text:
Hobby Lobby and Science
The Hobby Lobby decision exempted the corporation from providing insurance coverage for contraceptives it believed to be abortifacients. But is that belief true? And should it matter, especially as Catholic institutions decide whether to raise similar objections?
First, a clarification: two different definitions of what counts as an abortion are in play. In medical terminology, a woman is not considered pregnant until the developing embryo implants in the uterine wall, approximately a week after fertilization, (so on average about 7-10 days after ovulation.) Since one can't have an abortion until one is pregnant, by medical standards contraceptives that block implantation by changing the uterine lining are not abortifacient. Roman Catholic magisterial teaching, on the other hand, holds that the developing embryo should be treated as a person from conception. Anything that blocks implantation would be considered abortifacient by those who believe that personhood starts with conception. In short, in medicine, "pregnancy" is a term that refers to the woman, while for many pro-life people and groups, it refers to the presence of an embryo.
The Hobby Lobby case focused on 4 means of contraception: Plan B and Ella, both forms of emergency contraception (EC) for use after unprotected sex, and two forms of the IUD, the copper-coated IUD and a hormone-releasing IUD called Mirena.The literature is complex and developing, and I hasten to state at the outset that I'm not a pharmacologist or an MD. But here goes:
How does Plan B (levonorgestrel) work? Clearly its principal mode of action is to inhibit ovulation. Studies here and here indicate no effect on implantation or endometrial thickness (which might affect implantation.) This was controversial early on, but the most recent studies indicate no effect on implantation. Similar pregnancy rates from use of Plan B after ovulation vs. placebo also support the conclusion that Plan B does not affect implantation. Indeed, a number of studies of implantation in vitro, in animal models, and reflecting clinical efficacy state confidently that there is no effect on implantation. (The German bishops also have given their thumbs-up to EC that doesn't block implantation. The USCCB links to statements on EC are broken.)
The principal mechanism of action of Ella (Ulipristal acetate) is also inhibition of ovulation. This drug has a longer window of efficacy than Plan B, and is approved for use up to 5 days after unprotected sex. (This is because it can block ovulation closer to follicular rupture than Plan B does.) In higher doses, Ella could affect uterine lining, but at the doses used for EC appears to have no such effect. Other studies note the pharmacological similarity of ulipristal to mifepristone, (which does terminate pregnancy.) If administered after ovulation, Ella might inhibit implantation. However, there are also indications that people who take Ella after they ovulate become pregnant at a similar rate to those who take placebo, implying that any effect on the endometrium is not enough to significantly impair implantation. In sum--the scientific jury still seems to be out on Ella and implantation, as far as I can tell.
The hormone-coated IUD releases levonorgestrel (the active ingredient of Plan B), so can act to inhibit ovulation, and to thicken cervical mucus to impede sperm movement. The copper-coated IUD impairs sperm motility. Both forms of the IUD impair implantation according to most--but not all--of the sources I checked.
It seems that Hobby Lobby cast its net too broadly, and ruled out a form of emergency contraception that is effective ONLY pre-fertilization, Plan B. It is not abortifacient by any definition. The mechanism of action of Ella on this point seems unclear so far, while most sources agree that the IUD affects implantation.
Why does this matter? In making religious liberty-based claims, it seems to me, truth counts. It is one thing to say that the law should respect freedom of people to believe or not believe what cannot be empirically proven. (The existence of God, e.g., pace Thomas Aquinas.) It is quite another matter for laws that put significant burdens on individuals (here, women whose contraceptive choices are limited,) in the face of data that shows that the religiously-based claims are demonstrably wrong. Obviously, reliigious liberty means that people are free to believe things that are just wrong--anti-evolutionists, young-earthers and their ilk--but surely there must be a limit to how much a person's fallacious belief can be invoked to justify limiting others' freedoms.
Beyond the law, there is a question of scandal. The image of religious institutions is affected in matters like this, and here is where Catholic institutions should tread carefully. If Catholic institutions jump on the Hobby Lobby bandwagon, they should do so only in ways that reflect the current state of biological understanding on these questions, and they should be prepared to revise as necessary. Otherwise, the banner of religious liberty will come to seem like a right to persistent and harmful ignorance. This is truly scandalous--it would imply, contrary to the best of Catholic tradition, that faith requires rejection of reason.
About the Author
Lisa Fullam is professor of moral theology at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. She is the author of The Virtue of Humility: A Thomistic Apologetic (Edwin Mellen Press).
89 comments
- All
- Editor Featured
Actually, the data is quite good that the Copper T works by preventing fertilization, not by preventing implantation. So it is a true contraceptive, not an abortifacient. I don't know if as much research has been done on the Mirena. But the Mirena has uses for controlling uterine bleeding and so is used even in women who do not need contraception (perimenopausal women with hemorrhaging issues, for example).
I agree that it is important we have the facts straight, or whatever position we take is undermined. I appreciate that the dialog about Hobby Lobby in Commonweal has so far been pretty civil in the blog...
What's discouraging is that the court took Hobby Lobby's assessment of the medications over the information given by the e American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Like the court, I think that most people for Hobby Lobby don't actually care about the facts.
An article on the subject ... http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-ra-craziest-thing-about-hobb...
I think its kind of a tempest in a teapot since birth control pills run between $15 -$50 a month if you pay for them yourself. There are a lot more expensive health-related costs: deductibles, co-pays, other exclusions, dental, vision etc, that are still unaddressed and are not even on the radar because everyone's fighting over contraception.
If I worked for a Catholic insitution and they said they wouldn't cover my contraception, but could generously subsidize a low-deductible, modest co-pay, free generic drugs, comprehensive dental and vision for me and my family, I would not feel there would be any scandal at all, I would be happy for the good insurance coverage.
Lisa, thanks for your objectivity, and particularly for your two concluding paragraphs. Good post.
The statement that a woman is not considered pregnant if the fertilized embryo isn't affixed to the uterine wall is almost technically correct, (one can be ectopically pregnant) but skirts the issue of whether life has been initiated. The fertilized egg is a genetically distinct human entity with a soul.
The fertilized egg is a genetically distinct human entity with a soul. Sorry - this is a wish, opinion, etc. This is exactly what Lisa is trying to objectively parse.......you, rather, fall back to a cultic notion that admits neither science nor rational thought.
Your statement might fly if you leave out *with a soul*. And please explain why in the natural course of things, roughly 2/3rds of all fertilized eggs fail to implant - does this mean that they have been *aborted* - was God the abortionist? Your statement is unnuanced and as such only creates polarizations - not dialogue. It is a nice poster phrase that says nothing.
I think Irene makes an interesting point: Employers who are a little more PR savvy could probably "sell" employees on their decision not to pay for contraception if they made up for it their having to pay contraception out of pocket with improved dental/vision coverage. The cost of having a tooth crowned is now $500 or more. You can buy 10 or more months of birth control for that.
This solution, however, ignores that:
a) Employers are not allowed to duck contraception coverage under Obamacare regulations (except churches, church affiliated, and, apparently closely held corporations whose five or fewer controlling owners object).
b) Women take hormone therapy for medical conditions such as endometriosis or replacement after a hysterectomy at a pre-menopausal age.
c) Women who want to ensure they don't get pregnant because of diabetes or multiple past miscarriages may want to opt for sterilization rather than NFP, which gets dicey once you're in peri-menopause. The alternative to that is no sex and separate bedrooms, always a great way to enhance marital relations! Maybe the Catholic employer would pay for a nice bolt lock for the bedroom door ...
John Walton,
I appreciate your contribution to this discussion. Thank you.
Well to at least some point, Catholic teaching on when life begins really does ignore science. As Bill deHaas points out, something like 2/3 of all fertilized eggs never become implaned and thus never have a change to progress beyond the very initial stage of growth into a real person. The idea that "life begins at conception" is really based on an older understanding of how gestation works in fact. Really not much different from Gallileo. the teaching hasn't caught up with the facts. In that case it was the fact that the sun not the earth is the center of the solar system. In this case it is that a fertilized egg is not a sufficient condition for life to begin. That egg must also be implanted in the womb before there is any chance for it to grow into a person as we understand the term.
One thing that is interesting to me though, is that the Hobby Lobby claim isn't exactly consistent with Catholic teaching, despite the huzzahs from the UCCB. Their claim seemed to be that they objected to paying for abotifacients. In Catholic teaching, that is really not relevant. The Church believes that every sexual act should be open to the possibility of conception (except of course when it doesn't believe that, eg natural family planning). So whether a particular method does or doesn't "abort" the fetus is really pretty irrelevant when it comes to artificial birth control.
The final and really bizzarre part of this decision is that according to Sam Alito, facts are irrelevant. It is only belief that matters. Hobby Lobby argued that it opposed paying for abortifacients, when in fact the items at issue are not that. But that is irrelevant. Alito's world, "truthiness" (a "truth" asserted "from the gut" or because it "feels right," without regard to evidence or logic) prevails. Next time you hear a judge or lawyer talk about th efacts of a case, remind him that facts don't matter. Truthiness does.
Galileo? Didn't he say that planets have circular motions and that comets were a play of light while mocking his contemporaries who had it right on these matters? He got in trouble not for his science but for his sarcastic demeanor toward the Pope (who had been his supporter). The Church sinned and acted very badly when it placed him under house arrest. The Church rightly owed him the apology that JPII offered. But let's stop perpetuating the myth that the Galileo affair was a clash of a noble scientist against a superstitious religion. I mean, if we really love the truth and value facts, can't we take a wholly realistic view toward Galileo and stop using him as a boiler-plate prop to wield against the Church in every discussion?
