By Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The Dominican Republic’s church-inspired ban on all abortions has cost the life of a pregnant 16-year-old according to her mother, Rosa Hernandez. The teen, who suffered from leukemia, was unable to undergo life-saving chemotherapy until it was too late. The DR’s ban prevented a therapeutic abortion of the 13 week fetus as doctors were unwilling to make an exception.
A blood transfusion on Thursday was unsuccessful, and the postponed chemotherapy was likewise ineffective. The teen miscarried on Friday but died from complications including cardiac arrest.
“My daughter’s life is first. I know that (abortion) is a sin and that it goes against the law … but my daughter’s health is first,” Hernandez said. Not according to DR law which constitutionally provides that “the right to life is inviolable from the moment of conception and until death.” Dominican courts have interpreted this as a strict mandate against abortion.
Article 37 of the DR’s constitution, which also bans the death penalty, was heavily promoted by the Roman Catholic Church. The Church’s all-out war against abortion has taken root in heavily catholic Latin America, where 16 states in Mexico have recently adopted constitutional amendments declaring that life begins at conception. These follow the criminalization of abortion under all circumstances by Nicaragua in 2006, and El Salvador in 1998.
In 2009,the Dominican Gynecology and Obstetrics Society warned that enacting Article 37 would lead to more maternal deaths. The United Nations Program for Human Development coordinator Miguel Ceara Hatton said, “The Catholic Church influenced in everything. For following a dogma it has become a source and a motor for social exclusion in the Dominican Republic. The dogma is placed ahead of the needs of the population, health, housing and better living conditions.”
The needless death has precipitated a world-wide outcry against the ban, but Rosa Hernandez’ daughter is still dead in service to someone else’s principles.
Source: CNN
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Leejcaroll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKjPI6no5ng
Listen carefully, He said if you have a business, you didn’t build that somebody else made that happen.
Of course Jim another misrepresentation What the president said was you did not build it alone, you needed roads, water, electricity, things that you do not do all by your lonesome. But hey, what is truth if it interferes with your preconceptions (oh a little pun there I guess)
leejcaroll
A corporation is made up of people. Your argument is like saying “you didn’t build that” one of Obama’s biggest mistakes. Would you say a partnership if two people? How about a one man business is a person?
Anonymously Yours
I agree. Men should not be having sex if they are not married and even then if they have no plans on taking care of their children.
If the only way to not have an unwanted pregnancy is with abstinence due to no contraception being affordable or available and with abortion not being an option, and with guys like Jim saying if you don’t want kids don’t have sex who are the guys going to have sex with? With such control issues and egos, all that’s left is themselves. So put in an extra bathroom and have fun, guys.
Malisha, ” the most significant thing they taught was the date of the war of 1812″ LOL
Jim,
Women who can’t afford children should not be having sex…… How about the male having sex should be able to support the child produced or they should not be having sex……. What generation are you living in…..
Mespo,
Thanks……You’re my hero…….
Kraaken, I recently had a cup of coffee with an intellectual who holds two advanced degrees (law and medicine) and has professional membership with honors in probably a dozen of those smartness societies. I, meanwhile, have no college degree at all and went to a public high school where the most significant thing they taught was the date of the war of 1812. And he asked me, “Why do people become so religious?” And I nearly fell off my chair but it was one of those tall chairs like they have in the high-class coffee shops so I saved myself and started in on an educated guesswork answer (I actually know some people who have turned to religious extremism even after having been raised normal!).
I said, “When I’m really scared, when I’m really hurt, I really want to have a good daddy to turn to. If I don’t have one, but I can get one just by believing in god, I’m likely to do THAT, in a pinch.”
He took another sip of his caffeinated beverage and commented, “Yes but all that NONSENSE and the obsessive stuff you have to DO!”
Jim is a Ryan guy, a fertilized egg is a person.
I guess like a corporation is a person.
Like it or not a fertilized sgg is a parasite, it cannot live on its own and takes from the woman whose womb it is inhabiting.
