The Daily Background
| Texas Republican proposes bribing women to stop abortions
by Arlen Parsa
This happened last week so you might have already heard about it, but it bares bringing up even now. In Texas, a Republican state senator is proposing that women be paid $500 not to have abortions.
As Nicole of Crooks and Liars says, this is wrong on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to start. First of all the idea that taxpayer’s money would be spent trying to dissuade a citizen from doing legal activity is troubling in and of itself.
And this idea is coming from one of these fiscal conservatives who thinks that government spending is never the answer to anything. Well, who really cares about hypocrisy when morals are at stake anyways, right?
Then there’s also the twisted perception of women that this Republican lawmaker has that makes him assume that reasonable people would change their mind about a very personal decision if you only pay them a little bit of money. This guy thinks women who are in difficult situations are greedy enough to change their mind if the government just gives them some money.
And there’s even more. Patrick suggests that the women wouldn’t have to keep the babies when they’re born, and instead could offer them for adoption for the $500 reward. Some people are saying this would break long-standing laws against buying and selling babies.
What’s worse, this guy, Dan Patrick (who also happens to be a conservative radio personality) actually has the audacity to compare abortions of fetuses with American soldiers dying in Iraq. “If this incentive would give pause and change the mind of 5 percent of [the women who have abortions in Texas every year], that’s 3,000 lives,” Patrick said, defending his idea. “That’s almost as many people as we’ve lost in Iraq.”
It turns out this guy, who was only elected last November, tried to overturn Roe v Wade by writing a new law in his state just days after being sworn in. Apparently that didn’t work, so he tried this scheme. It has yet to come up for a vote in the Texas State Senate.
Abortion – Show Me The Science
El Paso County Colorado Clerk and Recorder, Robert C. Balink asked, “Have we lost all reason in America? Have we lost the ability to think logically; to understand and to draw inferences; to analyze by reasoning; to do the right thing?”
As it relates to abortion, March 9, 2009 was one of those defining moments in American history. On that date President Obama signed the Stem Cell Executive Order and Scientific Integrity Presidential Memorandum. He said, “This order is an important step in advancing the cause of science in America. …It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda – and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology. That is why today, I am also signing a Presidential Memorandum directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making. To ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science, …”
Base our public policies on the soundest science? Real science - empirical science is not based on subjective opinion, personal ideology, social norms, or the current judicial interpretation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Rigorously controlled experimentation and objective observation followed by peer reviewed, disinterested third party evaluation is the inextricable foundation of empirical science.
One of my professors at Arkansas State University, Associate Professor of Psychology, Dr. Kris Biondolillo, asked the question, “What is science?” She wanted an answer of five words or less. My reply was, “The objective search for truth.”
Consider this example. What if I said, “I believe dragons can fly because the ‘wicked witch of the west’ told me so in a vision?” How could I structure an empirical scientific study to objectively verify or disprove my claim? How would I even begin to formulate a scientifically reliable and acceptable definition of terms like dragons, wicked, and ‘witch of the west’? Is wickedness a physically discernable object that can be placed in a beaker, observed in a microscope, weighed on a scale, or measured with a ruler? Obviously, claiming that flying dragons and a ‘wicked-witch-of-the-west’ exist in reality is a subjective construct, not a fact proven by objective empirical scientific research.
In the speech referred to above, President Obama also said, “…and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions.”
How about a little open and honest and objective examination of the science behind viability as it relates to abortion.
Viability is a socially agreed upon statistical inference. It is a leap in the dark based on mathematics. It is the average point in time at which historical statistical data indicates a fetus has the highest, pre-natural birth event probability of survival outside the womb. It really is nothing more than a guess based on the comparison of historical data on the one hand with the measurement of a physical object on the other hand. Measurements of things like fetus body weight and length, body part size and range of motion, lung capacity, and brain activity are compared with historical statistical data. Then the attending physician leaps beyond science into the darkness of subjectivity and makes a viability decision based on that comparison.
In Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379 (1979), the Supreme Court made clear that viability is a medical determination which varies with each pregnancy and that it is the responsibility of the attending physician to make that determination.
In Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52 (1976) the Court said, “…the determination of whether a particular fetus is viable is, and must be, a matter for the judgment of the responsible attending physician.”
What these two Supreme Court decisions make clear is that the exact time for applying the viability label is a moving target. Indeed, there is no disinterested third party, peer reviewed, objective empirical scientific research which proves that viability is THE actual moment, and not a second before, when a fetus acquires ‘person’ status and is therefore entitled to constitutional right-to-life protection.