It's not that the Catholic church is historically against science, per se ... there have been lots of Catholic scientists ... but the church *is* against scientific facts that refute or undermine its teachings. The badness is that the church has the agenda of protecting its teachings even at the expense of the truth.
Does the fact that Galileo did not get everything right negate the fact that Church leaders taught and insisted, with threats and actual punishments, on the truth of something false? And moreover, something that humbler men might have seen to be out of their purview?
People might talk less about "the Galileo affair" if Church leaders would ease up a little on the magisterium shtick and occasionally acknowledge with the rest of us that like benighted travelers, they're not always sure of the right path.
Crystal - whyever would you think that? I don't know of any scientific facts that the church denies in order to protect its teachings. Certainly, the post that Lisa wrote doesn't provide any examples.
The example from the issue of this post is that the church (not just Hobby Lobby) deems contraception as abortifacients ... "The drugs that Americans would be forced to subsidize under the new rule include Ella, which was approved by the FDA as an 'emergency contraceptive' but can act like the abortion drug RU-486. It can abort an established pregnancy weeks after conception." http://www.usccb.org/news/2011/11-154.cfm
But that is NOT true ... "Morning After Pills Don't Cause Abortion, Studies Say" ... http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/22/172595689/morning-after-pills...
Hence the disregard for the truth on the church's part.
PS - maybe the US bishops need to talk to the German bishops ... http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/21/german-bishops-ok-emergency-cont... :)
Crystal - regarding Ella - here is what Lisa Fullam concluded in this post: '' In sum--the scientific jury still seems to be out on Ella and implantation, as far as I can tell." So do you think Lisa is just flat-out wrong, as wrong as you seem to think the bishop are? I have read her writing here at dotCom, and I assume you have, too, and I would not be inclined to accuse her of conspiring with the US bishops to deny scientific truths :-).
Perhaps Lisa hasn't read the latest info on those drugs? The aricle I mentioned at NPR states ...
"when it comes to Plan B, there is now fairly definitive research that shows the only way it works is by preventing ovulation, and therefore, fertilization .... a study published just last year led the to declare that Plan B does not inhibit implantation .... studies have also shown that ella, like Plan B, doesn't prevent pregnancy if a woman has already ovulated. Women who took the drug after ovulation got pregnant at the same rate as those who took nothing at all. She says that strongly suggests it does not have any effect on blocking implantation."
Check the article for links to the studies ... http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/02/22/172595689/morning-after-pills...
A couple have people have mentioned a statistic that 2/3rds of all fertilized eggs fail to implant, and elsewhere others have mentioned a high rate of very early miscarriages. In the first place these statistics are at best an educated guess; much of the time a woman wouldn't be aware of a pregnancy or potential pregnancy at this stage. In the second place, this is a red herring, irrelevant to the discussion of the morality of the issues at hand. Because the discussion is about human agency, not acts of nature. The truth is that we don't know at what point a zygote or blastocyst can be said to be possessed of a soul, it is not something science is capable of proving one way or the other. Yet we do believe that each of us has a soul. For all we know, God endows these failed early beginnings of human life with souls, and takes them to Himself after their incredibly short time on earth. You know; the landowner and the vineyard and the day's wage.
The comment above should read "A couple of people..." Wish there was an edit button.
I appreciate the note about differing definitions of pregnancy and abortion. It is fine for different contexts to use the definition that is the most relevant. As long as people are clear about what definition they are using, it isn't a problem.
We also need to be careful about how we interpret the science. A lot of the commentary has transformed scientific statements indicating uncertainty whether a particular pathway contributes to the effectiveness of a treatment into statements that the treatment definitely uses that pathway. Furthermore, we need to be careful to consider the size of an effect in addition whether we can measure an effect. Just because we can measure a difference doesn't mean that it is large enough to care about.
We also need to take into consideration the high rate of failure for implantation even without contraceptives. If the change in likelihood is within the variation among healthy woman, does it matter?
Finally, does the net effect matter? If the prevention of fertilization prevents more failures to implant more than the prevention of implantation causes such that the expected number of failures to implant goes down, is that a good thing rather than a bad thing?
If they have souls, Heaven is going to be weird. That doesn't mean it's false (Heaven is certainly going to be weird in many ways).
It's actually pretty hard to prove 'anyone' has a soul, even from a Christian perspective ... http://www.amazon.com/Bodies-Spirited-Current-Issues-Theology/dp/0521676762
Ryan, yes, I'm looking forward to Heaven being weird! Of course from this side anything is pure speculation; but I would like to think in heaven that we attain the potential that it wasn't possible for us on earth.
Crystal, the word soul has a lot of baggage, maybe we should just call it the part of us that survives death. I realize we can't prove that either. But as Paul put it, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied."
There is no consensus as to the status of a fertilized egg even in the scientific community. However, because of the ambiguity surrounding it, research studies on fertilized eggs are subject to strict ethical parameters and guidelines; stricter than research on other biological matter.
At issue is access to drugs that may be an abortificient. On that poiint, given the ambiguity, the decision needs to fall on the patient who, with appropriate information, make an informed decision. Clinics, hospitals (Catholic or not) should not be arbitrarily making these choices.
With respect to Hobby Lobby, the employees are not denied access to these medication, the company is saying that it is not going to pay for these through the insurance coverage and they made their arguement on religious and not solely scientific grounds.
Nobody, including Hobby Lobby, is suggesting that women should not have access to these medications.
If Catholic institutions jump on the Hobby Lobby bandwagon, they should do so only in ways that reflect the current state of biological understanding on these questions, and they should be prepared to revise as necessary.
This, indeed, is the relevance for Catholic institutions and it will be interesting to see how this is being addressed by those institutions. Are these drugs, for example, covered at Catholic hospitals and institutions?
Katherine, yeas, I'm hoping there's a part of us that survives and that there's a heaven too.
Katherine - you state: "In the second place, this is a red herring, irrelevant to the discussion of the morality of the issues at hand. Because the discussion is about human agency, not acts of nature. The truth is that we don't know at what point a zygote or blastocyst can be said to be possessed of a soul,...."
Actually, would suggest that your response is the red herring - it is the old hierarchical dodge - when you can't explain something, use *natural law*.
Fact - in terms of pro-life in the medical, scientific, social agency fields, *human agency* is used almost exclusively to address risks, threats, and potential death to human beings - we don't leave up to *acts of nature* e.g. brain surgery; by-pass surgeries; to name a few.
And yet, when it comes to reproduction, the church has knee-jerked into what Ms. Kaveny calls a *cultic stance* - so, you have Humanae Vitae that does not permit contraception (and we know now that this papal decision had more to do about papal power, precedence, and fear than anything having to do with the merits of the issue and it negated the overwhelming approval that the Papal Birth Control Commission gave it.
The same process is involved here - the process of fertilization happens and more than 50% of the eggs fail to implant (sorry, this is a proven fact of research studies). If it is *natural*, we say and do nothing. Now, if a family, married couple, etc. use good judgment and decide to use *artificial* contraceptives, the church objects. If a couple, for whatever reason, find that their contraceptive failed or that they are pregnant and this was unplanned (2/3rds of all abortions are because of an unplanned pregnancy), why is the use of artifical means to stop implantation rejected - because they choose to use *artificial means* - as stated above, we do that millions of times a day to save lives. Why is reproduction carved out as different?
And, agree, we don't know when the egg, ovum, fetus, etc. has a soul (Thomistic theology said after 90+ days). Why is your knee jerk to *conception* the automatic fallback (it wasn't in the church for 1500 years)/ Why can't scence have some input into this decision?
George D - many catholic bishops and dioceses have permitted the use of Plan B, Ella, etc. in catholic hospital ERs for victims of rape, incest, etc. (Massachusetts dioceses are a good example of this). And these precedents and local decisions have raised questions when the *black and white* (or the Greens of Hobby Lobby) answers start to flow.
Let us be clear about the word game in play: to redefine "pregnancy" as implantation, rather than conception, is perhaps a convenient moving of the goal posts to allay the scruples of those who want to use abortiofacients, to give big Pharma more money, and to fudge the action of at least three of the four means which Fullam herself admits can function post-conception. But the average person on the street would not instinctively say pregnancy begins at implantation, nor is there any scientific reason for doing so. After all, nothing else happens at implantation than that the developing embryo moves to the next developmental stage in order to continue developing. Nothing changes. No new DNA. No new genetic identity. Just continuity with what was before implantation (but not what was before fertilization). To say arbitrarily that a "pregnancy" has begun because the developing embryo has advanced to the next stage of development necessary to maintain his or her viability allows us to say that since abortion also prevents continuing development, the woman must have not been pregnant, since development is no longer going on. So, we can now have abortions without pregnancy?!
Let us be clear about the word game in play: to redefine "pregnancy" as implantation, rather than conception, is perhaps a convenient moving of the goal posts to allay the scruples of those who want to use abortiofacients
Sigh .... both Plan B and Ella stop ovulation .... there is no egg, no fertilization, implantation is not an issue, and there is no abortion.
We were namers from the beginning.
So the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and he brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name.
In all those cases, the flesh-and-blood animals and birds came first, and the names after. There was a lion before there was "lion," and a finch before there was "finch." But we are a striving race, always looking to exercise our powers and extend their range. Soon we turned to our hopes and fears, and in giving them names, we came to believe that they were as substantial as elephants.
Soul is one of those things that we have denominated into existence. Its father is fear of death and its mother is hope of a better existence beyond the curtain, when all wrongs will be righted. Maybe we have hit upon the truth, and that immaterial, unobservable, ethereal thing is what we really are, and it animates the rough outer coat we call our bodies. But there is little evidence for it. It never explained much. And a better understanding is beginning to emerge.
We need not fear any loss of dignity. For if we are, with the rest of life, beings entirely of this astonishing world, we are all the more subtly and marvelously wrought.
