The law is not appropriate, as employers should be able to fire employees that will not perform the essential functions according to appropriate standards of care.

SarahW on July 14, 2009 at 11:44 AM

In this case, it was the employers who were sued for not wanting to carry Plan B or to dispense it. Certainly an employer should be able to have employees who follow the employer’s legal wishes, and should be able to terminate those who do not. That wasn’t the issue in this case — it was the morals/ethics of the employers — their freedom of conscience — which is being negated here.

This finding by the 9th negates state freedom of conscience statutes, since the court’s decision has a citizen’s right to Plan B abortifacient trumping state freedom of conscience statutes. It’s looking like it’s time for a federal law (or regulation) guaranteeing pharmacy owners a freedom of conscience exemption from having to fill such prescriptions, even as doctors were given a freedom of conscience exemption from having to write such prescriptions.

That’s like having a breast removed for cancer. There’s a medical reason for it; any effect on implantation is a side effect. And by the way, untreated endometriosis affects fertility also so having a D&C to treat endometriosis may actually HELP a woman’s chance of having a child.

To have a D&C just for the hell of it, to make sure your womb is barren? Why not just go the whole way and have a hysterectomy? Or if you don’t want a permanent barrenness, have your tubes tied – a reversible procedure. I have no objections to any of those because they prevent a child from being conceived in the first place, which is fine.

To deliberately create a “scorched-earth” womb to kill any child you conceive…. is wrong and unnecessary.

Your continued denial of the third mechanism (which I found on EVERY pharmaceutical site which described the mechanisms) tells me that you are not only unwilling to learn, you are willing to lie about what’s in the site I already gave you. Typical leftist.

Furthermore, your last comment to me shows you didn’t even read Ed’s post. This isn’t about being able to fire employees. It’s about the government forcing a pharmacist to carry Plan B. I don’t know what law you’re talking about, but it’s obviously not this judgment by the Ninth Circuit.

I don’t know what “ablating the uterine wall” means, but I’ve already said that what I (like these pharmacists who are now FORCED to carry and dispense Plan B) have a problem with is a deliberate action of a mother to make sure that her child cannot survive. If there is a health reason for doing something that may have the unintended consequence of hindering the woman’s parenting ability, that’s different. That’s like having a breast removed for cancer.

A woman is also not required to maximize every possibility of being able to care for her child – although I would say that a good mother would do the best she can.

But a deliberate action for no other reason than to ensure a dead child…. I have a problem with that. Apparently you don’t, although you would never answer my question about that.

The law is not appropriate, as employers should be able to fire employees that will not perform the essential functions according to appropriate standards of care.

There is, again, no direct evidence that implantation is affected, though it may have some effect it is not proven to have this effect. It is not the primary mechanism of effectiveness at preventing pregnancy.

Again, deliberately ablating the uterine wall? you don’t answer.

I read yesterday that they all use 3 methods of “birth control”: altering the cervical mucus to slow down the sperm, tricking the body into thinking it’s already pregnant so it doesn’t ovulate, and altering the uterine wall so a baby can’t implant.

Unless a woman takes Plan B within 10 minutes of healthy sperm being present, the cervical mucus effect won’t matter. If the woman has already ovulated the ovulation suppression won’t work. The only thing that would actually be effective if the woman has already ovulated is the abortifacient effect.

There are normally only about 5 days in her cycle when a woman can get pregnant so most of the times Plan B makes no difference whatsoever. Two or three of the fertile days are before ovulation and two or three are after ovulation. So the only time when Plan B actually PREVENTS conception would be if it is taken in the 2-3 days before ovulation. The other 2-3 fertile days it would be an abortion pill. An abortion pill which – if it fails – may cause birth defects.

I’ve never understood how they determine “effectiveness”. If only 5/28 days are fertile, any one-time pill would have more than 80% success rate at preventing conception simply because the woman isn’t fertile. Or are the success rates only considering the fertile days and comparing them to the rate of conception where no pill is taken?

http://www.rxlist.com/plan-b-drug.htm

Levonogestrel is a synthetic progestogen (progestin).

Why use progestin?

justincase on July 13, 2009 at 6:06 PM

Interestingly, Plan B is a FDA Pregnancy Category X drug, a fact not mentioned in the rxlist.com article. I wonder why?

