People take note… our fanatical president is at it once again. President Bush and the Health and Human Services are “considering a draft regulation that would classify most birth control pills, the Plan B emergency contraceptive and intrauterine devices as forms of abortion because they prevent the development of fertilized eggs into fetuses.
The rule, which does not require congressional approval, would allow health care workers who object to abortion on moral or religious grounds to refuse to counsel women on their birth control options or supply contraceptives. It would forbid more than half a million health agencies nationwide that receive federal funds from requiring employees to provide such services. Pharmacists could use the rule as a justification for refusing to fill birth control prescriptions, and insurance companies could cite it as a basis for declining to cover the costs.”
At a time when overpopulation is rampant is this really the direction we want to go in? Are we seriously talking about denying women the right to decide whether or not they want to become pregnant because some religious lunatic happens to be your pharmacist? This is some truly scary shit ladies. Click here for the full article from the Houston Chronicle.
August 14, 2008 at 1:53 am |
Rarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh!
August 16, 2008 at 4:36 am |
There are 2 parts of this I would like to point to. The 1st is if the pill is abortion. This is a subject people disagree on some feel that since not every fertilized egg becomes a fetus. Others feel life begins at conception, so to them it really is like aiding in providing abortion.
On the topic of “overpopulation”. I would disagree with you there for a couple of reasons. 1st, many projections indicate that the world could feed many more people than are on the planet, so if you are talking about the actual number of people that can survive here we haven’t hit that number. If you are worried about the environment I would then point out to you that neither consumption of natural resources nor creation of pollution occurs in relation to the population size. If you ask if everyone uses at least some food and water the answer is yes. But if you ask if everyone drives cars, has multiple TVs, and so on then the answer is no. Thus some people who live in some parts of the 3rd world (who have less stuff and use less resources to get and the use what they do have) do far less damage to the environment-on a scale that could exceed 1000 times less. So what one does is far more important than if one is here.
August 16, 2008 at 4:42 am |
Oh, and if you ask a secular libertarian about this he or she probably will not mind as this would probably be viewed as increasing employee and employer liberty as well as allowing the free market to sort out any issues relating to if people do or do not offer access to the pill.
August 16, 2008 at 11:07 am |
Nathaniel,
With all due respect, I’d like to address some of your points:
1) The question of whether or not life begins at conception is kind of ridiculous considering that at conception we’re talking about cells, not an embryo. I’m sure these are the same people that are vehemently against stem cell research and I honestly find that ignorant. If you want to believe that life begins at conception that’s certainly your right. But then you don’t have to take the pill.
2) With regards to overpopulation, I agree with you that we could feed everyone on the planet if we all migrated towards plant based diets and had initiatives to share food. However, let’s not even pretend that this is the case. There are over 1 billion people starving on the planet right now and first world nations consume more animal-based products than ever. Not to mention the incredible amount of food that is simply thrown out. As far as natural resources, China’s automobile industry rose more than 25% last year and they stand to become the number one car producers by 2020. In addition, their diet has increasingly become more westernized with more people consuming meat than ever before. India is not far behind them.
3) As far as increasing employee liberty, what about consumer liberty? Why should a woman be bound to someone else’s random moral or religious beliefs when deciding to buy birth control. That’s absurd. What’s next? Drug store owners not selling condoms to gay customers because they think gay sex is immoral? If you want to open a “Christian” drugstore or pharmacy I suppose you have the right to do so but I think the discrimination people would face from something like that would very unfortunate and in some cases illegal. If you don’t feel comfortable selling certain drugs because you have a moral issue with it than perhaps you shouldn’t become a pharmacist.
August 16, 2008 at 2:00 pm |
Alright, here are the responses to each point.
1. I believe the argument is about when life begins, if the cells are alive at that time it shouldn’t be hard (via biological understandings) to argue that an organism is alive. If the cells weren’t then there likely wouldn’t be this discussion.
2. I agree with you on the point that food isn’t shared. The system by which food is distributed will not be change if population control measures are adopted. Thus resorting to methods intended to curb “overpopulation” will not result in a system that shares food and there will still be people who are starving. Also mentioning China brings up an excellent example of how population control fails to protect the environment. China currently has the strongest governmental population control program in the world. And it has been effective as birthrates are declining, meaning fewer and fewer additional Chinese are born each year and eventually China’s total population will stop growing altogether. However, as birthrates have fallen consumption and energy usage have been rising thus the amount of pollution generated has been increasing by larger and larger amounts-the inverse of what is happening with birthrates. China has a situation where the environment appears to be harmed even more because Chinese are purchasing cars instead of having children-and we both already know with one burns gasoline to run.