John Prior, I am astonished at this extreme nominalism. That a zygote has a full human DNA (though potentiallys subject to splitting into monozygotic twins) is in any case precisely not a matter of "naming" but of verifiable fact.
As to "soul", a term beloved of philosophers like Plotinus and poets like Wordsworth and "the atheist Shelley" as well as of theologians, I don't see it being dislodged by "a better understanding". Science has not explained consciousness, and even if it did it would not do justice to the phenomenon of consciousness, which is indeed immaterial and ethereal but not unobservable -- at every moment we are looking into the world of soul.
Bill deH., you misread what I was trying to say. I probably didn't express it very well. I was not trying to defend Humanae Vitae or the natural law theory. I didn't mention either of them; in fact I actually agree with much of what you said about them. Yes, we do interfere with nature, all the time. Sometimes we accomplish very good things, other times there are unintended consequences. Sometimes the good things and the unintended consequences go together. My point was simply that we aren't responsible for "acts of nature". We are responsible for what we do. We have an obligation to get it right; or as right as we are able. The fact that in nature there appears to be a lot of loss of life in the very early stages is not an excuse for us to be casual about causing more of it.
Sigh .... both Plan B and Ella stop ovulation .... there is no egg, no fertilization, implantation is not an issue, and there is no abortion.
Crystal, you are fighting a losing battle with some Catholics about this. The fear is that if ovulation and fertilization occur first and THEN someone takes the emergency contraception, emergency contraception could prevent implantation, thus causing an abortion according to Catholic definitions of pregnancy, even though the pill's user would never know for sure. Some folks just don't believe what the science says; some will tell you that plain old birth control pills themselves have abortifacient properties.
If you confessed to using emergency contraception to your priest, I don't know how it would be handled. Would it be assumed that you had aborted a zygote? That you were guilty of complicity in a possible abortion? Or were guilty of illicit sexual activity and using artificial contraception? My guess is that it would vary from priest to priest.
There are further concerns that the pills would be handy for rapists and incestuous relatives to use to cover their crimes, or that the emergency pill makes women less vigilant against the consequences of a drunken fling.
All of this culminates in the claim that artificial contraception and engineering of women's sexual cycles has made us coarse and cheapens sex.
There's a lot to unpack in these claims, and I fear I will be unpacking them still on my deathbed, when it's too late and even though I am far beyond the age where any of this touches me directly even now.
Some time ago, I decided I should not discuss contraception, homosexuality, or abortion with Catholics, though I do follow these discussions and use them as food for thought. So I should follow that decision and get on offa here.
@Crystal, et al, indeed, I found many folks asserting that Ella also acts only pre-implantation, and that the claim was made based on pregnancy rates, which seems like a good empirical measure to me. I couldn't find a scientific paper to back that up, though. If anybody out there has an academic reference, I'd be grateful for one. Similarly for the IUD: I found a 1989 essay by Slevin that seemed very convincing, but it didn't seem to affect subsequent writing on the mode of action of the IUD. Indeed, official documentation (specifically label inserts) changes more slowly than scientific progress, but I'd have thought word would get around by now. Again, if there's anything solid since then, I'd love to have it--the copper coated IUD is the most effective means of emergency contraception, so it's an important question.
@John g., OK, but notice the opposite situation: if "pregnancy"means only the presence of an embryo regardless of implantation, does that mean that a man with a living embryo in a vial in his pocket (not impossible) is "pregnant"? There are arguments to be made for either definition of pregnancy, istm.
Here's one study ... http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20399948 ... that concludes this about emergency contraception ... "LNG-EC prevents pregnancy only when taken before fertilization of the ovum has occurred."
And this page cites a lot of studies ... http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/health/contraception/ICEC_FIGO...
Katherine - thanks for the generous reply and agree with you. My point about human action is that we need to unpack some of the excellent parts of Humanae Vitae that focused on family decisions that are both moral and eithical and not get sidetracked by an argument over *artificial*.
Reproduction is a biological process that has human emotional/ethical/moral overtones. Thank Lisa Fullum for trying to drill down, make distinctions, and provide descriptions based upon research and actual science before just knee jerking to statements such as: life begins at conception or personhood begins at conception. Ms. Raber said it well - we need to avoid the extremes including biologism; include women in this debate;the family in this debate; etc.
The fear is that if ovulation and fertilization occur first and THEN someone takes the emergency contraception, emergency contraception could prevent implantation, thus causing an abortion
The studies show that this *does not* hapen. The drugs do not prevent implantation of already fertilized eggs. The NPR article makes all this clear.
The science seems to show that Plan B and Ella do not cause abortions - they stop pregnancy by stopping ovulation, and when a fertilized egg already exists, they don't affect it.
Having said that, I am coming to believe that the wide acceptance of this science will not affect conservative religion's opposition to contraception and emergency contraception .... Randall Balmer once gave an interview about how the religious right has changed its position on abortion to use it as a wedge issue ... http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5502785 ... and I think that the real issue for conservatives isn't abortion, it's controling people and consolidating power. Once contraception has been shown not to cause abortion, they will simply move the goal posts.
Those "conceptus" which don't implant most likely fail for some simple biological reasons -- that doesn't mean that they don't have souls, or are not part of God's larger plan. God is the ultimate risk-taker.
Sorry for being un-nuanced, thought I was just being clear in 140 words or less. Ever study metaphysics?
John M Grondelski, thanks for that comment. You have it exactly right.
Crystal, if you really want to persuade anyone, I suggest you engage John M Grondelski's comment. Waving NPR and NY Times links under people's notices without engaging the arguments isn't likely to accomplish that.
I don't know if you have ever observed a medical-injury lawsuit? I have. Each side brought in an eminently qualified medical doctor. Each doctor, under direct and cross examination from the respective sides' legal counsel, gave evidence that contradicted the other's, and took turns alternately instructing and confusing the jury (on which I sat, so I can speak to the jurors' states of mind). Science is science, and virtually everyone, including Catholic bishops, accepts its authority within its proper sphere (accepting its limits is another matter), but the epistemology of science is not always straightforward, as I expect you know, as you've mentioned, I think, that you have a degree in philosophy.
The only reason I engaged you under this topic is because you wrote, "the church *is* against scientific facts that refute or undermine its teachings. The badness is that the church has the agenda of protecting its teachings even at the expense of the truth." I can tell you that you're wrong about this. This is not to say that there aren't Christians whose view of science is antediluvian and denialist. But don't confuse them with the Catholic church's teaching office.
Bishops are not scientists, and they approach scientific questions from a rather different point of view than researchers and engineers, as frequently their interest is not so much in the science itself and its commercial applications as in the morality of the technology - a field in which, it's worth noting, researchers and engineers have no especial expertise nor claim to authority unless they've acquired it outside their scientific endeavors. As with many other subject matters, bishops rely on subject matter experts to inform them. Speaking as a non-scientist myself, my understanding is that nobody, but nobody (except God :-)) knows with 100% certainty whether Ella prevents a fertilized egg from implanting. It's not directly observable. So we collect information by indirect means, make inferences, and estimate likelihoods. In short, we use our judgment. And because this is a morally fraught topic, the judgment is prudential in nature
This explains how it can be that (apparently) the German bishops accept the use of Ella as a rape-kit treatment in their hospitals, but many American bishops apparently don't. I don't think the German bishops (and some American bishops) are notably more scientifically informed or pro-science than their American brethren. It's more likely that both sets of bishops have tried to make prudential judgments in good faith, and the outcomes of those judgments aren't always going to be the same.
It's entirely possible that science someday will be able to give a more definitive answer to the question of whether Ella prevents a fertilized egg from implanting. If that happens, and the answer is "no", then we may look to the bishops eventually to come around on Ella. I would just ask that you don't detract the bishops as having some hidden agenda because their policies don't align with what someone told an NPR reporter.
Sorry. When it comes to the US bishops, my default position is cynacism, I guess. Sure, the findings of scientific research are often open to interpretation, and even science has agendas that can skew findings. At the end of the day though most of us live our lives believing the consensus of scientific research.
The subject of contraception and the Catholic church bothers me on every level, from the theology behind the church's view to the science they seem to want to ignore, to the way the US bishops use this issue politically. I know from experience that it is pointless to try to change people's minds on these issues, but I've decided that it's worthwhile to at least publically state what I believe to be true.
John Walton stated - God is the ultimate risk-taker. Agree - so why can't one think that God allows responsible adults to decide how best to form, raise, and support families rather than allow folks to arbitrarily decide when a person is or when a zygote is a person, etc. That is also ultimate risk-taking in the very creatures he loves.
Crystal, I don't think the Church is "ignoring" science so much as it is demanding, as Jim points out, a higher degree of proof that the drugs do what they say they do, i.e., arenot abortiofacients. You can feel frustrated with the Church's teaching on contraception (I share it). But perhaps you can also feel Mr. Grondelski's skepticism with the notion that drugs always do what they claim to (or claim not to).
For many Catholics, and I think Jim has expressed this several times, there is no teaching more sacred than that of the sanctity of human life even (and perhaps especially) in its most microscopic form. Once life has been created, it may not be destroyed or meddled with by human engineering without great sin.
This idea has fostered great compassion in many people; if you can truly feel horrified by the idea that a zygote might be destroyed or threatened, a tiny dot no bigger than a pencil point which no one ever sees outside a microscope, think what you must feel if a toddler or an elderly grandmother is threatened.
So I have to respect this line of thinking even while I cannot wholly enter into it.
Sorry, all; just can't keep my mouth shut.
