Does that mean that i still can't be married to 1,000 girls at the same time?!?

Bummer...

How about 100 boys??? 50 sheep???

30 partridges and 10 pear trees??? No?!? How about 20 turtle doves, 2 girls, 1 boy, 1 partridge, and no pear trees??? No?!?! How about "Twelve drummers drumming" (i get to pick their sex and species), and the Democrat Party gets to keep their "eleven pipers piping"??? No?!?!?!?!?!

Forget it...i'll wait until its legal to marry the 10,000 puberty aged girls of my choice.

I am not some prolife fanatic, but I would want to know if my teenager was pregnant. Really. And if she had any medical procedure without my knowledge, I would be mighty unhappy about it. I think most people would.

Dafydd,

I don't know where you found that the cerebral cortex is formed and activated at 26 weeks gestation. When I studied this in the 1970's and 80's, it was well established that all major organs are formed by the 8th week. BTW, human development is skewed toward CNS development early in the process and remains skewed toward CNS development for 6 years after birth.

CEQuarles:

I don't know where you found that the cerebral cortex is formed and activated at 26 weeks gestation.

Here, for one:

By the sixth month of pregnancy the foetus will have reached a length of about 255 millimetres (10 inches). Sebaceous glands are evident and lymph glands which will help to protect the foetus from noxious substances from this moment to the end of its days. Up until now the foetus has relied exclusively on mother's anti-bodies for protection from toxins including environmental ones. It is here that the rooting reflex emerges, this reflex will be required for early feeding after birth.

The cerebral hemispheres now cover the whole top and sides of the brain including the cerebellum. Cerebellar development begins from this moment, but will not be complete until two years after birth. Six distinct layers are now differentiated within the cerebral cortex, and almost all of the neurons within the central nervous system are present by the end of this sixth month of life and neural 'circuitry' continues to develop.

This particular source isn't as detailed as another one I studied a few years ago; evidently, around the end of the second trimester, you can first start detecting "conscious human" style brainwaves. It's supposed to be a pretty abrupt change over a period of just a week or so.

I consider that the moment of transition from "foetus" to "pre-born baby." I would absolutely forbid abortion after that point for any reason other than to save the life of the mother (logically, a mother is more important than a baby) -- but not merely to save the "health" of the mother.

And even in that dire circumstance, the doctors should make every effort possible to save the baby as well... say, a C-section and incubation.

Dafydd

Monkyboy:

The bill does not apply to the children.

Dafydd

^Dafydd, don't confuse him with the facts when he's on a hyperbolic screed.

I find it perplexing that same people who would oppose this law but have no problem with a school nurse being prohibited from dispensing aspirin.

Did anybody here "oppose Muslim parents forcing their daughters to wear headscarves?"

Dafydd

Let me get this straight. A man in Idaho rapes and impregnates his 13 year old daughter. She schedules an abortion, and only then he becomes an abusive monster? So he was relatively stable until then?

I find it perplexing that same people who oppose Muslim parents forcing their daughters to wear headscarves have no problem letting American parents force their daughters to give birth to a child against their will.

Which is more barbaric?

By all means, let's git this kid across a border and terminate this "life" in her. Rip that fetus outta the little girl before it becomes something totally viable, like a human. We certainly can't allow this life into "our" world. No Way!

Death to all the misstakes! Abort! Abort!

"Barbaric"? You bet it is..........

Uggh. I was wondering when you might bring abortion up.

I largely agree with your position on abortion. My own position would be anything goes the first trimester, some restrictions the second trimester, and no abortion at all in the final trimester. Sorry, but if you go six months pregnant before deciding what to do you are a fool, plain and simple. You could probably get 60 to 70% agreement on such a position in this country, but the fringe will never let it happen.

"So they fight hammer and sickle against even such a wimpy, no-brainer law like this." Isan't that hammer and tongs? But maybe you're making a different point.

I have three daughters, and I'm absolutely floored by the concept that one of them could get pregnant, leave the state with another adult, and get an abortion without my knowldge or permission.

Actually, I could see it happening. I just can't imagine that some law wasn't being broken.

Monkyboy wrote: "I find it perplexing that same people who oppose Muslim parents forcing their daughters to wear headscarves have no problem letting American parents force their daughters to give birth to a child against their will."

That's because you're stupid.

Monkyboy wrote "Which is more barbaric?"

Hmm, that's a tough one, but after careful thought I'm going to have to go with forcing their daughters to wear headscarves against their will as being more "barbaric" than preventing them from killing their unborn children for no good reason like saving their own lives would be. A good rule of thumb is that preventing the killing of children, unborn or otherwise, is rarely "barbaric"... except to true barbarians who in turn often scream bloody murder over "dress codes" like Monkyboy is doing here.

Monkyboy wrote:

"Fred, I don't doubt that some Amrican's are willing to scrifice the lives of their daughters for their political beliefs...it's the people like Dafydd that I don't understand.

If you support a woman's right to an abortion...how can you approve a law that takes away a 17 year old girl's right to an abortion...they're the ones that need it the most?"

First of all, it is completely dishonest of you to suggest that supporters of this bill "are willing to scrifice the lives of their daughters for their political beliefs" if for no other reason than the FACT that the bill provides the usual exception if the girl's life is in danger. If you cannot manage some minimal honesty about the true positions of your opponents, there will be little point in anyone bothering to debate with you.

