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Dr. Peter Offit: What Is “Gain-of-Function” Research? Why Republicans Are Wrong to Harass Dr. Fauci

By dianeravitch
June 4, 2024 //
18

Since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in early 2020, there has been intense interest in how the pandemic started. Was it started by a leak of the virus from a dirty seafood market stall in China? Did it begin because the virus leaked from a research laboratory in Wuhan, China?

Republican elected officials in Washington became convinced that it began because the virus escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, that researching dangerous viruses; that the lab was involved in gain-of-function research; that the research was funded by the United States; and that Dr. Anthony Fauci knew and must be held accountable.

In other words, a worldwide pandemic that caused millions of deaths was Dr. Fauci’s fault. They launched hearings yesterday at which Dr. Fauci was grilled.

Dr. Paul Offit is an infectious diseases specialist. He blogs at “Beyond the Noise” and recently wrote a book about COVID. He wrote the following post to explain what scientists know about these issues.

He wrote:

On February 13, 2024, National Geographic published a book I wrote called, TELL ME WHEN IT’S OVER: AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO DECIPHERING COVID MYTHS AND NAVIGATING OUR POST-PANDEMIC WORLD. For the past few months, I have been writing about various issues discussed in that book.

In the wake of some emails that recently came to light, the question of whether the United States government knowingly funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology has resurfaced. Does this new information prove the lab-leak theory?

First, what is “gain-of-function” research? Second, did gain-of-function research give birth to SARS-CoV-2 virus? One way to understand gain-of-function research is through the prism of rabies virus. People get rabies when they are bitten by a rabid animal. Once under the skin, the virus travels up the nerves and enters the brain, where it causes delirium, seizures, coma, and invariably death. Rabies is without question the deadliest infection of humans.

Now, imagine that a scientist engineers rabies virus so that, instead of being transmitted by animal bites, it is transmitted by small droplets from the nose and mouth, like the common cold. This new virus would be highly contagious and uniformly fatal. In the absence of an effective vaccine, it could eliminate humans from the face of the earth. The good news is that no one has tried to make rabies virus more contagious. But that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible or that no one would be willing to try. Indeed, in 2011, one experiment so frightened U.S. public health officials that within two years federal regulators made gain-of-function research illegal.

The worrisome experiment took place at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Researchers took a strain of influenza virus found in birds and altered it to grow in ferrets (which, like humans, are mammals). In other words, these researchers had taken a strain of influenza virus that was limited to birds—to which no one in the world had immunity—and altered it so that it might cause disease in people. They had created a potential pandemic virus.

In 2016, three years before SARS-CoV-2 virus entered the human population, the lead researcher studying coronaviruses at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was Dr. Zheng-Li Shi. Her studies were funded in part by the United States government through EcoHealth. Dr. Shi was studying a coronavirus strain called WIV1 (Wuhan Institute of Virology-1): a bat coronavirus that could grow in monkey cells in the laboratory but didn’t cause disease in people. The WIV1 strain bears no resemblance to SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Shi wanted to see what would happen if she combined WIV1 with each of eight different bat coronaviruses that had been found in caves in and around Wuhan. None of the combination viruses that she created, however, were more dangerous than the strain she had started with (WIV1). None of them, like WIV1, could cause disease in people. Although Dr. Shi had performed gain-of-function studies that would have been illegal in the United States, she didn’t create a coronavirus strain that was dangerous to people.

So, while it was true that the United States government funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, no function was gained. The recent seemingly endless posting of hidden emails and secret communications by government officials—all breathlessly claiming conspiracy and coverup—has, in the final analysis, been much to do about nothing.

Indeed, overwhelming evidence continues to support an animal-to-human spillover event that occurred in the western section of the Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market at the end of 2019. This is consistent with many other animal-to-human spillover events in history. Influenza virus (birds), human immunodeficiency virus (chimps), Ebola virus (bats), mpox (rodents), and the coronaviruses SARS-1 (bats) and MERS (bats) were all originally animal viruses. Indeed, about 60 percent of human viruses and bacteria have their origins in animals.

For a lengthy but complete discussion about why it is now clear that SARS-CoV-2 was an animal-to-human spillover event, you might want to check out a podcast called Decoding the Gurus, which features evolutionary biologists Michael Worobey, Kristian Anderson, and Eddie Holmes.

