Sorry, 2V, I couldn't resist. I was being deliberately provocative by throwing out zombie-baby, but the notion that my son is not created from love is stupid, and if that is truly the Church's stance, well - that's stupid too.
If the Church's stance is that IVF babies are all well and good but IVF using parents are not, I suppose that's one more reason I'm going to Catholic heaven, so oh well.
Only tangentially related story...
My *intensely* Catholic mother in law recently walked out of Mass at her church of 40+ years. One of the Monsignors has taken to using the pulpit as his personal political vehicle, and asserted that no one who voted for "The Democrat Party" could rightfully consider themselves Catholic. She and a few other parishoners walked out and have not been back. My MIL wrote to two local journalists, had lunch with one, and her story was referenced in the paper
Please explain to me how BCPs = abortion. BCPs work by preventing ovulation, no ovulation means no egg to fertilize. So I'm failing to see how even people who believe that a fertilized egg is a person could argue that BCPs are equivalent to an abortion.
Since the Pill is not 100% effective, then ovulation must be happening some of the time. It is those times when the Pill acts as an abortifacient.
No, it doesn't. The most recent studies find that the progestins in BCPs don't prevent implantation. The contraceptive aspects of the pill are to prevent ovulation, and to thicken cervical mucous to make it more difficult for sperm to reach an egg if ovulation DOES happen.
Listen y'all. We can argue about this all we want. I'm not asking anyone to make BCPs illegal. I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not asking anyone to make abortions illegal.
But for me and countless other Americans, these studies are stupid. Sure, access to BCP may decrease the number of surgical abortions, but if you think life begins at conception, these numbers don't reflect the many pregnancies (because to me you're pregnant at conception) that are terminated intentionally through an "inhospitable" environment in the uterus.
I'm allowed to express my opinion. You're allowed to spend three pages telling me I'm stupid. But let's face it, words like "life", "abortion" and "murder" mean different things to different people. I'm not talking about in the legal or medical sense (because I recognize that concrete definitions have to exist there).
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
No, I can tell that it's from a site geared toward people without science backgrounds. That's part of the problem. It's meant to be reassuring, but it's just kind of misleading. I don't know whether or not that's intentional.
Listen y'all. We can argue about this all we want. I'm not asking anyone to make BCPs illegal. I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not asking anyone to make abortions illegal.
But for me and countless other Americans, these studies are stupid. Sure, access to BCP may decrease the number of surgical abortions, but if you think life begins at conception, these numbers don't reflect the many pregnancies (because to me you're pregnant at conception) that are terminated intentionally through an "inhospitable" environment in the uterus.
I'm allowed to express my opinion. You're allowed to spend three pages telling me I'm stupid. But let's face it, words like "life", "abortion" and "murder" mean different things to different people. I'm not talking about in the legal or medical sense (because I recognize that concrete definitions have to exist there).
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
AGAIN, BCPs do NOT prevent implantation. They are NOT abortifacients. Neither does the morning after pill, so it's not an abortifacient, either.
You don't get to make up your own definitions for words, and then enter into a standard debate about them.
This would depend on whether or not you view some birth control methods as abortifacients or not.
Which would, in turn, depend on whether you understand birth control.
Are you saying there aren't any birth control methods out there that can be abortifacients? IUDs? Depo?
Using the standard medical definition for pregnancy and abortion, there are, in fact, birth control methods that can cause you to miscarry if you accidentally get pregnant on them.
You may say that the chance of this happening is so slim that it doesn't matter in this argument. I'd say it has about the same relevance as considering pregnancies resulting from incest in the general abortion conversation. It happens. It's rare. It's still relevant.
Listen y'all. We can argue about this all we want. I'm not asking anyone to make BCPs illegal. I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not asking anyone to make abortions illegal.
But for me and countless other Americans, these studies are stupid. Sure, access to BCP may decrease the number of surgical abortions, but if you think life begins at conception, these numbers don't reflect the many pregnancies (because to me you're pregnant at conception) that are terminated intentionally through an "inhospitable" environment in the uterus.
I'm allowed to express my opinion. You're allowed to spend three pages telling me I'm stupid. But let's face it, words like "life", "abortion" and "murder" mean different things to different people. I'm not talking about in the legal or medical sense (because I recognize that concrete definitions have to exist there).
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
Well then you have no business using your personal definition in a discussion about scientific studies concerning the scientifically accepted definition.
I can go outside and say that the sky is green, that my definition of green is not the same as everyone else's definition. But that means I have no business getting into a discussion about what color the goddamn sky is according to scientifically accepted fact.
You act like AW's doing so isn't commonplace around here. Come on, NB.
Listen y'all. We can argue about this all we want. I'm not asking anyone to make BCPs illegal. I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not asking anyone to make abortions illegal.
