Abortion Discussion, Part the Fourth

robindch

Christianity continuing to make people think that all it's it's interested in is births.

Hotblack Desiato

Not doing a very good job of it are they? Both infant and maternal mortality in the US are substantially more than in most developed countries.

Igotadose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122940454#Comment_122940454

The cruelty is the point.

That, and the profits.

robindch

In surprise news, a hospital controlled by the RCC is arguing in court that a fetus is not a 'person'. By a strange co-incidence, should the hospital lose the case, it could be required to pay substantial damages.

https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/04/09/aiming-to-limit-damages-catholic-hospital-argues-a-fetus-isnt-the-same-as-a-person/

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123382503#Comment_123382503

Weirdly we've been here before with Catholic hospitals in America:

https://annelandmanblog.com/2013/01/in-wrongful-death-suit-colorado-catholic-hospital-argues-fetuses-are-not-viable-persons/

The hospital ended up having to drop that claim. Unsurprisingly, one would have thought, given the inconsistency with basic catholic teaching. So it's surprising to see the argument being trotted out again. Money talks, it seems. And has a very loud voice.

wench

The latest case has also been walked back.

https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/04/18/catholic-hospital-drops-legal-argument-that-a-fetus-is-not-a-person/

The CEO of MercyOne, stated “we are heartbroken that our belief that human personhood begins at conception would ever be called into question. As a Catholic health system, the sanctity of life is not just a belief we hold; it is the foundation of every action we take.

Who would have thought that their legal arguments stating that a fetus isn't a person would lead people to believe they don't think a fetus is a person (when convenient)

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123389722#Comment_123389722

What's really strange is that they don't seem to have foreseen that this would be a problematic defence for a catholic hospital to rely on. It was ridiculous back in 2013 - it's frankly bewildering to see them try it on again more than a decade later.

Hotblack Desiato

Total scumbag behaviour, and abuse of political immunity

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgkg4y5jpjpo

A leading Polish doctor has told the BBC she fears for her patients' safety after being targeted by anti-abortion activists.

Gizela Jagielska says she has received thousands of death threats in relation to her work administering legal abortions in a hospital in the town of Olesnica in southwestern Poland.

The facility specialises in complicated pregnancies.

On 17 April, a group of activists led by radical, far-right MEP Grzegorz Braun came to the hospital, prevented Dr Jagielska from leaving her office and attempted to carry out a citizen's arrest.

Footage posted on social media also shows the activists praying.

"[Braun] kept repeating that I am a murderer, and the police should arrest me as I am a dangerous person," said Dr Jagielska. "He grabbed me, pushed me and blocked me in the [office]."

The gynaecologist says police were called, but officers failed to arrest the activists.

As a member of the European Parliament, Braun has immunity from detention.

…

Grzegorz Braun, who instigated the attack against Dr Jagielska, is one of those standing for president, but is polling at just 2%.

In a televised presidential election debate on Monday, he made several antisemitic remarks.

Braun was expelled from the Polish parliament in 2023 for putting out candles during the Jewish festival of Hanukkah with a fire extinguisher. Earlier this year he was removed from the European Parliament for disrupting a Holocaust memorial ceremony.

Two of the three frontrunners in the election race, Karol Nawrocki and Slawomir Mentzen, have both spoken out against abortion.

Mentzen, from the far-right Confederation Party, caused controversy recently after he said abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape, which he appeared to describe as "unpleasantness".

Igotadose

In the US, they're putting women in the Matrix in support of the holy fetus:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/family-forced-keep-brain-dead-pregnant-woman-alive-rcna207002

Keep her alive (family had no choice), imagine the prenatal experience of the fetus and what kind of human being it will turn into. Frightening.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123461113#Comment_123461113

And guess who's going to get hit with the medical fees too? It's all very well using women as a human gro-bag, but heaven forbid the prolifers should pay for the costs attached.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2025-05-18/case-of-brain-dead-pregnant-woman-kept-on-life-support-in-georgia-raises-tricky-questions

robindch

Guy Edward Bartkus, twenty-five years old, left behind written ramblings which said he "disapproved of people being brought into the world against their will", so to make the world a better place, the lad took his car, filled it with explosives, drove it to a fertility clinic and blew part of the clinic to kingdom come, and all of himself.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c787j90wp6po

Peregrinus

On the limited information available so far, doesn't appear to have anything to do with atheism and agnosticism, or with religion and spirituality. "Nihilistic ideation", apparently.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466516#Comment_123466516

Rather suspect reasoning so. If he "disapproved of people being brought into the world against their will", one would wonder what exactly led him to believe children concieved as a result of fertility treatment are born against their will while other children have a will to be born? Seems like some very messed up belief system at play.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466577#Comment_123466577

"Belief system" might be going a bit far. But a (speculative) rationalisation for his actions might be:

• He's opposed to birth in general; both children conceived with the assistance of fertility treatment and those conceived without it are, in his view, born "against their will"
• The only way to prevent the birth of of a child conceived in the conventional fashion is to kill the mother, which he's not prepared to do.
• But he can prevent the birth of children through the use of eggs/embryos stored at a facility of this kind, by blowing up the facility and (he hopes) destroying the eggs and/or embryos.