I can't keep my mouth shut either :)
For many Catholics, and I think Jim has expressed this several times, there is no teaching more sacred than that of the sanctity of human life even (and perhaps especially) in its most microscopic form. Once life has been created, it may not be destroyed or meddled with by human engineering without great sin.
This idea has fostered great compassion in many people; if you can truly feel horrified by the idea that a zygote might be destroyed or threatened, a tiny dot no bigger than a pencil point which no one ever sees outside a microscope, think what you must feel if a toddler or an elderly grandmother is threatened.
That sounds good and perhaps some people do feel compassion because of Catholic teaching on the sanctity of life, but it makes weird then the Catholics who are for the death penalty, the Catholics who are not anti-war pacifists, the Catholics who contribute to the poverty that destroys people, etc.
I think I'm a pretty compassionate person - I contribute to charity, I'm a vegetarian, a pacifist, etc. - yet I don't feel anything for or about embryos.
PS - saw this today "When Beliefs and Facts Collide" ... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/06/upshot/when-beliefs-and-facts-collide....
@bill -- becuz God is perfect and we aren't.
I am certainly not a zealot requring Scaret "A"s emblazoned upon the tunics of women etc etc.
JOL @ 4:48 am,
How did my name get into that first paragraph of yours, when there wasn't so much as a z, let alone a zygote, from beginning to end of my comment? Be that as it may, I affirm that zygotes are real things in this world, like lions, and existed long before they were named. But your reference to monozygotic twins has raised other questions. If the soul is infused at conception, what happens when the zygote divides to become identical twins? Does each twin receive half? Then what is half a soul? Is it equal to a whole soul? Does a spindle appear and pull the halves apart? Or does God perhaps just chip in another one? How would anyone begin to investigate those questions?
And then there is your second paragraph. Wordsworth? Honestly, Wordsworth? That's an argument? And better still,
Science has not explained consciousness, and even if it did it would not do justice to the phenomenon of consciousness...
Does that mean that if science explained consciousness, it would not explain it? I see.
Work on the brains and nervous systems of humans and other animals is making slow but steady progress. No one expects it to be finished soon. But remarkable insights have already been made into diseases, malfunctions, and abnormalities of those systems, which open up new possibilities for study and a reasonable hope of understanding normal brains better.
If the incorporeal soul is really the seat of perception, cognition, imagination, memory, decision-making, and everything else that makes us distinctly human, why is that two-pound slab of meat taking up so much space in our upper story?
Thank you for links, but they seem to reaffirm that Levonorgestrel, Plan B, doesn't block implantation, and Uliprestal, Ella, might but isn't certain yet. (It'd be a secondary mechanism of action, certainly, i.e., if it ever acts that way, it'd be less common than by preventing ovulation. That uncertainty, though, carries a lot of weight for life-at-conception folks.) The German bishops duck the mechanism question, saying only that EC drugs thst don't block implantation are okey doke. But I don't have access to the best medical databases, so still grateful to anyone who can provide data for Ella or the IUD that doesn't say they can block implantation...
I'm wondering about funding for research to anser these questions--they're tricky, but not impossible to answer, as was the case for Plan B. But is there enough benefit in answering them to make drug companies interested in paying for the answers?
Yes, I see that the studies of Ella are less definite than those for Plan B (just looking at what I could find and access at Google Scholar). I wonder of there's a dichotomy between those who wonder if EC causes an abortion and those who actually want to use the drug. Those who seem the most concerned about the possible abortion effects (or about the use of any contraception) are maunly a minority who would probably never use the product anyway, so perhaps drug companies won't find it cost effective to do all that's required to get a definite answer?
Thanks, John Prior - *ridiculous is as ridiculous does* (JOL)
Really, let's just all agree that *God* is a *watchmaker* and he moves, shifts, decides, names, etc. every tiny particle until, suddenly, it is a child. There is no human freedom; there is no human responsibility - God, the watchmaker, just manipulates all of this and human beings are not to intrude sometimes. (but, other times, they can - SCOTUS, US bishops, and the evangelicals will let us know)
One thing I can predict - we will never see this number of *catholic* supreme court judges again - their tenure has been a sad spectacle.
I don't think predictions about the future of Catholics on the Supreme Court or in any other governmental, academic, journalistic, business, etc. endeavor are of any value.
Those who direct the holders of various positions are playing a long game, as has been obvious to many observers for years. (Those observers, of course, are derided for believing in conspiracy theories.)
The NYT published an interesting (imho) article a couple of weeks ago about Roberts' long game:
There is no way to know which decisions made on the Court, in the Congress, in various governmental agencies, at the Vatican, in various diocesan offices, etc., etc. are influenced by blackmail.
Gerelyn - no conspiracy theories - just a perdiction. Don't lose sleep over it.
The NYT article completely misses the fact that the DOJ is moving to declare many of these state voting bills to be in violation of voters rights.
In other states, we begin to see a groundswell that will force both local and state officials to back down e.g. North Carolina.
Congress will do nothing because that is the only chance for Republicans to squeak out any voting victories and continue its policies via re-aligning districts.
Lisa, could you cite your source for the following statement?
"In medical terminology, a woman is not considered pregnant until the developing embryo implants in the uterine wall, approximately a week after fertilization, (so on average about 7-10 days after ovulation.)"
Your arguments here imply the idea of a clear, definitive, unassailable consensus by "the scientific community" but I'm interested in hearing which scientific bodies *in particular* command your respect on this important definition. A medical ethics board? Several textbook publishers?
TF, exactly when a doctor will declare a woman pregnant is a dicey business, because implantation can't be picked up on sonography (as far as I know), and the doctor has to rely on hCG levels.
While a drugstore pregnancy test works by measuring hCG levels in urine, which indicates implantation, women with a history of early miscarriage may be told not to get their hopes up until the doctor has monitored their hCG in blood tests over a few weeks to ensure that levels are increasing normally. hCG levels that are low or don't increase along expected lines could be a sign of something that has gone wrong with the pregnancy or of a whole other disease.
There is more about how doctors use and interpret hCG data at the NIH library site: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003619.htm
Definition of pregnancy as from implantation is from the ACOG, viz:
When Is a Woman Pregnant?
To be sure, not every act of intercourse results in a pregnancy. First, ovulation (i.e., the monthly release of a woman's egg) must occur. Then, the egg must be fertilized. Fertilization describes the process by which a single sperm gradually penetrates the layers of an egg to form a new cell ("zygote"). This usually occurs in the fallopian tubes and can take up to 24 hours. There is only a short window during which an egg can be fertilized. If fertilization does not occur during that time, the egg dissolves and then hormonal changes trigger menstruation; however, if fertilization does occur, the zygote divides and differentiates into a "preembryo" while being carried down the fallopian tube toward the uterus. Implantation of the preembryo in the uterine lining begins about five days after fertilization. Implantation can be completed as early as eight days or as late as 18 days after fertilization, but usually takes about 14 days. Between one-third and one-half of all fertilized eggs never fully implant. A pregnancy is considered to be established only after implantation is complete.
Source: American College of Obstetricans and Gynecologists.
The different definitions of pregnancy can be obfuscatory in educational literature on EC and birth control. Sometimes confident statements that this or that is "NOT abortifacient" are based on this definition, not on a life-at conception stance.
This is clipped from an excellent summary of the language question by the folks at the Guttmacher Institute: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/08/2/gr080207.html.
Jean and Jim Pauwels,
It is reasonable error on the side of caution when we are uncertain about a medication's effects. However, it is not reasonable to hold a particular set of medications to a higher standard. We can't be 100% certain that anything we do won't slightly increase or decrease the likelihood of a fertilized egg implanting. There comes a point where we need to just say that any effect is too small to worry about. Skepticism is fine, but selective skepticism is not skepticism at all but an attempt to enforce one's preference under the guise of prudence.
"One thing I can predict - we will never see this number of *catholic* supreme court judges again."
Nor should we. Their political leanings and religious biases do NOT reflect the overall tenor of the citizens of the U.S. We need a selection of atheists/humanists/nones as well as a Muslim, a Jew (Ginsburg will not be on forerver), an Evangelical Protestant --- a wider representation of the public square.
Catholics need hang their head in shame at how they have been protrayed by Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts.
Correction: I forgot that Breyer and Kagan are Jewish. But the rest of my comments still apply. The SCOTUS is heavily weighted to a very narrow political perspective.
Ryan, I don't know what you think I am preferring. I do not now and never have accepted the Church's teaching that no abortions are ever justified nor that all artificial contraception or sexual acts that do not culminate "opennes to life" should be mortal/grave sins. I merely try to appreciate that these teachings have inspired others to live lives that would be pleasing to God.
I can offer many complaints about how the FDA tests drugs generally and particularly for women (usually drugs are tested on men). But that's not really a theological issue.
The use of different definitions in different contexts is perfectly fine as long as it is clear what definition is being used when. This is especially true of when our growing knowledge makes it possible to make new distinctions.
Consider the case of the word planet. Originally, it was anything that appeared to move across the fixed background of stars. As our astronomical understanding increased, we realized that grouping these diverse objects together didn't make sense, so we divided the Solar System into the sun (which was at the center), the planets (which orbited the sun), and moons (which orbited planets). Later, astronomers discovered a large number of planets between Mars and Jupiter. Again, they decided that it was better to classify them as a separate category of asteroiids. More recently, the discovery of other objects like Pluto has created yet another category.
Similarly, pregnancy started relatively straightforwardedly: by the time anyone could detect a pregnancy, there was no doubt about whether it had started yet. Likewise, abortion was anything that ended the pregnancy before birth. As our understanding of pregnancy inceased, we discovered that there was a period between when an egg is fertilized and when it attaches to the womb. They decided that the attachement was the essence of pregnancy, so they defined pregnancy to begin at implantation. Likewise, since abortion is ending a pregnancy, they restricted abortion to mean things that occur after implantation. Before implantation presumably had its own new word. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church felt that the essence of abortion was causing death before birth. It chose to call the destruction of an embryo before implantation abortion.