Jim you blame the woman, just dont have sex, hard to do when it is your father, uncle brother, forcing himseif on you, or the man in a black mask who steals into your room or corners you on a dark street and rapes you.
Hard to do when, like one of my sisters, a back xray was taken thru the abdomen at an unknow 6 weeks of pregnancy. She was told she had to have an abotiron because the fetus was so damaged, in fact so damaged they would not tell her the sex so she would not fantasize about what that fetus might have become had it become a person.
My mother had to go before a male judge, a non medical person, and lay bare her medical and psychiatric history in order to get permission for an abortion (which was given)
I know women who have gone to the back alleys. Thankfully no one I knew had to resort to a wire hanger.
I have a feeling Jim if the woman was your wife, sister, nieve a female that you loved and cared about suddenly her welfare would be placed above that if a fetus.
You dont want an abortion fine. your female friends, relatives don;t want one fine too but you have no right to dictate to other women, unless you wanto to attend the funerals, adopt the babies, pay for the 18 plus years, etc.
Typinig is fine, reality is a whole different ball of wax.
Boy. After reading some of the responses here (Jim springs to mind), I had to check the day and then slap myself just to make sure I hadn’t time-traveled back to the Southern Baptist sunday school of my roots. The fact that there are people in this world who espouse such bovine-feces is truly frightening. I have two sisters and their families who do and, needless to say, I see them as little as possible. I have always been so glad that I saw through the BS early enough in life not to have been tainted with it. The kind of god that Jim apparently believes in is anathema to any rational being. But then, how could ANY rational being swallow such tripe? Jim, go handle your snakes and let the rest of us deal with concepts which are FAR above your ken.
Kraaken, I take my caffeine in tablet form, as the truckers do, so I can be ready at any moment to answer something Woosty says.
Woosty, my bad. Sorry. I can only plead lack of caffene and the early hour when I answered you! 🙂
Malisha,
A most excellent plan. As for myself, every time somebody like Jim starts preaching at me, I usually ask them how many of those kids they have adopted. Put their money where their mouth is. We did. Usually shuts them up….at least from preaching at me.
Well I’m glad they saved the life of that innocent baby.
Oh, wait…
Nothing like a discussion of women’s right to privacy and the ability to make her own decisions to bring out the misogynists. Fortunately, there aren’t many of them here.
Yes, Malisha, if the state is going to force women to carry a pregnancy to term, they should be responsible for that dependent. In fact, they should be giving the woman a Uterus rental fee each month in addition to caring for the person occupying that uteri space.
Could we get some depreciation also? A tax attorney could figure out all the details I am sure……
If a fertilized egg is a human being, then I think that any woman who is of child-bearing years and whom the state cannot prove is UNPREGNANT at any one time is entitled to full health, food and other benefits for the dependent human being she is housing at any given time because obviously that dependent human being is a dependent upon HER. She should have the tax benefits of that human being, plus ALL MEDICAL CARE, plus food stamps, etc., unless she is so wealthy that she falls ABOVE the guidelines for top one percent AND does not have income sufficient to meet TWICE HER MONTHLY BUDGET each month.
How’s that? Anything else is discriminatory.
Jim:
” I will say this, God’s wrath will come for all of the MILLIONS of innocent babies that have been taken through abortion. I just hope and pray I am not here when it happens.”
*********************
Let’s see? God will punish innocents for the sins of other people because God is upset that other people punished “innocents.”
Jim, Jim, do you see how silly this is? A fetus is a human being like an acorn is an oak tree.
Jim, a post just for you from ‘Religious tolerance’
Exodus 21:22 If men strive [fight] an hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit [fetus] depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
One source comments that because some Bible translations (KJV, RSV) use the phrase “woman with child” that God considers a fetus to be a human child. 3 But other translations render the phrase simply as “pregnant woman” and make no direct reference to the fetus.
