Life At Conception Act

Libertarian darling Rand Paul plans to introduce a Life At Conception act. I wonder if that will require government monitoring of all potential conception acts? After all you can’t be too careful when it comes to preventing a potential murder. I must say though that such monitoring is way too kinky even for my libertine tastes. I wouldn’t care to be monitored. My guess is that it will be a very effective method of birth control for most people. OTOH porn stars might revel in such observation.

You probably think I’m nuts. But I watched the Drug War evolve. The more it failed the more the effort in it increased. Until the government was monitoring bodily fluids for purity of essence.

Without any significant effort the abortion rate has been declining. Admittedly not by much.

For all you “there ought to be a law” abortion foes, if you leave a comment please write up ways in which such a law could fail or be counter productive or raise the cost and intrusiveness of government.

Me? It might be fun to monitor potential conceptions. If the pay was good enough I might sign on. As long as free Kleenex was a job perk.

Update: 27 March 2013 0640z

Eric reminds me he has looked into this and Rand Paul before at this post: An issue as ahead of its time as counting chickens before they hatch. Which prompted this response from me: Are these Republicans serious?.

Which prompts me to ask: Why are there so many “there ought to be a law” people? In America. The used to be Land of Liberty. Why isn’t changing the culture good enough?


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45 responses to “Life At Conception Act”

  1. Heywood Broun Avatar
    Heywood Broun

    As long as we are doing classical values, let’s reinstate infant exposure like the classical Greeks. Just putting the little bastard out on the hillside to die of exposure (or maybe be rescued by a neighboring shepherd) is way more humane than snipping his spinal column with a pair of shears a la Dr. Kermit.

  2. Simon Avatar

    Heywood Broun, (catchy name by the way – I hear your namesake is dead)

    It appears that Kermit the evil Frog will be charged with murder. Even without a new law.

    With a new law we might be trying females who have a miscarriage for murder or at least charging them for that until there is a thorough investigation.

    See how easy it was to come up with a way the law could go bad? How about you give it a try? Or do you have complete faith in the benevolence of government and its minions? If that is true – my condolences. And may I suggest you join the forces of Progressivism? If you haven’t already.

    BTW when did the Federal Government get the remit to control medical services? I was under the impression it was a state matter. Well at least before the Progressive infection of America.

  3. Simon Avatar

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heywood_Broun

    “In 1930, Broun unsuccessfully ran for Congress, as a Socialist. A slogan of Broun’s was “I’d rather be right than Roosevelt.”

    My apologies. You already are in the leftist camp. That explains quite a lot.

  4. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    “It appears that Kermit the evil Frog will be charged with murder. Even without a new law.”

    Yeah, but why? What did he do wrong? I think you’re just a big government nanny stater vagina police douchenozzle. All he did was kill babies outside the womb that were inside the womb, and fair game, minutes prior.

    “BTW when did the Federal Government get the remit to control medical services? I was under the impression it was a state matter.”

    Answer: With Roe v. Wade, 1973. The feds told the states what their abortion laws can be, with little room for manuevering. Abortion was illegal at that time in forty eight states, in all but the rarest cases.

    “With a new law we might be trying females who have a miscarriage for murder or at least charging them for that until there is a thorough investigation.”

    How many times do we have to go over this? No one is suggesting any such thing. That’s a baseless fear tactic. There were no such investigations prior to legalized infanticide in America, and there are no such investigations in countries such as Ireland. You’re making crap up because you’re scared to have a real conversation.

  5. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    “See how easy it was to come up with a way the law could go bad? How about you give it a try? Or do you have complete faith in the benevolence of government and its minions?”

    How could it go bad to outlaw murder? Geez, I don’t know. There’s so much wrong with the statutes we have against murdering adults. I guess I must just be a guv’ment lovin’ automaton.

  6. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    Simon says: “My hope is that in time we will get more Rand Pauls and fewer Mitt Romneys. i.e. the Republicans will revert to their 1900 roots.”

    Hey Simon, why shouldn’t we just try to persuade Kermit Gosnell to stop snipping children’s spinal cords? That might work. We could ask him nicely.

  7. Simon Avatar

    “How many times do we have to go over this? No one is suggesting any such thing. That’s a baseless fear tactic.”

    Well I watched the evolution of Prohibition. I have a vivid imagination. I don’t trust government.

    And generally if you look at the way politicians vote – the general population feels the same. If there was any huge move to get the Federal government to control the issue you would see politicians voting that way. They LIKE their jobs.

    And I really dislike the idea of women coming under control of government when they are pregnant. I think it will further depress the birth rate.

    No law does just one thing. There are side effects. So far no abortion foe has been able to imagine any bad side effects. All laws have them. Even laws against murder (as they now exist) – some times innocent people get convicted.

    The fact that you can’t imagine any bad side effects proves you do not live in reality. You are a utopian. So were the people that instituted alcohol prohibition.