Categories Extremism, Research, Science

Thomas Ultican: New Book by Reading Experts Debunks “Science of Reading”

By dianeravitch
May 31, 2024 //
38

Thomas Ultican, retired teacher of advanced mathematics and physics, reports on a new book by literacy scholars, The book, he concludes, demolishes the hype associated with “the science of reading.” Ultican believes that states should not mandate how to teach reading. I agree. Legislators are not teaching professionals or literacy experts. They should not require teachers to follow their orders.

Ultican writes:

Two eminent professors of instruction and literacy teamed up to write “Fact-Checking the Science of Reading.” P. David Pearson of UC Berkeley and Robert J. Tierney of University of British Columbia are Emeritus Professors with high reputation in their respective countries.

In the introduction, they inform us that Emily Hanford’s 2022 “Sold a Story” podcasts motivated them to write. In particular, they noted:

  1. “A consistent misinterpretation of the relevant research findings; and
  2. “A mean-spirited tone in her rhetoric, which bordered on personal attacks directed against the folks Hanford considered to be key players in what she called the Balanced Literacy approach to teaching early reading.” (Page XIV)…

After reviewing their findings, Ultican concludes:

SoR advocates say when teaching reading, the “settled science” of phonics “first and fast”, should be applied. They are working to make it against the law to disagree, claiming other forms of instruction cause child harm. SoR reading theory may have some holes but their political power is unquestioned and global. Laws mandating SoR have been enacted in 40 US states, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and other English-speaking countries. These rules limit teacher autonomy and attempt to make reading a scripted subject. (Page XII)

The Orwellian labeled science of reading (SoR) is not based on sound science. It more accurately should be called “How to Use Anecdotes to Sell Reading Products.” In 1997, congress passed legislation, calling for a reading study. From Jump Street, establishment of the National Reading Panel (NRP) was a doomed effort. The panel was given limited time for the study (18 months) which was a massive undertaking, conducted by twenty-one unpaid volunteers. NRP fundamentally did a meta-analysis in five reading domains, ignoring 10 other important reading domains. In other words, they did not review everything and there was no new research. They simply searched for reading studies and averaged the results to give us “the science of reading.”

SoR’s real motivation is to sell products, not helping children struggling to read. Scholars like Pearson and Tierney are ignored and swept away by a podcaster with no credentials. 

For the sake of the future, we must stop legally mandating SoR as a solution to a fraudulent“reading crisis” and put our trust in education professionals.

Categories Education Industry, Fake News, For-Profit, Literacy, Science

Good News! Connecticut Eliminates Religious Exemptions for Vaccines

By dianeravitch
May 6, 2024 //
20

In recent years, religious freedom has been used to undermine public schools and public health. This trend damages communities and endangers children. In the following post, an authority praises Connecticut for eliminating the religious exemption for vaccination.

Dr. Paul Offit is a pediatrician who specializes in infectious diseases and vaccines. He is currently  the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology, professor of pediatrics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. He writes a blog where he warns about the dangers of refusing to vaccinate against diseases.

He wrote:

On February 13, 2024, National Geographic published a book I wrote called, TELL ME WHEN IT’S OVER: AN INSIDER’S GUIDE TO DECIPHERING COVID MYTHS AND NAVIGATING OUR POST-PANDEMIC WORLD. For the past few months, I have been writing about various issues discussed in that book.

Between January 2020 and March 2024, the CDC reported 338 cases of measles in 30 US states and jurisdictions. These outbreaks were consistent with a CDC survey showing that more parents are choosing non-medical vaccine exemptions, such as religious or philosophical exemptions, for their school children. Connecticut, however, is standing up to those who, in the name of religious freedoms, are putting children at unnecessary risk.

In 2000, the United States eliminated measles, the most contagious of the vaccine-preventable diseases. Success centered on the enforcement of school vaccine mandates that have existed in all 50 states since 1981. Unfortunately, during the past few years, legislative efforts by anti-vaccine groups have made it easier to opt out of vaccines for non-medical reasons. As a consequence, immunization rates among school children have dropped and measles has come back.

In Connecticut, on the other hand, immunization rates have risen for two straight years, exceeding pre-pandemic levels. During the 2022-2023 school year, more than 97 percent of Connecticut kindergartners were vaccinated against measles, up from 95.7 percent the year before and 95.3 percent the year before that. Why? The answer can be found in a 2021 law that eliminated the state’s religious exemption to vaccination.

Immunization rates of 95 percent or higher are required to provide herd immunity against measles. When rates drop, which is true in many states that now offer either religious or philosophical exemptions, measles comes back. The most dramatic example being an outbreak in Philadelphia in 1991 that centered on two fundamentalist churches that refused vaccines. During a three-month period, measles virus infected 1,400 people in the city and killed nine. All the deaths were in young children.

