Reflections From a Murky Pond

Cue the crazed Feministas! Apparently, the “Patriarchy” now intends to use permanently comatose (PVS) and brain dead (BD/DNC) women as wombs. Because we all know these sorts will be stridently and possibly violently opposed to Whole Body Gestational Donation (WBGD). Insofar as they’re concerned, this is just a call for Zombie Handmaids ala some twisted and rather gross Z Day version of Gilead.

But hey! We could call it 40 Weeks After! 😆

Or not. You see, this is outrage based, at least partially on pure, unadulterated, Feminist ignorance and their dystopian fantasies of oppression – especially when it comes to bearing children. It has little to no intersection with reality.

The truth is that the idea of women doing Whole Body Gestational Donation wasn’t published in a medical journal. It was published in a medical ethics journal, specifically Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics. By their very nature a large portion of the papers in such publications are speculative in nature and overtly seek to find, or even push, the boundaries of acceptable practice within the medical field.

Another, even more ironic truth, is that the paper was written in late 2022 by a woman, one Dr. Anna Smajdor PhD, who is currently a tenured professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Oslo. Even more ironic is that she based a great deal of her paper on the previous work done by another woman, Rosalie Ber, who apparently originally floated the idea of using comatose women as gestational surrogates.

Yessiree! The entire concept of WBGD was conceived by women – Smajdor is even the person to name it. But the Patriarchy!

But, In Some Defense Of Feminists

None of the above is meant to say that nothing heinous could come of Smajdor’s and Ber’s idea now that it’s been put out there. Rahm Emanuel’s Complete Lives System and how it was implemented to some extent during COVID-19 shows us that sometimes published speculative ethics are essentially an excuse for normatively reprehensed behavior. There’s always room for doctors – who play God far too often – to behave badly.

And, as well, there’s the legal issues of consent – issues that Smajdor did mention, but didn’t and can’t address. And there’s a long if not common history of arguments over what to do with people who are PVS or BD/DNC, with next of kin often being the ones to make those decisions for the “living remains” of the victim. So yeah, it’s not utterly impossible that a husband or parent could make the legal decision for a PVS or BD/DNC to enter into WBGD, but it would be a vanishingly rare occurrence.

~*~

So, they’re not completely wrong in their worries – if worrying about WBGD is valid in the first place – but it’s not the Patriarchy and it’s not a likely outcome. Men are not going to turn them into Zombie Handmaids.

Tags: BD/DNC | Bioethics | Feminazis | Feminists | Handmaid's Tale | Medical Ethics | Outrage Culture | PVS | Reproduction | Smajdor | Society | WBGD

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2023 at 9:00 am and is filed under Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Yessiree! What with the recent advances is extensive genetic engineering and design through the use of CRISPR, can CRISPR Critters be that far off? After all, it’s already being done. Hell! GloFish have been on the pet market for a few years now.  And, some scientists have even taking the first step of reverting birds – chickens! – to their ancient theropod forms.

And yes! I’m mostly being sarcastic. Still, once the science is available, people will find all sorts of uses for it.

Tags: Animals | Bioethics | CRISPR | Genetics | Humor | Science | Society | Technology | The Environment

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 12th, 2018 at 10:24 am and is filed under Society, Technology, The Environment. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Presented for your interest and possible education – An Equality Parable:

A worried woman went to her gynecologist and said, “Doctor, I have a serious problem and desperately need your help! My baby is not even 1 year old and I’m pregnant again. I don’t want kids so close together. “

So the doctor said, “OK, and what do you want me to do?”

She said, “I want you to end my pregnancy, and I’m counting on your help with this.”

The doctor thought for a little, and after some silence he said to the lady, “I think I have a better solution for your problem. It’s less dangerous for you too.”

She smiled, thinking that the doctor was going to accept her request. Then he continued, “‘You see, in order for you not to have to take care 2 babies at the same time, let’s kill the one in your arms. This way, you could rest some before the other one is born. If we’re going to kill one of them, it doesn’t matter which one it is. There would be no risk for your body if you chose the one in your arms.” 

The lady was horrified and said, “No doctor! How terrible! It’s a crime to kill a child! “

“I agree”, the doctor replied. “But you seemed to be OK with it, so I thought maybe that was the best solution.”

The doctor smiled, realizing that he had made his point. He convinced the mom that there is no difference in killing a child that’s already been born and one that’s still in the womb. The crime is the same!

The only horrific possibility that this parable conjures up is that some creatures who mock Mankind by mimicking our physical form believe that murdering the newborn infant should be allowable as well.

Fortunately, for right-thinking people’s ammunition budgets if nothing else, such subhumans are quite rare. Even the vast majority of Feminists don’t publicly claim that killing their born children is an acceptable practice.

Sadly, many people do make the distinction between the born and unborn and do not think of unborn babies as being humans who are supposedly protected by law from being murdered.

If it wasn’t so depraved and evil it’d be funny how these sorts, most of whom are very big into “minority rights,” have decided that they can make the decision as when someone is and isn’t person. They, when it suits their agenda, conveniently forget that we made those decisions in the past and little that is now considered good came of it.

