Frozen embryos are “children,” according to Alabama’s Supreme Court

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 416 points – Frozen embryos are “children,” according to Alabama’s Supreme Court
arstechnica.com

Frozen embryos are “children,” according to Alabama’s Supreme Court::IVF often produces more embryos than are needed or used.

119

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice Tom Parker cited his religious beliefs and quoted the Bible to support the stance.

"Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself," Parker wrote. "Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory."

wtf

Ironic that he quoted the Bible since the Bible is okay with abortion.

The Bible doesn't really say anything about abortion. The most convincing thing I've seen is that it values the life of a mother over that a fetus, but it doesn't say abortion is okay. Unless I'm missing something.

Not that it matters what this book says, I just don't think it helps at all to misrepresent it.

Numbers 5:11-22

If your wife is unfaithful, she should go to the priest and get a concoction to abort the pregnancy conceived with another man.

It does not say or imply that at all. Maybe in some translations/adaptations/interpretations, but not in most of them, and there is no full consensus.

20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse[b] among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

It doesn't imply that at all? Please feel free to let me know what this passage is really about.

I'm guessing this is the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible. Which is not a consensus at all.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but the Old Testament is written mostly in Hebrew and each passage has had thousands of interpretations and translations over time.

My does not say this at all was too strong in light of the different versions, but you can make the Bible say a lot of things.

Look at other translations, including in languages other than English and you'll see that the "miscarry" is pretty unique to the NIV.

You can check out the Wikipedia article on this passage to get an idea as to how complicated it is.

The punishment section of the Hebrew version suggests many interpretations where words are euphemisms for things related to abortions. Her thigh might refer to her sexual organs, the curse an abortificent, etc. I think those meanings still exist in other translations.

It might, but that's not enough to say the Bible is okay with abortions, and the rest of the texts might contradict that interpretation anyway. The NIV is pretty unique in translating directly into miscarry. If I search for those passages in English right now on search engines, I'm not even guaranteed to end up on that version, it took me a few tries.

It always strikes me as interesting that if the Bible truly was divinely inspired that there really should only be one translation and one interpretation. It should be incredibly clear and concise to everyone.

Even if it was truly was, humans are still faillible:

  • the texts are transcripted thousands of times, and errors made during transcriptions are eventually reproduced.
  • the texts can be modified voluntarily during retranscriptions, maliciously or not.
  • parts of texts are lost and found again.
  • texts reference other extinct texts or what was considered common knowledge that was not written down. So we can only infer from there.
  • Hebrew uses an abjab alphabet, which means no vowels, so certain written words can be different depending on what vowels you ascribe to them.
  • texts are translated by people with biases and objectives as to what it should convey (like the US Evangelicals with the NIV).
  • etc.

So even if the original text was given divinely, it would end up being distorted.

This is why I'm not comfortable saying the Bible is okay with abortion. It can be interpreted that way, for sure, but it's not a definite statement.

It literally gives you a recipe for one

At least the other poster offered up what is effectively a completely made up verse.

"effectively made up verse" LOL

Ah ok, so are you the arbiter of which stories in the Bible are literal, and which aren't? Because that story seemed very fucking literal.

Anyway, this can't be the first time you've encountered a contradiction in the text of your holy book (assuming you've even read it), so I'm sure you've already got some pretty effective ways of ignoring the cognitive dissonance inherent in your worldview... So go ahead and have fun with that I guess.

this can’t be the first time you’ve encountered a contradiction in the text of your holy book

lol. I'm not a Christian. You're just exposing your lack of critical thinking by thinking that, because I don't agree with you, I must be the exact opposite. My child, the world is not black and white.

You're projecting your struggle with cognitive dissonance onto me, make no mistake about it.

Does Alabama not do the whole "separation of church and state" thing? Lol

No the religious zealots here do not. School coaches require prayer before practices and games, same sex couples get banned from prom, kids at school get tricked into going to fun after school events that turn out to actually be evangelism stunts. A lot of applications to educational programs, gymnastics programs, and jobs ask about "leadership" which is code for experience as a church deacon or active evangelist.

The USA has never done seperation of church and state.

If we did, half the govt would be arrested for extremism and most churches would be terrorist organizations.

Just shit on this person. What a fucking hick. Just straight up pull your pants down and shit on him.