Internet, Schmiternet? For genuine crazy, try this....

[j. d. worthington]

For those who think it just ain't crazy enough in this little ol' country, or even in the daft stretch of land known as Arizona, try this:

http://rt.com/usa/news/arizona-bill-...-abortion-387/

Which, by defining life as beginning at such a period, could well mean (as one commentator put it) that you can declare a foetus a person before the parents have even met, let alone have sex! Now, how's that for a pre-emptive strike?

Does the entire Arizona legislature really need to be certified, or is it only the majority....?

[HoopyFrood]

Oh, my, I heard about this a few days back and had a good rant about it.

Of course, it just so conveniently means that the limit could in some cases be taken down to eighteen weeks, rather than the stated twenty. How about that.

I can't see it saying that this will be the set rule for every case, or if the woman knows the exact date of conception (well, at least the specific date of having sex) this will be taken into consideration instead. Because if it's the former, and the latter is overlooked, then it's just another case of ha ha, you don't know your own body, we'll do the deciding!

I was being a tad facetious when saying it, but as I said to a friend, why not just declare all women pregnant until told otherwise

[j. d. worthington]

I did run across some lovely comments by women on the issue. One simply noted that she had started her period, and her parents would "be soooo happy!" But I think the best was one who had commented that she had had a tubal ligation and therefore could (by this law) be both pregnant and not pregnant at the same time, making her "the Schrödinger's cat of pregnancy"....

[HoopyFrood]

Yes, I first caught the topic on a Guardian article sometime last week and there were similar amusing comments on there.

Because as one commenter said, if you don't laugh, you'd just cry instead...

[j. d. worthington]

Mmmm-hmmm. Pretty much the same thing Cabell said in Beyond Life concerning the entire handling of "witches" throughout history....

[It is] needful, too, to speak of these chapters [in history] with flippant levity, because such enormities grow unbearable when regarded seriously...

[Vertigo]

That is so ridiculous. It's almost like a time travel paradox. If a couple are about to have sex and at the last minute they decide to use a condom, does that mean they have committed murder?

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

That is so ridiculous. It's almost like a time travel paradox. If a couple are about to have sex and at the last minute they decide to use a condom, does that mean they have committed murder?

Yes, A. E. van Vogt could have a field day with this one, couldn't he?

What never fails to floor me, though, is how people continue to elect these morons who don't even understand the most basic facts about biology, let alone any other form of science, to offices where they can have such sway over education, sexual freedoms, personal liberties, and so many other aspects of life. I'm sorry, but it really does not speak well of the American populace that such nits not only hold office, but are re-elected with such consistency....

[svalbard]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Yes, A. E. van Vogt could have a field day with this one, couldn't he?

What never fails to floor me, though, is how people continue to elect these morons who don't even understand the most basic facts about biology, let alone any other form of science, to offices where they can have such sway over education, sexual freedoms, personal liberties, and so many other aspects of life. I'm sorry, but it really does not speak well of the American populace that such nits not only hold office, but are re-elected with such consistency....

I believe the answer lies there. The people have spoken. Morons are elected and we all stand indicted...

[dask]

Morons do what morons do 'cause that's what morons do.

[pyan]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

Does the entire Arizona legislature really need to be certified, or is it only the majority....?

Does it matter? It'll go through either way...

And there's a side-bar story in that link that confirms it - they're about to let anti-abortion doctors lie to parents so they can avoid malpractice suits for failing to disclose information that might have lead the parents to choose to abort...

Anti-abortion doctors could legally lie in Arizona

[AnyaKimlin]

There is a medical reason for it relating to pediatric care later on (it allows for mistakes in the date of conception), but until recently (it may still be my youngest is three) pregnancies were worked out like that anyway. When i say I am six week pregnant it is about four weeks from the most likely date of conception, but six weeks from my last period.

As babies can be born and now survive with special care from around 21 weeks (which would be 19 weeks from the most probable date of conception) I do think this legislation has a point and has more validity to it than the usual panic ridden, right-wing American Christian rantings.

On page eight of the proposed amendment to H.B. 2036, lawmakers lay out the “gestational age” of the child to be “calculated from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman,” and from there, outlaws abortion “if the probable gestational age of [the] unborn child has been determined to be at least twenty weeks.”

Unless America has been working things out differently to UK obstetrics (my experience is American obsetrtcis are postively archaic in comparison) this is how pregnancies have been worked out for decades. Talk about a non story.

Here work out your most likely due date lol

Due Date Calender

[j. d. worthington]

Yes, this has been a recognized method of calculating gestation for quite some time. The problem here is that the people pushing it through are also pushing for recognizing it as the beginning of life, and are also coordinating this effort with anti-abortion efforts of massive proportions: women being required to watch abortions before having one; proposed legislation to require women above 16 to have monthly sonograms to determine whether or not they are pregnant (and they -- or, if they are minors, their parents -- pay for it); as pyan notes, doctors are being given a free pass on lying about whether or not the patient is pregnant, thus delaying their certain knowledge of their state even further; and on, and on, and on.

Frankly, there is no pressing reason to alter the standing legal definition save to support the anti-abortion/pro-life lobbies which are enormously powerful in many of the states of the south and southwest. Mississippi has also been pushing through legislation which allows doctors to lie, and tightening the requirements which would allow abortions to an unpracticable degree.

Were it just this unnecessary bit of legislative persiflage alone, it would be, at most, a minor story. As it is, it is part of a concerted effort to ban abortions in a number of the states, in part by forcing a reconsideration of the foundatinos of Roe v. Wade on the Supreme Court. The legislators themselves have made this quite plain in their comments.

So no, it is hardly a non-story. it is a serious attempt to roll back the fundamental rights of a woman to make decisions concerning her own body, as well as concerning any potential offspring.

[AnyaKimlin]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

The problem here is that the people pushing it through are also pushing for recognizing it as the beginning of life, and are also coordinating this effort with anti-abortion efforts of massive proportions: women being required to watch abortions before having one; proposed legislation to require women above 16 to have monthly sonograms to determine whether or not they are pregnant (and they -- or, if they are minors, their parents -- pay for it); as pyan notes, doctors are being given a free pass on lying about whether or not the patient is pregnant, thus delaying their certain knowledge of their state even further; and on, and on, and on.

This is a different story and is an appalling erosion of rights if passed through the legislature.

My issue is with the original story only, which highlights issues that really aren't erosion of rights. Pregnancies are already calculated that way and the concern about reducing the abortion limit to twenty weeks for a healthy fetus is a genuine one now babies not much further on than that are surviving.

[j. d. worthington]

On that, we'd be in full agreement. The percentage of abortions performed later in a pregnancy is, however (from what I understand) really quite low, and undertaken for serious medical reasons, generally speaking. What I (and others) see going on here is a tactic which has been used by politicians before; essentially getting a toe-hold by seemingly minor alterations, in order to establish just enough of a precedent to allow them to broaden the breach later on, to a larger and larger degree.

I am not, by the way, a particularly big fan of abortion myself. I have serious qualms about it on some grounds; yet the more I learn about the actual facts, the less those concerns seem to be based on actual practice (again, generally speaking; there are always abuses, and those are another matter).

The problem is that the truth (that is, the actual facts concerning abortion practices) are seldom actually articulated for the majority, leaving those with a strong agenda in control of the field, to promote their fear tactics on either side rather than attempt to ascertain what really is and how it should be handled.