HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION IIClearly, these clowns must feel the good people of Michigan have very little else on their plates. The problem with this, aside from that whole "bureaucrats getting between people and their doctors" thing (let's not kid ourselves that this is NOT an attack on contraception meant to be enshrined as state constitutional law), is that it opens up a whole nest of wasps if taken to its logical conclusion. Because as the President's Commission on Bioethics noted in 2003, women lose a whole lot of "babies" every month:
October 14, 2009, Introduced by Reps. Slezak, Paul Scott, Moore, LeBlanc, Bolger, Green,Rick Jones, Lund, Lori, Walsh, Kurtz, McMillin, Dean, Genetski, Wayne Schmidt, Haveman, Daley, Knollenberg, Kowall, Hansen, Spade, Sheltrown and Mayes and referred to the Committee on Judiciary.
A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the state constitution of 1963, by adding section 28 to article I, to establish the right to life of all human beings from the beginning of their biological development.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the state of Michigan, That the following amendment to the state constitution of 1963, to establish the right to life of all human beings from the beginning of their biological development, is
proposed, agreed to, and submitted to the people of the state:
ARTICLE I
SEC. 28. (1) EVERY HUMAN PERSON HAS A RIGHT TO LIFE, WHICH IS THE PARAMOUNT AND MOST FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT GUARANTEED UNDER THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS OF THIS STATE.
(2) WITH RESPECT TO THE FUNDAMENTAL AND INALIENABLE RIGHT TO LIFE, THE WORD "PERSON" APPLIES TO ALL HUMAN BEINGS, IRRESPECTIVE OF AGE, RACE, GENDER, HEALTH, FUNCTION, CONDITION OF DEPENDENCY, INCLUDING PHYSICAL OR MENTAL DEPENDENCY, OR METHOD OF REPRODUCTION, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THEIR BIOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, INCLUDING FERTILIZATION.
(3) THE LEGISLATURE SHALL IMPLEMENT THIS SECTION BY APPROPRIATE LEGISLATION.
Resolved further, That the foregoing amendment shall be submitted to the people of the state at the next general election in the manner provided by law.
PROF. SANDEL: Thank you. I have two questions about the rate of natural embryo loss in human beings. The first is what percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant or are otherwise lost? And the second question is is it the case that all of these lost embryos contain genetic defects that would have prevented their normal development and birth?Right. So what happens if such a power grab becomes law? Do we track down every woman having a period and hold her under surveillance to determine her pregnancy status post-menses? Do we require her to turn over the bloody discharge in each pad or tampon until her period is done for microscopic examination? And given the 60-80% chance that she was pregnant and lost the fertilized egg, what then? Microscopic autopsies to look for foul play? Forced funeral arrangements and burials? Think of the children!!!
DR. OPITZ: The answer to your first question is that it is enormous. Estimates range all the way from 60 percent to 80 percent of the very earliest stages, cleavage stages, for example, that are lost.
PROF. SANDEL: Sixty to 80 percent?
DR. OPITZ: Sixty to 80 percent. And one of the objective ways of establishing the loss at least as of the moment of implantation, well, even earlier, let's say as of five days because the blastocyst begins to make a chorionic gonadotrophin and with extremely sensitive assay methods, you can detect the presence of gonadotrophins, let me say, first around Day 7. That's the beta of human chorionic gonadotrophin. And if you follow prospectively the cycles that has been done on quite a few occasions in the Permanente study in Hawaii and so on, a group of women, of nonfertility, who want to conceive and you detect the first sign of pregnancy there of human chorionic gonadotrophin, about 60 percent of those pregnancies are lost.
It is independently corroborated by the fact that the monozygotic twin conception rate at the very beginning is much, much higher than the birth rate and then if you follow with amniocentesis, the presence of the two sacs in about 80 percent of cases,the second sac disappears, one of the sacs disappears.
CHAIRMAN KASS: The 60 percent then would be of those that have at least reached the 7 days so that you could trace the – so there might be even greater loss at the early cleavage stage, is that correct?
DR. OPITZ: That's correct. And the earlier the stage of loss, the greater the rate of aneuploidy. There exists sort of a standard, textbook formula whereby 60 percent of spontaneous abortions have a chromosome abnormality. Six percent of all stillbirths and 6/10ths percent of all live born children. Now the latter figure is probably closer to 1 percent if you include some growth variants. So that's sort of a rule of thumb.
In my own lab in Helena where I did all of the autopsies on all pregnancy losses for 18 years, the rate of chromosome abnormalities was a little bit higher.
PROF. SANDEL: So if we take the 7-day stage, it's 60 percent. The 80 percent is if you go back to the moment of fertilization. But if you take just starting at the 7 days, there's 60 percent rate of natural loss. And of those 60 percent that are lost from the 7-day stage, what percentage of those have abnormalities or defects such that they wouldn't otherwise be able to be born?
DR. OPITZ: I would say somewhere around 50 to 60 percent and mind you, many of these are empty sacs, tiny, tiny stunted little embryos, but when you culture the sacs you find a chromosome abnormality, even though the embryo has vanished already.
PROF. SANDEL: So of the 60 percent that are lost at the 7-day stage, 40 to 50 percent did not contain defects or abnormalities, could have been born?
DR. OPITZ: Right.
PROF. SANDEL: And become babies.
Now I understand that when times are bad those who got shall get and the rest will get got, but just what will it take to satisfy these control freaks who so desperately fear and hate female reproductive power?
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