On its face, the phrase “religious exemptions to vaccination” is a contradiction in terms. All religions teach us to care about our children and our families and our neighbors. Choosing to put our children and those with whom they come in contact at risk is the opposite of a religious act. Further, about 9 million people in the United States, because they are on immune suppressive therapies for their cancers or transplants or autoimmune diseases, can’t be vaccinated. They depend on those around them for protection. Do we have a responsibility to love our neighbor?

Amy Pisani, a Connecticut resident, and head of the national group Vaccinate Your Family, praised the hard work required to counter the efforts of anti-vaccine groups to overturn vaccine mandates. “From the top down, we have incredibly supportive legislators,” said Pisani. “And when you have government agencies that are supportive at that level, it allows our public health officials to do their job.” As measles cases rise this year, and will no doubt return next winter, parents in Connecticut can feel more comfortable that state health officials and legislators have their backs.

Standing in stark contrast to efforts to protect children in Connecticut are those in Mississippi. In July 2023, Mississippi, which had up to that point only offered medical exemptions, became the most recent state to offer a religious exemption to vaccination. More than 2,000 parents immediately chose to exempt their children. The effort was not spearheaded by a religious group, but rather a virulent anti-vaccine group called Informed Consent Action Network. The lawyer who headed that effort paradoxically declared, “Freedom wins again.” Freedom to catch and transmit potentially deadly infections. Hardly a victory for children.

Categories Accountability, Connecticut, Ethics, Health, Science

Are Fetuses People, with the Rights of Other People?

By dianeravitch
April 30, 2024 //
60

The next frontier of the abortion debate is rapidly approaching. It is the movement to legislate that life begins at the instant of conception, and that fetuses in the womb (or stored in a tank in an In Vitro Fertilization clinic) are human beings, with the same rights as other human beings. Thus, to kill a fetus for any reason (e.g., to save the life of the mother, or because the pregnant girl is a 10-year-old victim of rape, or because the fetus has fatal abnormalities) is murder.

Are fetuses “natural persons?” Some people think so. They have the right to believe whatever they want, but they should not have the right to impose their beliefs on others.

But they are trying.

One-third of states have laws defining “fetal personhood.” In Georgia, individuals can claim a $3,000 tax deduction for an unborn child. The deduction applies even if there is a stillbirth or miscarriage. State auditors may have to dig into medical records to verify claims.

Critics complain that the state of Georgia is hypocritical: “This was not necessarily a good faith attempt to support people in pregnancy because, at the same time as this was being passed, we were still fighting to expand Medicaid coverage for pregnant people beyond 60 days after delivery,” [Kwajelyn Jackson, executive director of the Feminist Women’s Health Center in Atlanta] said. She also stressed the need to improve Georgia’s maternal mortality rates, which are the worst in the country, and address systemic racism within health care, which results in Black maternal mortality rates being twice as high as white women in the state.”

In Texas, a woman who was given a ticket for driving alone in the HOV lane claimed that she shouldn’t have to pay the ticket because she was 34 weeks pregnant. But Texas has not yet passed a fetal personhood law, so she was required to pay the ticket.

In several high-profile murder cases, men have been charged with a double homicide when they killed their pregnant wife.

Planned Parenthood is keeping watch on Republican efforts to pass a federal law recognizing “fetal personhood.”

Similar to what we’ve seen on the state level, anti-abortion members of Congress have pushed ”fetal personhood” attacks for years, and fights are expected to continue this spring. Federal lawmakers trying to ban abortion have tried to embed personhood language in maternal health bills, birth control bills, tax codes, child support laws, college savings plans, COVID-19 relief packages, and essential safety-net programs like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. And they aren’t stopping. Like other personhood attacks, if taken to its most extreme, this language could affect birth control — including the pill, IUDs, and emergency contraception.

Currently, 125 members in the House, including Speaker Mike Johnson, support the Life at Conception Act, a federal personhood bill that would extend all inalienable rights afforded to Americans by the Constitution to apply at all stages of life, including to fetuses and embryos. Last year, during the first full Congress since Dobbs, as many as 166 members signed on as co-sponsors.

This attempt to legally define when personhood begins would make all abortion illegal nationwide. And, like the legislation proposed at the state level, would have grave implications for a range of sexual and reproductive health care, including some forms of contraception, infertility treatment, and miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy management. This language could also, in some circumstances, subject health care providers to criminal charges. “Personhood” language in our federal code would take away people’s ability to make safe and healthy choices about their reproductive futures and well-being. 