But for me and countless other Americans, these studies are stupid. Sure, access to BCP may decrease the number of surgical abortions, but if you think life begins at conception, these numbers don't reflect the many pregnancies (because to me you're pregnant at conception) that are terminated intentionally through an "inhospitable" environment in the uterus.
I'm allowed to express my opinion. You're allowed to spend three pages telling me I'm stupid. But let's face it, words like "life", "abortion" and "murder" mean different things to different people. I'm not talking about in the legal or medical sense (because I recognize that concrete definitions have to exist there).
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
Well then you have no business using your personal definition in a discussion about scientific studies concerning the scientifically accepted definition.
Yes, because no one around here ever discusses their personal views in medical, legal or political threads. There is no room for opinion around here (at least not the unpopular ones, right).
I'll remember this the next time someone wants to bring up science in the religion threads, since in your world the two have no business being discussed together.
Which would, in turn, depend on whether you understand birth control.
Are you saying there aren't any birth control methods out there that can be abortifacients? IUDs? Depo?
Using the standard medical definition for pregnancy and abortion, there are, in fact, birth control methods that can cause you to miscarry if you accidentally get pregnant on them.
You may say that the chance of this happening is so slim that it doesn't matter in this argument. I'd say it has about the same relevance as considering pregnancies resulting from incest in the general abortion conversation. It happens. It's rare. It's still relevant.
Hmm. I am unsure which is affected most by the inflammatory response to a copper IUD, the sperm, the egg, or the uterine lining. As far as I know, no one else knows, either. So... maybe the copper IUD might possibly be an abortefacient, though no one actually knows.
Yes, because no one around here ever discusses their personal views in medical, legal or political threads. There is no room for opinion around here (at least not the unpopular ones, right).
I'll remember this the next time someone wants to bring up science in the religion threads, since in your world the two have no business being discussed together.
Science are religion aren't personal views, genius. You can believe in God and still think that dinosaurs existed. But if you roll into a thread about, say, the divinity of Christ in relation to the Catholic church and start arguing with the definition of divinity then I'm going to side eye you. That's a specific discussion, not a broader discussion on what divinity is in general.
Noted. I'll make sure to call you out the next time you inevitably make this mistake too.
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
Which is why there is a medical definition of abortion, and what you base a scientific study on.
It's why you also need a standard definition. Because according to you, when I get my IUD, I'm going to be having an abortion every month. Thanks, but I'll stick with the standard medical definition of abortion for that one.
Listen y'all. We can argue about this all we want. I'm not asking anyone to make BCPs illegal. I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not asking anyone to make abortions illegal.
But for me and countless other Americans, these studies are stupid. Sure, access to BCP may decrease the number of surgical abortions, but if you think life begins at conception, these numbers don't reflect the many pregnancies (because to me you're pregnant at conception) that are terminated intentionally through an "inhospitable" environment in the uterus.
I'm allowed to express my opinion. You're allowed to spend three pages telling me I'm stupid. But let's face it, words like "life", "abortion" and "murder" mean different things to different people. I'm not talking about in the legal or medical sense (because I recognize that concrete definitions have to exist there).
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
Can you please define your personal definition of 'conception'?
Are you saying there aren't any birth control methods out there that can be abortifacients? IUDs? Depo?
Using the standard medical definition for pregnancy and abortion, there are, in fact, birth control methods that can cause you to miscarry if you accidentally get pregnant on them.
You may say that the chance of this happening is so slim that it doesn't matter in this argument. I'd say it has about the same relevance as considering pregnancies resulting from incest in the general abortion conversation. It happens. It's rare. It's still relevant.
Hmm. I am unsure which is affected most by the inflammatory response to a copper IUD, the sperm, the egg, or the uterine lining. As far as I know, no one else knows, either. So... maybe the copper IUD might possibly be an abortefacient, though no one actually knows.
An IUD doesn't always prevent implantation. It allows for implantation (because I know people that got pregnant with an IUD) and it can also cause you to miscarry once you are pregnant. Of course, you could argue that that person may have miscarried regardless of whether or not they had the IUD, but I think the medical community agrees that an IUD CAN cause you to miscarry (medical definition of miscarriage, in case you're wondering).
Listen y'all. We can argue about this all we want. I'm not asking anyone to make BCPs illegal. I believe life begins at conception, but I'm not asking anyone to make abortions illegal.
But for me and countless other Americans, these studies are stupid. Sure, access to BCP may decrease the number of surgical abortions, but if you think life begins at conception, these numbers don't reflect the many pregnancies (because to me you're pregnant at conception) that are terminated intentionally through an "inhospitable" environment in the uterus.
I'm allowed to express my opinion. You're allowed to spend three pages telling me I'm stupid. But let's face it, words like "life", "abortion" and "murder" mean different things to different people. I'm not talking about in the legal or medical sense (because I recognize that concrete definitions have to exist there).
