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PZ Myers. 2005 Aug 19. Anencephaly and right-wing moralizers. <http://pharyngula.org/index/weblog/anencephaly_and_right_wing_moralizers/>. Accessed 2008 Aug 20.

Posted on M00o93H7pQ09L8X1t49cHY01Z5j4TT91fGfr on Friday, August 19, 2005

Anencephaly and right-wing moralizers

There's an important phenomenon in development called neurulation. This is a process that starts with a flat sheet of ectodermal cells, folds them into a tube, and creates our dorsal nervous system. Here's a simple cross-section of the process in a salamander, but in general outline we humans do pretty much the same thing. Cells move up and inward, and then zipper together along the length of the animal to produce a closed tube.

It's a seemingly simple event with a great deal of underlying complexity. It requires coordinated changes in the shape of ectodermal cells to drive the changes in tissue shape, and invisible in simple diagrams to the right are all the inductive interactions going on that trigger the differentiation of the tube into a nervous system.

This is also a relatively early event in humans. It begins about 18 days after fertilization, with a thickening of the ectoderm to form the initial sheet, called the neural plate. By day 19, the edges of the plate thicken and rise, and the whole thing folds at the midline and looks something like an open hot dog bun. The photo below is of a pair of 20 day old human embryos; the midline seam is open and clearly visible.

By day 23, the edges have all fused together along the length of the embryo, leaving openings call neuropores at the rostral and caudal ends; the picture to the left is of a 23 day old human embryo, looking at its head end, and you can see right into its prospective brain. By days 26-28, both neuropores will close.

This is a crucial event that occurs very early, in the first month, of a pregnancy. What happens if the zipper gets stuck, and the tube fails to close completely?

It happens, and unfortunately it happens fairly frequently. About 0.1% of births in America have a serious neural tube defect caused by a stuck neural tube zipper.

The outcome is myelomeningocele—portions of the neural tube are left exposed, fail to develop properly, and are damaged and degenerate. It's variable in its consequences; when the posterior neuropore fails to close completely, it can result in nearly undetectable defects in the caudal spine to lower body paralysis and perturbations of cerebrospinal fluid flow that if untreated, can lead to hydrocephalus and severe brain damage.

Failure of the anterior neuropore to close is even more serious. The brain fails to form. This condition is called anencephaly, and it is untreatable and lethal. If they aren't dead at birth, they might last a few days before succumbing. They have no brain. At best, they have a mass of dying, relatively undifferentiated neural tissue smeared across the floor of their incompletely formed skulls. They can't think, they can't feel, they can't respond. The real tragedy is that development can proceed surprisingly far without a brain, and these fetuses are recognizably human (here is a photo for the strong of stomach), and they can be carried fully to term.

I can't imagine a clearer case to illustrate that humanity involves more than just the fusion of two gametes. We aren't defined by our complement of genes or a single instant of genetic combination, but are the result of many genetic and epigenetic processes working progressively through embryogenesis to assemble a functioning human being. When moral absolutists try to apply simple-minded, black-and-white reasoning to a complex situation (and defining a human being is certainly a complex problem), you get criminal travesties like this one:

A sailor's wife was pregnant with an anencephalic child, whose probability of surviving or of ever being conscious was zero. She, reasonably, wanted an abortion.

But the Congress had decided -- that no federal funds should be used to pay for abortions except where the life of the mother was at stake. As a result, Tricare (formerly CHAMPUS) the agency that covers military families, refused to pay the $3000 the abortion would cost.

The family sued, and a federal court ordered Tricare to pay, and the abortion went forward.

Then the Justice Department (with John Ashcroft as Attorney General) sued the family to recover the $3000, out of the sailor's pay of less than $20,000 a year.

The Justice Department just won. A panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled that, under a 1980 Supreme Court precedent upholding the Hyde Amendment -- a parallel provision to the one in question, but applying to Medicaid recipients rather than to military families -- the law was valid and the government didn't have to pay for the abortion. Consequently, the family has to pay the money back.

Our guardians of purity have magnified the pain of this family and willfully and vindictively punished them for the 'crime' of a biological imperfection. I call that evil, pure and simple. There should have been no question in this case that an abortion was necessary.