  8. Simon Avatar

    Joey,

    Some women went to Kermit with a bulges in their bellies. I haven’t heard that any of them are up on charges. Why is that?

    They initiated the crime.

  9. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    Here’s Mitt Romney trying to run to the left of his Democratic opponent Shannon O’Brian on the issue of baby-killing.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_w9pquznG4

    So you’re a Mitt Romney guy, not a Rand Paul guy.

  10. Simon Avatar

    As one of our previous commenters noted:

    Rich women used to get polyps removed by a reputable doctor. Poor women got the coat hanger.

    Now if life begins at conception will the morning after pill still be legal? Or the IUD?

  11. Frank Avatar
    Frank

    Rand Paul wants to be president. So he’s a Republican. What do you expect?
    It’s not about freedom, or choice, or even allowing a woman and her doctor the right to make a decision. It’s about the Bible.

    What did a goat herder 2500 years ago say that has been passed down, first along side a camp fire or in a tent, repeatedly for hundreds of years after having a cup of wine or three, and then written on scrolls, translated from Aramaic into Ancient Hebrew into Greek into Latin, for another thousand years, then into Middle English into King James English, all the while excluding some, re-wording others, redefining and at last, good god almighty, AT LAST, the chosen word as defined by the Right Reverend Billy Bob Bumpkin says that Life immortal begins when that first drop of jizzum hits the bloomer pudding. Praise Jeeeesus.

    (M.Simon, sorry to write this on Passover, but it applies specifically to Christians of the dimwit bigot school like Rand Paul.)

    Scratch Paul as president. Bummer.

  12. Simon Avatar

    Frank,

    I’m more of a cultural Jew than a religious one. No offense taken. I believe the stories are instructive. The law has to be examined in light of modern conditions.

    Yeah. Bummer about Paul. But it fits with his father’s orientation.

    What all this revolves around is that for women the decision to have an abortion is no more serious than the decision to pick a scab. I have known a few like that. Very few. Very very few.

    I wouldn’t burden the rest for the actions of a few.

  13. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    I’ll answer your question, even though you never answer mine.

    “Why is that?”

    Because the women were going to him to have an abortion, which is another way of saying to kill the children growing in their wombs. The babies emerged alive (duh!) and Dr. Kermit killed them anyway. If these very same children had been located in a slightly different place, we would call that “choice.” But because they were outside the womb, everyone, including you, considers that murder.

    The short answer is because they went to the doctor for an abortion but got a murder.

    “Now if life begins at conception will the morning after pill still be legal?”

    I sure hope not.

  14. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    “I have a vivid imagination.”

    Yeah no kidding. When you suggest that everyone entertain your paranoid fantasies about what COULD happen if we decided not kill children, while no one is actually proposing that we do what you think will happen, we usually call that a straw man argument.

    “If there was any huge move to get the Federal government to control the issue you would see politicians voting that way.”

    They do control the issue. They dictated to the states in 1973. SCOTUS is a branch of the federal government.

  15. Simon Avatar

    “Now if life begins at conception will the morning after pill still be legal?”

    I sure hope not.

    And that is exactly why the laws you want do not get passed. You see, my fears are realized in you. Since the morning after pill works the same as the birth control pill – you would outlaw that method of contraception. You have now alienated a vast swath of women (and men) who might otherwise be on your side.

    You are living proof that I am not the paranoiac you claim.

    I look forward to your next proof. Keep it up.

    BTW who is the biggest abortion provider in the world? God/Nature. Lots of miscarriages. Can we put God up on charges?

  16. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    Do you ever answer any questions I posed to you?

    “You are living proof that I am not the paranoiac you claim.”

    No one has said anything about a vagina police or murder investigations for miscarriage. You’re simply making that crap up. Yes, that makes you paranoid.

    I don’t understand one thing, and maybe you can explain this to me. Why do you consider Kermit Gosnell’s crime to be an obvious murder, worthy of government intervention, but an abortion to be something else entirely? Is it merely the location of the child being killed?

    Miscarriages are an accident, smart guy. That doesn’t mean that nature or God is an “abortion provider.”

  17. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    So let me make sure I understand you correctly. You’re in favor of legal abortion all the way through the entire gestation period?

  18. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    If you want the feds out of this debate, you need to overturn Roe v. Wade. I would love that. Are you with me?

  19. TheAJ Avatar
    TheAJ

    BTW who is the biggest abortion provider in the world? God/Nature. Lots of miscarriages. Can we put God up on charges?

    Dafuq?

  20. Kate Avatar
    Kate

    Oh, the fun I could have with this… I’ll be nice.

    Data point one: Where abortion is available AND there are no-identification abandonment places for women to leave unwanted infants, there are still babies being abandoned.

