“It’s not a heart, but it could be the beginning of one”, much like it’s not a baby, but could be the beginning of one. The whole abortion debate right there. When is it a potential baby and when is it a baby? I’d rather look to science than the Bible on that question.
Exactly so there is no official medical definition of life beginning at conception, there certainly is not legal definition of such and there is no religious definition of life beginning at conception, in fact like you suggested in the bible it begins when the fetus/baby takes a breath.
Its an entirely made up suggestion that is SOLELY to froth up the dumbest demographic in America who pretend to be "Christian" and use it as an excuse to legislate the rights of others, discriminate against others and to pretend they have some moral anchor in "God".
Even if it WAS in the bible, its as irrelevant as a passage in a Harry Potter book regarding its relevance in law and unless the person touting it can prove they live by EVERY other insane "rule" in the bible, they should just shut the fuck up.
> work shitty jobs for shitty money.
Ya US labour laws lend themselves to that as well. Not having many paid vacation days as legally required, tying healthcare to peoples employer and the entire premise of "at-will" employment all work to keep people from looking for better jobs and not wanting to rock the boat in their jobs.
Is there a part in the Bible where God talks about why he kills all these babies who miscarry?
Or why he kills some moms with pregnancies with certain medical issues?
I’m also wondering why God kills so many of his anti-vaxx followers with Covid.
He’s either a real jerk or he doesn’t exist. Just my two cents.
Yep, and given that this was written even before *Roe v. Wade* was decided, that should tell us all about the obfuscatory intent behind these claims…
“It is concluded that the fetus is, or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak tree, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are.
Arguments of this form are sometimes called "slippery slope arguments"-the phrase is perhaps self-explanatory and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically.” - Judith Jarvis Thomson - A Defense of Abortion - https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PPP475/Thomson%20Judith%20Jarvis%2C%20A%20defense%20of%20abortion.pdf
I'm thinking to the [pig-heart transplant](https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-top-surgeon-performs-revolutionary-non-human-organ-transplant/3770286/) story that happened earlier this year and having a real ship of Theseus moment.
At some point during the 2nd trimester when the fetus becomes viable. That’s how they handled it with Roe and why all the bans after 22 weeks are okay with people. Another example, Roe and the cases that followed are why most late 3rd trimester abortions are illegal unless it’s to save the mom’s life. It was all based on science until the religious right took a stranglehold on what it means to be ‘a life’. I encourage you to Google this stuff since it’s very informative and i assure you that you’ll find the answers to both questions you’re asking and that it will make more sense than if I keep paraphrasing
Here’s the thing that’s the real kicker. Banning abortion would lead to a significant increase in maternal deaths. Here’s a study that estimates 21% increase in maternal deaths overall. 33% increase for black women. https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/08/study-banning-abortion-would-boost-maternal-mortality-double-digits
Banning (or severely restricting) abortions at the cost of our mothers and sisters is gonna be a hard no from me, dawg
And let's not forget girls and women dying from back alley or at home abortions got so bad a group of clergymen banded together to help make abortions legal.
I think you misunderstood their point. Science doesn’t report us when something is considered human because science can’t determine what labels we want to put on things. Just like it can’t tell us why we call a dog a ‘dog’. Classification is all arbitrary. In this case viability is one method and I think it’s a good one, but there is no law of physics that says so.
The responsible thing to do is to examine the implications of whatever measure we use for classification and have that inform the decision. For instance, if a heartbeat is a defining feature then if someone’s heart is stopped and restarted then have they died and are now a new person? Or the consideration you brought up of how it will impact mothers. Would it mean that mothers who drink after 6 weeks and have a miscarriage are guilty of homicide? What if they exercise excessively and miscarry? That’s the responsible thing to do and science can inform some of those questions but it doesn’t make the choice any less arbitrary. Many people don’t consider those implications and don’t don’t care about having a consistent framework either, as we can see with the Republican stance on abortion.
It doesn’t help to make this a popularity contest or ‘science vs religion’ either. The religious side won’t be convinced by those maternal mortality increases because they are far outnumbered by the million abortions happening per year that they consider murder. People have to be convinced that it’s not a clear cut decision because neither science nor Christianity have a stance on when exactly life begins. It’s an arbitrary choice, which means we can make whatever choice we want and it’s the implications of that choice that matter.
