health insurance companies to provide them with contraceptive services. Of course, America’s Roman Catholic bishops have their own sort of family planning; they are (presumably) celibate. Not so the females in their flock, two-thirds of whom use some form of contraception. The HHS regulation does not apply to employees of churches but to workers in the separate nonprofit corporations spun off by religious institutions. It has little to do with health reform, and everything to do with the rights of employees under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Unborn Virginians, Rejoice!

On Tuesday, the Virginia House of Delegates sent a Valentine to the Commonwealth’s fertilized human ova by granting them “Personhood.” If the bill passes the Upper House, perhaps impregnated women will be allowed to drive solo in the HOV+2 lanes.

The bill also neglects to state if the 80 percent of Virginia zygotes that do not result in human births will still remain “Persons.” Virginia is for Lovers, but apparently not for physicians, women, or rational human beings.

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Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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