Laws of this kind are troubling because they turn religious beliefs into legal mandates. They inject Big Government into the most intimate details of people’s private lives. And, they are profoundly hypocritical. The states that insist on “fetal personhood” are the very ones that oppose almost every federal or state program to improve the lives of children. They are states that reject the expansion of Medicaid, leaving large numbers of people without medical insurance; they are states that weaken child labor laws, allowing teens to work long hours in dangerous jobs. They are states whose elected representatives oppose extending the child tax credit, which cut child poverty in half during the year in which it was in effect. Almost any legislation you can think of that would have improved the lives of born children has been opposed by the same people who insist on “fetal personhood.”

What’s the lesson in all this? Each of us may see it differently.

Here’s what I conclude:

Republicans care passionately about fetuses and unborn children. Once they are born, the children are on their own.

Categories Extremism, Gender, Georgia, Privacy, Religion, Science

RFK Jr’s Running Mate Shares His Skepticism Towards Vaccines

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2024 //
4

Nicole Shanahan, the billionaire selected by Robert Kennedy Jr. as his running mate, suspects that childhood vaccines may have caused her daughter’s autism. Glenn Kessler, the Fact Checker for the Washington Post, asked for the reactions of several autism experts, who disagreed with Shanahan. Kessler gives her four Pinnochios, the highest ranking for falsehood.

Categories Elections, Fake, Health, Science

Trump Vows to Cut Federal Funding to Any School That Mandates Vaccines or Masks

By dianeravitch
March 7, 2024 //
69

The political landscape of American politics gets weirder by the moment, if you pay attention to what one former President is saying on the campaign trail.

In a campaign appearance in Richmond, Virginia, Trump promised that “I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate.” He is obviously appealing to the anti-vaxxers who refused to take the vaccine that Trump himself rushed to completion and that Trump and his family did take while in the White House.

Assuming that he is serious about his threat, he is promising to eliminate public health measures that are now the law in every state. It is now commonplace (and has been for decades) to require children to be vaccinated for various diseases before they enter school—measles, chickenpox, mumps, polio, diphtheria, etc.

Even Florida, which is officially opposed to vaccine mandates, requires students to be vaccinated before they start public school. As of July 12, 2023:

What immunizations are required for a child to attend school in Florida?

  • 5 doses DTaP (diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis).
  • 4-5 doses Polio (Kindergarten). … 
  • 2 doses MMR (measles-mumps-rubella).
  • 3 doses Hepatitis B.
  • 2 doses Varicella (chickenpox).

Despite this mandate, Florida is currently experiencing an outbreak of measles. The surgeon general of the state has told parents that it’s up to them to decide whether to send their sick child to school.

A number of contagious diseases are reappearing, according to WebMD. Among them are tuberculosis, scarlet fever, measles, mumps, and whooping cough. Some come back because the vaccines are not as effective as the bacteria evolves, and some return because people are not vaccinated.

Michael Hiltzik, columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote that Trump and RFK Jr. are competing for the anti-vaccine vote. If Trump is re-elected and follows through on his threats, we can expect to see a resurgence of diseases like polio that were eliminated decades ago.

Hiltzik’s column is titled: “Trump and RFK Jr. want to make the world safe again for polio and measles. You should be terrified.”

People will die from diseases that were conquered by science decades ago.

Hiltzik wrote:

Trump’s words elicited febrile cheers from his Virginia audience, which may be a sign of what I earlier identified as the phenomenon of “herd stupidity” connected with the anti-vaccine movement. 

Did these people have any conception of what they were cheering? (We can assume that Trump didn’t.) Did they cotton on to the fact that Trump was advocating depriving all Virginia public and private K-12 schools, nursery schools, child care centers and home schools of federal funding?

We know that would be the consequence of his pledge, because we know that Virginia requires children attending any of those institutions to be vaccinated against 15 diseases, with boosters where appropriate. Virginia’s mandated schedule, like those of every other state, follows the recommendations of the CDC, which calls for some vaccinations within a month or two of birth.

Trump issued his ukase against vaccine mandates right after declaring at the Richmond rally that he would “sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and any other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children,” thus covering pretty much the entire right-wing culture battleground, almost all of which is based on manufactured outrage.

In context, Trump’s opposition to vaccine mandates falls into the category of glorifying individual “freedom” over the communal interest. As I’ve written before, opposing vaccine mandates as a substitute for opposing vaccination itself is a fundamentally incoherent position — little more than garden variety small-government Republican ideology almost invariably invoked to protect the interests of the “haves” over the “have-nots.”