Second, as you may have deduced, I DON'T support a woman's "right" to an abortion. There can be no such thing as a "right" based on depriving someone else of his rights; one might as well talk about the "right" to own slaves or the "right" to steal from someone else.

However, there is at least ONE perfectly good reason for a supporter of a "woman's right to choose" to support this law -- the fact that we are talkng about an underage GIRL'S right to choose. Most jurisdictions do not allow an underage female to get her EARS PIERCED without her parents' consent so the idea that this same underage female could get an abortion without her parents' permission has always been sheer idiocy. After all by what logic are underage females "the ones that need it the most" since they are also BY DEFINITION the ones that our legal system deems least qualified to make such momentous decisions by themselves?

It is exactly this sort of, there is other word for it, Nazi-like extremism that separates the honest "pro-choicers" from the dishonest "pro-abortionists". It is possible to make an argument (though IMHO not a very convincing one) for allowing an adult female possesed of all her faculties to make this call; it is NOT possible to make an argument for allowing someone who cannot get her ears (or anything else) pierced, cannot get a tattoo, cannot buy a beer or a pack of cigarettes, and cannot even view certain kinds of entertainment, to get an abortion on her own authority.

Yes, Monkyboy, that would be how such laws are SUPPOSED to work. She ALSO cannot get her ears pierced, tattooed, etc., without her parents' consent either. So what is your point? Do you think it would be OK for people to help underage females circumvent parental consent laws in ALL cases or only in the case of abortions, and if only the latter, why?

Gentle Readers:

One commenter has been made an unperson.

I do not owe any explanation to that person; but I have a duty to the rest of you. This person was removed for a number of violations, most particularly because virtually every comment the person made was designed, not to discuss or debate, but to degrade, dismiss, and belittle anyone who disagreed with him.

He was explicitly warned twice yet made no shift whatsoever to moderate his behavior.

The final straw was his claim that parents who refuse to consent to an abortion for their minor daughters do not do so sincerely or out of love for their daughters, but rather they "choose to doom their daughter to the life of a single, uneducated parent because of their own superstitions."

This is so aggressively bigoted, unsourced, and fraudulent a comment that I would have deleted it regardless of who posted it. Coming on the heals of over two hundred similar comments, I decided that I've let this fester long enough.

I enjoy contrary opinion; I do not enjoy conversation killers, nor will I tolerate them.

I'm also not an idiot; I know when people are trying to kill conversation even when they do so "subtlely." Loath as I am to remove commenters, I have had to do so for a third time (though one barely counts, being a one-shot no-brainer).

It has gotten to the point where virtually nobody discusses his own points or even the posts themselves; everyone wastes every comment responding to some churlish retort. Worse, the commenter who has been removed drags the rest down to his level.

So for those reasons, among others, said commenter no longer exists from this point forward.

Dafydd

No soup for you Monky! 'bout bloody time IMHO. Look there, I've forgotten him already.

"I do not enjoy conservation killers..." Not to nitpik, but you mean "conversation", right? Gotcha. I have to be cautious here - if someone every starts picking at my own posts I'm domed, er doomed.

[Yes, thank you; I have corrected my tyop. -- the Mgt.]

Actually this is not the best topic for discussion, since only a complete loon would disagree with the law passed. But it does bring up the concept of states rights, which I find very interesting. My opinion is that on civil issues where significant differences of opinion exist between the several states, the federal government should just step out and let each state decide for themselves what they want to do. Abortion, gay marriage, minimum wage, etc. Let the laboratory of the states work out the best solution.

Thoughts?

Big D:

But it does bring up the concept of states rights, which I find very interesting. My opinion is that on civil issues where significant differences of opinion exist between the several states, the federal government should just step out and let each state decide for themselves what they want to do. Abortion, gay marriage, minimum wage, etc.

You won't get any argument from me. Big Lizards even has a post on just this subject:

Free the Federal Marriage Amendment...

Dafydd

Linked at Old War Dogs.

Dafydd,

I can't accept this. My own personal experience with 24 wk babies in the NICU say otherwise, as well as the experiences noted by obsetricians doing surgery on 16 to 24 week gestational age babies. It is the 8th week that is the demarkation point; but even with that, a human being begins at conception and its right to life begins at that point also. Finally fetus is Latin for baby.

CDQuarles:

I don't demand that everyone agree with me.

This point is essentially circular: we determine when personhood begins by defining personhood... on the basis of when that definition will cause personhood to begin.

One extreme is "full personhood begins at conception." The other is "full personhood does not begin until the baby draws its first breath after being born" (that would be the Orthodox Jewish view, I believe).

We ignore monsters like Peter Singer.

Everybody else is somewhere in between. But as Mason said to Dixon, you gotta draw the line somewhere.

You may get some states to agree to draw the abortion line at "never," others will draw it at "whenever," while the bulk will draw it somewhere in between.

That's just my "somewhere in between" point. I don't believe a human soul can inhabit a body that doesn't have a fully functioning cerebral cortex.

YMMV.

Dafydd

Thanks for hissing in, . Now you can slither in with a comment, o wise. (sign out)

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