There are much more difficult cases. What if the fetus was diagnosed with 'merely' a case of myelomeningocele that meant it would be paralyzed, require extensive surgeries, and would be a crippling financial burden? The average cost per year of maintaining a child with myelomeningocele is approximately $70,000, and that drain never ends. People with severe spina bifida can be intellectually and socially capable, fully human, but a young family with limited resources ought to have the privilege of making a choice about whether to shoulder the responsibility before the fetus has acquired those mental capacities. I presume we now have a government that will force families to take on that burden, but will refuse to pay any part of the price.

Cohen MM (2002) Malformations of the craniofacial region: Evolutionary, embryonic, genetic, and clinical perspectives. American Journal of Medical Genetics 115(4):245-268.

Posted by PZ Myers on 08/19 at 11:12 AM
Politics • Rethuglicans • Science • 1 Trackbacks • Other weblogs • Permalink

The cruelty isn't that the court found for the Government; that was pretty inevitable, given the law. The cruelty lay in the Government's brutal insistence that it be repaid for the money it had already paid out. That was optional; it didn't have to appeal.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 11:21 AM
Urrrrr. D'ya think the Ashcroftians might be morally anencephalic?
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 11:25 AM
Politics aside for the moment, i find tissue and protien folding fascinating. I will admit however that i'm entirely out of my element in discussing it. Steven Wolfram, as big of a bastard as he is, had some interesting comments to make on the similarity between the folding structure of things like leaves which can be simply attributed to the fashion in which cells replicate on a surface in A New Kind of Science. I'm sure there are people who are more informed to who can speak to the issue though

Do we have any inkling as to what the precursors are to failures of tube zipping?
#: Posted by notheory on 08/19 at 11:53 AM
So much for the law existing to protect the people, eh? What a disgrace. This is an embarrassment to humanity.
#: Posted by Socar on 08/19 at 11:55 AM
Marge: I thought you said, "The law was powerless."
Chief Wiggum: Yeah. Powerless to help you, not punish you.

That's the way this administration works.
#: Posted by LochNess on 08/19 at 12:03 PM
My father actually represented the government in the SC case over the Hyde amendment. As he put it, "it was a dumb law, but unfortunately it was also fully Constitutional." Incidentally, the Ninth Circuit may have misread this ruling. The Court ruling in the Hyde case was merely that the government was not required to pay for an abortion, that refusal to cover abortions under Medicaid was not a violation of Roe. All this means is that the law in question here is not unconstitutional. That still begs the question regarding whether Tricare is required under its own rules to pay for this procedure.

But more importantly, this is a really dumb case. I'm surprised that Tricare is suing. It's obviously not the money, since their legal team probably costs as much per day as the actual abortion procedure did. If they want to find a good test case, this clearly isn't it. You have a fetus with less brain activity than Terry Schiavo, which has zero chance of being alive. This is basically the classic case for abortion in a non-life threatening situation. Why on Earth would the government want to use this case as a test case?
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 12:25 PM
Cruel burden, eh?

$70,000 a year,eh?

Speaking of cutoffs, what's yours? $50,000?

$25,000?

Should society (through government or otherwise) help such families? Of course. And it does.

But the argument that some people are too costly to bother with is a slippery slope disaster and might come back to affect you personally, near the end of your life, despite your fulled closed neural tubes.

However, if you are sincerely advancing this proposition, then you must also, in logic, call for the immediate shutdown of all government-financed drug rehab clinics. They cost as much as a spina bifida child, to a close approximation; and they seldom even produce and 'intellectually and socially capable' adult.

I'll agree to the vindictiveness of the the government in this case, although to them it was upholding a principle.

As a practical matter, I've long wondered whether it would not make more sense to take the money spent by NARAL etc. trying to change people's minds and just use it to pay for private abortions for the girls who are raped or become pregnant through incest, a tiny fraction of all abortions; and leave the cosmetic abortions to the marketplace.

In any case, I was at a family picnic some years ago, where I encountered the young second cousin of my wife, who had spina bifida and scooted about in a little cart. Her mother certainly didn't gross, much less net, $70,000 a year, yet I would have been reluctant to have killed that little girl in order to make her mother's life easier.