3. Given the love LIbertarians appear to have for the “Free Market” I’m guessing (with some confidence) that they would say the points where employee, employer, and consumer rights come into conflict should be worked out in the marketplace.
Also I’m guessing that several non-Libertarians would say requiring them to give up a job in a field they want to be in (even trained for) due to their religious beliefs could be argued to be discrimination against employees-as I believe an employer is not allowed to fire an employee for being gay, a law I suspect we both totally agree with.
August 16, 2008 at 5:53 pm |
Nathaniel,
1) While I agree, of course, that cells are “living”, surely you see the difference between a few cells and a feeling organism. Equating contraception with abortion presumes that all joint cells grow into viable embryos, which they do not. Estimates vary, but a significant portion of all conceptions self terminate. Also, not be graphic, but I hope you’re not suggesting that every time a man masturbates he’s committing a holocaust of the unborn by killing off the cells that could potentially become full grown babies.
2) You say that population control won’t result in a situation where the countries of the world agree to share food. This is probably true but can’t you see that the more children being born, the more potential for starving individuals. It’s simple math: one more mouth to feed over here or over there means less food to go around. As far as China consuming more energy and driving more cars, I’d have to say that has more to do with China’s growing economy and industries than with population. In fact, more than one third of China’s CO2 emissions come from export manufacturing.
3) Sadly, the country isn’t quite in touch with your libertarian ideals. In 36 states you can be fired legally just for being gay. I’m not saying that religious people shouldn’t become pharmacists, but they should not be allowed to force their religious morality on the public in a secular state. As I said before, perhaps if they advertised in their windows that they were “Christian Pharmacies” then the public could decide who they choose to patronize.
August 17, 2008 at 5:10 am |
1. I’m sure we have both heard of the key point being “conception”, thus difference being between masturbation and fertilized eggs. Also to self terminate doesn’t require outside action-thus the lack of discussion about it.
2. Its math that is based on the faulty assumption that the number of mouths determines starvation. There was a man on npr recently that mentioned even with higher foreign demand and ethonal production there is still a lot of corn sitting in silos going without being bought. We already have at least some of the food (likely all) required to feed those without. Changing the number of people isn’t going to change the fact that is will not be sent where it is wanted.
3. That is part of letting the market decide, though you may be surprised that a number of large hospitals have some sort of religious origins/relationship.
August 17, 2008 at 8:49 am |
Nathaniel,
We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on when “life” begins. As I said before, if you want to believe that life begins the minute a sperm reaches an egg that’s your certainly your right. But everyone is entitled to their opinion and that includes people that are for birth control all the way to people that are pro-choice. But it’s ludicrous and sexist to say that women shouldn’t have the right to decide whether or not they want to become pregnant. Expecting a human being to remain celibate just because they don’t want to have a child is incredibly naive.
Regarding your issue with population, almost every leading environmental scientist will tell you that overpopulation is reeking havoc on the planet. We’re the only species on the planet that creates trash and pollution… especially in the first world. There is no need for anyone to have 8 kids nowadays. And as long as people in the west continue to gorge themselves on meat and dairy, we can also forget about feeding the world or ending global warming.
I’m well aware there are Jewish and Christian hospitals, however, they don’t refuse medical care based on their spiritual beliefs.
August 17, 2008 at 9:28 am |
Nathaniel — I’m not sure what you’re even arguing about with regard to the contraception / abortion debate any more. Your own logic shows that you clearly see the fundamental difference yourself: you argue that life begins at moment of conception, so anything after that is abortion. But if condoms are used, then there is no conception, so there can be no abortion. Contrary logic about a preventative act equaling termination would lead, exactly as Ari suggested, to absurdities about masturbation also being a form of abortion.
August 18, 2008 at 9:59 pm |
Adam, I never said I was against condoms so I don’t understand where your point about preventative measures is aimed.
Ari,
1. On abortion in general. I don’t expect many people to be celibate unless they claim or promise they will be-and even then I’m not overtaken with surprise if some of those people turn out not to be. However the idea that people have rights is, in part, being ignored. Admittedly the Libertarian party supports typical right wing things like low or no taxes and no government regulations, but you don’t think that the same party that wants to undo drug laws and let gay people marry whomever they want opposes abortion due to any attachment to “traditional values” do you? Libertarians are all about rights-for women and other people. The problem with abortion is that it doesn’t respect whatever right a child may have to his/her (or any mix to the two) opportunity to decide what fate he/she should have.
As bans on gay marriage take away the opportunity for gay people to decide if they want to marry, abortion removes a child’s opportunity decide anything in the future.