    Data point two: You don’t have to go far back in history to find primary accounts of dead babies in alleyways – abandonment continued to happen long after the Greeks and Romans. And still happens. Just not as often.

    Data point three: Greece recently experienced a huge upsurge in child abandonment as the economy there did its black hole impression.

    Data point four: Under Ceaucescu, Romania not only banned contraception, they required a minimum of four children per family. Many of those children wound up in hellish orphanages or were abandoned because the parents couldn’t feed them.

    Data point five: Why in hell is ANYONE arguing over abortion when the economy here is racing towards people not being able to feed THEMSELVES?

    Data point six: The last time I looked the constitution does not make any claims on what happens in any person’s bedroom. Even if that bedroom happens to straddle a state line.

    Data point seven: There are already states criminalizing women for behaving “badly” during pregnancy if they miscarry. It’s not much of a jump from that to the period police – particularly since it’s not always possible to tell whether a miscarriage was caused by maternal misbehavior or something else. No thank you.

    As for TheAJ: abortion and miscarriage are technically the same thing. Popular culture uses abortion to mean “induced miscarriage”. The estimate is that somewhere up to 90% of fertilized eggs are aborted naturally by failing to implant or not being well enough formed to be viable. Most of these fail so early the woman has no idea she was pregnant. Ergo, nature is the biggest provider of abortion. Simple logic.

  21. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    Libertarian? I don’t think so. I’m out. I’m gone.

    I’d as soon vote for Connie Mac. Who would very likely be somewhat for it. Some day. At least he’s got a budget plan.

    Oh, Joey, just so you know. I’m one of those adoptees you lot rescued, unasked, from the dumpsters. NO THANKS.
    Roots, baby, roots. We all have the right – unless we’re adopted.
    “Are you with me?”
    NO.
    “And before I’ll be a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave, and go home to my lord and be free.”

  22. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    Oh. Just so you know. In the state I was born in, I cannot, no matter WHAT my age even ASK for medical records without my ADOPTIVE parents’ permission. NOT EVEN that simple request.
    Unless they are dead. THEN I can provide death certificates and find out if I’m doomed by one thing or another. Might even, if lucky, find out my birth mother or father cared enough to register. Or not.

  23. Simon Avatar

    Joey,

    You lost me at the point of banning any contraceptive that prevents implantation.

    Before that I might have supported an end to Roe. Now I will repeat what Kathy said:

    NO

    And add my own:

    HELL NO

    I will not in any way shape or form join the foetal worship cult.

    What is with the intense desire to screw with other people’s lives? In the name of saving lives? You want to put more power in the hands of Government? Because you can’t make your case in the public square?

    I never did like that sort. You have caused a change in heart for me. I now despise them.

    ====

    Kate:

    Thank you! Most enlightening.

    Kathy:

    I get you now (before it was only partial). Roots.

  24. Simon Avatar

    And Kate,

    No need to be nice around here.

  25. TheAJ Avatar
    TheAJ

    As for TheAJ: abortion and miscarriage are technically the same thing. Popular culture uses abortion to mean “induced miscarriage”. The estimate is that somewhere up to 90% of fertilized eggs are aborted naturally by failing to implant or not being well enough formed to be viable. Most of these fail so early the woman has no idea she was pregnant. Ergo, nature is the biggest provider of abortion. Simple logic.

    Whats the point of this logic?

    Nature is the largest murder provider in the world too. Therefore, really OJ and god are really just providing the same service.

  26. Simon Avatar

    Well AJ. Chopping down a tree that isn’t yours is a crime. Crushing acorns on some one else’s property isn’t.

    Why would that be? Because an acorn isn’t a tree.

  27. […] the heck is wrong with this Rand Paul guy? How did he get to be such a flaming tool? I think even marijuana is a bad […]

  28. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    Simon, you’re too much of a coward to questions, but I’ll ask you one more.

    What do you think about inbreeding? Should that be legal?

    Acorns aren’t trees, but they aren’t comparable to gestating fetuses either. An acorn would be comparable to a female ovum before fertilization. You don’t know much about biology, do you?

  29. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    Kate, no one gets an abortion in their bedroom. You need to move abortion from the “sex” category to the “violence” category.

  30. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    Kate, you’re actually telling me that you’re pissed about not being aborted because your state won’t allow you to locate your parents? Sorry. How about changing those laws, rather than killing babies? In any case, if you’re under the age of forty, your mother had the option of killing you and she chose not to take it. Oh, the humanity!

  31. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    “Before that I might have supported an end to Roe.”

    I’m throwing the bullshit flag. No, you wouldn’t have.

    In any case, by supporting Roe, you are the one who wants the feds to dictate policy on abortion.

  32. Joey Avatar
    Joey

    “Which prompts me to ask: Why are there so many ‘there ought to be a law’ people? In America. The used to be Land of Liberty.”