The mother, by the way, chewed me out when I was trying to take the group picture for trying to collect the other lively cousins around the relatively sedate spina bifida girl. She was damned if she was going to let me treat her daughter as incapable. Quite right, too.

Count your blessings, Professor.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 01:28 PM
I can't think of any reasons for this other than they don't fully understand what anencephaly is, or they don't care, knowing the bulk of abortion opponents don't really understand it.

One of my siblings and their spouse (vague for the sake of privacy) aborted an anencephalic fetus. Thankfully their insurance provider played no such games.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 01:29 PM
The problem with the two cases of military spouses who sought to terminate their pregnancies due to anencephaly is that their procedure is being supported by federal funds. That means it is possible that Americans are supporting a procedure that they do not wish to support. Specifically, a procedure that will not save anyone's life.

An easy answer would be that they could have gotten supplementary insurance. I'm military and can tell you that isn't affordable enough for what we get paid.

Because the limit is to federal funds only, the state may have been able to help also. If not, the costs could have been covered by a variety of programs that military members have access to when the chips are down.

But the real issue is the law. In case you don't watch CSPAN, congress if full off knuckleheads who don't know much more than how to argue. A collected and focused effort of their constituents is required.

As issues are raised, incremental changes have been made.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 01:41 PM
Another fine example of Bush's and the Republican Party's support for the troops.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 02:21 PM
Tricare will pay for breast implants, but would not pay for an abortion?

Why does that not suprise me.
#: Posted by judgeMC on 08/19 at 02:32 PM
<quote>
The problem with the two cases of military spouses who sought to terminate their pregnancies due to anencephaly is that their procedure is being supported by federal funds. That means it is possible that Americans are supporting a procedure that they do not wish to support. Specifically, a procedure that will not save anyone's life.</quote>

Completely and utterly irrelevent. The 48% who voted for the other guy in the last election all pay taxes, even though those tax funds are used to pay for Bush Administration policies they may not support.

The relevent decision in McRae was that Congress may decide what procedures Medicaid, as a federal program, will and will not cover. The Hyde Amendment, which prohibited Medicaid from covering abortions, was not deemed a violation of Roe because it did not deny the right of a patient to undergo an abortion or the right of a doctor to perform one, but merely prevented Medicaid coverage, and that access to government-run health coverage such as Medicaid was not, in and of itself, a constitutional right.

Now, as far as McRae goes, the right of the government to choose not to cover certain procedures under Medicaid is considered established case law. What the Ninth Circuit is saying is that this also applies to Tricare, as they are a government-run health insurance program. If Tricare refuses to cover abortions except in certain cases, that is their right under McRae, and doing so does not violate the patient or doctor's rights under Roe.

Where I think that Tricare made a huge mistake in pressing this case, and where I think that the Ninth Circuit erred in their judgement, is in whether or not Tricare's own policies mandate that such a procedure should be covered. I would have found that as the fetus has zero chance of survival, and childbirth is a dangerous procedure, forcing a woman to go through childbirth for a stillborn child is an unnecessary risk to her life, and therefore is covered under Tricare's policy.

The other issue which seems to have gone unaddressed is whether Tricare is entitled to reimbursement in this situation, and from whom. Starting with the latter first, if Tricare were entitled to reimbursement, it should be from the doctor who performed the procedure, not from the couple. The couple involved did not receive the money, they filed a claim and went through with the procedure believing in good faith that it would be covered. It is the doctor who files with the insurance company for payment for services rendered. The three thousand dollars was not paid to the couple but to the doctor, and it is to the doctor that Tricare should be looking for reimbursement. However, the doctor could also argue that at the time, his medical opinion was that this procedure was medically necessary to preserve the patient's health, and he felt, in good faith, that such a procedure would be covered under Tricare's policy.

The problem with abortion is that once the term enters any case, too many people lose sight of the actual legal issues involved and become too wrapped up in the politics of the situation.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 02:53 PM
Hey Earl:

The post was about anencephaly, not spina bifida. The $70,000 makes a point, not the whole argument. And your cousin will reach her insurance cost cap well before she's ready for the cost issues of aging.

Also I doubt Dr. Myers counts any "blessings" if you're familiar with his blog.