Both groups have sensible reasons for making their choices. The Catholic Church is not opposing science by choosing its own definition, and scientists are not playing word games by chosing a different definition that works better for the way they need to use it.
Well-put. As I mentioned in the original post, also, the scientific definition uses the woman as the referent, while the magisterial referent is the embryo. I agree that the magisterium is not opposing science in this respect, but the choice of where to focus one's first attention is not insignificant.
If nothing else, this shows again how important the moral imagination is in moral reasoning. When you say "abortion," do you think first of a pregnant woman or an embryo? Indeed, as you demonstrate nicely, the history of a question is significant in formation of the moral imagination.
That's an interesting point. I can't think of any point in the official moral analysis where the woman is considered beyond how the fetus needs her uterus to survive.
And making a saint of a woman who decided to die rather than have an abortion exemplifies a certain perspective.
Thanks for the response, Lisa. Having read the Guttmacher piece I'm struck that the ACOG guidelines are even more agnostic about when pregnancy begins than your summary suggested to me: it speaks of implantation as the crucial stage in a pregnancy being *established*, while I doubt ACOG or anyone else could coherently argue that pregnancy actually begins at implantation. Just that "we'll consider it begun" at implantation *relative to the goals and priorities of the practice of medicine*. This guideline then would have no real bearing on the moral questions that concern the bishops. It's the federal guidelines (which clearly include scientific judgements with the addition of moral judgements) that draw a more definitive line in the sand, (i.e. when does a pregnancy become a pregnancy to the state) and as you say that political entity has operated with a 40 year consensus on that question. Considered this way, the public debate around hobby lobby becomes not religion vs. science but science meets the moral judgment of religious leaders vs. science as previously established by democratic consensus.
Well-put. As I mentioned in the original post, also, the scientific definition uses the woman as the referent, while the magisterial referent is the embryo. I agree that the magisterium is not opposing science in this respect, but the choice of where to focus one's first attention is not insignificant.
Yes, I agree, and many thanks to you, Ryan and others for this conversation as it has helped to clarify these different points of view.
That's an interesting point. I can't think of any point in the official moral analysis where the woman is considered beyond how the fetus needs her uterus to survive.
Ryan, are you familiar with the official moral analysis of an ectopic pregnancy? I disagree that, in the eyes of the church, women are reduced to the status of baby incubators. Naturally, in any Catholic moral analysis of reproduction and pregnancy, both the woman and the child both are going to be given moral weight, and this is precisely how church teaching differs from the moral theories that underlie the regime of legalized abortion on demand.
And of course, the church in its official teaching capacity has said many other things about women apart from reproduction. That is not to say that more needn't be said nor that this isn't an area of theological development.
Crystal, I assume your saint reference is to St. Gianna Beretta Molla. You may know that she was a physician who, understanding the medical risks of a difficult pregnancy and what was at stake, freely sacrificed her life so that her child could live. Many women in many cultures have given their lives for their children, in all sorts of circumstances: sometimes it is by pulling their child from a burning vehicle, or jumping into deep water to save one from drowning, or intervening in a pit bull attack. These happened to be circumstances of a risky pregnancy. Saving the lives of one's children generally is considered to be an admirable, even a heroic thing to do. It is not just the church that remembers parents who gave their lives for the sake of their children. I admire such parents whether or not the church canonizes them.
Even if people agree "that God allows responsible adults to decide how best to form, raise, and support families rather than allow folks to arbitrarily decide when a person is or when a zygote is a person, etc." that simply begs the question of whether those actions are moral and just.
Its perfectly clear that God allows his creatures to make all kinds of decisions - rape, murder, stealing, etc - which are neither moral nor just. So the real question is whether consciously deciding to take these drugs to "prevent a potential live birth from occuring" is licit. Its the conscious decision that matters, not the outcome.
Hey, Bruce - you reflect a simplistic theodicy argument - life begins at conception. Realtiy - reproduction and our understanding of this process expands daily and it is a complex arena. Some folks are trying to do the *difficult and hard work* of parsing and merging science and ethical/moral understanding.
The problem with simplistic statements such as *life begins at conception* is that it flys in the face of actual science; it relies upon biologism; it makes the whole process into some type of pre-ordained process, and its undergirding rationale is *natural law* (as defined a century or more ago).
You give an example of a simplistic approach - to quote: *whether consciously decidding to take these drugs to prevent a potential live birth from occuring*.......this type of analysis completely ignores the role of the couple, the role of a wife, the role of a husband....it boils decisions down to a focus on artificial vs. natural (e.g. NFP is encouraged but not contraceptives - what exactly is the different beyond a mindless reliance upon an outdated natural law concept. And this is linked again to the unwise HV decision that went against the Papal Birth Control Commission and history now teaches us that the decision had nothing to do with the actual issue but rather was made out of fear about papal power, precedents, etc.)
Yep, the conscious decision is what matters - and that conscious decision has many factors, faces, and sides. Your approach is to narrowly limit it to use of artifical contraception.....even HV has pages of discussion around the complex role of family decision making - what is responsible and what is not; what is a loving supportive couple to do given that marriage has dual purposes; etc.
Here is some well reasoned arguments (and know you weren't at this presentation - I was):
Key points that link to this post:
Bishops' thesis is wrong for four reasons:
- "The speculative doubt about when human life begins;
- "the fact that possibility and feasibility are necessary aspects involved in discussions about abortion law;
- the understanding and role of civil law;
- "and the weakness of the intrinsic evil argument."
Doubt about exactly when infusion of "the spiritual soul" occurs is acknowledged, he said, in several modern Vatican and papal documents, including the 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. That document notes "There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement." Still, said Curran, while recognizing the philosophical problem, the document calls for erring on the side of caution. It states that it is sufficient "that the presence of the soul is probable because one cannot take the risk of killing a human person."
So the contention by bishops today that "from the moment of conception, each member of the human species must be given the full respect due to a human person," said Curran, "is accurate but not totally forthcoming.
"The most accurate way to state the Catholic moral teaching is that direct abortion even of a fertilized ovum is always wrong, but you cannot say it is murder. There is doubt about the reality of the early embryo," said Curran.
Curran said in the abortion issue, he prefers the religious freedom approach and its three criteria for "determining the proper intervention of coercive law" -- justice, public peace and public morality.
"For our present purposes, the fact that the religious freedom approach could justify either position regarding abortion law means that in light of the Catholic understanding, neither the bishops nor anyone else can claim certitude as to how Catholics should decide about abortion legislation," he said.
In the case of abortion, said Curran, "one is not supporting a false religion, but rather the freedom of the person to choose."
The weakness of the argument based on intrinsic evil, said Curran, "once again undermines the position of the bishops wanting to see the public policy position on abortion as differing from public policies on most other issues.
And what message does that woman's sainthood send to other women whose doctors advise them to terminte their pregnancies because their lives are in danger? In comments above it was discussed how different the viewpoints can be on this whiole issue - from the pov of the fetus or the woman. The church seems to have chosen its side.
And what message does that woman's sainthood send to other women whose doctors advise them to terminte their pregnancies because their lives are in danger?
Right - I am somewhat leery of the notion that the lives of saints are fables that deliver succinct morals to the story. Ultimately, I believe that Gianna is in heaven because she led a holy life, not because she died of a septic infection.
But here is what I take away from the story of her final pregnancy and its complications: children have moral worth, and so women and their medical advisers have a responsibility to think through their decisions, in freedom, while taking into account these important moral considerations. St. Gianna's courageous decision exemplifies freedom and responsibility.
Here are some details on St. Gianna's specific medical circumstances and her choices. She had other options, and perhaps other women in similar circumstances may have made a different choice. And of course there are many, many other sets of circumstances that can arise during a pregnancy. I wouldn't want to draw too straight a line between St. Gianna and all difficult pregnancies.
Having witnessed more or less what other married fathers witness in their wives' pregnancies, I would just add that the bond between a woman and the infant in her womb is hard for a man like me to appreciate, as is the suffering and distress that accompany even a relatively problem-free pregnancy and childbirth. I do see something holy in what St. Gianna did.
In comments above it was discussed how different the viewpoints can be on this whiole issue - from the pov of the fetus or the woman. The church seems to have chosen its side.
The two points of view that were highighted in comments above by Ryan, Lisa and T F don't exactly reduce to "fetus vs. woman", nor (to my reading) were they intended to pit one against the other in some zero-sum contest to the death.
I believe that they were noting that the definition of pregnancy adopted by obstetricians and gynecologists is from the point of view of treating a woman who is pregnant. A pregnancy, whatever else it is, is a medical condition that calls for medical treatment. It seems that, prior to implantation, there isn't much medical treatment on offer to women who have a fertilized egg inside them. Thus, *from the point of view of offering medical treatment to pregnant women*, the pregnancy is assumed, for practical reasons, to begin at implantation.
When the question, "When does human life begin?" engages moral theologians and religious authorities, they are seeking to answer a very different question than, "When do I start offering medical care to a pregnant woman?" Thus, the two questions may yield different answers, without being in conflict with one another. There are both medical dimensions and moral dimensions to pregnancies, and we should think about both of them.
The church doesn't "choose sides" in a pregnancy. The church wants pregnancies to be carried to term when that is medically feasible. In the instance of an ectopic pregnancy (and in some other types of pregnancy complications), the church approves of recommended treatments that would seem to "choose" the life of the mom over the life of the child.