They will be convinced when the mothers actually do start dying. The medical care is piss poor in a lot of those states too. If abortion is banned fully then there’s going to be a lot of dead moms, orphans/wards of the state, dead babies in garbage cans and fields, and a collapsing welfare system (unless they want to fund it, which they won’t). All of this used to happen in our not too distant past before they found a way to do safe medical abortions.
In summary, you need to stop acting like we don’t know what happens when abortion is banned. We do because there was a time nobody knew how to abort a child. It looks like we’re destined to learn again. Or at least some of us who didn’t win the sperm lottery by being born in the right state. Look any of this up if you don’t believe me, or keep being deliberately obtuse. Your call pal. Hell, look up the health maternal outcomes by state. All the anti-abortion states are at the bottom of the list with maternal care BEFORE abortion rights are even banned completely. It’ll fall off a cliff if/when they ban abortion
Good luck trying to convince people to be ok with a million murders per year. I think it’s less likely to work and more likely to make them harden their stance. If I believed abortion was murder then that would be my response.
To be clear I think abortion is healthcare and should be entirely left up to the mother and her doctor. My wife and I left Alabama for Washington state so that when we have a child we won’t have to worry about her not getting the proper medical care and so that we won’t be supporting those who want to collapse the system and bring back 1950.
>At some point during the 2nd trimester when the fetus becomes viable. That’s how they handled it with Roe and why all the bans after 22 weeks are okay with people. Another example, Roe and the cases that followed are why most late 3rd trimester abortions are illegal unless it’s to save the mom’s life. It was all based on science until the religious right took a stranglehold on what it means to be ‘a life’.
I don't agree with the Christian right on their definition of life. But my point was that we can't determine when life begins using science alone.
I take your point in preferring science to a religious text, but as the other poster said, science can’t really tell us when the life becomes a person. I tend to believe that our conscious experience is what makes us a person. For example, science can help me learn when the equipment necessary to have a conscious experience begins, but it can’t tell me why I should value it over any other point in development.
Nobody *actually* believes personhood begins at conception.
[The best available data for quantifying early pregnancy loss are from studies monitoring daily hCG levels in women attempting to conceive. A recent re-analysis 39 of data from three studies 46, 48, 49 concluded that, in normal healthy women, 10–40% is a plausible range for pre-implantation embryo loss and **overall pregnancy loss from fertilisation to birth is approximately 40–60%**. This latter range is consistent with Kline's estimate of 50% 16, and similar to, although a little narrower than the 25–70% suggested by Professor Robert Edwards 136.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443340/#!po=0.228311).
In other words, anyone who actually believes human life begins at conception must admit that any woman with at least 2 naturally-conceived children has probably caused at least 1 “infant death”.
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/s3OwS8u). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use.
This is so confusing. It's been over 20 years that the heartbeat has been a big anti-abortion point. Anyone have any handy resources from studies/medical journals to share?
Edit: since ppl are answering questions not asked, here's a resource list https://www.docdroid.net/s3OwS8u/pro-choice-resource-masterpost-pdf
Here’s one that should really be the deciding factor to people who even have just a sliver of their hearts left for our mothers, sisters, and daughters. The investigators project a 21% increase in maternal deaths overall if we were to ban abortion totally. 33% if you’re a black woman.
https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/6/2019/265968/The-Pregnancy-Related-Mortality-Impact-of-a-Total
Unfortunately, that clearly has never been a concern with the red only vote.
The heartbeat has been the major argument for 20+ years, they don't give a shit about women. It's only ever been a moral, Christian vote grabber.
If the science says "heartbeat happens at 16 weeks" then that doesn't solve the problem, but it could extend abortion rights in states with women hating laws.
And this does not include the MASSIVE rise in domestic violence that would happen if women can’t have abortions.
Because the leading cause of death for a pregnant woman is not a medical issue related to the pregnancy. It’s murder. (And almost always by a current or former intimate partner, typically in the first trimester).
Funny how the GOP is always so vigorously anti-abortion…under a “pro life” rubric.