Hey PZ:

Choice is a right, not a privelege. As you fully know, we can't cede the language to the wingnuts.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 03:19 PM
We had a son in the late 60's with no gastro intestinal track who died a few days after birth in a hospital incubator.
Is the development of the g.i. tract similar to that of the neural tube?
Sally had a high fever in the second or third week of pregnancy that we suspect caused things to misfire. Is that possible?
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 04:15 PM
Quoting Hyperion:
"The 48% who voted for the other guy in the last election all pay taxes, even though those tax funds are used to pay for Bush Administration policies they may not support.

The prohibition against federal funding of certain types of abortion is not a Bush policy.

The point is that as public servants, government employees have a responsibility to serve public interest. If public interest isn't being served, then the public needs to stop saying it on blogs and call their respresentitive. You can damn well be sure that religous conservatitives are having their voice heard.

"...whether or not Tricare's own policies mandate that such a procedure should be covered. I would have found that as the fetus has zero chance of survival, and childbirth is a dangerous procedure, forcing a woman to go through childbirth for a stillborn child is an unnecessary risk to her life, and therefore is covered under Tricare's policy."

If her referring doctor had stated as much, it would have covered the Tricare requirement for 'endangerment to the mother'.

"The other issue which seems to have gone unaddressed is whether Tricare is entitled to reimbursement... it should be from the doctor who performed the procedure... The couple involved did not receive the money."
I believe it is the government suing for reimbursement and not Tricare, although I'm not sure.
The doctor was paid justly for his services. Why would he be sued if the source of funds was incorrect?
For large services (expensive services), doctors or hospitals will typically bill the patient. Tricare writes a check to the patient and the patient pays the doctor. It raises the entitle 10 or 15% to pay this way.
But whether the doctor billed Tricare directly or billed the patient, the contract is between the doctor and the patient. The insurance company is just a source of funds. Ask any doctor's lawyer...
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 04:54 PM
notheory -

You asked about factors in failure of neural tube closure. Vitamin B-6 deficiency turns out to be a big one. In fact, the government has mandated that flour, cereals, etc be enriched with it in order to cut down on the number of neural tube defects. They also advise women who are attempting to conceive to take "maternal" vitamins (there are vitamin formulations for pregnant women).

Another one is very high (102-106 degrees F) maternal fever at the critical gestational age - around 18 days for anterior closure, as PZ notes. Why this would cause a problem is out of my area, but I know that anencepahly, in particular, is associated with high maternal fever and tends to occur in clusters, associated with things like when the flu hits in a community with lots of women of childbearing age.
#: Posted by Tlazolteotl on 08/19 at 05:00 PM
Oh, and the Hyde Amendment, the law prohibiting federal funding of abortions, also applies to people (women) who work for the government. Their federal health care will not pay for abortions. It was passed during the Reagan administration, so it isn't just BushCo being mean to soldiers' families (though they do plenty of that by underfunding the VA, but that's another topic entirely).
#: Posted by Tlazolteotl on 08/19 at 05:05 PM
And I just want to say, hey, has anyone noticed how very human those newly neuralated embryos look? (I keed. I'm sure a capybara embryo looks pretty similar at that stage, or just about any chordate, for that matter!)
#: Posted by Tlazolteotl on 08/19 at 05:09 PM
As a practical matter, I've long wondered whether it would not make more sense to take the money spent by NARAL etc. trying to change people's minds and just use it to pay for private abortions for the girls who are raped or become pregnant through incest, a tiny fraction of all abortions; and leave the cosmetic abortions to the marketplace.

So terminating a non-viable pregnancy rather than forcing the woman to continue one, two, or three months of a pregnancy that will inevitably result in a stillbirth is "cosmetic"? It's better to make her answer three months' worth of happy queries from strangers and acquaintances with, "Well, actually, it's going to be born dead -- it has no brain" over and over again?