It is reasonable error on the side of caution when we are uncertain about a medication's effects. However, it is not reasonable to hold a particular set of medications to a higher standard. We can't be 100% certain that anything we do won't slightly increase or decrease the likelihood of a fertilized egg implanting. There comes a point where we need to just say that any effect is too small to worry about. Skepticism is fine, but selective skepticism is not skepticism at all but an attempt to enforce one's preference under the guise of prudence.
Ryan, I agree - I don't think we should be selectively skeptical. But it's not straightforward to determine when a risk is insignificant enough that it is rendered morally moot. This article by Kevin Clarke in America Magazine covers some of the same ground that Lisa has covered in her post and comments, and provides some additional details on how Catholic hospitals assess the moral issues in their treatment of rape victims in emergency rooms.
In the case of abortion, said Curran, "one is not supporting a false religion, but rather the freedom of the person to choose."
Bill, This just begs the question. Choose what? Its not a false religion but rather the basic biology that a new organism is formed when the sperm and egg fuse. You may consider this simplistic but this is what science tells us. While there may be alot of other considerations, and God gave people freedom to choose, he did not say those choices are without consequences. Christ's church is there to guide people in those decisions but they remain totally free to accept or reject the guidance.
FWIW, I think about the soul like this: Something that obviously existed while the person was alive is missing when they are dead. Call it soul, or life or whatever. That same essence is present in the zygote because we can tell that it is alive. It is performing self-directed actions that follow along a predictable development schedule.
And we know its human too; it wont develop into a cow, or an ape or a tree, but only a human. You may call that biologism, but that is in fact what the science of biology can and does tell us. The biology is not in dispute, but rather how people interpret the basic biological facts. Those who want to justify abortion make the unsubstantiated claim that a human life hasnt begun, because something we cannot identify may not be present. The bishops say we cannot tell, but we know we will eventually be able to identify it as human, so in an abundance of caution concerning the sixth commandment, we should assume its human from conception.
What real difference does it make if that life can be split into two at a very early stage, or even split and then recombined into one. The life doesnt end, its just changed. Those are just obfuscations we humans find very easily confusing.
OK Jim, I see what you're saying, I think, An example, though, of what I mean by the church choosing sides ... the 9 year old Brazilian girl who was pregnant with twins by her stepfather and whose doctors told her she would die unless she had an abortion. The church excomminicated her mother and doctors when she had the abortion, and the residentarch bishop said, "Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent. Taking that life cannot be ignored."
sorry, that should have been 'resident archbishop'
Crystal - I agree that's a horribly hard case.
Abortion is much more serious than killing an adult. An adult may or may not be an innocent, but an unborn child is most definitely innocent.
Ah, bless the kindly Archbishop of Recife for his enlightened views, over against the severity of Augustine and so many other apostolic successors and learned men, who taught for centuries, to the consternation of heaven only knows how many parents, that unbaptized infants were rotten with the sin of Adam and unworthy to behold the face of God. But let someone ask him tomorrow about the the need for baptism to wash away the effects of original sin, and he will affirm that as well. Sufficient unto the day is the argument thereof.
Meanwhile, the Archbishop's relatively untroubled attitude toward the killing of adults is worth noting.
That infants-are-more-innocent-than-adults argument would be deployed against the claim that pro-life advocates who support the death penalty are being inconsistent in their pro-life principles. Needless to say, as a category, "killing an adult" is a good deal broader than "administering the death penalty." Either something was lost in translation, or the good archbishop didn't get the formula quite right.
Additional Information...
A reporter loses sight of data on Plan B
Emergency Contraception can cause Abortion
Hey, Bruce - it is so easy to deal with your junk - public discourse is not objective - it is an opinion piece that is biased.
From Fact Checkers:
Key point:
Undermining these basic scientific facts has been crucial to the strategy that Hobby Lobby and other corporations have employed during their holy crusade against the birth control benefit. And partisan organizations like the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the virulently anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List, are eager to assist. They conduct "research" and propagate agenda-driven nonsense from non-credible scientists, all the while ignoring and dismissing actual scientists: The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), which is world renowned for being comprised of premier experts in women's health, and whose definition of pregnancy has been the standard since 1970, for example, is dismissed as "rabidly pro-abortion."
Birth control benefit opponents obfuscate basic concepts about reproduction and women's health. They attempt to turn a discussion about when pregnancy begins—and therefore when and how a pregnancy can be terminated—into a discussion about when life begins. But as RH Reality Check's own Jodi Jacobson wrote in an article entitled "Life Begins At Conception. That's Not the Point":
Human life has to begin with conception, but conception is not the same thing as pregnancy, the latter of which reason, science, and medical evidence agree begins when a fertilized egg successfully implants in the uterus and develops into a healthy embryo.
Reason, science, and medical evidence are dangerous to the anti-contraception agenda. Simple biological truisms—that pregnancy begins at implantation, for instance—become, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute, "Orwellian new-speak" designed to obscure the "reality" that all hormonal contraceptives potentially are abortion pills. The fact that this "reality" is actually a fantasy doesn't matter.
In pursuit of their fantasy, birth control benefit detractors dismiss any person or organization that doesn't march in lockstep with their junk science agenda. They happily ignore that the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the American Medical Association, and the medical community writ large agree that emergency contraceptives are not "abortion-inducing drugs." They ignore the legal opinions of judges like Edward Korman, who, in Tummino v. Hamburg—which ultimately required that Plan B be made available over-the-counter—called the idea that Plan B could affect implantation "scientifically unsupported speculation."
Birth control benefit opponents even ignore people in their own camp: The official journal of the Catholic Health Association, for example, published an article stating that Plan B works only as a contraceptive and is not "abortion-inducing."
An article quoting a number of authoratative science sources
Hi Bruce, Indeed, they got it mostly right. They're wrong on Plan B, (which does not impede implantation,) and as far as I know, there's still reasonable doubt about Ella, (could go either way.) Clinically-focused data seems to be showing little or no affect of Ella on implantation, while earlier studies saying it did were based on things like the molecular structure of the drug, not its actual mode of action. Check out the ref's in the original post and the CHA opinion Bill dH references immediately above.
The IUD does seem to have an effect on implantation, I found a 1998 (?) paper that offered significant data to the effect that the IUD does not affect implantation, the vast majority of scientific reports indicates that it does: http://www.ajog.org/article/S0002-9378(02)00493-3/abstract. The copper and hormone-treated IUD might shift the primary mechanism of action more to pre-implantation than of prevention of implantation, but as far as I can find, both mechanisms are thought to be operative.
What's unfair in the linked article, though, is to assess a study's scientific validity by the political leanings of the scientists involved. If they mean to accuse the scientists of fraud, they should come out and say so, then (I hope) find themselves in court needing to prove their allegations. If there are methodological flaws involved, they should point them out, which will doubtless inspire others to design better studies--that's one way science works. (It is, e.g., why Regnerus' widely debunked study on same-sex couples parenting kids was widely debunked.) If subtle or inintentional bias exists, well, that's true of all science. That's why most of the time confirmatory studies are looked for whenever an important advance is made. But political attacks are the scientific equivalent of an ad hominem, and does little to bring down the temperature of the debate.
Still, once fertilization takes place and the individual blastocyte is formed, the human life cycle has begun.
You define "pregnancy" to further your argument but unfortunately most medical authorities do not agree with your definition unless you rely solely on the American Association of OB-Gyns. But they are fairly well known for their political leanings. Perhaps you should look farther.
I am a licensed technical professional, although like you, not in the medical field and I always insist that facts and opinions be separated. To say that "pregnancy" requires "implantation" is an opinion.
Control the terminology and you can win a debate.
But isn't it a risk if we kill because of a mere opinion?
@Almerin, You assign to me a position in an argument that I didn't take: my argument here is about the importance of scientific truth in matters of very significant public policy, not about one or another of the definitions of pregnancy/beginning of life. However, the divergence in definitions is, istm, an important source of confusion in the the public debate around contraception. As I showed above, Plan B is NOT ABORTIFACIENT BY ANYONE'S DEFINITION, not the magisterium's nor the ACOG's. This is a simple fact that should, I believe, shape Catholic input into the matter. Catholics should care about scientific truth--if we fail to, we violate our own tradition, in which we believe that the work of the mind does not separate us from God. To the contrary.
You said: "To say that "pregnancy" requires "implantation" is an opinion." Nope. It's a stance that focuses first on the woman, a stance that makes sense for medical professionals whose business is concerned with women's reproductive lives. As I said above, this stance makes sense for the ACOG: before an embryo implants, it is floating free in the woman's body, but hasn't yet joined itself to her. If a man holds a vial containing an embryo in his hand, or puts it in his pocket, is he "pregnant"? That would be absurd. Yet a pre-implantation embryo has no closer PHYSICAL attachment to a woman than he does. By the ACOG's definition, then, drugs and devices that impede implantation are not abortifacient because the woman is not yet pregnant.
OTOH, the magisterial concern for life from conception, (which is not conflated with personhood necessarily according to the "Document on Procured Abortion,") focuses first and foremost on the embryo, not on whether or not the woman is "pregnant." The magisterial concern that imputes personhood to the early embryo recognizes that some drugs and devices--IUD's, and MAYBE Ella, though that's still up in the air--can prevent the implantation of an otherwise viable embryo, which is what is important to the magisterium. This is the difference in point of view or stance that I spoke of. It matters in contraception, and is relevant also to IVF, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and stem cell research, all also forbidden because of this same stance.
You ask: "But isn't it a risk if we kill because of a mere opinion?" Respect for that concern SHOULD make people careful about different definitions of terms like what counts as abortifacient. It is deceptive when people using the ACOG defintion do not inform their patients that some drugs and devices act by impeding implantation. That's part of what motivated this post--to try to clarify the roots of the confusion.