A woman deliberately making her uterine wall “unfluffy” so that her child won’t accidentally latch on and be fed is not the same thing as refusing to fluff it up. Nobody is saying she has to fluff up her uterine wall. But a mom who deliberately cuts off her nipples precisely so that her child will starve to death has a problem, I would say.

You never answered that though. Is that okay with you?

justincase on July 13, 2009 at 5:58 PM

Are you sure? Both acts you describe intend starvation of the child. You are right — they are not the same thing, but the intent is identical, and equally horrendous and stupid.

I also understand that in the splitting there are often (don’t know the percentage) differences in the DNA, as unclesmrgol referred to above. I would think that the embryo which doesn’t exactly match the DNA of the original zygote would be the person newly created by the split.

justincase on July 13, 2009 at 5:54 PM

The differences are more due to relative differences in the (nutrient) environment than to any change in DNA. Rarely is there a mutation after twinning, but the differing environments (even before birth) contribute to different genes being switched on or off in each of the twins, even though the DNA is identical. Gene activation/deactivation occurs throughout life, and hence identical twins become less identical as time goes on.

William2006 on July 13, 2009 at 8:32 PM

Well stated. You a developmental biologist?

In the case of sexual reproduction, in vivo, it is more accurate to say “A new human embryo, resulting from the union of the father’s sperm and the mother’s oocyte, is a new human being.” The same holds true for asexual human reproduction (reproduction which does not require sperm and oocyte, e.g. monozygotic twinning, triplets, etc., blastomere separation, blastocyst splitting, etc., as in artificial reproduction technologies, etc.), and reproduction which takes place ex vivo.

That is factual.

William2006 on July 13, 2009 at 12:49 AM

It is the “being” part that people disagree on. As you point out a blastocyst my split. How can it be an individual being if it may soon become two?

dedalus on July 13, 2009 at 8:23 AM

That is a common confusion, misconception, and misunderstanding that many people share with you, dedalus.

Let us look at and see what is happening, “dedalus.”

The first new human embryo IS a new individual human being.

The second, new human embryo, the twin, is also a new human being.

It is referred to as “asexual reproduction.”

It takes place in vivo – inside the mother’s body, as in monozygotic twinning which produces identical twins, triplets, etc., and other ways that twinning takes place in vivo, and it takes place outside the mother’s body, as in artificial reproductive technologies.

An example of how monozygotic twinning occurs in vivo is that, during cell division in the new human embryo, some of the cells can separate from the embryo. If these separated cells still have the ability, are totipotent, can become any cell for any tissue for any organ for any system in the body, they can also become another new human embryo, resulting in identical twinning, triplets, etc.

In asexual reproduction, as in monozygotic twinning, etc., there is no sperm or oocyte involved as their is in sexual reproduction, normal reproduction, in which the sperm and oocyte meet resulting in a new human being.

In asexual reproduction like monozyogotic twinning, blastomere separation, blastocyst splitting, etc., the first new human being, the first, original embryo is, in a sense, the “parent” of the subsequent siblings.

In other words, there is no question, scientifically speaking, that when we have a new human embryo there is an individual human being. If twins, triplets, etc., eventually also come into being it merely means that the first new human embryo has “parented” (in a sense) his or her siblings.

dedalus,

I hope this clears up your confusion or misunderstanding.

Take care.

William

Creating entire clones for that purpose seems a non-starter ethically and financially.

dedalus on July 13, 2009 at 4:42 PM

Financially maybe. But ethically? Ethics are so passe’.

Besides, exactly what kind of ethics does an “abortion doctor” have? The one who was murdered is said to have “performed” over 60,000 abortions (many if not most of them “late-term”).

DStevens on July 13, 2009 at 3:05 PM

Well said.

This 9th circuit case is laying the ground work for what we can expect if the Progressives are successful in the government takeover of healthcare.

If this stands the next case will be to force the Catholic Charities hospitals to offer the panorama of “reproductive rights”. And to disallow those in the medical field to switch assignments (as is done now) if they find themselves in a care giving situation which is in conflict with their ethics/morality/religion.

2.The government has no business telling a health care worker that he or she must perform any function that they find morally or ethically objectionable.