What's it like to have no emotion or empathy? I'd really like to know.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 05:23 PM
Tlazolteotl: Some years ago I saw a film that showed fetal development. As time passed in utero, the fetus looked more and more human. (How could you abort such a beautiful baby?) Then it was revealed that it was a pig fetus. (Mmm, ribs!)
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 06:50 PM
opt: Any pregnancy is dangerous to the woman's health. An abortion is about 10X safer than completing a pregnancy. What is the point of forcing a woman with an ancephalic fetus to take this risk?
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 07:58 PM
Dianne, I am not suggesting a woman be forced to take any risk. What I am saying is that Tricare is full of clerks, not doctors. The difference (for Tricare) between whether the abortion is for the mothers welfare or to terminate an unwanted fetus is in the doctor's report.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 08:17 PM
Anyone arguing "legalese" at this point didn't get the gist of the blog. It is wrong to force suffering, intense painful, physical and emotional suffering.
Who gives a shit if the Hyde ammendment is constitutional. What is being done to young couples who suffer these natural anamolies is criminal.

Damn... I want LESS GOVERNMENT. Unfortunately, I am not applying for drilling rights in the Alaska wilderness.
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 10:00 PM
Dianne, I am not suggesting a woman be forced to take any risk. What I am saying is that Tricare is full of clerks, not doctors.

No, what you're saying is that women you don't know and have never met should be forced to endure months of mental anguish knowing that their baby will be born dead because you find late-term abortions icky.

Don't be a coward and hide behind bureaucracy. Just say, "I want to control the healthcare decisions of women I've never met."
#: Posted by on 08/19 at 11:51 PM
By 'cosmetic' I meant abortions for the convenience of the mother. Which is most of them.

But Professor Myers' example, although he started out on anencephalic development, segued over to other forms of neural tube defects, not all of which -- as he so kindly pointed out -- result in doomed infants.

In the example I gave, the only difference between the baby with the faulty development and you was that she could not walk. Not a capital offense in my book. Your mileage may differ.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 04:21 AM
According to the AP story:
In a 3-0 ruling, the judges acknowledged the ruling was “callous and unfeeling,” and said they were not judging the “wisdom, fairness or logic” of congressional legislation that limited abortions under military medical plans.

A judicious description of the christocrat regime...
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 07:10 AM
? I have no idea what I said that could have been misconstrued to mean I support government control of healthcare decisions.

What I am trying to say is that as American citizens, we (military) have a great many options. Soldiers and Sailors take care of their own, even if the government wont or doesn't. Tricare isn't perfect, but it is a good syste (as health insurance goes). What needs to be fixed is the law, and that has to be fixed by having balanced, informed representation in congress.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 07:22 AM
Well, the final decision in this case was made by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. If you go into the Ninth Circuit's chambers and start talking about moral issues, and this goes for either group, you will lose. And for whoever it was who implied, falsely, that I was trying to use legalese as cover for a pro-life position, or to force someone to make certain medical choices...wow, I can't even begin to explain how wrong you are. Perhaps if you had read further, you would have seen how I was attempting to point out why the Ninth Circuit was in error on this decision.

Oh, and Harry, in the court case that PZ cited, and which is being discussed, the baby was anencephalic. I honestly don't really care about the example you gave, it's a straw man to say "turning from the issue where you're right, let's look at a completely different situation and pretend that it's the same so I can gain moral ground." I have to call BS.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 02:09 PM
Oh, and implying that the Ninth Circuit is made up of right-wing theocrats is laughable. The Fourth Circuit certainly may be, after all, they tried to overturn Miranda a few years back, but the Ninth Circuit is not made up of "christocrats" by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm saying this because I'm seriously concerned that Roe might be in trouble if this is indicative of the people we have defending a woman's right to choose. Sheesh.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 02:12 PM
Let me try one more time.

OK... THE COURT MADE A GOOD "LEGAL" DECISION.... Blah, blah, blah.

You skipped that entire part about how a law was passed, constitutional or not, designed to discourage a medical procedure by withholding federal funds. It may be legal, but it is wrong... and the ONLY women seriously affected, are women who cannot afford expensive medical procedures.

You can all go back to the law library now... nothing to see here.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 03:12 PM
Just a minor note here: "slippery slope" arguments have been, are now, and always will be, bogus and invalid. To argue we shouldn't do X because it might lead to Y is a logical fallacy. If you feel strongly about an issue you need to find a different argument, preferably a valid one.

