LIFE DIGEST: Judge rejects ‘strongest’ ultrasound law
- Aug 25, 2009 - 1
An Oklahoma ultrasound law described by a national pro-life organization as the best in the country has fallen victim to a judge’s ruling.
The 2008 law required a medical worker to perform an ultrasound on a woman seeking an abortion, display the image of the unborn child and explain the sonogram. The pregnant woman was not required to view the image.
Also in this edition: Scientists seek to make human brain, Abortion would have been ‘so selfish,’ reality star says, S.D. informed consent law receives split decision and Legal shortcoming makes granny the mother.
County District Judge Vicki Robertson struck down the measure Aug. 18, saying it defied a state requirement that legislation have one subject, according to The Daily Oklahoman. The legislation was a combination of five proposals, including one mandating that abortion clinics display signs saying a woman cannot be forced to have the procedure and another requiring the abortion drug RU 486 be dispensed according to federal guidelines.
Supporters of the law said they believe the law deals with a single issue – the protection of unborn life. They promised to continue to work to have the law’s provisions take effect. The state attorney general could appeal the decision. If courts uphold the ruling, the law’s legislative advocates said they could seek passage of the measure’s provisions separately.
“I think the judge ruled on a technicality and not on the true substance of the bill,” said Rep. Pam Peterson, R.-Tulsa, the law’s sponsor in the House of Representatives, according to The Oklahoman. “It’s a setback, and, if the state doesn’t appeal the ruling, we will continue to stand for life in this state.”
The National Right to Life Committee had characterized the measure as “the strongest, most protective ultrasound law in the nation.”
Sonogram machines have been important tools in pro-life pregnancy care centers’ attempts to educate pregnant women about their unborn children. Such centers have reported dramatic upswings in clients choosing to give birth after viewing ultrasound images of their babies.
Scientists seek to make human brain
Swiss scientists predict they may be able to build a human brain with computers by the year 2020.
Henry Markram, head of the Blue Brain project in Switzerland, said at a July conference in Oxford, England, he plans to construct an electronic human brain in 10 years, the Daily Mail reported Aug. 11. The Blue Brain research team has been working for the last five years on constructing a mammalian brain with the use of supercomputers, Markram said.
There are some ways, however, in which “a brain is quite unlike a computer,” Michael Hanlon wrote in the Daily Mail. Computers cannot “think,” he said.
In the past, scientists have assumed a “soul” permeates the brain, but now most neuroscientists think “feelings of self-awareness, pain, love and so on are simply the result of the countless billions of electrical and chemical impulses that flit between its equally countless billions of neurons,” Hanlon wrote.
If a brain somehow were to be created, Hanlon said, it would present a variety of ethical quandaries, such as: If a brain “could be said to know it exists, then do we assign it rights? Would turning it off constitute murder? Would performing experiments upon it constitute torture?”
Southern Baptist bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell said the Blue Brain project, and other such efforts, will fall far short in a vital way.
“I have little doubt that we will one day be able to make very human-like machines, but only God can make a person in His own image,” said Mitchell, Graves professor of moral philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., and a consultant to the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
“Computers may mimic the brain but not a soul,” he said. “There’s more to being human than what’s going on in the head.”
Aboriton would have been ‘so selfish,’ reality star says
Reality television star Kourtney Kardashian chose life for her unborn child after reading testimonies of post-abortive women, doing some self-examination and talking to her doctor.
Kardashian, 30, told People magazine in an Aug. 19 article why she chose birth instead of abortion for her baby. She is five months pregnant.
“I can’t even tell you how many people just say, ‘Oh, get an abortion.’ Like it’s not a big deal,” she said.
“I looked online, and I was sitting on the bed hysterically crying, reading these stories of people who felt so guilty from having an abortion. . . . I was just sitting there crying, thinking, ‘I can’t do that.’ And I felt in my body, this is meant to be. God does things for a reason, and I just felt like it was the right thing that was happening in my life.
“For me, all the reasons why I wouldn’t keep the baby were so selfish,” Kardashian said.
“My doctor told me there is nothing you will ever regret about having the baby, but he was like: ‘You may regret not having the baby.’ And I was like: That is so true.”