This verse describes a situation in which a man, who is fighting another man, accidentally hits a pregnant woman, and causes a termination of her pregnancy. The following verse, 23, explains that if the woman died, the guilty man would be executed by the state. The accidental killing of a woman under these circumstances was considered a capital offense, because she was a human person.
Verse 22 is confusing. The key Hebrew word “yatsa” literally means to “lose her offspring.” 4 This has been translated in different Bible versions as:
A miscarriage: This would imply that the fetus died immediately as a direct result of the accident. Assuming no further harm happens (e.g. that the woman does not die), the man responsible would have to pay at a fine. The amount would be set by her husband and approved by the judges. This would imply that the death of the fetus was not considered to be the death of a human person. If it were, then the man responsible would be tried for murder and executed. However, because the fetus had possible future economic worth to the father, he would have to be reimbursed for his loss.
premature birth: This implies that the fetus is born earlier than full term. Assuming no further harm happens (e.g. that neither the woman nor the baby dies) then the man would pay a fine. One possible interpretation of this passage would be that if the premature baby died, then the man responsible had killed a human person, and would be tried for murder. The verse is ambiguous at this point.
The New International Version of the Bible uses the phrase: “gives birth prematurely.” and offers “miscarriage” as an alternative translation in a footnote. These two options result in totally opposite interpretations: one supporting the pro-choice faction; the other supporting the pro-life movement.
Some liberal theologians reject this interpretation. 5 They point out that this passage appears to have been derived from two earlier Pagan laws, whose intent is quite clear:
Code of Hammurabi (209, 210) which reads: “If a seignior struck a[nother] seignior’s daughter and has caused her to have a miscarriage [literally, caused her to drop that of her womb], he shall pay ten shekels of silver for her fetus. If that woman had died, they shall put his daughter to death.”
Hittite Laws, (1.17): “If anyone causes a free woman to miscarry [literally, drives out the embryo]-if (it is) the 10th month, he shall give 10 shekels of silver, if (it is) the 5th month, he shall give 5 shekels of silver…” The phrase “drives out the embryo” appears to relate to a miscarriage rather than to a premature birth.
Author Brian McKinley, a born-again Christian, sums the passage up with: “Thus we can see that if the baby is lost, it does not require a death sentence — it is not considered murder. But if the woman is lost, it is considered murder and is punished by death.” 4
Exodus 22:29″Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.” Many Old Testament theologians believe that this is another remnant of the time when the ancient Hebrews and Canaanites ritually murdered their first son, sacrificing him to their god.
Oh yes, the Bible also states the Earth is 6,000 years old. That mixing cotton with linen is a sin, that women should be stoned for infidelity. It takes two to tango, as they say, why no punishment for the men who are unfaithful? You apply to a stone age myth, part history, part culture, part nonsense- used to subjugate and enslave people around the world. Slavery is good social policy according to God in your view.
Shakespeare once wrote, “the devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
That said, the Old Testament is full of passages that support capital punishment, often for relatively mild offenses:
– Adultery (Leviticus 20:10)
– Blasphemy (Leviticus 24:16)
– Breaking the Sabbath (Exodus 31:14 & 15)
– Disobedient children (Exodus 21:15 & 17; Leviticus 20:9)
– Homosexuality (Leviticus 20:13)
– Not being a virgin on your wedding night (but only if you’re a woman – Deuteronomy 22:20-21)
The Bible supports killing all these people for these offenses. thank god we are more civilized than this!
Or the science based – Gods own cure for leprosy being 2 turtle doves some water and a prayer . that works so well!
In the OT it says that a man who causes a woman to lose a baby must be fined. There is no mention of it in the NT that I can find. Abortion or rather the anti abortion stance is hard to pin down to a specific scripture – it falls under the thou shalt not kill thing and is backed up by a municipal level fine in the book of either Deut or Exodus (no longer sure). You are the Bible expert. You can find this scripture leveling fines as well as I can.
Tell me Jim, why is there no punishment for causing an abortion other than a fine? When a disobedient child must be killed?