Jack Cafferty: Is a Fertilized Egg a Person?
By Bill W. Sunday Nov 18, 2007 8:32pm
Jack Cafferty points to a recent Colorado Supreme Court ruling allowing an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person and asks his viewers to weigh in on it.
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The court approved the language of the proposal, rejecting a challenge from abortion-rights supporters who argued it was misleading and dealt with more than one subject in violation of the state constitution.
If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process.
Is a fertilized egg a person? What do you think of an issue that has the potential not just to outlaw abortion, but could affect a woman's right to in-vitro fertilization and birth control, not to mention stem cell research, being decided by a referendum?
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Frist?
Oh yeah...now to comment...what do I think of a referendum that could "decide" whether of fertilized egg is a person? Well if something like this were to unfortunately pass, somewhere down the road, some wacky religious group will try to get us to outlaw not only contraception, but, on, well "shaking hands with mother nature." If these people want to decide that a fertilized egg is a person, what's to stop them from extending this protecting to potential people? "Every sperm is sacred", eh?
will they VOTE?
So, this would also make miscarriages into legit homicide cases, right? I mean, why not go all the way. Strictly from a taxation POV, this means the thing is a dependant from day 1 and should confer all the benefits of an already birthed child, right?
d-man @ 2:
I'm a MASS MURDERER!! LOL
Bob in Thailand @ 3:
They'll only be considered 'persons' if they're registered as republicans before birth.
Q: Is a fertilized chicken hawk egg a person?
A: Fuck no!
Well how about all those sperm that get ejected when a guy goes to the bathroom. Damn we ought to find a way to make him save them or else prosecute him for killing sperm.
Bob in Thailand @ 5:
Today!
Marge @ 8:
like I said, we're all mass murderers
Fourteenth!!!! Oops, I'm a little bit early on this thread, call it premature e-clickulation. :-) And what you get out of a pre-mature ecliculation is just a bunch of sperm, right? Maybe we should name each of the millions of sperm ...
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ... " - The Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment XIV
So on it's face that law would be unConstitutional, as a woman is a citizen, and a fertalized egg doesn't even have a sex yet.
And related (and gonna come to it, at this rate): SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!!
A fertilized human egg is a person in the same way that a fertilized chicken egg is a chicken. NOT.
every sperm is sacred...and having a period, ladies, should be verboten! Every egg is potential LIFE!
You just have to scratch your head and wonder what's up with these people. Is this the kind of stuff that really keeps them up at night? They will rally to protect a fertile egg, while hundreds of thousands of kids rot in foster care, and millions more are without health insurance and still more go to bed hungry every night!! Is it any wonder that this country is as screwed up as it is now?
"Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is great. If a sperm gets wasted, god is quite irate!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DkqU-uWojc
(Hope this isn't too inappropriate for this thread, since I think it is on topic!)
miss_kitty @ 13:
How many frozen egg babies have you adopted?
You all should be glad that your parents valued their fertilized eggs more than you do.
Life begins at conception.
d-man @ 15:
Aww! You beat me to it! ;-D
Funniest production number ever.
gt -
> Life begins at conception.
Red-herring.
Beau Jangles @ 16:
Ah, you were joking. My bad.
gt @ 17:
What about harming potential life? Where is the line?
If this is going to influence stem cell research, abortion and fertility research, it's going to throw the U.S. back into the middle ages. While every country is moving forward with science, the U.S. remains stuck on politicized science. It is definitely the way backward.
And it's a lie, gt. Sperm is life, so is an egg. So are all those cells you kill when you shower yourself or comb your hair.
Great to see that the American public completely disagrees with this.
From these people's point of view, even having sperm or an egg inside my body and not helping it become a baby is wrong. As far as they're concerned, I should be having a baby every single day. Fucking psychos!
I had no idea we were completely out of foster children and homeless people already.
Lisa, it's not those things that they're trying to destroy. It's the Constitution that they're trying to destroy. They couldn't care less about those other things.
"the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process"
I'd just like those protections restored for those already born!! The xian nut cases are down right dangerous. Colorado needs a new law alright, one to make these idiots learn biology!
It's really simple, they are FUCKING INSANE!!! I'm coming to believe that in the future, in this country, there's going to be another civil war. It will be between people like us and the religious nutbags (AKA Repubs, Fundamentalists etc.) I mean really ,they are in a different world, and God speaks to them...blah blah blah. I'm surprised they can use technology or drive cars for that matter. This shit makes me soooo angry. And they breed and teach their kids this shit?
So miscarriage is manslaughter?
You're not allowed to have a child under 75 pounds in the front seat of a car right? Children can't go in casinos or bars right. I can't wait til pregnant women learn they are second class citizens for nine months.