So to do they forget that every qualifiable and/or quantifiable argument that they put forth in favor of exterminating unborn babies for any reason or no reason at all beyond the female’s convenience can and has been used to justify the extermination and/or enslavement of those minorities that they claim to support.

Tags: Abortion | America | Babies | Bioethics | Children | Crime | Equality | Ethics & Morality | Feminists | Infanticide | Liberals | Medical Practice | Murder | Politics | Progressives | Society | Vermin | Women

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2013 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

If you go to where the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) had pre-published the article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva entitled “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” you’ll find that it’s gone. They have apparently pulled the article in response to the outrage that it caused.

I don’t know if this means that the editors of the Journal of Medical Ethics have had a rush of brains to the head and remembered that “ethics” is part of their rag’s title and that they won’t be publishing the pro-infanticide drivel by the would-be baby-killers, Giubilini and Minerva. One can certainly hope so though.

Ladies and gentlemen, this may only be small ethical victory and it may only end up being a temporary one, but it is a victory both for ethical behavior and for the power of the people in this information and near universal access age.

Savor it for what it’s worth but stay vigilant.

Tags: Alberto Giubilini | Bioethics | BMJ | Ethics & Morality | Francesca Minerva | Infanticide | JME | Julian Savulescu | Power | Society

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 7:50 am and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva entitled “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” recently published in the The Journal of Medical Ethics presents Mankind with an immediate and profound ethical quandary.

It is not the quandary of whether or not there is an ethical imperative for Giubilini and Minerva to be killed for advocating infanticide in a venue that could, as Ezekiel Emanuel’s opus proves, affect medical science and policies. The ethical imperative to kill these would-be baby-killers is so obvious that it almost goes without saying.

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call “after-birth abortion” (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Any society that will not protect its children and kill threats to those children is pointless, and exercise in futility, and eventually doomed to failure and dissolution. Hence, there is no quandary about whether or not Giubilini and Minerva need, from an ethical standpoint, to be hunted down and exterminated. It’s self-evident.

Would-Be Baby-Killers At Large

Alberto Giubilini

Monash University Centre for Human Bioethics
Room W925, West Wing, Level 9
Menzies Building (Building 11 & tallest on campus)
Wellington Rd, Clayton Victoria, AU
Alberto.Giubilini@monash.edu

Francesca Minerva

The University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies
Room 1.23, East wing, Old Quad,
Parkville, Victoria VIC 3010 AU
francesca.minerva@unimelb.edu.au
Tel: +61 3 8344 9951

Nor would it be overly fruitful to dwell long upon the conflict between ethical imperatives and the strictures of mortal law. That’s a conflict that people resolve on a daily basis and is a normal part of living in a society where, perforce, law and justice cannot be the same thing and often widely diverge out of perceived necessity.

The True Man will make his decision as to either follow an ethical imperative or the law based upon his discernment of the overall risks and benefits to his people. The Low Man will decide what to do based upon the costs vs. benefits to himself. In either case though, these are decisions made daily and both True Men and Low Men may reach the same conclusions as to how to act on any given imperative.

No, the ethical quandary is whether or not there is an ethical imperative to exact punitive and deterring measures upon Julian Savulescu, Editor, Journal of Medical Ethics who provided them with a dangerously high profile venue, and Professor Sergio Bartolommei, University of Pisa, who provided Giubilini and Minerva aid and comfort in the actual writing of their treatise on infanticide.

The Would-Be Baby-Killers’ Enablers

Julian Savulescu (Left) & Sergio Bartolommei (Right)

Is there an ethical imperative to kill Savulescu and Bartolommei for the heinous acts of enabling the infanticidal vermin, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva to publish their advocacy of “Post-Birth Abortions” where it could potentially do the most harm? Will some lesser act or acts of retribution and defensive measure suffice? Does no action need to be taken against them? That’s the real ethical quandary in this case.

My first instincts are that there is certainly an ethical imperative to take harsh action against Giubilini’s and Minerva’s enablers and that their deaths might be required for the sake of society’s overall health. Savulescu willfully chose to publish the would-be baby-killer’s paper and Bartolommei had the opportunity to quell their efforts at the start but chose to abet them instead.

Yet both of these men have professional duties that might preclude their refusal to enable Giubilini’s and Minerva’s evil. They also may, as True Men must, have weighed the possible harm that what amounts to censorship might cause vs. what harm such a paper might cause.

Not knowing Savulescu’s and Bartolommei’s motivations for providing aid and comfort to Giubilini and Minerva, I can’t say for certain that there’s an ethical imperative to take any action at all against these two men. Yet, likewise, I cannot think ill of or speak out against anyone who, after consideration, arrived at the opposite decision and chose to kill them.

It’s an ethical quandary. All one can do is apply reason to it and follow one’s conscience wherever it leads them.

~*~

UPDATE: The Journal of Medical Ethics has deleted the online pre-publication of the would-be baby-killers’ article! It looks like the outrage of right-thinking people scored a small ethical victory.

Tags: Abortion | Alberto Giubilini | Bioethics | Children | Ethics & Morality | Francesca Minerva | Infanticide | Julian Savulescu | Justice | Murder | Parenting | Sergio Bartolommei | Society | Vermin

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 9:57 am and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.