Fertilized Eggs, Women, and the Elephant Fetus

Is this a bowl of eggs or a a bowl of chickens?

The eggs are fertilized, so by the logic of those who believe a fertilized human egg is the equivalent of a human being, this is indeed a bowl of chickens.

And this is a fried chicken:

 

The claim that fertilized eggs are human beings reminds me of the joke (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln),

Q: If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?

A: Four, because calling a tail a leg doesn’t mean it is one.

One of the main arguments in Hobby Lobby’s case against providing comprehensive contraception is that  morning after pills and IUDs are abortifacients.  Many have pointed out that morning after pills (which are NOT the same as the pills that actual do induce abortion) work by preventing ovulation, and IUDs generally work by thickening cervical mucus and otherwise creating an inhospitable environment for fertilization to occur.  Olga Khazan offers a concise explanation of the whole thing at The Atlantic.

The only method that could possibly meet any definition remotely connected to abortion is the Paraguard IUD, which when inserted up to 5 days after intercourse, appears to prevent pregnancy in ways that no one has entirely determined.  It is remotely possible that one of these ways could be to prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg.

This hypothetical fertilized egg has not developed into an embryo, much less a fetus, even less a baby (or child, adolescent, adult or senior citizen).  You can see slide show showing the process of ovulation to implantation here.  The passion with which some defend the life of a fertilized egg is mirrored only by the passion with which some defend an elephant fetus as a human being (seriously, click the link–the anti abortion crowd passionately defended the humanity of the elephant fetus).  Just in case you are curious, here is a photo of a fertilized human egg:

And here is a photo of an elephant fetus:

By the logic of the “personhood” movement, the top image is a person and the bottom image is an elephant.

There are many problems with assigning human status to fertilized human eggs (or elephant fetuses).  But the greatest problem comes when a woman becomes not a human being in her own right, but the vessel for the development of potential humans.

Thus, the argument that Hobby Lobby and others with their beliefs make is that it is immoral for a woman to make her body inhospitable to the implantation of a fertilized egg.  We already know that the methods of contraception that they claim prevent implantation actually prevent fertilization in the first place.  But let’s go ahead and pretend that implantation of a fertilized egg might be prevented.

Why is this a problem?  About half of fertilized eggs do not implant even when a woman is not using any form of contraception at all.  By the logic of the anti-IUD crowd, women should be banned from doing ANYTHING that might interfere with implantation of fertilized eggs.  This might include things such as being underweight.  If a fetilized egg is more likely to implant in heavier women, shouldn;t we force all women to be the ideal weight for implantation?  In fact, if a fertilized egg is a person, and that “person” has the indisputable right to grow inside of another person until it decides it can survive on its own, perhaps we should force all fertile women to take drugs that make implantation more likely.

If women use contraceptives, including IUDs, they are actually less likely to expel fertilized eggs because the eggs are less likely to become fertilized in the first place.  Libby Anne at Love, Joy, Feminism has a great explanation of how using birth control is the best way to prevent the deaths of fertilized eggs/zygotes/blastocysts.  And as I have argued, if we really believed fertilized eggs to be human, we would insist on funeral services and other respectful disposal of them instead of allowing them to pass along with ordinary vaginal discharge (the fertilized egg would be expelled before menstruation; implantation occurs about 5 days after ovulation, but menstruation occurs about two weeks after).

Believing that a fertilized egg is a person does not make it so.  Believing that morning after pills and IUDs cause abortions does not make it so.  And believing that a woman is an obligatory vessel not deserving of human rights does not make it so either.

 

State Regulation of Women’s Bodies: Abortion and Breastfeeding

Dr. Patrick Johnson is the director of Personhood Ohio, “an organization committed [to] the restoring the personhood rights of unborn children through an amendment to the Ohio constitution.”

In case you are wondering if a woman is a person in Johnson’s intolerant mind, here is the Personhood Ohio argument against abortion:

The Ohio constitution states the following:

Article 1, Section 1: All men are, by nature, free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and seeking and obtaining happiness and safety.

Article 1, Section 16: All courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in his land, goods, person, or reputation, shall have remedy by due course of law, and shall have justice administered without denial or delay.

Thus (according to Personhood Ohio):

The Ohio Personhood Amendment will insert Section 16(b):

“Person” and “men” defined:

(A) The words “person” in Article 1, Section 16, and “men” in Article 1, Section 1, apply to every human being at every stage of the biological development of that human being or human organism, including fertilization.

Apparently if one gives constitutional rights to defend life and liberty and obtain happiness and safety to fertilized eggs but not women, then we have personhood.  Because everyone knows that women are not people.

In any case, Johnson has a new obsession, and that is preventing children and married men from seeing women’s breasts.  here is another area in which a woman’s breast becomes separate from the human breast.  All people have nipples and breast tissue.

There are innumerable arguments about the sexualization of women’s breasts being a social construction.  Here are a few points:

In many indigenous societies, women go topless as a matter of course, and the exposure of breasts is incidental to existing.  Here is a woman farming in Cameroon:

In the Victorian era, when women’s sexuality was repressed and showing an ankle was scandalous, breastfeeding was a sign of mothering, which was not considered sexual.  Thus, the ankle, not the breast, was sexualized:

Throughout history, Mary, who was so desexualized that many worship her as a virgin, has been depicted breastfeeding with exposed breasts:

And going topless on the beach is typical for women of all ages and sizes in much of Europe (not just for the stereotypically sexy).

Yet we have worked Americans into such a tizzy about human women’s breasts that I once had a class of fifth graders completely freak out when exposed to this image:

This is just black lines.  The person represented doesn’t even have a face.  Yet the very idea of a breast is somehow outrageous.  It is somewhat like thinking one must dress a zucchini in a burquah.  Or like the Shel Silverstein poem about putting a bra on camel humps.

Men have breasts, and while people might not like to see them when they are large, they can be exposed with no one challenging the legality of exposure:

Yet a flat chested women’s breast are somehow obscene:

Women’s and men’s breasts are not particularly different.  It is actually possible for men to breastfeed.  Seriously.  There’s even a very short, highly amusing movie about it, “Milk Men,” which you can watch here.

But preventing women from exposing their breasts, particularly when exposure is incidental to breastfeeding, is a way to have men define women’s sexuality and thus demand to control women’s bodies.  When people tell women to cover up, sit in toilet stalls, or stay home because they are feeding babies, they are telling women that they cannot be female in public.  They are privileging certain people’s perceptions of a woman’s body over the actual woman in that body.

People have nipples.  Everyone is born with them.  It is not an exciting concept:

Can you even be certain which of these belong to women and which to men?

Then whose body will you know to control?