Indeed, the ACOG, regarding conscientious objection, holds the position that: "In the provision of services, the guideline emphasizes, the patient's well-being must be paramount." Surely then, in the provision of services, adequate accurate information should be offered to women so they can understand mechanisms of action of drugs and devices whose use might violate the patient's conscience. LIKEWISE, OB-GYN's who will not discuss or prescribe drugs or devices that impede implantation on grounds that they consider them abortifacient owe it to their patients to be clear that their consciences are stopping them from providing other legal options, which might be morally acceptable to their patient. IOW, shouldn't EVERYBODY respect patients' consciences??
Finally, the ACOG has something like 57,000 members, representing about 90% of OB-GYN's. They are hardly a fringe or radical group. Note that one of their legislative priorities is reducing the need for abortion.
Let me repeat the take-home message: PLAN B IS NOT ABORTIFACIENT BY ANY DEFINITION. THIS FACT SHOULD MATTER, ESPECIALLY TO CATHOLICS.
When you state that the fertilized egg as a distinct genetic entity with a soul is a wish or an opinion, is this your opinion? How is the fertilized human egg not, at least, a potential human being? If you claim that this is a cultic notion that admits neither science -- human biology -- or rational thought -- a fertilized human egg never has the potential for anything other than humanness, how might you evidence this? Your question: was God the abortionist seems a bit less than unnuanced but perhaps you can explain how God could rationally commit evil -- abortion -- as opposed to the natural course of things, i.e. 2/3 of fertilized eggs don't implant. I look forward to your reply.
I'm still attempting to understand -- irrespective of the religious overtones -- why any company should be forced to pay for anything that is of a voluntary nature, e.g. sexual activity. Do we no longer have, in our society, the notion of self-responsibility?
@Robert Curtis,
To your first point: I can only assume that you are deliberately misreading what I wrote, for reasons that aren't clear to me. I enjoy fruitful discussion, but deliberate misrepresentation is unfair. Or perhaps you were ascribing the comments of another responder to me.
Your second post is a better question: do we no longer have the notion of responsibility for our own actions? Actually this is tricky territory in questions of medical ethics: aren't many/most cases of cardiac by-pass necessary as a result of an voluntary choice to smoke and eat unhealthy foods? What about bladder cancer, also common in smokers? Yet some fit non-smokers get bladder cancer and need by-pass. We know statistically what leads to a higher rate of certain common and expensive-to-treat diseases, but it's impossible to say for certain that a given case is due to an "irresponsible" choice. (Quotes here to indicate conflicting understandings of moral responsibility when addiction is in play, as is the case with tobacco.) Should we all become slim non-smoking vegans who eat only organic in order to qualify for medical coverage? So...how do we draw a line between what we're responsible for in medical coverage?
With contraception specifically, there are medical conditions treated by the pill--it has medical uses beyond contraception. (NB--the Hobby Lobby case was NOT about the contraceptive pill--though arguably it should have been, since my understanding is that the pill may also work some small portion of the time by preventing implantation. Why weren't they thorough in researching what they would object to?) Should an employer get a note saying, e.g., "Sally in accounting needs the pill for medical reasons, not for irresponsible sexual frolics"? Should one's employer be involved to that degree in the personal medical conditions of employees?
Secondly, contraception itself is a matter of medical concern for many folks, e.g. for women with pre-existing conditions that make pregnancy hazardous. (That "pre-existing condition" might include being over, say 40, still fertile but of an age when pregnancy is riskier than before.) Should one's employer get a note saying, e.g., "Beth your v.p. of financial operations should not get pregnant because of a medical condition, yet she and her husband still want to have sex because they love each other and express that love sexually. Do you approve of her receiving the pill, or should they wait 15 years until she's reliably post-menopausal?" Again, is one's employer the best person to decide? Finally, how many children "should" a woman have before her employer agrees to cover her contraceptive costs as health insurance? Why does the employer get to decide?
And I note that no one is arguing that health insurance should not cover pills for male erectile dysfunction, also a matter of voluntary activity, i.e., sexual activity. Sauce for the goose...
Hobby Lobby's argument was that the forms of contraception to which they objected were abortifacient. I tried, in this post, to examine their claims as to scientific truth, being careful about how different groups and individuals define relevant words, and I found that their research was faulty. Bad science should bother Catholics.
If there is a matter of doubt where another's life may possibly be at stake, one does not endanger another's life.
So according to this unscientific definition of "pregnancy," a zygote or embryo does not a pregnancy make until it crosses the magic goal line of implantation. So, if mother loses her unborn baby, she was not pregnant? Wow, Orwell couldn't have dreamed up such double-speak.


text:
In July 2012, Stryker Orthopaedics issued a Stryker hip recall of the Rejuvenate and ABG Stryker implants. Read on for updates on the latest Stryker hip implant recall news and information. We provide the latest Stryker Rejuvenate hip news and Stryker ABG hip info. If you received a Stryker implant and experienced complications, contact a Stryker hip implant recall lawyer today for a free case review. Stay informed about Stryker hip news through our Stryker hip information center.
The Rejuvenate and ABG II hip stems included in the Stryker hip replacement recall had been on the market since 2008. By the time the recall was announced in 2012, more than 20,000 potentially defective hips had been sold globally. The neck components of the Stryker hips are made from chromium and cobalt, while the stems are made of titanium. When these metal components rub against each other, they can generate dangerous levels of toxic metal debris, which may lead to pain, swelling, adverse local tissue reactions, and ultimately premature failure of the Stryker hip replacements.
On August 8, 2012, the first Stryker Rejuvenate recall lawsuit was filed against Stryker Orthopaedics in New Jersey Superior court, Bergen County. The plaintiff in the Stryker hip lawsuit alleges that the Stryker Rejuvenate hip she received led to metal debris shed into her bloodstream, one of the Stryker hip side effects. The Stryker Rejuvenate, recalled because of the metal components' worrisome tendency to fret and corrode, led to elevated metal ion levels in her bloodstream, and ultimately forced her to undergo a painful and difficult revision surgery. The plaintiff developed other complications from the metallosis caused by her Stryker Rejuvenate hip, including:
That claim was one of what would turn out to be hundreds of Stryker hip implant lawsuits filed against the manufacturer. As of July 2013, 273 Stryker hip replacement claims had been filed in a Multicounty Litigation underway in Bergen County Superior Court. An additional 159 lawsuits filed in the wake of the Stryker hip replacement recall were pending a federal multidistrict litigation in the U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota. More filings are likely, and the consolidated litigations will allow the claims to proceed more efficiently by avoiding duplicative ruling and discovery, and preserve the resources of the courts, parties and witnesses. Bernstein Liebhard LLP is actively filing Stryker hip replacement lawsuits in the Bergen County proceeding.
Shortly after it was announced, doctors began to send notification letters to patients informing them of the Stryker hip recall. The Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II are metal modular-neck stems were used in with a number of other components. Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG injuries include pain and swelling at the site of the implant, loosening of the joints, metallosis, immobility and inflammation of the surrounding soft tissue.
It is possible that you may have a Stryker hip implant component even if you did not receive Stryker hip recall news from your doctor. You should see your doctor right away if you're experiencing any of the signs of adverse effects. However, even if you are not experiencing symptoms currently, it's important to get evaluated as some side effects may take time to manifest. Contact a Stryker hip implant recall lawyer at our firm to get more Stryker hip info and to learn about your legal rights.
You may also be contacted by a company called Broadspire Claims Services, which was retained by Stryker to help it manage patient reimbursement claims related to the Stryker hip replacement recall. Stryker has promised that the Broadspire claims process will reimburse patients with affected Stryker hip replacements for expenses relating to testing, treatment, and revision surgery, as well as "other costs" related to the recall. Bernstein Liebhard LLP is urging recipients of Rejuvenate and ABG II hip stems to contact an attorney prior to engaging in any contact with Broadspire. Any information you provide to Broadspire in the course of this claims process can be used in any Stryker hip replacement lawsuit you file. For that reason, it important to obtain legal advice to ensure your rights are not placed in jeopardy.
Learn more about Stryker hip recall injuries, the Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II background, and how to file a Stryker hip recall lawsuit.
The Stryker hip recall was not the first of its kind. In August 2010, Johnson & Johnson recalled the DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip implants because of their high failure rates often leading to revision surgery. The DePuy ASR hip replacement caused similar problems as the Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG hip implants. There are currently over 4,000 lawsuits pending in state and federal courts over the DePuy Pinnacle metal-on-metal hip implant, and over 11,000lawsuits concerning the recalled DePuy ASR implants. Although the recalled Stryker hip parts are not used exclusively in metal-on-metal hips, because the components themselves are made of metal, it often leads similar problems.
If you received a Stryker Rejuvenate or ABG hip implant, you should contact our firm immediately for a free case review by calling . A lawyer may be able to help you collection compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and more. A lawyer will also advise you on the next steps to take and keep you updated on Stryker hip news.
