Congress has its share of backward thinkers, but the Georgia Legislature has them beat in having more than its share of troglodytes and Luddites.
On the same day that Obama announced his overturning of Bush's restrictive executive order on stem cell research, the Georgia Senate's Health and Human Services Committee approved by a 7-6 vote a bill that defines a human embryo as a person and prohibits the destruction of an embryo for any reason, whether it be scientific research or simply unneeded extra embryos left from an in vitro fertilization process.
One reproductive endocrinologist warned the committee that this step could make criminals of fertility specialists, where the normal process of in vitro fertilization may result in damage to some embryos, in addition to the question of what to do with the extra embryos that are not needed.
It seems to me that leaves three options for the "extras:" (1) find a couple to donate the embryos to so that they have your child, or (2) keep having more babies to use up the extra embryos (think octuplets). or (3) keep paying the $500 annual fee (is that per embryo?) storage fee to keep them frozen forever. How is being forever frozen preferable to being destroyed?
Of even more concern, this would be a major step in the war against abortion, because it would codify as human beings -- with all rights of human beings -- the product of fertilization one instant beyond the penetration of a sperm into an ovum. And the destruction of such would not only be criminal, it would be murder. It would also criminalize the "morning after" pill and any form of contraception that works by preventing the implantation of a fertilized ovum. In their thinking, this is equivalent to abortion.
This would effectively end stem cell research, in vitro fertilization clinics, and abortion in Georgia. A Georgia Tech/Emory consortion of scientists has become one of the major biomedical research centers in the country. If passed, this law would likely hurt their ability to recruit scientists to work here.
And Georgia would take one more step backward. The proponents of this bill should go down in the Georgia Museum of Backwardness, along with 1950's Gov. Lester Maddox, who threatened to defend his restaurant with an ax handle to prevent desegregation and who famously liked to perform his stunt of riding his bicycle backwards.
Ralph
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I love to taunt troglodyte thinking by carrying their arguments to logical extremes. So here goes.
ReplyDeleteIf a human being is created at the moment of fertilization, it still is not viable without being placed in some growth-providing environment, usually a human female uterus. Therefore, even if it has human rights, it is still only a potential human being.
So they have established that the embryo by itself cannot survive even though it is potentially human. Why not take one more step back and say that a single sperm and a single ovum are also "potential" humans, even though they have not yet reached the stand-alone stage.
Then we'd have to outlaw any form of birth control and, perhaps even male masturbation, referred to in the old days as "spilling his seed."
Oh, wait. Doesn't the Catholic Chruch already make those things a sin?
But what about the overpopulation problem?
PS: On the question of whether it's better to be frozen forever or destroyed:
ReplyDeleteAccording to "them," if the embryo, aka human being, is destroyed, wouldn't its soul go up to heaven; whereas if it stays frozen forever, its soul would be trapped in this earthly body forever -- or at least until Final Days Rapture?
Seems they'd want the souls to go on up to heaven now.
Am I missing something?