Ironically the same posters who vigorously object to the government pouring water up the nose of terrorists – well they have no problem with the government telling it’s citizens in the medical profession to STFU with their medical/moral/ethical objections or go get a new job.

Levonogestrel is a synthetic progestogen (progestin).

Why use progestin?

You never answered that though. Is that okay with you?

I also understand that in the splitting there are often (don’t know the percentage) differences in the DNA, as unclesmrgol referred to above. I would think that the embryo which doesn’t exactly match the DNA of the original zygote would be the person newly created by the split.

Aside from that, I don’t know if there would be any way to identify which was which. What is the lifeforce that makes the zygote create the placenta separate from the embryo? We don’t know that mystery either. Maybe our knowing doesn’t matter much.

You’ve given me something to think about, and I’ll ponder it. Probably won’t ever come up with an understanding, sort of like the wave vs particle theories of light, extra dimensions, etc. lol. In .75% of the cases, there may be a question about the personal identity of the zygote, pre-separation of identical twins.

By the time implantation is prevented by Plan B, IUD, etc, there are definitely two distinct persons if there are going to be. I don’t know of any method of birth control which claims to kill the child/children in the days between conception and implantation, which is the timeframe you’re talking about here with a zygote. Once the sperm and egg unite, there’s no stopping what will be, until the time that implantation is either allowed or disabled. By that time any questions regarding how many persons are actually there are already resolved.

An unfounded or magical belief about a drug’s effects would not protect a pharmacist from firing if the drug were any other, and there is no way to legally distinguish its effects from regular birth control pills.

You said “but it’s deliberate interference with implantation” – assume that this is possible in some cases, though it will usually work by preventing conception. This is different from uterine ablation how? A woman isn’t obligated to maintain maximum accepting fluffiness of her uterus.

unclesmrgol on July 13, 2009 at 4:09 PM

Yeah, those bio-ethical questions will arise. Perhaps, by saving the genetic material from umbilical chords we’ll be able to manufacture perfect-match organs one day.

Creating entire clones for that purpose seems a non-starter ethically and financially.

The zygote is one person today. Whatever happens tomorrow doesn’t change the fact of what is real today. At every moment of my life I could have become a different person (having different memories than I have now) if something different had happened to me. That doesn’t negate the fact that who I am is a person. I could have been a different person, or two persons – as could have you. That POTENTIAL didn’t change the fact of my existence at any step along the way.

justincase on July 13, 2009 at 3:55 PM

You can’t legally become a different person–even with amnesia or senility. You may reproduce, but your children are different people.

Clearly the zygote is human organism that might become one or more human beings. However, what qualities does it possess that make it an individual person? If it is a person, which of the twins is it? It seems like we should be able to make that identification if we are going to equate its individuality to that of a child.

As for “finding another job” instead of keeping my own and dispensing Plan B. My job is highly specialized. I am trained to a very specific field. Shouldn’t the government be forced to re-train me to a job that is just as secure and makes me the same compensation? Given the time, energy and money it takes to become a pharmacist these days it’s the least they should do.

DStevens on July 13, 2009 at 3:05 PM

Yup. +1000

If people spontaneously split into two identical copies of themselves, sharing identical memories it would upend our notions of individuality and with it our legal system.

dedalus on July 13, 2009 at 3:13 PM

But twinning isn’t splitting into two identical copies, sharing identical memories. Nor is cloning, of which twinning is an example, albeit a natural one.

Even identical (monozygotic) twins have some dissimilarities; the clone of an adult, even more so.

I expect that human clones from adults will become normal, especially if they are legally made nonhuman, so that their organs and tissues can be harvested. In our brave new world, we will build doppelgangers so we can kill them and allow ourselves a longer, happier life. Kick back and sip away on them there mint juleps…

I don’t understand why what can potentially happen (either naturally or in a lab) makes any difference to the reality of what exists now. I’m going to die someday. That doesn’t mean that someone can call me dead already, or to say that we can only tentatively say that I’m alive now because I might not be alive tomorrow.

The zygote is one person today. Whatever happens tomorrow doesn’t change the fact of what is real today. At every moment of my life I could have become a different person (having different memories than I have now) if something different had happened to me. That doesn’t negate the fact that who I am is a person. I could have been a different person, or two persons – as could have you. That POTENTIAL didn’t change the fact of my existence at any step along the way.