Pastor Barnhart explains right-wing anti-abortion politics.

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Yeah it could just be my overactive, pessemistic imagination .

even as one of the fortunate canadians, you have good reason to be pessimistic about having a dysfunctional nation on the other side of your border.

Once Upon a Time, In the Republic of Trumplandia . . .
. . . And They Call Themselves the "Pro-Life Party".

IVF procedures could also be in trouble -

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/po ... f-00034409

That's bad too, but if they allowed infertility treatments to remain as they are while forbidding abortion, then it would prove that it's about controlling women and their bodies, not about protecting the unborn lives, so if they forbid abortion, they should also protect the fertilized embryos not inside of women and forbid getting rid of them.

Yes indeed - it creates something of a quandary: should all those excess fertilized eggs be retained and (somehow) grown to a fully-fledged child?
If it's really about saving life then they should, but I suspect control will simply be extended to cripple IVF treatment in some way.

I do agree that there should be more clarity on this issue. If you're going to allow IVF but then treat embryos as persons with rights, somehow trying to enforce abortion laws, things will quickly get absurd.

IDK, maybe not. Abortion is defined in strict terms as terminating a pregnancy, meaning a woman is already carrying a baby and chooses to destroy them. An embryo created outside the womb was never in the womb to be terminated in the first place. The way I read the laws that are out there so far is that the assumption and intent of the law are that personhood begins at conception, precisely at fertilization. The scope, however, remains with the child's right to life within the womb, a right the child cannot have UNTIL they are in the womb. Strictly speaking, one has nothing to do with the other. You cannot be charged with murder for discarding non-viable embryos. You can only be charged with murder if you go through with IVF and THEN decide to have an abortion.

If you want to go "all-in" with the IVF issue and oppose abortion, it makes sense that you might have to address and perhaps cancel IVF altogether. If personhood begins at fertilization and you have all these frozen embryos lying around everywhere, that's not exactly unlike abortion.

I'm not exactly against restricting IVF. IVF is prohibitively expensing as it is, multiple fertilized embryos have to be implanted since they often don't take, and often there are problems besides infertility that means prospective mothers might be more likely to lose the babies. I don't have a problem wanting to fulfill anyone's desire to have a baby. What bothers me is the lack of respect for a new human person once they're created. It would seem that canceling IVF would solve many more problems than it causes.

I'm puzzled how you appear to describe a fertilized egg in vitro as an embryo, but the same thing in utero as a baby or person - also that an abortion can only be called that when it involves a woman carrying it.

In all cases of pregnancy termination or IVF surplus embryo disposal, a fertilized egg is prevented from developing into a fully-fledged child so I guess I fail to see the distinction since each has the exact same end result - no child, artificially terminated, a life denied, and so on.

If one method of termination is or is about to be subject to strict legislation it really makes no sense to me for the other method not to be subject to it in the same way.
If personhood does indeed begin at fertilization, for the purposes of legislation, then from that same legal viewpoint there can surely be no differentiation.

But in that case, who's going to nurture all those excess fertilized eggs into becoming children? Will this become the real test of respect for a new human person?


(for the avoidance of doubt: I am opposed to legislation which removes a woman's right to bodily autonomy, and IVF is functioning, albeit poorly, as designed)

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Simply terminating an unborn person isn’t really what the debate is about. It’s about whether a procedure can be performed that destroys the unborn in the womb. Abortion as we currently understand it legally and medically refers to a surgical procedure or a medical alternative that removes the baby from the womb and destroys it. An embryo in vitro can be destroyed but not removed from the womb. It never WAS in the womb. The embryo cannot be destroyed and removed from the womb if it was never in the womb.

Let’s say you have a baby in a test tube on a table. The woman who donated the egg to be fertilized wishes to abort the baby in the test tube. So she takes a couple doses of misoprostal (see medical abortion for exact details) to kill the baby. In the test tube. Or perhaps she has a classic D&C. How will that affect the baby in the test tube?

If the baby isn’t in her womb, abortion procedures have no effect. Since no baby was killed in her womb, no crime has been committed aside from medicine was prescribed or procedures carried out without any necessity (even in my view abortions might be necessary to save the mother’s life).

Now…if someone destroys an embryo in a test tube, whether deliberately or if the embryo is unneeded and stored too long, well…it is in a test tube or freezer or whatever and does not have the same protection of a baby in the womb. I am unaware of any laws that grant special protection to embryos outside the womb.

My point is that what is inside the womb versus outside the womb are separate issues. If we accept that an embryo outside the womb deserves the same respect as a baby inside the womb, then I think that beyond complicates things. Nevertheless, if indeed abortion is universally banned under the rationale that personhood begins at fertilization, a dialogue on IVF may be necessary.