What will happen if the US government outlaws contraception?

[Steve3007]

The US Vice President, Mike Pence, is on record as believing that every fertilised embryo, even if it's just a single cell, should be regarded as a person, and that it should be illegal to kill persons. It is easy to see how all chemical forms of contraception could therefore be regarded as murder and the US courts could outlaw all non-barrier forms of contraception. The recent appointment, by President Trump, of Neil Gorsuch to the US supreme court brings this one step closer because he seems to share this "every embryo is sacred" view. It seems to be a view that is widely held by the right wing religious Biblical and Constitutional literalist Americans who are now firmly in the ascendancy in the US government.

So, I'm interested to know, from anybody who shares these kinds of views, how do you envisage the future population growth or shrinkage in future? What is God's will on this matter? Is it that each community, or tribe, of human beings should compete with other tribes in producing as many offspring as possible and allow natural God-given forces such as disease, famine and war to limit population growth?

[Spraticus]

The lack of response is possibly evidence that the members here are all rational beings.

[Ormond]

Here's the view from the American Catholic landscape...

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... sexuality/

A Pew Research poll conducted in March, just after Francis’ election, found that three-quarters of U.S. Catholics (76%) say the church should permit birth control. About half (54%) of U.S. Catholics favor same-sex marriage, according to aggregated Pew Research data from this year, and just a third (33%) say homosexual behavior is a sin, according to a May survey.

Views on abortion are more mixed, with combined surveys from 2011 through 2013 showing opinion is split among U.S. Catholics. About half (53%) of white Catholics say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 41% say it should be illegal in all or most cases; among Hispanic Catholics, 43% say it should be legal in all or most cases, while 52% say it should be illegal in all or most cases.

Point being, if the Catholic Church can't sell anti-contraception to even the members of it's own congregation (in the United States) I don't see Pence and his type having much luck selling it to the broad American public. As example, I don't think even Trump would go for it, given that he seems to be pretty much a closet liberal on these kind of social issues.

That said, abortion is most likely on the table. If Roe vs. Wade is tossed out, then the matter is returned to the states. Those wanting abortions will simply travel to the states where it's still legal (except for poor people who will return to the back alley method). If abortion is outlawed nationwide, middle class and rich people will simply hop a weekend flight to Canada. Thus, where abortions occur is on the table, but probably not if abortion occurs. The main impact of anti-abortion laws will be on poor people, a sympathetic group.

It seems instructive to examine the Catholic situation. The Catholic Church has made a REALLY BIG DEAL of the abortion issue, and yet according to Pew about half of American Catholics still think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Given that Catholics make up about 25% of the U.S. population this seems a significant number.

Finally, if abortion is outlawed, this will launch a pro-choice activist revolution such as has never before been seen here. Huge piles of cash will flow to the activist groups and their lobbyists, and the air waves will be filled with tragic stories of poor women dying in unsafe illegal abortion clinics etc. It'll be a media field day, a big drama profits generator.

In politics the pendulum is always swinging. The harder it swings in one direction, the sooner and farther it will swing back in the other.

[Fooloso4]

Steve3007:

The US Vice President, Mike Pence, is on record as believing that every fertilised embryo, even if it's just a single cell, should be regarded as a person, and that it should be illegal to kill persons. It is easy to see how all chemical forms of contraception could therefore be regarded as murder and the US courts could outlaw all non-barrier forms of contraception.

Both terminology and the mechanism of chemical contraception need to be sorted out. Without fertilization there can be no embryo. An embryo develops from a fertilized egg. But a fertilized egg is not yet an embryo. The zygote is the first stage, a single undifferentiated cell.

The “pill” prevents ovulation. Without ovulation there is no egg to be fertilized. And so, it cannot be outlawed on the theory that it kills a person. It is conceivable (no pun intended) that it could become illegal because it prevents the possibility of a life. But then all means of birth control would be illegal.

The “morning after pill” or “Plan B One-Step” can prevent or delay ovulation, interfere with fertilization, or prevent implantation of the fertilized egg. Extending the logic that an embryo is a person, it might be argued that the fertilized egg is a human person. And so, by this theory it might be considered illegal.