Like the scientifically unproven and un-provable concepts of visions and wickedness, and all other things metaphysical in nature, ‘person’ status can not be placed in a beaker, observed in a microscope, weighed on a scale, or measured with a ruler. Therefore ‘person’ status can not be determined by measuring the weight, length, and functionality of body parts. In other words, the mathematical inference called fetal viability does not empirically establish ‘person’ status. Fetal viability is only about the probability of physical survival outside the womb. It’s like an older person on life support. Just because they cannot survive without a respirator, we don’t say they are no longer considered a ‘person’ and therefore are not entitled to constitutional right-to-life protection.
Is there anyone with the scientific or technical expertise to say with 100% certitude when we become fully human and therefore deserve equal protection under the constitution?
Not doctors, philosophers, preachers, or judges. In section IX of Roe v Wade, Supreme Court Justice Blackman said, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”
Not the President. At Saddleback Church, Pastor Rick Warren asked Senator Obama at what point a baby gets “human rights.” He replied, “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question … is above my pay grade.” On CNN’s Faith and Politics Compassion Forum held in Grantham, Pennsylvania Senator Obama was asked, “When do you believe life begins?” He said, “I don’t presume to know the answer to that question.”
Not the Vice President. On Meet the Press: 2007 “Meet the Candidates” series April 29, 2007, Katie Couric asked Senator Joe Biden, “Do you believe that life begins at conception?” Senator Biden replied, “I am prepared to accept my church’s view…I have to accept that on faith.”
Let me summarize. In Roe v. Wade, Justice Blackman said that doctors, philosophers, theologians, and judges couldn’t decide when life begins. President Obama said he doesn’t know the answer to that question. He admitted that trying to answer that question is above his pay grade. And Vice President Biden offered only faith in his church’s opinion of the subject.
Are you beginning to understand the irrevocable fatal flaw of Roe v Wade? If no one is really qualified to make a true empirical science-based decision that answers the question, “Is this fetus which is about to be aborted a person or not a person?” then why are we doing it? The truly honest must admit that out of our inability to declare empirically and with 100% certitude when we become fully human, we arrive inexorably and unavoidably at the only possible conclusion; Abortion might be the termination of a ‘person’.
Please understand, we are not talking about lab rats or field mice. We are talking about humans. Civilized judicial systems do not send people to death row when the only evidence against them is subjective speculation and conjecture.
Justice Blackman said, “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.” But wait a minute. Isn’t that the true fundamental question in Roe v. Wade? Without answering that question with “… the soundest science…” then the decision to abort is at best a leap in the dark, a guess, a hope. If empirical scientific evidence could determine we should be classified as ‘persons’ at conception, or sometime prior to the natural birth event, abortion would be murder. If that were the case, the privacy and reproductive rights of a woman would, by default, be subordinate to the fetus’ right to life, and Roe v. Wade would be a mute issue.
Abortion is a different type question. It is the no-going-back finality of the procedure that sets it apart from normal jurisprudence such as hanging chad, flag burning, interstate commerce, and school desegregation. Errors on the wrong side of such issues can be revisited and corrected. But once the abortion procedure is over, there is no going back, no possibility of revisiting the issue. So the abortion question must be adjudicated with a different type of thinking. The abortion question demands, not just a higher level, but the highest level of evidence, reasoning, and logic.
In Roe v. Wade Justice Blackman did not offer that level of thinking. The vast majority of Americans have never read the Roe v. Wade decision. If you’ll read the entire Roe v. Wade decision you’ll see that Justice Blackman offered NO empirical scientific evidence to support his decision. He offered only opinion; some of it dating as far back as ancient Persia, Greece, Rome, the old English age, and 19th century America. You know those people don’t you? They’re the ones who thought wives were the property of their husband, the world was flat, bloodletting would cure the sick, Native Americans and Blacks were sub-human, witches should be burned at the stake, inquisition would rid the world of non-conformists, and ‘manifest destiny’ was the preordained cosmic order.
Should the Roe v Wade decision have been influenced by those world views?
President Obama said, “To ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science …and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions.”
President Obama, I am ready for you and the Supreme Court to be honest and open about the lack of real science behind Roe v. Wade and the lack of real science behind the official public policy called abortion. I am ready for an open and honest explanation for the lack of real science behind the statistical inference called fetal viability and why this subjective concept is used as the criteria for the life and death decision of a fetus. I’m ready to read the empirical scientific research which shows an undeniable direct and inextricable cause and affect relationship between viability and ‘person’ status. I am ready for a true scientific explanation as to why you, the Vice-President, and the Supreme Court endorse abortion even though all three of you admit you don’t know exactly what is being aborted.
David L. Bufkin
PO Box 2234
Jonesboro, AR 72402-2234
870-243-4864
exodus1248@hotmail.com