Legal abortion doesn't make euthanasia legal. Period. No one in their right mind is going to make that equivalence. "Gee, grandma had an abortion when she was 16 because she couldn't afford it, so logically she shouldn't mind if I kill her now that she's become a burden to me." Give me a break.

Conversely, it's quite morally correct to look at financial issues when making decisions about starting a family or family composition. If fetal development is failing, and caring for the resulting child might destroy the viability of the rest of the family, it should be stopped. It's a wrenching decision that no one wants to have to make, but the family itself must be allowed to make it.
#: Posted by jack* on 08/20 at 03:26 PM
Oh, and could anything be more (oxy)moronic than then idea of a "cosmetic abortion?"
#: Posted by jack* on 08/20 at 03:32 PM
MpM:

The problem is that the pro-lifers use the exact same argument as yours for why Roe should be overturned. They say the EXACT SAME THING about how regardless of the legal issues involved, Roe was an immoral and wrong decision. The entire point of having a legal system is because emotional arguments over morality really don't get people anywhere. In fact, the entire point of the Roe decision was that regardless of the personal moral opinions that people may have over abortion, laws banning abortion simply cannot be justified in our legal system, because they violate the rights of the patients involved.

The principle is actually quite similar to the problem with IDiots and creationists. Just because a particular "scientific" philosophy might seem morally correct to religious fundamentalists is completely irrelevent to the question of what constitutes a valid scientific theory. The emotional impact that teaching evolution might have on fragile religious minds is completely irrelevent compared to both the scientific principles involved and the legal establishment clause issues.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 05:50 PM
associated with high maternal fever and tends to occur in clusters

Thank you, Tlazolteotl. You've just answered a question I'd forgotten I had shelved in my head, about a cluster of admissions we had back when I was working in the NICU, some 25 years ago. It's rare to get an anencephalic patient at all, but we had two plus um at least three IIRC really awful neural tube defects that manifested as meningoceles; I think one of them survived long enough to leave the nursery, and we knew she wasn't going to last long after.

Flashbacks, shit, that was a rough month.
#: Posted by Ron Sullivan on 08/20 at 08:29 PM
Hyperion, it is amusing to be scolded for responding to the part of Professor Myers' post on spina bifida. I have not offered any opinions about anencephalic pregnancies, nor do I have any; but he introduced spina bifida, and I do have opinions about that.

I would add that, if $70,000 is the cutoff, that is probably quite a bit less than the annual cost of maintaining a graduate student in biology at UM-Morris. Cui bono?

As for slippery slope arguments, jack, they may not fly in the philosopher's classroom, but they fly very well in politics, and elsewhere. Have you ever visited that estimable blog pharyngula?

There you will often find a slippery slope argument that if schools allow in dogmatism in the shape of IDCreationism in the biology classroom, it will spread to geology, physics etc.

I have never objected to those arguments, because I suspect they are right. I have no problem with slippery slope arguments.

Your move, jack.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 08:46 PM
Hyperion, I think it might be more correct to say that Roe stated it unconstitutional to, broadly and without specific definition, limit a medical practitioner and patient from discussing, concluding and practicing abortion.

States can
1) after the first trimester, regulate abortion to promote the welfare of the mother.
2) after the fetus becomes viable (can potentially live a meaningful life outside the mother's womb), regulate abortion to promote the welfare of the child except where the life or health of the mother is at stake.

Roe is a double edged sword. It was an impartial decision made free of contentious moral positions and emotion. This makes it a double edged sword because both sides (pro-life and pro-choice) have emotional and contentious arguments.
#: Posted by on 08/20 at 10:37 PM
Bad arguments "fly" because people are credulous. It's not just pointy-headed intellectuals who should be concerned about faulty reasoning -- it's used constantly to justify any number of bad policies and dubious ethics. If people would learn to recognize logical fallacies like the slippery slope discourse could be more productive overall.

Not sure what you saw at Pharyngula that you thought was a slippery slope. The thing on "Intelligent Falling" was more of a humorous analogy than an argument. Meyers has been pretty clear and forceful throughout that his objection with ID is not that it could lead to other bad things but that it itself is not science and does not belong in the science classroom.