[Steve3007]

Spraticus:

The lack of response is possibly evidence that the members here are all rational beings.

No, I think it's evidence that it's a crap subject containing factual inaccuracies. It would need a lot more than that to demonstrate the existence of rational beings here.

Ormond:

Here's the view from the American Catholic landscape...

Yes, Catholics, on the whole, have a pretty healthy and realistic attitude towards their own cultural traditions. That's good.

...I don't see Pence and his type having much luck selling it to the broad American public...

I guess one cause of concern is that he and his type already have been successful in selling their general brand to a large minority of the American people. And in a representative democracy, the brand comes as a package.

Fooloso4:

Both terminology and the mechanism of chemical contraception need to be sorted out. Without fertilization there can be no embryo. An embryo develops from a fertilized egg. But a fertilized egg is not yet an embryo. The zygote is the first stage, a single undifferentiated cell.

The “pill” prevents ovulation. Without ovulation there is no egg to be fertilized. And so, it cannot be outlawed on the theory that it kills a person...

Yes, this point had occured to me. It kind of ruins my theme, which was that the "every embryo is sacred" people would have to ban contraception, but I didn't want that to stand in the way of a good topic, so I decided to take a kind of Trump-esque "campaign rhetoric" attitude to the whole thing - bending the truth for the sake of pulling in the punters with an arresting headline. The trouble is, as Spraticus pointed out, that didn't work either (at least until you guys showed up). Hey ho. I guess we'll just let this one gently slide down the Ethics and Morality chart to oblivion.

[Spraticus]

It does raise the more interesting question of "what is a person?" though I would imagine that has been asked here before. I'm new.

[Steve3007]

I would imagine that has been asked here before

It has indeed. The abortion issue is the favourite one in which to raise that question. I think the fact that the answer to the question "what is a person?" is so arbitrary is what makes the abortion debate to intractable. I don't think it will ever be solved.

[Fooloso4]

Steve3007:

I guess one cause of concern is that he and his type already have been successful in selling their general brand to a large minority of the American people. And in a representative democracy, the brand comes as a package.

I am not sure to what extent that is the case. I do not think it is so much a matter selling the public in the sense of persuading it to believe as they do as it is with appealing to voters who already believe as they do on some subset of issues that for some may include a pro-life stance, but others might have voted as they did despite this stance.

There have been times where political leaders were moral leaders, but today it is more a matter of leaders doing or promising to do the moral bidding of powerful interest groups.

[Spraticus]

The problem with Pence and his like is that they are not content with living their own lives by their own standards, they want to impose those standards on everyone; they believe they speak for God and can't be wrong and that anyone who goes against them is against God and therefore deserving of death. Just like the Taliban.

[Steve3007]

Fooloso4:

I am not sure to what extent that is the case. I do not think it is so much a matter selling the public in the sense of persuading it to believe as they do as it is with appealing to voters who already believe as they do on some subset of issues that for some may include a pro-life stance, but others might have voted as they did despite this stance.

Yes, but I think that's the point I was making about representative democracy. I think representative democracy is, on the whole, a good thing. Much better than having us vote directly on every issue. But there are pros and cons to every system. And one of the "cons" of representative democracy is that, in this example, we get others voting as they did despite this stance. Look at our Grunth, on this forum, as an example. I know from reading his previous posts that he is an atheist. Yet he supports Trump, and the bandwagon of mad Creationists that he has decided make a useful host in his quest for power, because of other factors.

[Fooloso4]

Spraticus:

The problem with Pence and his like is that they are not content with living their own lives by their own standards, they want to impose those standards on everyone; they believe they speak for God and can't be wrong and that anyone who goes against them is against God and therefore deserving of death. Just like the Taliban.

I agree. It is moral hegemony.

The irony is that God’s law is supposed to stand above man’s law, but it is in truth nothing other than man’s law claiming to be authoritative over all other laws of men.

[Steve3007]

Spraticus:

The problem with Pence and his like is that they are not content with living their own lives by their own standards, they want to impose those standards on everyone; they believe they speak for God and can't be wrong and that anyone who goes against them is against God and therefore deserving of death. Just like the Taliban.