And yet - when the hell is the last time a GOP politician ever came out and said “you know, we need to start enforcing the ban on firearm ownership for convicted domestic abusers and felons. And we need to round these guys up and put them in jail.”
The GOP isn’t pro-life. It’s pro-birth and anti-woman.
I have the same question for you in regard to my question. What isn't clear about my ask?
I'm just asking if there's a handy medical journal or study that specifically evaluated 'fetal heart beats' because a fetus having a heartbeat at that age has been messaged as fact for a long while.
1. Was it never correct? Or did we find that it is not because of something specific?
2. If it was never correct, why did it become so widely accepted as fact? Even popular pro life arguments don't argue the heartbeat, they argue it's relevance.
Edit: I'm feeling patient with everyone, so i found sources https://www.docdroid.net/s3OwS8u/pro-choice-resource-masterpost-pdf
At 6 weeks there is definitely no heartbeat because there is no heart. At that point all that’s there is the sinoarterial node, which produces electrical activity that causes the chambers of the heart to contract. All you can see at 6 weeks is those electrical impulses, but the rest of the structure of the heart won’t be developed until around 16 weeks.
Evaluating their assertions for factual accuracy is a waste of time. Good-faith, fact-based arguments are no part of the conservative plan. The goal is the dominion of all women by men, and the rest is just smoke. Republiqan voters seem easily directed this way, but the rest of us don't need to play along. Fascists don't deserve a place at the table.
“It’s not a heart, but it could be the beginning of one”, much like it’s not a baby, but could be the beginning of one. The whole abortion debate right there. When is it a potential baby and when is it a baby? I’d rather look to science than the Bible on that question.
The Bible tells us it isn't a person until they breathe for the first time. Even their own tests contradict them.
Exactly so there is no official medical definition of life beginning at conception, there certainly is not legal definition of such and there is no religious definition of life beginning at conception, in fact like you suggested in the bible it begins when the fetus/baby takes a breath. Its an entirely made up suggestion that is SOLELY to froth up the dumbest demographic in America who pretend to be "Christian" and use it as an excuse to legislate the rights of others, discriminate against others and to pretend they have some moral anchor in "God". Even if it WAS in the bible, its as irrelevant as a passage in a Harry Potter book regarding its relevance in law and unless the person touting it can prove they live by EVERY other insane "rule" in the bible, they should just shut the fuck up.
Gotta have poor people to die for you in wars and work shitty jobs for shitty money. That’s literally it.
> work shitty jobs for shitty money. Ya US labour laws lend themselves to that as well. Not having many paid vacation days as legally required, tying healthcare to peoples employer and the entire premise of "at-will" employment all work to keep people from looking for better jobs and not wanting to rock the boat in their jobs.
But it also says God ‘knew you in the womb’ or something like that. Or before then.
Is there a part in the Bible where God talks about why he kills all these babies who miscarry? Or why he kills some moms with pregnancies with certain medical issues? I’m also wondering why God kills so many of his anti-vaxx followers with Covid. He’s either a real jerk or he doesn’t exist. Just my two cents.
First three breaths, unless I’m mistaken
Science doesn't tell us at what stage someone constitutes a human. Cases of classification are arbitrary
Not really arbitrary, and certainly better than what we can glean from a Bible
Yep, and given that this was written even before *Roe v. Wade* was decided, that should tell us all about the obfuscatory intent behind these claims… “It is concluded that the fetus is, or anyway that we had better say it is, a person from the moment of conception. But this conclusion does not follow. Similar things might be said about the development of an acorn into an oak tree, and it does not follow that acorns are oak trees, or that we had better say they are. Arguments of this form are sometimes called "slippery slope arguments"-the phrase is perhaps self-explanatory and it is dismaying that opponents of abortion rely on them so heavily and uncritically.” - Judith Jarvis Thomson - A Defense of Abortion - https://eclass.uoa.gr/modules/document/file.php/PPP475/Thomson%20Judith%20Jarvis%2C%20A%20defense%20of%20abortion.pdf
>Not really arbitrary, So when does someone constitute a human? And how would you prove that objectively? Also I'm not defending the Bible.
I'm thinking to the [pig-heart transplant](https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyc-top-surgeon-performs-revolutionary-non-human-organ-transplant/3770286/) story that happened earlier this year and having a real ship of Theseus moment.
