Tillis and Talento…what a team of scientists…er…what?
Seriously, before I retired I was a research scientist and my area of expertise was ovarian cancer and other issues related to how the ovary functions. I did my science for 47 years and published quite a bit in scientific journals. Based on evidence I have seen (first hand and read about in reputable journals) there are chemicals, RU486 for example, that will cause an abortion. And RU 486 has been used as a “morning after” type of birth control. BUT aside from that example, the typical set of pills used for birth control prevent implantation and therefore cannot be construed to “cause abortion”. Other contraception methods, the condom, are not chemical based and apply to the male side of the equation. But then we are looking at comments made by republicans. And looking at the last several days worth of hyperbole here at TPM from GOPer types …these folks are liable to say anything no matter how over the top, Actually this is one of the tamers set of words to come from GOPerland.
Ummm, that’s a fake news story. Notice the .co tacked onto the url of what looks at first glance to be a well-known legitimate news site? Red flag, that.
So, technically, you can’t get an abortion until you are pregnant and you can’t be pregnant until implantation has occurred.
But that kind of dictionary argument isn’t going to be particularly convincing to anyone who sincerely believes that life begins at conception, full stop. From that viewpoint, it is splitting hairs to argue whether or not the term “abortion” applies to that period of time between fertilization and implantation. The issue for them is whether or not a particular method works by preventing fertilization or by preventing implantation - i.e. whether or not it is “killing babies”.
If that is where you draw the line morally, “abortion” is an appropriate, if not medically precise, word to describe what you think is happening.
Of course, there are those who really want to draw the line further back (“Every sperm is sacred…”) and further back still.
I made no moral argument. I applied science. And one of the things endemic in science is scientists spend a lot of time “splitting hairs” …in other words using precise language…if there’s no implantation the conceptus eventually leaves the body. By that route it would not meet most definitions of the noun…abortion.
I will leave the moral argument to others
I think you may have something there. Johnson and Inhofe are certainly at the top of the turd pile, while Ernst is building her own separate little pig pile of poo.
Heavens to Betsy…we’re in for some real highfalutin derpitude these next couple of years. Just thinking about it makes my teeth hurt.
Oops, and I swallowed it hook, line and sinker. I’m deleting my posts raging about this. On the bright side my sense of righteous indignation got a nice workout!
I think we’re on the same page here, but my sloppy use of the second person pronoun was meant to refer to those who draw the line morally at conception, not to darrtown, who as far as I can tell isn’t in that category. (And for the record, I was also using the general “you” in the first sentence, and make no claims about darrtown’s reproductive status one way or another!)
Actually I’m a grandfather and so from a reproductive aspect…that horse has left the barn. My son has taken over those duties. Mrs darr and I are happily at the “rent-a-parent” stage these days. We get to have our grandson for visits but after a few days we hand him back. Being a dad brought great joy.