As concerned as I am by the rise of people like Pence, I would hesitate before comparing him to the Taliban. (Although it might still be worth doing so for the sake of "truthfull hyperbole" as Trump's Art of The Deal ghostwriter calls it.)

This is now the bigger question of moral absolutism versus moral relativism. I guess one of the defining features of morals is that we think that they apply to more than just ourselves? If we take moral relativism to its reductio ad absurdum then we end up thinking that every individual person is entitled to their own personal morals and that nobody can impose their morals on anyone else. I don't think anyone actually goes as far as that.

[Spraticus]

I certainly don't, though I can see where you might suspect it. A general moral code needs to work for the whole group and be based on more than misattributed voices in the head. It needs to produce better outcomes for the group than would result from not following it, or ideally than those produced by an alternative system.

[Steve3007]

It needs to produce better outcomes for the group than would result from not following it

Ah but, how do we define better outcomes for the group? Opinions seems to vary as to the emphasis we give to group benefits over protection of individual rights. A simple consideration of the benefits to a group can lead to a "tyranny of the majority" or a lack of consideration for the rights of individuals.

[Supine]

The US Vice President, Mike Pence, is on record as believing that every fertilised embryo, even if it's just a single cell, should be regarded as a person, and that it should be illegal to kill persons. It is easy to see how all chemical forms of contraception could therefore be regarded as murder and the US courts could outlaw all non-barrier forms of contraception. The recent appointment, by President Trump, of Neil Gorsuch to the US supreme court brings this one step closer because he seems to share this "every embryo is sacred" view. It seems to be a view that is widely held by the right wing religious Biblical and Constitutional literalist Americans who are now firmly in the ascendancy in the US government.

So, I'm interested to know, from anybody who shares these kinds of views, how do you envisage the future population growth or shrinkage in future? What is God's will on this matter? Is it that each community, or tribe, of human beings should compete with other tribes in producing as many offspring as possible and allow natural God-given forces such as disease, famine and war to limit population growth?

Mike Pence--in my trust for sake of discussion that you are presenting his views accurately and fair--is not the body of American Federal law. Bearing in mind every American state have their own state laws, therefore there is no nation wide unformed body of laws except for Federal laws.

American Federal laws recognizes for profit corporations as singular persons. So, General Electric the company itself is a person to US Federal law as much as Obama is. For the sake of legalizing abortion in Roe vs Wade the US Supreme Court strayed away from deciding if developing unborn children are persons (they apparently, while in the womb, lack the political lobbying power of Wall Street and US corporations).

Contraception can not be ruled as "murder" in the US if it does not destroy a fertilized egg in a woman. If it does then it is not contraception but abortive. Abortion could be ruled as homicide if it became illegal in the USA. Pro-female laws that charge men and women with fetal homicide, that are already on the books, are a closer legal precedence to overturning Roe vs Wade than the views of Mike Pence are.




As for your questions, the Supreme Court Justices wrote comments on why they supported legalized abortion. It had nothing to do with environmental protection, worry of unsustainable population growth, or climate change. They remarked abortion needs to become legal so that it can empower women financially. That is to say so that women can compete with men in a capitalist for profit world of business that values employees that work long hours, travel when told, and are not restricted by having to take care of children. Abortion allowed women to opt out of the demands and obligations of motherhood in their view. Secular anti-evolutionist they were given their religiosity in their mental conceptions that biological evolution was flawed unfair and probably immoral by the physiological and anatomical asymmetry of sexual reproduction. In other words, "Mother Nature" was a big old meanie and ridiculously unfair for allowing females to get impregnated but not males. For American capitalist and secular religious construction of the fundamental immorality of all of that was the more moral and rationale "force" in the world and not flawed, stupid, mean "Mother Nature."

In my view the world is not over populated, won't be, and under replenishment through low birth rates is a bigger problem for some countries. I also support global warming and hope this min-ice age the earth is in quickly warms up and the glaciers melt. Humans are closer to tropical creatures per the Theory of Evolution and can survive naked in hot environments like the Amazon Jungle, with enough forested protection from the sun, but would die naked in the cold winters of Wisconsin and North Dakota.