None of this requires that he should kill himself, so I wouldn't subject it to too rigorous an analysis. SFAIK it's not clear at this point whether he died because he cocked it up — the bomb went off too early — or he intended all along to die in this incident (which would be consistent with "nihilistic ideation"). If the latter, this is just an elaborate and over-dramatic suicide in which he is attempting to make some kind of point — "It would be better if I had never been born, and if nobody else was either". And I suspect that most likely emerges from grief, pain, self-hatred and possibly some kind of personality disorder more than from anything we could term a "belief system".

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466601#Comment_123466601

Seems like a bit of a stretch, given many religious belief systems do oppose IVF and if someone really wanted to reduce births, promoting contraception, family planning, sexual abstinence or even abortion would seem rather more effective. The notion that "the only way to prevent the birth of a child conceived in the conventional fashion is to kill the mother" is not exactly true either (morning after pill, abortion).

I agree that that this could have stemmed from grief, pain, self-hatred and possibly some kind of personality disorder, but more likely in conjunction with some underlying belief system that took issue with IVF rather than as an alternative to it.

Peregrinus

The religious belief systems that oppose IVF do so, at least in part, because of IVF techniques that involve the fertilisation of embroyos and then the destruction of those that are not required; they object to the destruction of the fertilised embryos. So if that's where he was coming from, trying to destroy fertilised embryos himself would be perverse.

A bit of googling suggests that, far from being motivated by "pro-life" considerations, this guy regarded himself as (in his own words) "pro-death". (Nihilism, remember.) He seems to be pretty much at the opposite end of the spectrum from pro-life terrorists, which is why they attack abortion clinics (they want babys to be born) while he attacks IVF facilities (he wants babies not to be born).

(And, when I spoke about "the only way to prevent birth", I should have been clearer. I meant the only way he could prevent the birth of an already-naturally-conceived child would be to kill the mother. Either he wasn't prepared to do that or, possibly, he reckoned that that would only prevent one birth, while destroying a whole bunch of fertilised embroyos would prevent many births.)

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466285#Comment_123466285

Isn't everybody born against their will? I certainly wasn't asked.

It's classic "teenage fury" level of reasoning - most people grow out of it before they reach 16.

Still, at least he didn't kill anyone else, so there's that. And it does sound rather like those people who commit suicide in public and putting other people at risk- the German pilot who hijacked a plane for instance, so I suppose we should be glad that nobody else was hurt.

Is there any chance that he was trying to set it up for the explosion to take place later, when other people were around, and in fact just mucked it up?

Loafing Oaf

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466972#Comment_123466972

Still, at least he didn't kill anyone else, so there's that. 

One of these 'bare minimum' suicide bombers Jimmy Carr talks about

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRVMB62bJxI

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466763#Comment_123466763

Just did a bit of googling there myself and I tend to agree with you having done so.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123467000#Comment_123467000

That's funny. I like Jimmy Carr. I remember there was outrage over a joke he made during the Afghan war about the UK being able to put up a really good team at the next Paralympics.

robindch

On the limited information available so far, doesn't appear to have anything to do with atheism and agnosticism, or with religion and spirituality. "Nihilistic ideation", apparently.

Agreed - posted above mostly to get in before somebody falsely claimed there was some religious or anti-religious reason for the attack.

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123466285#Comment_123466285

Hell of a way to tell your mom "I never liked being born anyway"

robindch

The Atlantic responds to the what appears to be the bomber's final thoughts:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/anti-natalists-prolife-fertility/682918/

Hotblack Desiato

What was the last thing that went through his mind?

The detonator

Bartkus described himself as having borderline personality disorder, and his manifesto is at times rambling and incoherent (as in a subsection where he declares his preference for Satan over God).

Despite this, the followers of the latter imaginary being have done a lot more damage than the followers of the former

aloyisious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123480107#Comment_123480107

That's some kick at evolution and all it's done.