Also it's kinda funny how all these anti-abortion activists are basically for WAR, as long as it not Their kids of course. How does that make any sense whatsoever?
gt @ 17:
POSTER CHILD FOR ABORTION IF THERE EVER WAS ONE.....look over there, it's JESUS!!!
the question is is it considered mass murder if a bunch of college classmates get together for a circle jerk?
I hate the idea of the state ever telling us what to do from banning marijuana to outlawing abortion. It's simply none of their business. But, at the same time your question "What do you think of an issue that has the potential not just to outlaw abortion, but could affect a woman’s right to in-vitro fertilization and birth control, not to mention stem cell research, being decided by a referendum?" couldn't be more off base.
We live in a Democracy and these issues have never been resolved to anyone's satisfaction. I don't know a single better Democratic way for the people to express their opinion, than a direct referendum vote. Just because you may not like the outcome doesn't make it wrong.
It's kind of like the 1st Amendment in that free speech is quite easy for anyone to accept when they agree with the speech. It's another story when they vehemently disagree with the speech. Same with Democracy, you either believe in "one person one vote" or you don't. You don't get to believe in it only when you know the vote will go your way.
Come on man, you can do better than that.
Well, now we know what Colorado's wedge issue will be for the next election . . . .
Like the GOP really gives a damn about life, they just want to maintain control!
If fertilized egg is not human, leave it alone! What's wrong with that? Why are people so eager to get rid of it? Because it WILL become human eventually?
A sperm alone is not human; an egg by itself is not human neither. But once combined, it will be. Is that a very hard scientific concept?
By the way, I am against all sort of slaughtering, abortion and war and otherwise. I am not a Republican; and you don't need to be pro-war to be pro-life.
James Dobson's church people wrote the Colorado Statement on Biblical Sexual Morality. It's pretty funny. I wonder if He's behind this...I mean on top of this.
Which came Frist?
Him??
Or Him???
Mindfire13 @ 28:
Yes. Another civil war. It will be like Night of the Living Dead except that the fundies will be insane and dead only from the neck up.
If you think that gt, then the correct way of going about it, is to amend the Constitution to amend the XIVth amendment. Do you believe in the Constitution, gt?
gt @ 36:
Bravo! How many adopted children do you have? Do you care to give to charity? How about tutoring/teaching children? Or do you just leave that up to someone else?
Completely and utterly ridiculous.
gt @ 17:
Or on a sock after watching skinimax.
Jo @ 39:
LOL!!! More Brainsssss!!!
gt @ 36:
Understood, but once the state decides it can control people's bodies, it can easily redraw the line, once enough people support this. This may seem absurd to you, but it really isn't that big of a leap to go from protecting "life" (fertilized egg - and is a fertilized egg a human being; many out there will disagree) to protecting "potential life" (every sperm is sacred). So beware of what you ask for. You might not like what you get.
Beau Jangles @ 20:
Heh. I didn't MEAN to trip anyone up, Beau J. No worries. :lol:
the issue is choice.Funny how they get bent out of shape when people discuss ..say....the inheritance tax.The repugs will attack and attack saying "How dare you tell me what I can and can't do with my money"".but when it comes to abortion.....no,no,no....you can't do that.they just luv their money...and after a child is born...it's ,See Ya!...Not with my taxes...I'm not going to support someone elses mistake......hypocrites.
This is what you get when you let uneducated, illiterate morons who flunked science dictate science and public health policy. Joseph Stalin did the same when he let Trofim Lysenko, who rejected Mendelian genetics in favor of the hybridization theories of Russian horticulturist Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin, become the director of Soviet biology and ended up damaging Soviet agriculture until Russia gave up on it in the 1960's.
How bizarre...
I came here thinking about the issue of sexism... and look what's staring us right in the face again?
A fertilized egg is not a person.
To me, being a person requires consciousness, and last I checked, cells were not conscious.
Stanley Rosenthal @ 40:
I don't understand the 14th Amendment enough to give a response, sorry. Of course I think the Constitution should be the supreme law of this Land, but it has not been taken seriously by many administrations for many years.
This is totally ridiculous. A fertilized egg is not person. An embryo is not a person. A fetus is not a person. A person does not exist inside the womb of another person. Full stop. (I hesitate to say "period.")
The question is not (as gt would have it, @ 36) whether a fertilized egg is "human." It has the same number and type of chromosomes as you or I, so, sure, it's "human." But by that logic so is skin scraped off my knee. A person is more than that.
Solent Green trailer -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=SVpN312hYgU
Johnny2Bad @ 38:
lol :lol:
gt @ 36:
Well, those would be personal reasons and none of your or anyone else's business. Neither is any medical consulting that passes between doctor and patient.
Why are you and your ilk so eager to stick your big, long prying noses in someone else's PRIVATE (protected by the Constitution, BTW) business?
And that's a rhetorical question. I'm not interested in any answer you could scrape together.