Lorey Carter of Care Net, which is the country’s largest network of pregnancy care centers, commended Kardashian.
“Kudos to Kourtney!” said Carter, Care Net’s director of underserved outreach. “She will experience first-hand that an unplanned pregnancy does not mean an unwanted child. . . . Every day in pregnancy centers across the country, women, who surely are not as wealthy as Kourtney, make the same decision that she did, and while they didn’t plan the pregnancy, they are in love with their child.”
S.D. informed consent law receives split decision
Supporters of South Dakota’s informed consent law gained only a partial victory in federal court Aug. 20.
Judge Karen Schreier upheld a provision in the 2005 law that requires an abortion provider to tell a woman considering abortion the procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.” She struck down two other sections, however, one that mandates a woman be told she “has an existing relationship with that unborn human being” and another that calls for her to be told abortion elevates the risk of suicide, according to the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus Leader.
Of one of the provisions she invalidated, Schreier wrote, “A legal relationship requires two people. The United States Constitution does not recognize an unborn embryo or fetus as a ‘person,’ in the legal sense.”
Steven Aden, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, said, “We agree with the decision of the court to allow South Dakota women to be informed of the indisputable fact that [their] baby is a human being. We find it incredible, however, for the court to determine that the law cannot acknowledge that a ‘pregnant woman has an existing relationship with that unborn human being’ because some human beings are somehow not ‘persons.’
“The court ruled that a woman has more of a relationship with the abortionist than her preborn baby,” Aden said in a written statement. “All human beings are persons.”
South Dakota’s Department of Health had threatened Planned Parenthood Aug. 7 with suspension of its license for refusing to abide by the informed consent law. According to the Argus Leader, a May inspection found the clinic refused to tell pregnant woman some of the information required by the legislation.
The Planned Parenthood affiliate in Sioux Falls is the state’s only abortion clinic.
A lawyer in support of the measure said he would appeal the rulings on the invalidated portions to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Mo.
Legal shortcoming makes granny the mother
A woman who acted as a surrogate for her daughter to give birth to a boy is actually the mother of her genetic grandson, according to Australian law.
The daughter, Sharon, who was unable to bear a child, provided the egg. Paul, Sharon’s husband, provided the sperm. Lauren, Sharon’s mother, provided the womb, giving birth to the baby who actually was her grandson.
While it might appear Paul and Sharon would be considered legally the father and mother of Michael, now 2, since he is a product of their genetic material, judge Garry Watts decided there was no basis in law for such a ruling. Instead, Watts determined Michael’s birth certificate should say Lauren is his mother and Lauren’s partner, Clive, is his father, though he is of no biological relation to the boy.
Watts issued his ruling in early August when Paul, Sharon and Lauren went to court in the state of New South Wales in Australia to clarify Michael’s birth certificate, according to The Australian. There is no surrogacy law in New South Wales that covers such cases, so Watts based his decision on a statute that holds a woman who gives birth is the mother of the child, regardless of the circumstances.
“The law is lagging behind reproductive technologies because the culture is ambivalent about the stakeholders,” Southern Baptist bioethicist C. Ben Mitchell said. “In an age of strident individualism, children and families often lose. Confusion about the identity of the father and mother always ends up penalizing the child.”
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission works to protect the sanctity of human life. If you would like to learn more about this issue, additional resources are available here. If your church is interested in purchasing bulletin inserts or other materials on the sanctity of human life, please visit our online bookstore and erlc.com.
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1 On Aug 26th, 2009, at 9:16am, Charles Enlow wrote:
It is true that the Oklalhoma constitution requires that a piece of legislation deal with one subject only, but the sonogram (and signage) requirement probably do that. Other parts of the legislation can be severed, and introduced as separate bills, and that would answer the judge’s objection. In any case, looking to the Attorney General for relief is probably illusory, as he filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on the side of the homosexuals against the Boy Scouts, and in other issues where his liberal bias was apparent, and where the State of Oklahoma had no proximate stake. In addition to that, he’s campaigning to become a candidate for governor, and will avoid controversy this year.