North Dakota House Gives Fertilized Eggs Human Status

How does this shit happen in my state and I don't know about it?

That's it. I'm getting a newspaper subscription.

Fertilized Eggs are people two!

So, can I jack-off into a sock and count that as a dependent on my taxes?

He is the Egg-Man, goo goo goo joob.

Seeing how that's only half the component of a fertilized egg, the answer would be no.

If the mother has a risky lifestyle (drinks, smokes, drugs, etc.) then child services would arrest her, cut her open and implant the foetus in the nearest available middle class woman?

Would a husband having sex with his pregnant wife get arrested for a lewd and obscene act in front of a child? Sexual interference with a minor?

Do pregnant women need to be strapped into backward facing car seats?

Unintended consequences be my dark mistress ...

I know this is stupid to do on CHUD, but:

Why not? I see no problem with this if they do decide to deem that life begins at conception.

Ok, I agree, the logisitics for this would be a nightmare.

But, as a financial aid counselor I have learned that the majority of colleges already extend a similar benefit to students. Upon proof of pregnancy, a student previously considered a dependent becomes an independent and eligible for more federal aid.

I also wouldn't mind some sort of "pregnancy" tax breaks, though I'd prefer they just pull their (Republican) heads out of their (Republican) asses, give us Universal healthcare and be done with it. I sure as hell think that if they do require women to see a pregnancy through, the government should foot the medical bills of the pregnancy.

Sure, when they turn 18.

I agree somewhat.

But, being anti-abortion, I believe this is an issue that needs to be reconsidered by the Supreme Court (and I'm not just saying that because the SC may be willing to overturn RvW now).

I would have no problem with there being some sort of penalty. What are the current laws for this if a pregnancy has passed the point of viability (23-24 weeks)?

These are all just silly.

I demand full State funerals for every miscarriage!

Schools consider the unborn the dependents of the student. Same as if they'd already had a baby. The fetus is a dependent in this case (sort of like being a dependent for tax purposes as your quote suggested).

Maybe I don't understand how you're saying the situations differ?

Yeah, death certificates for miscarriages would be a big hassle. Though, a lot of families do go through with miscarriage "funerals."

And manslaughter charges filed against the mother!

This is ridiculous, unworkable, unscientific, and will probably be overturned in court anyway. What a waste of time and taxpayer resources. Grow the fuck up, humanity.

Just give me a butter knife, some fertilized eggs, and slices of toast, and I'll happily eat them on the Capitol steps in North Dakota.

North Dakota + Automatic gunfire = my own personal orgasm.

While I don't agree with "at fertilization" as the cut off point, I wouldn't be against finding a scientifically reasonable point (pre-birth) to make this distinction.

Based on what I know about developmental biology, I'm guessing it would end up somewhere in the second trimester.

This is coming from an idealogical standpoint, though, and I realize that there may be practical implications that may not be immediately feasible for something like this.

My bad, I probably should have explained that better. They are considered independent because they have a dependent.

Yeah, logistically, this would be insane. There are so many ramifications that have to be looked at.

This, essentially, is what I'm going to spend the rest of the day saying. I just know it.

This is absolutely ridiculous.

They usually use viability (the 23-24 weeks idea). I'm currently a bit of an extremist and say at conception. Could a compromise be reached at 6 weeks (when the heartbeat begins)? Who knows? I may be in the "above my paygrade" camp with Obama.

I agree. Similar to the back door creationists try to use with intelligent design. I think there should be a debate about this, but I think it should be all inclusive. Take RvW into account with the "when does life begin" aspects. It's such a grey subject, one that involves both science and ethics, and I don't think there can be an agreeable solution. I think this is an issue that needs to be decided by a society instead of a courtroom.

Well, I think the main problem is that personhood is a philosophical concept (just as much as "adulthood" is), not a scientific one. Even if you break down development into a series of benchmarks ("hey, working lungs!"), it's impossible to pin down personhood to a particular biological step, aside from the most obvious one, which would be birth.

And even that's somewhat arbitrary, but it has undeniable appeal as a benchmark due to its obvious visual impact. The baby is still an entirely dependent organism that just happens to exist outside the womb. So we're still dealing with a continuum, rather than a series of easily-identified steps.

Bills like this are meant to do one thing*: invite litigation so the Supreme Court has a chance to overturn Roe v. Wade. Such a ruling would give the states power to set their own abortion laws. The problem for such a state is that any justices sitting on the fence may be swayed by the fact that a handful of states like North Dakota might adopt laws imposing wholesale bans on abortion if Roe is overturned.

*Okay, maybe a second thing: allow state legislators to point to this vote as proof of their conservative bona fides.

I basically agree with you. It would be impossible (at least with our current knowledge) to accurately pinpoint some moment in time that we would all agree with and feel confident in.

However, we have to do that all the time with nearly everything. We take the evidence have and make our best guess. We have lots of scientific evidence that can help us make this decision, but nobody seems to want to use it.

I think birth is more than somewhat arbitrary. I think you hit on the key point that it FEELS less arbitrary to many because of its visual and easily defined nature. Just like you say, the word "dependent" can be considered in many ways (you can argue most 1 year olds are dependent still).

The other issue is, you can have a 7 month baby outside of the womb, and a 9 month old fetus in the womb. Age and birth don't go hand in hand. Not that you said they did, but developmentally I think most would say a 9 month old is more developed both physically and mentally than a 7 month old, so why is the 7 month old a "person" and not the 9 month old?

It seems like neural development is probably a better benchmark.

Also, we don't need perfection. What if we could agree that 3rd trimester babies/fetuses are people in some way (in terms of neural development), but that 1st trimester babies are not. Have we nailed down a specific day? No, but maybe we can agree it is most likely happening around a certain month (or 1-3 month period).

We'll never be certain, and there will always be gray areas involved, but once again, why not use the evidence we have and make a best guess that most of us can agree upon?

It seems to make more sense than using birth as the defining moment, especially when premature babies have such a high survival rate, and when birth is often artificial (induction, c-sections, etc.).

Any decision we make on what point in development it's unacceptable to have an abortion is going to be somewhat arbitrary. Personally, I think it's really difficult to define personhood in a way that is coherent and includes unborn children, and even perhaps infants. But just because something isn't a person, per se, doesn't mean there aren't serious moral considerations about how we may treat that thing.

I work at the fucking newspaper and I didn't even hear of this!
A story about Obama mentioning North Dakota in a speech about his stimulus bill made it on the front page for crying out loud.