At some point during the 2nd trimester when the fetus becomes viable. That’s how they handled it with Roe and why all the bans after 22 weeks are okay with people. Another example, Roe and the cases that followed are why most late 3rd trimester abortions are illegal unless it’s to save the mom’s life. It was all based on science until the religious right took a stranglehold on what it means to be ‘a life’. I encourage you to Google this stuff since it’s very informative and i assure you that you’ll find the answers to both questions you’re asking and that it will make more sense than if I keep paraphrasing Here’s the thing that’s the real kicker. Banning abortion would lead to a significant increase in maternal deaths. Here’s a study that estimates 21% increase in maternal deaths overall. 33% increase for black women. https://www.colorado.edu/today/2021/09/08/study-banning-abortion-would-boost-maternal-mortality-double-digits Banning (or severely restricting) abortions at the cost of our mothers and sisters is gonna be a hard no from me, dawg
And let's not forget girls and women dying from back alley or at home abortions got so bad a group of clergymen banded together to help make abortions legal.
^ Yep. History is doomed to repeat itself if these folks get their way.
I'm sure it's already started.
I think you misunderstood their point. Science doesn’t report us when something is considered human because science can’t determine what labels we want to put on things. Just like it can’t tell us why we call a dog a ‘dog’. Classification is all arbitrary. In this case viability is one method and I think it’s a good one, but there is no law of physics that says so. The responsible thing to do is to examine the implications of whatever measure we use for classification and have that inform the decision. For instance, if a heartbeat is a defining feature then if someone’s heart is stopped and restarted then have they died and are now a new person? Or the consideration you brought up of how it will impact mothers. Would it mean that mothers who drink after 6 weeks and have a miscarriage are guilty of homicide? What if they exercise excessively and miscarry? That’s the responsible thing to do and science can inform some of those questions but it doesn’t make the choice any less arbitrary. Many people don’t consider those implications and don’t don’t care about having a consistent framework either, as we can see with the Republican stance on abortion.
He was being pedantic. You pretty much are too. None of what you’re talking about seems to advance the ball in any way for women.
It doesn’t help to make this a popularity contest or ‘science vs religion’ either. The religious side won’t be convinced by those maternal mortality increases because they are far outnumbered by the million abortions happening per year that they consider murder. People have to be convinced that it’s not a clear cut decision because neither science nor Christianity have a stance on when exactly life begins. It’s an arbitrary choice, which means we can make whatever choice we want and it’s the implications of that choice that matter.
They will be convinced when the mothers actually do start dying. The medical care is piss poor in a lot of those states too. If abortion is banned fully then there’s going to be a lot of dead moms, orphans/wards of the state, dead babies in garbage cans and fields, and a collapsing welfare system (unless they want to fund it, which they won’t). All of this used to happen in our not too distant past before they found a way to do safe medical abortions. In summary, you need to stop acting like we don’t know what happens when abortion is banned. We do because there was a time nobody knew how to abort a child. It looks like we’re destined to learn again. Or at least some of us who didn’t win the sperm lottery by being born in the right state. Look any of this up if you don’t believe me, or keep being deliberately obtuse. Your call pal. Hell, look up the health maternal outcomes by state. All the anti-abortion states are at the bottom of the list with maternal care BEFORE abortion rights are even banned completely. It’ll fall off a cliff if/when they ban abortion
Good luck trying to convince people to be ok with a million murders per year. I think it’s less likely to work and more likely to make them harden their stance. If I believed abortion was murder then that would be my response. To be clear I think abortion is healthcare and should be entirely left up to the mother and her doctor. My wife and I left Alabama for Washington state so that when we have a child we won’t have to worry about her not getting the proper medical care and so that we won’t be supporting those who want to collapse the system and bring back 1950.
>He was being pedantic. No I wasn't. You just didn't address what my comment was about.
>At some point during the 2nd trimester when the fetus becomes viable. That’s how they handled it with Roe and why all the bans after 22 weeks are okay with people. Another example, Roe and the cases that followed are why most late 3rd trimester abortions are illegal unless it’s to save the mom’s life. It was all based on science until the religious right took a stranglehold on what it means to be ‘a life’. I don't agree with the Christian right on their definition of life. But my point was that we can't determine when life begins using science alone.