    Sure it did. And even in the good old days when you could own a gun and smoke a cigarette and you didn’t owe half your income to the government, abortion was still illegal. The first state to legalize it was California in 1969. New York followed suit, and in 1973, the Supreme Court legalized it across the fruited plain.

    So back in the good old days, when Americans were properly in love with their liberty, they still understood that liberty has nothing to do with violence against the unborn, or violence against anybody for that matter.

  33. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    @ Joey – no, not Kate. And I’m a good deal ABOVE 40, and no, my mother did NOT have any choice.

  34. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    Let me amend that. She didn’t have a choice, UNLESS she was rich, and her parents were amenable, and she could find a doctor to do a discreet DNC for polyps.

  35. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    “Which prompts me to ask: Why are there so many “there ought to be a law” people? In America. The used to be Land of Liberty. Why isn’t changing the culture good enough?”

    Because, in order to change the culture, you also have to change the “MINE MINE MINE” of the adoptive parents. They do NOT want anyone to know that they were unable to have kids.

    And, so, the kids others have (and don’t want) are stuck. NO ONE cares that we can’t find out why. Or who. YEAH, we got rescued from the dumpster – or whatever.

    We don’t care. We WANT TO KNOW. If you give us that, we might even go with the anti-abortion side (after all, even pre-wade, that was possible). BUT you don’t care either. We know that.

  36. Simon Avatar

    Kathy,

    So much of this is tied up with taboos. We are in knots from trying to deny reality.

    The reality is: men generally don’t like providing for children that they didn’t help make. We are not that different from monkeys.

    It is the evil stepfathers. Mostly.

    Women in that situation – “wrong” father – will abort to gain a better chance at finding a “good” husband. Women with “baggage” are at a disadvantage when it comes to getting a long term mate.

    Women who are fertile are attracted to bad boys. When that phase of the month is over they prefer the good boys. Who don’t excite them. There is a whole movement out there that purports to teach good boys how to fake being bad boys so the good boys can “score”.

    We have religions and taboos that only deal partially with this reality.

    Monkey politics.

    And of course “chick flicks” – romance movies. For the most part fantasies.

    Reality –

    1. There are not enough bad boys to go around. If “owning” your own is the goal.

    2. Bad boys are difficult to tie down. They have too many options. And a willingness to exercise them.

    No one has any idea about how to fix all this. But it is obvious birth control backed up by abortion helps.

    In the old days (maybe even today) men and women got married for social standing. They has side interests for excitement/romance.

    This sort of thing was frowned on for the lower classes.

    And of course children got hurt. No one cared much as they were property until emancipation.

    What to do? I haven’t got any idea. At all. Except that preventing abortion as “punishment” for “misbehavior” will probably make things worse.

    What do monkeys do? Abortion up to age two. Which takes things a bit too far. IMO.

    We never properly understood BAAL. And the Gods that eat children.

    We might make some progress if we faced reality. But reality is a VERY UGLY subject.

  37. Simon Avatar

    And Kathy,

    Hugs from me. BIG HUGS

    I have been known to near crush the more delicate ladies from my hugs. But you need a near crushing.

  38. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    http://www.alternet.org/story/151508/15-year-old_girl_faces_life_in_prison_for_a_miscarriage_why_conservatives_are_criminalizing_pregnant_women?paging=off

    http://m.guardiannews.com/world/2011/jun/24/america-pregnant-women-murder-charges

    Simon,
    It doesn’t look like paranoia from where I sit. And when it comes to stretching laws to further criminalize behavior, one should remember that prosecutorial imaginations have great facility in that area.

  39. c andrew Avatar
    c andrew

    http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comstock_laws

    http://www.prochoice.org/about_abortion/history_abortion.html

    It looks like we can thank the social purity movement and Anthony Comstock for criminalizing abortion and contraception in the 1870s for much the same reason as Ceacescu did in Romania under the Communists. That is also when the organizations that would become the Progressives began to coalesce and you’d be surprised at how many religious folks from the social purity movements got behind that and pushed. That is when the American experiment started it’s stroll on the road to statism.

  40. Joseph Hertzlinger Avatar

    The real question that should be asked of a law making a factual claim (e.g., that a human life starts at conception): Is the claim true?

  41. […] c andrew left a link that deserves some attention. The link is: Why Conservatives Are Criminalizing Pregnant […]

  42. Simon Avatar

    Joseph,

    Well life does begin at conception.

    But it can end at miscarriage.

    And that can cause problems:

    http://classicalvalues.com/2013/03/making-war-on-abortion/

  43. […] front the Party might have a chance at a win. Of course if the R Party gets tagged with their Life Begins At Conception obsession they could easily go down in flames. Especially since Rand Paul is making both the […]

  44. […] Kate left a comment on my post Life At Conception Act that deserves a wider audience. So here it is: Oh, […]