You may be entitled to compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Moderators: Nelliesboo, David, mac_h8r1
I have thought very carefully about this with respect to my elderly mother. There's no way I'd ask her to type on a touchscreen -- and since email is by far the dominant use for her computer (aside from solitaire), the iPad by itself isn't a good choice. However, there are hardware keyboards that can be paired with an iPad. The only one I'd consider for my mother would be the standard wired one from Apple, which puts the iPad in the vertical/portrait orientation (which she prefers) and doesn't require separate a separate charging cable (and support phonecalls to me when inevitably the batteries didn't get charged or the bluetooth pairing failed or whatever). For a mother who was comfortable with using a small laptop, this might be a reasonable solution. It has some negatives, though: it's more costly than a cheap laptop, it's potentially more limited (depending on usage -- eg Flash, windows apps like turbotax, etc) and the screen size is quite small. This last point makes it a non-starter for my mother, who loves her large, low-DPI screen (19" 1280x1024). My mother is also not the sort that spends a lot of time browsing the web, so the utility of having something she can use in her lap or from bed is pretty low. She also has no interest in getting online when she goes out, which is why she's never had a laptop and is still happy with a small, cheap desktop. Obviously the tradeoffs are very different for someone who wants something mobile.cjcerny wrote:If she can do everything she needs to do without Flash support, I would consider getting her an iPad rather than a laptop.
bthylafh wrote:A Chromebook would be pretty good for that workload. You'll get tons of battery life, instant (5 seconds or so) on from sleep, and virtually no support will be needed once she learns the basics because it's so locked-down that not much can go wrong.
Yeah, that's essentially how my mother's machine is set up (with MSE and everything on auto-update; plus TeamViewer running so I can remote in and check on things, though other than her accidentally closing a desktop gadget and not being able to find it again, I haven't had to use it to fix anything)ChronoReverse wrote:It's not much trouble to set a limited user account in Windows 7 and only have Chrome running =)
bthylafh wrote:I don't know about you, but $100 extra is well worth having an operating system that will never break, at least for naive users that I would have to remotely support, and will be automatically updated in the background in perpetuity.
ChronoReverse wrote:bthylafh wrote:I don't know about you, but $100 extra is well worth having an operating system that will never break, at least for naive users that I would have to remotely support, and will be automatically updated in the background in perpetuity.
A hundred dollars is enough to purchase a copy of Acronis TrueImage and have the same functionality. But you don't even need that as the built-in System Restore (based on Volume Shadow Copy) is also well suited to handling this.
Besides, how many new viruses nowadays go about deleting local profiles instead of simply trying to hijack your machine and steal information? MSE will cover all the old-school stuff only breaks things.
Of course, if you have the user only do what he/she would on the ChromeBook, that is, use purely web apps, then there wouldn't any issue at all! Obliterating a profile and setting a new one up would take 2 minutes tops since they'll just work in Chrome anyway.
Not automatically. The mom will have to either follow directions (which may not work, depending on their skills) or you'll have to come over and re-image it yourself. Then you have to worry about data.
You don't know how wrong you are. The viruses I'm thinking of, it doesn't matter what they /do/, what matters is that it's impossible to get rid of them without yourself backing up data and then nuking the profile directory. Gets past Symantec Endpoint Protection & Malwarebytes. Exploits /something/, maybe Flash, that on COS is automatically updated & sandboxed, which doesn't happen on Windows.
You've really never had a user get a drive-by infection, have you? I'm not trying to be a fanboy here, but you're being dismissive without understanding.
bthylafh wrote:I'm not going to waste my time on a person who doesn't even know what a drive-by infection is.
Hint: it's not something spread by a USB stick.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest


text:
Print this page
Product Reviews
Seville Stripe Rug
Striped rug / area rug. Rug made from a durable 80% wool/20% cotton flat-weave kilim. Hand-loomed striped rug features rich bands of brick, black and beige stripes. Fully reversible area rug. Rug grip recommended (sold separately). Choose the versatile area rug in a variety of shapes and sizes. Spot clean. Imported. Striped in rich bands of brick, black and beige, the eye-catching Seville striped rug brings warm color and graphic beauty to any space in your home. Made from a durable wool and cotton flat-weave kilim blend, this intriguing area rug adds a lively look to bedrooms, living rooms, offices, dens and more. The colorful stripes create stylish impact without overwhelming the room's decor. Hand-loomed for impeccable construction, this alluring Seville flat-weave rug is also reversible for twice the rug's longevity. Choose the high-quality Seville Stripe rug in a variety of shapes and sizes to find the perfect one for your floor space. Place the Seville area rug at an entranceway, under a coffee table or in the middle of the room—our vibrant Seville area rug enhances any space wherever it goes. To protect your rug investment and your floors, pair the colorful Seville Stripe rug with one of our many rug grips (sold separately). Rug pads prevent bunching and slipping (an essential if you have children at home) while also preserving the life of your rug and preventing color from transferring from the rug to a hardwood floor. We carry rug grips for every size of rug we sell.
Customer Reviews for
Seville Stripe Rug
This product has not yet been reviewed.
Click here
to continue to the product details page.


text:
Our Publications
- Aspen
- Atlanta
- Chicago
- Dallas
- The Hamptons
- Hawai'i
- Houston
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- New York
- Orange County
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Scottsdale
- Washington, D.C.
Home › Scene › Olé, Olé, Olé! ›
Olé, Olé, Olé!
The Party
The annual José Andrés/Wines from Spain affair, held on the eve of the Food & Wine Classic, took place June 19 at the stunning Pioneer Canyon Ranch in Snowmass.
The Players
Chef and restaurateur José Andrés, Director of Wines from Spain Katrin Naelapaa, ranch owner Douglas Paley
The Scene
Hundreds of guests moved among the outdoor serving stations as chefs from Andrés' restaurants cooked up pork delicacies, shrimp and spit-roasted lamb. With freely flowing wine and a popular gin and tonic bar, the socializing was easy and partygoers lingered long into the night. –Photos by Red Mtn Productions


text:
MATLAB and Simulink resources for Arduino, LEGO, and Raspberry Pi testLearn more
Opportunities for recent engineering grads.Apply Today
New to MATLAB?Learn MATLAB today!
This solution is locked. To view this solution, you need to provide a solution of the same size or smaller.
%% x = round((1+rand)*10)/10; tic; your_fcn_name(x); your_time=toc y_correct = x; assert(isequal(your_fcn_name(x),y_correct)) assert(your_time>x/2)
Error: Assertion failed.


text:
5 Scientific Reasons a Zombie Apocalypse Could Actually Happen
#2. Neurogenesis
As seen in ...
Laboratories around the world.
What is it?
You know all that conversy out there about stem cell research? Well, the whole thing with stem cells is that they can basically be used to re-generate dead cells. Particularly of interest to zombologists like ourselves is neurogenesis, the method by which they can re-grow dead brain tissue.
You can see where this is going.
How it can result in zombies:
You wanted the undead to make an appearance in this article? Well, here you go, you creepy bastards.
Science can pretty much save you from anything but brain death; they can swap out organs but when the brain turns to mush, you're gone. Right?
Well, not for long. They're already able to re-grow the brains of comatose head trauma patients until they wake up and walk around again.
Couple that with the new ability to keep a dead body in a state of suspended animation so that it can be brought back to life later, and soon we'll be able to bring back the dead, as long as we get to them quickly enough.
That sounds great, right? Well, this lab dedicated to "reanimation research" (yes, that's what they call it) explains how the process of "reanimating" a person creates a problem. It causes the brain to die off from the outside in. The outside being the cortex, the nice part of you that makes humans human. That just leaves the part that controls basic motor function and primitive instincts behind.
Reanimation research (artist's rendering)
You don't need the cortex to survive; all you need is the stem and you'll still be able to mindlessly walk and eat and enjoy Grey's Anatomy. This is how chickens can keep walking around after they've been beheaded (including one case where the chicken lived for 18 months without a head).
So, you take a brain dead patient, use these techniques to re-grow the brain stem, and you now have a mindless body shambling around, no thoughts and no personality, nothing but a cloud of base instincts and impulses.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we like to call a real, live, undead fucking zombie. So there.
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
Think about it. Under every legal system in the world, all rights and responsibilities are terminated at death. All it takes is someone with resources and a need for a mindless workforce of totally obedient slave labor.
How long until somebody tries this? We're betting somebody in the world, maybe North Korea, will have a working zombie by Christmas.
#1. Nanobots
As seen in...
Michael Crichton's novel Prey, The PS2 game Nano Breaker
What are they?
Nanobots are a technology that science apparently engineered to make you terrified of the future. We're talking about microscopic, self-replicating robots that can invisbily build--or destroy--anything. Vast sums of money are being poured into nanotechnology. Sure, at some level scientists know nanobots will destroy mankind. They just can't resist seeing how it happens.
How it can result in zombies:
Scientists have already created a nano-cyborg, by fusing a tiny silicone chip to a virus. The first thing they found out is these cyborgs can still operate for up to a month after the death of the host. Notice how nano scientists went right for zombification, even at this early stage. They know where the horror is.
According to studies, within a decade they'll have nanobots that can crawl inside your brain and set up neural connections to replace damaged ones. That's right; the nanobots will be able to rewire your thoughts. What could possibly go wrong?
Chances this could cause a zombie apocalypse:
Do the math, people.
Some day there will be nanobots in your brain. Those nanobots will be programmed to keep functioning after you die. They can form their own neural pathways, meaning they can use your brain to keep operating your limbs after you've deceased and, presumably, right up until you rot to pieces in mid-stride.
The nanobots will be programmed to self-replicate, and the death of the host will mean the end of the nanobots. To preserve themselves, they'd need to transfer to a new host. Therefore, the last act of the nanobot zombie would be to bite a hole in a healthy victim, letting the nanobots steam in and set up camp in the new host. Once in, they can shut down the part of the brain that resists (the cortex) and leave the brain stem intact. They will have added a new member to the unholy army of the undead.
Now, it should be more than clear by this point that our goal is to be responsible researchers. We don't want to create a panic here. All we're saying is that on an actual day on the actual calendar in the future, runaway microscopic nanobots will end civilization by flooding the planet with the cannabalistic undead.
Science has proven it.
David Wong is the author of the equally plausible horror novel John Dies at the End and the upcoming This Book is Full of Spiders, available for pre-order now. It has already been banned in 74 countries.