It's like the word sex. There is a medical definition. There is a legal definition. But to many people the word means many different things. See Bill Clinton.
Can you please define your personal definition of 'conception'?
When fertilization occurs. This is when I believe life begins.
Post by wrathofkuus on Aug 24, 2012 14:20:25 GMT -5
Yeah, it's not surprising that something that prevents pregnancy via the inflammatory response might conceivably (hee!) end up with an embryo being attacked as a foreign body. Although saying that a birth control option inherently allows for implantation because some people have gotten pregnant while using it isn't really valid - those people would fall into the failure rate, not the "this is just how it works" rate.
That's a great article, thanks for sharing. When we (the general we, I mean) talk about abortion, I always feel like too little emphasis is placed on 1) how to better prevent unwanted pregnancies, and 2) how to better care for the actual outside-the-body babies & children once they're born.
I think the correlation here is definitely worth talking about. I'd love to see a follow up study to see whether this lower rate of abortions corresponds with a higher incidence of birth control being bought and used, or with something else. (Like better health care leading to women not seeing a pregnancy as unwanted, and therefore deciding not to have an abortion.)
CLINICAL PHARMACOLOGY Oral Contraception Combination oral contraceptives act by suppression of gonadotropins. Although the primary mechanism of this action is inhibition of ovulation, other alterations include changes in the cervical mucus (which increase the difficulty of sperm entry into the uterus) and the endometrium (which reduce the likelihood of implantation).
Now, if you can find something more suitable for proving your understanding of how the Pill works, please post it.
Post by basilosaurus on Aug 24, 2012 15:29:24 GMT -5
2V, I don't have the exact study (but I'll try to find it for you), but there was a huge one from Sweden (IIRC) recently. Basically, it said there is no evidence that the pill works by doing anything beyond preventing ovulation and sperm entry. The prevention of implantation was always a hypothetical, but that's good enough to include on a label.
That a label says something is quite often more political than scientific. Think of the restrictions on Plan B to only be OTC if you're 17. That's not a medical/scientific position.
Post by wrathofkuus on Aug 24, 2012 15:33:15 GMT -5
I spent years doing work on estrogens, xenoestrogens, and phytoestrogens. You'd be amazed at how little activation of the classical estrogen pathway is needed to bring fertility to a screeching halt.
I don't know why you seem to think that thinning of the endometrium hypothetically reducing the likelihood of implantation means that it ever DOES cause an embryo to be unable to implant. There is no evidence that this has ever, ever happened, mostly because that's not how the estrogen pathway works.
That a label says something is quite often more political than scientific.
Just like how a government agency defining things a certain way is often more political than scientific?
Just think of the problems they would create politically if they changed their definition of pregnancy to the point of conception (which is technically the point that your body says it is pregnant and starts creating different hormones to sustain the pregnancy). It would cause a political poohstorm to change it. Honestly I think it is a scientifically valid opinion to say that pregnancy could be defined as beginning when the egg is fertilized and thus abortion would include anything causing you to intentionally miscarry the zygote. I understand that others disagree, but I don't doubt for one second that politics plays a role in how we medically define pregnancy and abortion in our culture.
Post by basilosaurus on Aug 24, 2012 15:47:10 GMT -5
2V, I may have been confused. I think maybe I heard a Swedish scientist speaking on the issue But there was a NYTimes investigation into it, about the same time I remember hearing the interview, so maybe that's what it was in reference to.
I spent years doing work on estrogens, xenoestrogens, and phytoestrogens. You'd be amazed at how little activation of the classical estrogen pathway is needed to bring fertility to a screeching halt.
I don't know why you seem to think that thinning of the endometrium hypothetically reducing the likelihood of implantation means that it ever DOES cause an embryo to be unable to implant. There is no evidence that this has ever, ever happened, mostly because that's not how the estrogen pathway works.
All I have been doing in this thread is repeating what I have learned about the Pill. I admit it's not much, but I have been repeating what most other people know about how it works and how it is marketed. You're right....there is no evidence that it does anything but prevent ovulation, but apparently it's still possible that it prevents implantation or I'm sure we'd hear about it on a grand scale. Where is the evidence that it does nothing else but prevent ovulation? Please provide.
I'm not sure why there were numerous, unnecessary digs at religion in this thread. NO ONE has been pushing their beliefs on anyone. NO ONE has said BCP should be illegal. NO ONE is even asserting that there is evidence that the BCP aborts a child. WE HAVE said that it is possible. And until there is evidence that it absolutely does not happen, I suspect that those of us who believe this will continue to do so. I'm not sure what happened here with AW these last two pages because I have not read it, but I know that I didn't push my beliefs on anyone. I started my posts talking very generally about BCP, so I'm not sure why the pp felt the need to say this entire thread was all about my beliefs.