Sometimes the anti-ID side will argue that if we teach Bible creationism we should also teach the creation myths of other religions. That's not a slippery slope either, but rather an attempt to highlight the religious nature of ID, as well as the hipocracy of asking for equal time for one dogma but not others.
#: Posted by jack* on 08/21 at 11:43 AM
The stated position of the IDCers, in debate, is that they are not attacking science in general. I don't believe they are being honest about that (most of them), but that's what they say.

To argue then that a consequence of allowing IDC in the classroom will necessarily spread throughout the academy is a slippery slope. I don't recall Professor Myers saying that here, but it's easy enough to find at PT, and others have said it here, without contradiction.

Besides, if you're going to invoke LOGIC on this issue, then we have to back up and decide whether Roe v. Wade, with its numerological mumbojumbo, was a logical decision.

However, to find slippery slope arguments widely accepted, we do not need to go so far.

It is not obvious, in logic, for example, that objecting to late term abortions or particular methods of doing them is either unreasonable in itself or commits the objector to opposing all abortions. Yet the violent and hysterical counterreaction to the attempts to prohibit 'intact dilation and extraction' is a classic slippery slope argument.

Yet I have never heard any proabortion advocate object to it on that ground.

It is possible that you are not so rigidly logical in your argumentation as you think you are.
#: Posted by on 08/21 at 01:04 PM
Hyperion:
Unlike Science, law is social. For that reason a law rooted in moral indignation against abortion is expressed in economic terms. "At least we reign in get the ones who can't afford it".

Factually, you are correct... I am just pouting about the social injustice.
#: Posted by on 08/21 at 01:07 PM
"Cruel burden, eh?

$70,000 a year,eh?

Speaking of cutoffs, what's yours? $50,000?

$25,000?"

Zero; the decision to have an abortion should be left to the parents, not to you or to government bureaucrats.

"However, if you are sincerely advancing this proposition, then you must also, in logic, call for the immediate shutdown of all government-financed drug rehab clinics."

Logic obviously isn't your area of expertise.
#: Posted by on 08/22 at 01:33 AM
"To argue then that a consequence of allowing IDC in the classroom will necessarily spread throughout the academy is a slippery slope. I don't recall Professor Myers saying that here, but it's easy enough to find at PT, and others have said it here, without contradiction."

That's not a slipperly slope argument. We object to teaching IDC in science classes on its own grounds. The argument about not teaching astrology in astronomy class, young earthism in geology class, and so on is an argument from illustrative analogy. A slippery slope argument is used when you lack an adequate argument against something and instead argue that it will inevitably lead to bad consequences without demonstrating same.

"Yet the violent and hysterical counterreaction to the attempts to prohibit 'intact dilation and extraction' is a classic slippery slope argument."

That's a case of begging the question.

"Yet I have never heard any proabortion advocate object to it on that ground."

There are no "proabortion" advocates, scumball. We would all prefer that abortions were rare, which is why we support sex education, contraceptives, economic opportunities for young people, and so on.
#: Posted by on 08/22 at 01:44 AM
Actually, the single biggest factor in neural tube defects is folic acid deficiency.
#: Posted by Susie from Philly on 08/24 at 10:49 PM
Thanks, Tlazolteotl.
#: Posted by notheory on 08/25 at 07:41 AM
Viki Wilson's story merits telling and re-telling. Senator Hyde called her a murderer for having an abortion.
#: Posted by Sal on 08/25 at 12:13 PM
Ack. Malformed link. Here's another Viki Wilson link that should work better.
#: Posted by Sal on 08/25 at 12:23 PM
I just stumbled across this site by accident but I am shocked by what I have read so far.I am not a right-winger or pro-lifer.I feel everyone has a right to do what they want.Anyway I am 27 weeks pregnant with a baby that was diagnoised with anencephaly at 20 weeks(5 months). I chose to carry my child to term, not because I dont believe in abortion but because this was my child and I wasnt about kill him because he had something wrong with him.I have seen my son several times on ultrasound I saw his heartbeat at 7 weeks, at 17 weeks I watched him suck his thumb,everyday I feel him kick and move. He has 10 fingers,10 toes,he is perfectly normal except for his anencephaly.He is not some deformed fetus that cant feel or respond, this is a child concevied through love that can feel and he can respond.It has been hard knowing that my child will die shortly after birth,but it was also hard knowing my 5 year old nephew would die shortly when he was diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor.So to save our selves the pain and anxiety of seeing that 5 year old die we should have went ahead and killed him as soon as we got the diagnosis? I dont think so.If you dont think these little babies can bring more joy than pain maybe you should check out some of the anencephaly support groups on line.
#: Posted by on 09/12 at 11:03 AM
Nicole:

