Osler's Razor

Radley Balko, WaPo, picked up on your NYTimes op-ed.
 

Thank you, Waco Friend! I will check that out.

About Palin's statement-- she doesn't articulate it so well, but her core point is intriguing: That we think of a pregnancy as involving a "child," as in "she lost the child" or "it's a boy!"
 

Usually after the third or fourth month! I think there is a large difference between the blastocyst, the embryo in the first month or two, the fetus through the third or fourth month, and everything after.

There are many spontaneous miscarriages that are never reported, especially if they occur in the first or second month. My spouse and I lost two pregnancies in the third month, and while it was a disappointment, we did not consider that to be anything approaching the loss of a child once born, or of a late term loss.

So while I would oppose abortion after the fourth month, except for medical reasons, I do not think the state has any business interfering prior to that. And generally, medical reasons could and should include a late discovered pregnancy due to rape, whether statutory or otherwise, in an otherwise naive teenager.
 

I have actually had a client who was totally unaware of her fourth pregnancy until labor began! But who was happy to have the child.
 

@Waco friend
To clarify, is it your position that a fetus becomes a child after the fourth month, but that an unwanted pregnancy discovered in the eighth month (beyond the legal viability threshold) could be justifiably (legally, morally, ethically, etc.) terminated?

@Osler
Palin may or may not be right about Clinton's personal stance on abortion as it relates to her daughter's pregnancy, but she's almost certainly wrong as it relates to Clinton's public platform. More to the point, is being "right" about Clinton even a factor for Palin? I doubt it.

As for Palin on baptizing terrorists--that's some bad theology. Either she doesn't mind vulgarizing a church sacrament or she think baptism has some sort of coercive salvific power. Either way, that's some bad theology.

My impression is that she was making a bad joke in poor taste, and probably did mean something akin to literal dunking, not making Christians out of Islamic extremists (as Banfield suggested). So the problem is less that she made a insulting and inflammatory inter-faith comment (which she certainly did), but rather that she appears to have perilously misappropriated an important tenant of her own professed faith.

All of this strikes me as one pitfall of developing a political platform to mirror (or under the guise of mirroring) a religious worldview. Politics is inherently profane (in the technical sense of the word) and politicizing religion can have the same result.
 

Well, we discussed this at dinner tonight. Cosby nearly spit his wine out when I told him about the water boarding being equated to baptism of the terrorists. I'm sure the Bush administration wishes they had thought of this argument.

 

@CTL

I specifically did not say what you are implying. I was referring to a case recently where a 12 y.o. girl, with extremely limited intelligence and awareness, was pregnant due to rape, was not aware of it until the six/seven month. Medical opinion was that to continue the pregnancy would be extremely risky due to other health problems affecting the girl, with severe complications. We need the ability to respond to situations like that without criminal implications for the doctors trying to do what is best for the girl. Very large baby in very small girl unable to continue to provide necessary sustenance to the child. Your attitude stinks.