And babies, fetuses, or whatever you refer to them as aren’t even represented in the decision making process. If someone ends up in a coma the person may have written a living will and thus has a way to represent him/herself despite an inability to speak at specific time. If there is no living will then medical decisions are generally made by family members because it is assumed that these people will have the best interests of the comatose person in mind. But the right to choose if a fetus has any opportunities in the future at all is handed over to someone else because that person is expected to make the best decision for herself and not the fetus. If you’ve ever heard the saying “No taxation without representation” then you may note that this is the same but on a very individual level.
This probably is not the way a libertarian would phrase it but you may recall there are points in history where rights appeared to be in conflict. In slave states the right of the owner to his or her property was viewed as trumping any right a slave may have to liberty. Today we realize and understand that the right to liberty trumps that to property if the owner tries to claim another human being as such (even if the owner has already paid a significant amount for this particular “property”). When dealing with a woman who may be unhappily pregnant, she has a right to decide what to do with her own body. But when this right comes into conflict with another individual’s chance at any sort of life and the liberty that goes with it then the right of of this individual trumps that of the specific right of the woman’s for a temporary period-after which the two are separate and there is no reason for them to come into conflict again. Women have rights, but (as with slavery), not the right to deny other’s their own without extreme reasons.
2. On overpopulation. I’m not sure if it was NOVA or a different PBS program but there was a show in particular where a number of scientists concerned about global warming and Bible-thumping Christians went on a trip to both see environmental damage in person and have discussion. At one point one of the fundamentalists mentioned to a scientist that whenever the scientist mentioned a concern about the global environment, this would lead to population control and so on in the fundamentalist’s mind. The scientist’s response was a simple “no”, just that we needed to stop using fossil fuels. So I know for a fact that not all scientists agree on the need for population control. In an Environmental Physics (which was a general teaching the technical points of environmentalism class) course I took (a few years back) the idea that population control was needed was left open and two theories-one pro, one con-presented and no favoritism given to either of the two.
Now there are some scientists who have claimed that population control is needed-my last point was that not all have. But when you look at the theories relating to environmentalism the most tested ones are relate to if global warming exists. This is because fossil fuel related industries don’t want to have to change and sometimes have gone so far as to fund propaganda organizations in order to try to duck or challenge the issue. Because of the severe challenge, presented scientists worked very hard to make sure their findings were right and mentioned the variables that may cause predictions to change.
The same is not true for theories about human population levels. An Oil company doesn’t worry about if there are a lot of people on the planet or not, just if the people that are there are allowed to produce and use the company’s product. Many of the theories related to “overpopulation” have fallen apart as history proves them wrong-this is a record of failure that reaches back to Thomas Malthus, who wasn’t concerned about global warming anyway. For example, a biologist determines that a certain type of animal in the wild needs an average amount of land to hunt or forage in to provide for itself. This theory works for that animal in the wilderness but falls apart when applied to humans. This last type of animal can be anything from hunter/gatherers that actually need to a given amount of land to find enough food to accountants that sit in a room looking at papers all day. Humans also operate on scales animals don’t with national and international economies.
Humans can watch TV, buy an car, fly around the planet and so on. There is no set amount of territory any particular human needs to do these things. And they all relate to the burning of fossil fuels (coal fired power plants relate to electricity and thus TV use). We choose to do these things and we can frequently chose not to or find a way that relates to less environmental harm. Frequently assumptions made about supposed population limits in relation to the environment are made with assumptions in mind about life style that, in practice, fail to stay stable (because there is no set requirement that a specific amount of people have a coal fired power plant).
If pollution was due to population then India and China (which have had more people than the USA for a long time) would produce more pollution than we do and would have been doing so for a long time. You may point out that China has recently started putting out more CO2 than the USA, but this isn’t because of the number of people in China has been suddenly growing (the “1 child” policy has put a stopper on that long before China started putting out more CO2). This is because more people in China drive cars and use electricity produced by coal fired power plants (meaning more of these plants are built and used). You could probably take several hundred million people out of China and they would keep building these power plants because of the fact that the number of power plants built isn’t determined by the number of people, but by the amount of electricity used. If the number of Chinese doesn’t change (no change in population) but the number of them buying and using TVs does then electricity usage and pollution shoot up. The reverse happens if some stop using TVs.
Also, to use the example of Chinese people watching TVs even more, if half the number of Chinese that still aren’t watching TV are removed then “overpopulation” and population equals pollution theories predict success-even if the remaining half of the Chinese who weren’t watching TV and using electricity now start. One of the many holes in “overpopulation” theory.
3. When one combines your understanding that abortion is “medial care” and that there are “Jewish and Christian hospitals” that must provide it, this violates your agreement with me that “Christian Pharmacies” could exist as long as they are open about/advertising what they are (and thus what they choose not to do).