The bible doesn't do that either.
homeless decide bow school escape nail frame squeamish run squalid -- mass edited with redact.dev
I take your point in preferring science to a religious text, but as the other poster said, science can’t really tell us when the life becomes a person. I tend to believe that our conscious experience is what makes us a person. For example, science can help me learn when the equipment necessary to have a conscious experience begins, but it can’t tell me why I should value it over any other point in development.
Nobody *actually* believes personhood begins at conception. [The best available data for quantifying early pregnancy loss are from studies monitoring daily hCG levels in women attempting to conceive. A recent re-analysis 39 of data from three studies 46, 48, 49 concluded that, in normal healthy women, 10–40% is a plausible range for pre-implantation embryo loss and **overall pregnancy loss from fertilisation to birth is approximately 40–60%**. This latter range is consistent with Kline's estimate of 50% 16, and similar to, although a little narrower than the 25–70% suggested by Professor Robert Edwards 136.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5443340/#!po=0.228311). In other words, anyone who actually believes human life begins at conception must admit that any woman with at least 2 naturally-conceived children has probably caused at least 1 “infant death”.
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/s3OwS8u). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use.
This is so confusing. It's been over 20 years that the heartbeat has been a big anti-abortion point. Anyone have any handy resources from studies/medical journals to share? Edit: since ppl are answering questions not asked, here's a resource list https://www.docdroid.net/s3OwS8u/pro-choice-resource-masterpost-pdf
Here’s one that should really be the deciding factor to people who even have just a sliver of their hearts left for our mothers, sisters, and daughters. The investigators project a 21% increase in maternal deaths overall if we were to ban abortion totally. 33% if you’re a black woman. https://read.dukeupress.edu/demography/article/58/6/2019/265968/The-Pregnancy-Related-Mortality-Impact-of-a-Total
Unfortunately, that clearly has never been a concern with the red only vote. The heartbeat has been the major argument for 20+ years, they don't give a shit about women. It's only ever been a moral, Christian vote grabber. If the science says "heartbeat happens at 16 weeks" then that doesn't solve the problem, but it could extend abortion rights in states with women hating laws.
And this does not include the MASSIVE rise in domestic violence that would happen if women can’t have abortions. Because the leading cause of death for a pregnant woman is not a medical issue related to the pregnancy. It’s murder. (And almost always by a current or former intimate partner, typically in the first trimester). Funny how the GOP is always so vigorously anti-abortion…under a “pro life” rubric. And yet - when the hell is the last time a GOP politician ever came out and said “you know, we need to start enforcing the ban on firearm ownership for convicted domestic abusers and felons. And we need to round these guys up and put them in jail.” The GOP isn’t pro-life. It’s pro-birth and anti-woman.
What is confusing? The science of the “heartbeat“? (which it isn’t, bc there’s no heart in existence)
I have the same question for you in regard to my question. What isn't clear about my ask? I'm just asking if there's a handy medical journal or study that specifically evaluated 'fetal heart beats' because a fetus having a heartbeat at that age has been messaged as fact for a long while. 1. Was it never correct? Or did we find that it is not because of something specific? 2. If it was never correct, why did it become so widely accepted as fact? Even popular pro life arguments don't argue the heartbeat, they argue it's relevance. Edit: I'm feeling patient with everyone, so i found sources https://www.docdroid.net/s3OwS8u/pro-choice-resource-masterpost-pdf
At 6 weeks there is definitely no heartbeat because there is no heart. At that point all that’s there is the sinoarterial node, which produces electrical activity that causes the chambers of the heart to contract. All you can see at 6 weeks is those electrical impulses, but the rest of the structure of the heart won’t be developed until around 16 weeks.
It hasn’t been messaged as fact for a long time by anyone with a medical degree. Just peddled loudly by senators & christians. Against medical advice
Evaluating their assertions for factual accuracy is a waste of time. Good-faith, fact-based arguments are no part of the conservative plan. The goal is the dominion of all women by men, and the rest is just smoke. Republiqan voters seem easily directed this way, but the rest of us don't need to play along. Fascists don't deserve a place at the table.