Constitutional pharmacology
More bullshit from the Catholic News Agency.
Colorado for Equal Rights, an organization backing a measure on the Colorado ballot that would define a person in the state’s Constitution as “any human being from the moment of fertilization,” has released a list of over 70 physicians and pharmacists from around the United States who agree that a person includes any human from the moment of conception.
‘Any human being from the moment of fertilization’…That’s an interesting idea: a microscopic fertilized egg is a human being and a person, even though of course…it isn’t. Let’s define everything that way. A daffodil bulb is a daffodil. A swallow’s egg is a swallow. A caterpillar is a butterfly. A truckload of boards is a house. A bowl of batter is a chocolate cake. Milk is yogurt. Grapes are wine. Yee-ha. Let’s just ignore process, and time, and development, and change, and decide that everything is already what it could become if all the conditions are right for it to become that thing (which will mean some things will be more than one thing, which will be confusing, but no matter), and forget all these bogus distinctions between what is the case now and what will be the case in many days or months or years if a particular process occurs. Let’s just define things any old how we want to. Why not? This is a democracy, god damn it.
It’s a democracy, but it’s a democracy with professionals in it, and more than 70 (that’s a lot) medical professionals ‘agree’ that a person includes any human from the moment of conception. Which is helpful, because it’s a medical and pharmaceutical question. Isn’t it? But then if it is, why could they manage only 70? They could probably get more than 70 physicians and pharmacists to agree that antibiotics are worse than useless for viruses, so if they could get only 70 for this…Hmmwell maybe that doesn’t actually mean much of anything.
“We are honored to have received these endorsements from such respected physicians,” stated Kristi Burton, head of Colorado for Equal Rights. “Science clearly proves that life begins at the time of fertilization. We are secure in the fact that we have science and reason on our side, and we are pleased to have the medical community supporting our efforts.”
Life? What’s life got to do with it? You didn’t say life, you said person. What are we talking about here?
Really; what are we talking about here? Life is the wrong criterion; life is completely beside the point on this issue. Life is everywhere; lots and lots of things are alive; we don’t preserve everything that’s alive. Dandelions; mildew; bacteria; viruses; fleas; chickens; beans. The dispute isn’t about whether or not the fertilized egg is alive. Start over.
http://www.babycenter.com/0_understanding-miscarriage_252.bc
This link says that 30-50% of fertilized eggs are lost before the woman ever realizes she’s pregnant. That is, upwards of half of all people to ever exist were murdered by menstruation. Open your eyes to the real threat, people!
Ophelia, I can understand why people of a certain cast (as in concrete, plaster, iron etc) of mind might assert that your particular style of humour is ‘wicked’, and why the grim faced mullahs whose portraits deface the sides of certain tall buildings in Tehran have banned it and B&W outright. I find that I can only take it in small doses myself, as I tend to laugh my way out of my chair and onto the floor.
One is tempted to say that a god of humour had something to do with your coming into the world, except a bit of a search on the internet this morning has revealed no trace of any god of humour anywhere at all, at least not in the Greek pantheon. (Perhaps the Hindus have one squirreled away somewhere.) So that theory probably won’t stand.
The closest I have found is Dionysus, God of wine, parties, festivals, madness and merriment. He might just do at a pinch.
There is not a single joke told in the Bible, as far as I can recall. The God of the Old Testament, having presumably created humour in the first place, never laughed once, not even at His own folly as revealed in His flawed creation. His Son (of far more pleasant disposition) is not recorded as laughing anywhere in the New Testament as I recall, and the Gospel According to Thomas (in the Apocrypha) has him playing rather nasty practical jokes as a child, using his supernatural powers.
Well now that’s very sweet of you, Ian, especially the chair to floor bit.
The Taliban forbade laughter, along with most other things, including jokes. And I think the FLDS (or is it the Amish? or perhaps it’s both?) also frown on laughter – consider it sinful in fact.
Which is part of the whole picture, really. What’s good isn’t what’s good and pleasurable for human beings, it’s something else altogether, that has nothing to do with human well-being. Spiffy.
There is not a single joke told in the Bible, as far as I can recall.
Ah, that reminds me of an old SCTV sketch, with Joe Flaherty as a preacher lecturing on the importance of humor. As part of a sermon, he related Jesus’ overturning of the tables of the moneylenders, at the end of which the Savior had supposedly winked at them and said: “Got two tens for a five?”
“Jesus had a sense of humor; do you?”
Now, now. This list of 70 medical professionals isn’t *completely* pointless. If I still lived in Colorado, I’d have a handy list of 70 medical professionals I wouldn’t allow within 70 yards of any medical matter of mine.
Then again, it probably still wouldn’t be all that useful; I lived in Denver, and I’d wager that 65 out of 70 of these medical professionals were from down Colorado Springs way, a.k.a. central HQ for many right wing theocratic whackaloons (individuals and organizations).
But, G, these over 70 “medical professionals” are from all over the United States, not just Colorado. And to complicate matters further, these “medical professionals” include “pharmacists”.
Erm. Yeah. My good friend Prof Google has just informed me that there are around 800,000 physicians and 200,000 pharmacists in the United States. And “over 70” of them signed up.
Yeah don’t you love that ‘over 70’? Has to mean 71 – while they hope we think it means 79.