I'm sorry that your family is afflicted thus :(

But i think that's the point at hand isn't it? It's not that anyone is forcing people to terminate pregnancies that will result in newborns that will survive. But people should be allowed to make the choice that you have had available to you. Don't you think?
#: Posted by notheory on 09/12 at 11:41 AM
will *NOT survive. gah. proof-reading lacking...
#: Posted by notheory on 09/12 at 11:45 AM
yes everyone should have the choice if they want to carry their child to term or terminate them. That does not give anyone the right to dehumanize these babies by saying they dont feel,respond,etc.They are not brainless freak babies as so many people want to label them.Yes I chose to carry my child to term.I had the choice to make life easier on myself by getting rid of the problem(the grossly deformed baby as many would say),but no one ever said life was easy folks sometimes we are handed lemons in life.Maybe the goverment should pay for the abortions of a baby with anencephaly or spina bifida. Maybe had the goverment(or somebody!) tried to get the word out about the importance of women taking folic acid in their child bearing years we might not have so many babies afflicted with anencephaly.
#: Posted by on 09/12 at 12:17 PM
Nicole:
If you get back to the original thread, there are varying degrees of the disease. While infants with Spina Bifida will struggle, many with anecephaly will not even reach term.
I hate making the argument since you are so invested in your child, and have a long, (and I hope, rewarding), path in front of you.
Do you really want mothers to suffer the fate of a stillborn birth, or worse? Again... Spina Bifida is related, but not the same. The resultant pain and suffering that the mother must go through, is also not the same. The original thought was to spare those mothers, and those families, and those infants, a tragedy I hope you never have to face, (and not merely "get rid of the problem").

It is easy to agree with your closing statement. Better prenatal care results in healthier children.
#: Posted by on 09/12 at 06:18 PM
MpM:
Mothers are going to suffer either way,if they chose to terminate or carry to term.With the abortion they will still have to deal with the sad fact there was something wrong with their child and that perfect baby they had hoped for will never be, and that they have chosen to end the childs life.Those mothers will always wonder what their child may have looked, and the fact they had to terminate their childs life will haunt them forever.Mothers who carry to term also suffer but they also get the joy of knowing they gave their child all the love they could while they had the time.Whether the baby is stillborn or lives only a few days they had the joy of meeting their child and holding their child when they passed.Carrying to term is not for everyone no one should be forced to do anything they dont want to do,but women should carefully think about everything before they make their minds up.Go to anencephaly support sites and read stories of women who have carried to term and who have terminated early.When my Dr. told me my child had a birth defect I was thinking to myself "Oh please let it be something the child can live with.Spina bifida,down syndrome etc." I would have taken
a child with a armgrowing out of his head, I didnt care.That was the only time I thought about terminating, because thats all my Dr. talked about.He wanted me to go right then and induce labor.Most Dr.s do suggest termination. You cant always have perfect everything. Like I said before no one ever said life would be easy or perfect. Sometimes we have to take lemons and make lemonade.
#: Posted by on 09/13 at 10:13 AM
I'm not recommending anything other than you not speak for all. Spina Bifida is not anencephaly. Stillborn is not a "defect". It is death. Some women do not want go through the trauma of giving birth to a dead baby.
You don't need to agree or understand that. You only need to realize that they are not you, (or me). You may want to carry to term, even knowing you will never do more than have that single moment. I am comfortable with that. I respect that. That moment belongs to you.
I hope you can be as tolerant of other people's feelings as I am of yours. You are not every mother. Don't forget; this thread started with the issue of forcing that decision on the mother, regardless of the condition of the fetus. I merely suggest that you allow others the same freedom afforded to you, and that neither one of us intrude on the personal decisions of others.
#: Posted by on 09/13 at 08:32 PM