Letters to the Editor
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A sad state of affairs.
Is this what modern liberalism has come to? We are scared to death that another group of humans will become "endowed with personhood"?
My, that sentiment sounds familiar.
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Baby on Board!
There's something of the absurd in this that reminds me of that bumper sticker that informs other drivers you have a baby in your car. They are meant to think: Oh, NOW I won't smash into that car in front of me, since I've become aware of the baby involved!
So thank god for this new study! Pregnant women can think Oh, NOW I should buckle up for safety! Now that there's a fetus involved."
As if, in either case, people shouldn't already be practicing the safest possible behavior.
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Why would you be "devastated" if...
to lose a baby pre-term if it's by defintion not a real person? I'm pro-choice, but let's not kid ourselves. Aborting a fetus is the taking of human life. The pro-choice movement would do a lot better to take a "lesser of two evils" tack than their phony "it's just a clump of cells" nonsense.
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Give it a rest.
Did you notice that the study that determined that wearing a seatbelt during pregnancy would protect the safety of the fetus is going to be published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, a trade publication geared toward a group with a professional interest in the safety of fetuses? Your high moral dudgeon about this is a bit overbearing.
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This is useful information
This point has already been made but what the heck: there are a fair number of women out there apparently who believe that the seat belt will harm or kill the baby. This report emphasizes that this is a myth. (I've had a couple of friends subjected to lectures that raising their arms will make the umbilical cord strangle the baby, so the seat belt myth would seem plausible by comparison).
To a happily pregnant woman, the fetus is a baby and no medical terminology will change her perception about that. The loss of the pregnancy in a car accident will seem to her to be the death of a child. Seems to me that it is only human kindness to give them the information to avoid this heartbreak...and having had two miscarriages, I can say with confidence that heartbreak is not too strong a term.
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More femi-nazi griping
Get a life. You have a problem with a seat-belt campaign? Next you'll be upset with MADD. And let me guess, you don't like to hear about fetal alcohol syndrome, either. Why are we worrying about a fetus?
Oops... b/c it will turn into a person, if an abortionist doesn't get to it first.
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@aeschylus
Actually, I think of a fetus as more like Shrodinger's cat. It both exists and does not (as a baby), until it is born.
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the fetus is more vulnerable than her mother
I understand that this may appear as if the study cares only about the fetuses, not the women. But I think the recommendation is based on the fact that the fetus is more delicate and vulnerable than the mother. So what might have been a minor injury to the pregnant mother can be a fatal injury to the fetus. Of course mothers should also buckle up for themselves.
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Reasons not to buckle up
I've never heard the one about seatbelts causing miscarriage. I still don't wear a seatbelt throughout pregnancy.
I'll start buckling up pregnant when seatbelts become halfway comfortable for pregnant women. Pregnancy is uncomfortable by itself, without a strap squishing the belly.
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sentient versus insentient life
nkennedy writes: "Animals are sentient, independent beings that should have rights, too. Fetuses are not."
I agree that if we can't respect sentient life, how will we ever respect insentient life?
"Although I may disagree with some of its underlying principles," writes pro-life activist Karen Swallow Prior, "there is much for me, an anti-abortion activist, to respect in the animal rights movement.
"Animal rights activists, like me, have risked personal safety and reputation for the sake of other living beings. Animal rights activists, like me, are viewed by many in the mainstream as fanatical wackos, ironically exhorted by irritated passerby to 'Get a Life!'
"Animal rights activists, like me, place a higher value on life than on personal comfort and convenience, and in balancing the sometimes competing interests of rights and responsibilities, choose to err on the side of compassion and nonviolence."
During 1986 - 1988, when I had access to USENET, a nationwide computer network linking corporations, military bases, think tanks, universities, etc., I paid close attention to the abortion debate. The subject of animal rights always came up, albeit indirectly.
The mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but rather some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights.
When a pro-lifer discussed the potential humanity of the unborn, a pro-choicer replied, "MY CAT has more potential than that!"
One pro-choicer said sarcastically, "Maybe the kid (the fetus) should be raised as a vegetarian. After all, don't cows have the right to life?"
Another pro-choicer, Oleg Kiselev, upon hearing the pro-life argument that brain waves can be detected in the unborn as early as six weeks, pointed out that animals also have brain waves. He then added, "Excuse me, while I eat my veal stew."
In the spring of 1988, Stephen Carrier, a grad student in Mathematics at UC Berkeley, pointed out that chimpanzees share 99 percent of their DNA with humans, and so, to argue that species membership alone makes life worth protecting "is to fetishize DNA."
A pro-lifer responded: "If it'll please you, I will agree to protect anything that is 99 percent human."
To this, Stephen responded: "Okay. How about 50 percent? That would probably bring quite a few species into the net."
Stephen Carrier admitted, "I don't know what makes it acceptable to kill animals for meat. Some people think it's wrong, and I have no logical answer for them. But it's not murder, and I believe abortions are analogous. Yes, it's killing--but it's not murder."
Stephen admitted his argument was "not a mathematical proof, but there is no mathematical proof that will resolve the abortion debate."
In the fall of 1986, pro-life student John Morrow of Rutgers University compared abortion to slavery: Roe v. Wade denied rights to an entire class of humans merely on account of their age and developmental status, just as the Dred Scott decision of 1857 denied rights to an entire class of humans based on the color of their skin.
Dave Butler of Tektronix in Oregon responded: "Abortion and slavery? Not even close. A fetus isn't human. If you believe it's wrong to eat meat, should your morality be imposed upon everyone else?"
"Not even close" has become a popular slogan with pro-choicers. It even appeared on the headlines of most San Francisco Bay Area newspapers in November 1992, when Bill Clinton was elected.
"Not even close" is not a new slogan. Peter Singer writes in Animal Liberation that when Mary Wollstonecraft, a forerunner of today’s feminists, published A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792, "her views were widely regarded as absurd."
Thomas Taylor, a distinguished Cambridge philosopher, tried to refute Mary Wollstonecraft by demonstrating that if women could be given liberation, then animals could be given liberation, too. And since this is "absurd" it must be equally "absurd" to give women liberation. Taylor called his parody, "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes."
"Not even close" is the "A Vindication of the Rights of Brutes" of the late 20th and early 21st century, because it takes for granted the invincible prejudice that other animals couldn't possibly have rights. It is this prejudice which we in the animal rights movement are struggling to overcome.
Again, the mentality of the pro-choicers was that the fetus wasn't human, but some kind of lower life form--and that lower life forms couldn't possibly have rights. This led me to conclude that if there's any group out there which ought to be sympathetic to animal rights, it's pro-lifers.