Post by wrathofkuus on Aug 24, 2012 15:49:16 GMT -5
I can see that there might be some merit to this definition. And I do think the question of when life starts is a bit of a red herring, as far as the whole abortion debate goes. It does seem a little odd, though, that there is so much intentional blurring of the line between birth control that prevents implantation and birth control that is thought to by some people but really doesn't.
That a label says something is quite often more political than scientific.
Just like how a government agency defining things a certain way is often more political than scientific?
Just think of the problems they would create politically if they changed their definition of pregnancy to the point of conception (which is technically the point that your body says it is pregnant and starts creating different hormones to sustain the pregnancy). It would cause a political poohstorm to change it. Honestly I think it is a scientifically valid opinion to say that pregnancy could be defined as beginning when the egg is fertilized and thus abortion would include anything causing you to intentionally miscarry the zygote. I understand that others disagree, but I don't doubt for one second that politics plays a role in how we medically define pregnancy and abortion in our culture.
That's basically what the Personhood amendments in CO and MS have been trying to do.
Also, evidence for the fact that your body starts believing it's pregnant at conception? I'm pretty sure that's not until implantation.
Kuus, I also repeated that information about thinning of the endometrial lining. It's what I learned in sex ed 15+ years ago, and was the prevailing theory when I was active in an online birth control community 8+ years ago. I apologize if that's misinformation, but it's very recent scientific information that DISproved it, so... we can all step back and relax, IMO.
2V - I thought I made it clear earlier that I wasn't advocating banning BCPs. But apparently the problem some people have with this thread is that I brought up my personal beliefs and definitions into a thread about specific medical definitions. There is apparently no room for personal opinion in threads specifically about medical studies, even if those opinions represent millions of people in this country that believe the same thing and also feel that their opinion is medically valid. The lesson has been learned. I just hope that from now on people decide to be consistent and not barge into threads about religion and start bringing up medical or legal definitions that have nothing to do with my faith-based beliefs. I think that's wishful thinking though...
I spent years doing work on estrogens, xenoestrogens, and phytoestrogens. You'd be amazed at how little activation of the classical estrogen pathway is needed to bring fertility to a screeching halt.
I don't know why you seem to think that thinning of the endometrium hypothetically reducing the likelihood of implantation means that it ever DOES cause an embryo to be unable to implant. There is no evidence that this has ever, ever happened, mostly because that's not how the estrogen pathway works.
All I have been doing in this thread is repeating what I have learned about the Pill. I admit it's not much, but I have been repeating what most other people know about how it works and how it is marketed. You're right....there is no evidence that it does anything but prevent ovulation, but apparently it's still possible that it prevents implantation or I'm sure we'd hear about it on a grand scale. Where is the evidence that it does nothing else but prevent ovulation? Please provide.
I'm not sure why there were numerous, unnecessary digs at religion in this thread. NO ONE has been pushing their beliefs on anyone. NO ONE has said BCP should be illegal. NO ONE is even asserting that there is evidence that the BCP aborts a child. WE HAVE said that it is possible. And until there is evidence that it absolutely does not happen, I suspect that those of us who believe this will continue to do so. I'm not sure what happened here with AW these last two pages because I have not read it, but I know that I didn't push my beliefs on anyone. I started my posts talking very generally about BCP, so I'm not sure why the pp felt the need to say this entire thread was all about my beliefs.
The people you're still discussing this with haven't slammed religion at all.
The reason there's no proof that hormonal birth control never ever prevents implantation is for the same reason there's no proof that it never causes new stars to form in a distant galaxy - this isn't the kind of negative that can be proven.
How do you create an environment in which the female ovulates, and the cervical fluid is fertile-quality, but the uterine lining is still thinned, so that you can see whether this happens, and how do you apply that to what actually happens when dosed with birth control pills? The answer is, you can't. You literally, seriously, cannot create these conditions without forgoing use of the combo birth control entirely, or else adding something else to it that invalidates the result.
Frankly, I don't understand why people are so skittish about this in the first place. There are lots of things in the world that haven't been proven not to prevent implantation, simply because there's no good reason they should prevent implantation. This is one of those.
2V - I thought I made it clear earlier that I wasn't advocating banning BCPs. But apparently the problem some people have with this thread is that I brought up my personal beliefs and definitions into a thread about specific medical definitions. There is apparently no room for personal opinion in threads specifically about medical studies, even if those opinions represent millions of people in this country that believe the same thing and also feel that their opinion is medically valid. The lesson has been learned. I just hope that from now on people decide to be consistent and not barge into threads about religion and start bringing up medical or legal definitions that have nothing to do with my faith-based beliefs. I think that's wishful thinking though...
It's so unbelieveably frustrating. It's taken a lot of restraint in here... if you get my drift lady.