Gt - another reason why this is not so simple. Rape and incest can and do lead to fertilized eggs. If a rape results in a pregnancy, is a woman forced to carry this fertilized egg - I mean "person" to term?
gt -
> I think the Constitution should be the supreme law of this Land,
See my comment @ November 19th, 2007 at 6:44 PM - PST, currently numbered 11 as I see it ... , I quote an/the applicable part of the Constitution in it.
this is not good. we need contraception for population control, its getting out of hand.
d-man, I don't know if that argument has any merit to them (except to boulster it in their POV.) Fundamentalism is about fertalizing their kids and neighbors, even brothers wifes without conviction. Check this out -
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PREACHER_PATERNITY?SITE=AP&SECTIO...
d-man @ 45:
Very true. I understand that this administration increasingly violates our civil rights every day. But abortion is a very different issue because it's a matter of life and death for a fetus (which eventually will become a human if left alone). Another sad thing is the whole issue has become politicized which come up every election cycle. And you can see that neither party has any intention to address this issue seriously, only to score political points for election.
this topic is settled law.....and I know that the loonatic fringe(cc wing)will never stop trying to change things to fit into their perceived reality....but like I said....it's their perception.not necessarily reality.
Does anyone really think that railing unintelligently and without logic at "hypocrites" and "religious whackos" will ever amount to anything? I hope it at least makes you feel good.
mudshark @ 47:
Agreed. How about we begin by treating fully formed people as if they were human beings? Then maybe we can talk about stretching the limits.
When we are treating all the people we already have humanely, then we are in a place to discuss recently fertilized eggs.
The truth is its an abstraction. People who don't want to treat other live humans well suddenly get all worked up about egg cells. It's just a common psychological transference.
They need to deal with their issues with other actual living people first.
Jo @ 39:
Too late.
How would that affect funerals/burial/body handling laws for miscarriages? Seriously. At hospitals (in most states), dead bodies can't be handed over to people, but need to be processed through a licensed mortician and/or funeral home.
Just have to pose this question: Everyone here believes they have a soul or some sort of spiritual center, right? At what point does our soul become united with the blob of cells that is the zygote? At conception? At birth?
slint @ 57:
Bingo!!!! We have a winner!!!!
moniker @ 29:
And having a glass of wine while pregnant would be contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Does the fertilized egg have a right to privacy? Do parents need its consent before getting an ultra-sound?
Does it have the right to bear arms?
Can the government quarter soldiers inside its place of residence?
Can it yell fire inside a crowded theater?
Can it petition the government?
Does it have the right to a speedy trial?
How about Habeas Corpus protection? Can Bush declare it an enemy combatant and ship it to Gitmo?
DharmaBum @ 65:
No.
Mindfire13 @ 44:
What pisses me off the most, is that a huge number of them aren't 100% to blame for it.
Let me explain. Many of us, myself most especially, were born to parents of the far-right bent. The ones that tried to rear us on this same kind of sycophantic idiocy.
Only some of us got lucky, we were given a chance, either by a teacher, a relative, or running across a good book - we were given the chance to think for ourselves before our brains were too thoroughly indoctrinated.
When I was in my teens, I hated gays, thought 'femi-nazis' were trying to get rid of men, and generally was everything I now despise.
Unfortunately that's how indoctrination works - first they convince you of something, then they convince you any other source but them is biased and that ONLY they are capable of giving you the truth. Once that happens, its a rare individual who can break that hold without outside assistance.
The reason I say this is that, as much as I loathe the far right... I also pitty them; especially the younger ones; the ones raised on conservapedia and Rush Limbaugh - the ones taught to believe that "Liberals" are somehow just waiting to "let the terrorists take over the country"... They only believe it because that's all they know.
It doesn't mean we fight any less hard - it doesn't mean we don't push back with everything we have and then some - but it means that we have to win people over to our cause. We have to prove, not just with facts, but with passion; that ours is the right way.
Some, like Limbaugh, Hannity, Kurtz, Coulter, etc... these folks are just plain vile.
But your average 'Nascar Dad' in a trailer park only believes these things because thats how they were brought up, and its reinforced by things like Fox News which tell them what they expect to hear.
Its one of the key reasons a truthful and fair media is *critical* to our democracy - for without that we cannot survive.
So as I said - put forward every effort you have, spare nothing as we try to get this country back on the right track - but remember; ever remember, that not everyone on the far right is 'dumb' or 'insane' - many are just poor indoctrinated fools who need a good reality-bat to the head. Thats why I'm always talking to my relatives, always trying to impart some little piece of intelligence or wisdom to them. I know I've shifted my republican grandma further left than she'd ever have gone left to her own. You don't even have to win people over completely either; just do your best to educate and help people think for themselves.
Humans have the capacity for a lot more intelligence than we often demonstrate; often we just need to be shown how to use that grey matter.