Frozen land is not biologically productive. The hot Amazon is the most biologically productive environment on earth. If it was frozen cold like Northern Canada it would not be a very little food would be produced in that environment, a lot less biological life.

There is a reason humans, the secular religious that fear the coming collapse of the world if Wisconsin farming seasons can last longer, get on airplanes to fly to places like Southern Florida and the Caribbean for vacations. They hate the cold. They only yap about loving the arctic blizzards.

Famine has been virtually wiped out on earth. For humans. We have more humans than ever and more "fat" people on earth than skinny people. Obesity and its related health diseases (like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes) is the new global threat. Disease would be a threat to humans even if only 500 people lived on the whole of planet earth. HIV and other viral diseases, bacterial disease, and cancer through predatory cells that over reproduce and invade other cell types of other organs of the body, does not care if a person is a secular religious that thinks its "unfair" voting for liberals will magically end diseases on earth because diseases share liberals political views. Wars will happen, and be led by liberals, as Obama and Hillary Clinton showed destroying Libya and helping to incite war and misery in Syria. Ever look at images of President Assad's Muslim wife? She dresses like and looks like any white woman from England. Probably because that is where she grew up and became college educated in computer science (yeah, a science and not Sharia law) and French literature in. She speaks like 4 different languages. More than Hillary Clinton can say. And Assad himself is a pretty secular Muslim, not walking around in a long beard, and dresses like any white man in England. Oh yeah, probably because he was a medical doctor in England not a Muslim theologian or running a radical mosque in England. Funny, the men Hillary and Obama support as "moderates" in Syria have long beards often and look and talk religiously like Osama Bin Laden. Curious, that Assad chose an educated Muslim woman that dresses like any woman in England, walks around with her hair shows, legs in skirt showing if he's some Muslim fanatic.

So, wars will happen on earth even if liberals reduced the population of humanity on earth to only 20,000 people. Liberals will find some holy cause crusade to go on a violent war for, as Hillary and Obama showed. They won't be showing up with baskets of fruit.

-- Updated February 12th, 2017, 4:35 pm to add the following --

The problem with Pence and his like is that they are not content with living their own lives by their own standards, they want to impose those standards on everyone; they believe they speak for God and can't be wrong and that anyone who goes against them is against God and therefore deserving of death. Just like the Taliban.

You mean like Obama and nearly every single supporter of Hillary Clinton, in their fanatical beliefs that the US ought spread "it's values" across the whole of planet earth by sword and flame? I keep hear Obama restate over and over again, even after leaving the White House, that the US needs to war with others any time their *values* differ form ours. This all aside from the fact he never articulates what these "values" are he presuppose are historical, traditional, and universally shared by every single citizen born and raised in the USA.

Do him and Mike Pence share the same American "values"? Nice to see Obama, Hillary, and Trump are identical value twins. Or triplets.

I remember Obama saying the US needs to aggressively confront Russia any time they go against "our values." The underlying message really is anytime the Russians become an obstacle to the spread of Wall Street's values, and the holy conversion crusades of the Democratic Party. Obama and I do not share the same values and unlike him the black side of my family came from out of the Antebellum South, I never was formed in my youth in Indonesia but 100% of my youth formation came in Milwaukee in a middle-class black neighborhood made up of cops, public high school teachers, factory workers, truck drivers a sprinkling of college professors here and there, and lots of city workers and construction workers. Before une,plyment soared among the black Generation X.

So, I think my "American experience" is at least as "American" as his was in Hawaii and Indonesia. My "values" are leave the Russians the h__l alone. And my "values" are I am happy its President is a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. And I'm not even Russian Orthodox. My "values" are clean up that disgrace called "Skid Row" before worrying about how unfair and dirty the Russians backyard is. Metro LA (which includes its suburbs and probably some nearby economically tied in counties not just the city proper) has a smaller population than whole country of the Netherlands but a GDP relatively as rich as the entire country of the Netherlands. And in economics a nation's or city's "National Income" or city income is basically the same amount as its GDP. I'm more fiscally liberal than most Hillary Democrats. Which explains why the Hillary Democrats with absolute reign over LA City has a "Third World" called Skid Row they are perfectly tolerant of rather than spending money to clean it up and house all those homeless.