Stanley Rosenthal @ 56:
I don't think comparing sperms with fertilized egg is logical. Sperm by itself will not become a human (otherwise we will have very serious population population), but it can fertilize an egg which after 9 months it become human. Also, a fertilized egg has its unique set of DNA that come from both the sperm and the egg.
> Just have to pose this question: Everyone here believes they have a soul or some sort of spiritual center, right? At what point does our soul become united with the blob of cells that is the zygote? At conception? At birth?
My first specific memory I can recall was when I was 2 years old.
From the WaPo article: "It doesn't outlaw abortion, it doesn't regulate birth control," said Kristi Burton, 20, of Colorado for Equal Rights. "It's just a constitutional principle. We're laying a foundation that every life deserves protection.
Family Research Concil has a more honest apprasal: A victory would strike at the very heart of Roe v. Wade and have far-reaching significance in addressing the legality of abortion.
Finally from Colorado for Equal Rights home page: This campaign is not about the power of money... it is about the power of truth.
The dishonesty of the approach while claiming "the power of truth" is enough reason toss it. I don't see any good coming from something whose foundation is based on falsity.
Mindfire13 @ 31:
Easy, they don't value other people's lives as much as their own. Protecting fertilized eggs is a twisted way to ensure their own existence, because they realize they were in that defenseless state at one time. They fundamentally don't trust anyone but themselves. Not their parents to not abort them. Not their government to protect them. After they've rationally ensured their own existence (since before they were born), it is f' everyone else, look out for yourself (better buy a gun to do it with also). They have no problem with exploitation and inequality. They are perfectly happy to throw away other people's lives to marginally protect their own. Their whole thinking is centered around personal self-interest, not collectivism.
Look, after you understand the pathological theme of trust no one, paranoia and elitism, wing-nuts aren't that hard to understand. They just take it to different extremes. Here's your homework. Explain the connection between the anti-abortion movement and people that back the gold standard. After you can do that, you'll start understanding what is really going on in an extreme right-wing mind and you'll truly be able to appreciate Ron Paul as he goes so extreme that the foreign policy actually goes full circle through the right-wing spectrum.
The problem that you are having is that you see the pro-life movement as a projection of the values of equality taken to a ludicrous extreme. It is in fact the opposite.
steve @ 61:
did this make you feel better?
>>> I think the Constitution should be the supreme law of this Land,
>> See my comment @ November 19th, 2007 at 6:44 PM - PST, currently numbered 11 as I see it … , I quote an/the applicable part of the Constitution in it.
> I don’t think comparing sperms with fertilized egg is logical. Sperm by itself will not become a human (otherwise we will have very serious population population), but it can fertilize an egg which after 9 months it become human. Also, a fertilized egg has its unique set of DNA that come from both the sperm and the egg.
Red-herring. You aren't responding to the part of the comment I was pointing you to (the quote from the Constitution.)
Stanley Rosenthal @ 71:
So does that mean you didn't have a soul before you had any memory of yourself?
Beau Jangles @ 7:
Which came first, the chickenhawk or the fertilized egg ?
gt @ 17:
I don't think the question is whether a fertilized egg is alive -- it's whether it's a person. Nope, it's not a person. No heartbeat, no brain, no arms, legs, no feelings, no thoughts, etc. Just living tissue.
I don't know, DB.
Stanley Rosenthal @ 75:
I am not too sure how that is related to the issue of abortion. Please clarify.
aside from this being a way to try and increase repub. turnout in the election, this is the same old crap about controlling women that we have been fighting against forever. a fertized egg can only become an actual person by being hosted in the uterus of a woman for nine months (more or less) and she must be the one to decide if she wants to be that host or she is a slave
Stanley Rosenthal @ 79:
I don't know either. No one does. That's what makes this issue so hard.
If I cant tell what it is when I meet it on the street, it ain't a human.
susan g @ 81:
agreed,they have to go back to the basic repug talkng points.Cause they got nuthin else.
Eggsackly @ 51:
This is an excellent point. By the reasoning of the people behind this referendum shouldn't every drop of blood be considered a human life? So instead of a million plus that bush has murdered in Iraq and elsewhere it's really several trillion.
"Person" is a legal concept. Thus, a "person" is whatever the law defines one as. A cantaloupe is a "person" if the law stipulates that it is. Apparently there are already plenty of cantaloupes living in Colorado and attending church.
An egg is not only a person, but it has the right to carry a gun too!
susan g @ 81:
Exactly. She is a slave, a Stepford Wife, a Rethuglican wet dream.
Mr Pelicano @ 86:
I think that the distinction would be between "person" and "human" (although it's a slim distinction, at that).
Mr Pelicano @ 86:
And you can tell if they are "ripe" by giving them a rap to see if there is a hollow sound. Or, you can smell them.