What makes it incoherent is that mandates do work. They’ve saved the lives of millions of schoolchildren who would otherwise be exposed to deadly diseases at school and play.

Categories Elections, Extremism, Health, Ignorance, Science, Stupid, Trump

Jess Piper: Don’t Forget Rural Democrats

By dianeravitch
March 1, 2024 //
19

Jess Piper is a Democratic activist in rural Missouri. She is a fierce advocate for rural communities and public schools. She lives on a farm where she and her husband raise hogs and chickens. She blogs, she makes videos for TikTok, she tweets, she hosts a podcast called Dirt Road Democrats and is executive director of Blue Missouri. She taught American literature for 16 years. She often writes about the absurdity of vouchers and school choice. In this post, she goes to towns in her district to gather signatures to restore abortion rights in Missouri..

I live at the tippy top of NWMO on a small 7 acre farm in a 125 year old farmhouse with a few dogs, a couple cows, a gaggle of kids and grandkids, and a miniature donkey. Everyone perks up when I mention the donkey…he’s 36 inches high and his name is Augustus.

I drive across the state often these days and I am usually headed to a small town and this week was no different—I visited Chillicothe (the home of sliced bread), Carrolton, and Marceline and you’ll never guess why. I was getting rural folks and their Bible groups to sign the petition to restore abortion rights in Missouri.

Dirt Road organizing.

Missouri is in the process of putting abortion on the ballot and I have the petition—I have to tell you it’s kind of hard to get a petition, so I was excited to get them and also overwhelmed. I have to get this out to rural folks, and it’s not as easy as it would seem. 

First, there is the opposition to the petition—the Missouri Right to Life (Right to force others to gestate and deliver) has a literal snitch line to report folks accepting signatures. Now, I have no idea what they plan to do if they find us accepting signatures. I was raised to take care of myself and they shouldn’t mess with me, and I’m not the least bit intimidated, but I don’t want them to harass other rural folks who are signing quietly.

Second, folks have written off my congressional district—even some progressives who need signatures on a ballot initiative. They assume that we are too red to get enough signatures, so what’s the point, right? I’ll tell you the point: it creates excitement and solidarity in rural spaces. It acts to uplift us living in among MAGA extremists. It gives us hope.

Chillicothe was my first stop, and it is a pretty big town at over 9K folks. Chilli is also known for having a “patriot” group who have been successful in putting their extremists on the local health board — they also regularly object to school library books. Folks were on long text chains to get others to the event. I was able to gather about 30 signatures on a Tuesday at 9am. 

I was directing folks to the petition and how to fill it in correctly. One woman filled it out, stood up, and started texting. She told me, “I’m reminding my Bible group to come sign.” 

Wait…what?

The second place I drove was Carrolton, with a population of about 3,400. Still not tiny, but small. I sat in the basement of the library for almost 2 hours with…wait for it…a local pastor. A woman pastor. She signed the petition and then stayed the length of the signing event and visited with every single person who came in. Several folks attended her church or a neighboring church. 

Are you seeing a theme here?

My last stop of the day was in Marceline, population 2,100. I sat in the fire station with a local Dem organizer and we accepted signatures a few feet from the active train crossing. I met with a local candidate running for state house and again, folks signed, stood up, texted friends and relatives and their church community, and then headed back out to their farms and rural life.

This is why I organize in rural spaces across the state. This is why I drive 5 or 6 or 10 hours to meet with rural folks. They matter—we matter.

When we cede ground because it’s too red, because it’s too evangelical, because it’s too far of a drive, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy. It’s become more red, more uncontested. When we tell rural folks that their votes and signatures don’t matter because there aren’t enough of them, they agree and stop showing up. When we say Democrats and progressives support everyone, yet fail to have a presence in rural spaces, they notice…they know it’s a lie.

We can’t win Missouri if we avoid rural parts of the state. Missouri is 1/3 rural…33% of the state is outstate. 

I’m here and so are thousands of my friends. If state-level organizers will remember us, we can bring sanity back to the entire state.

Dirt Road Democrats are here.

~Jess

Categories Courage, Creativity, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Gender, Missouri, Science

Florida: “Surgeon General” Fails to Tell Students to Get Vaccinated Against Measles

By dianeravitch
February 29, 2024 //
29

Certain counties in Florida are experiencing an outbreak of measles, a highly contagious and sometimes lethal that was supposedly under control due to widespread vaccination.

Florida’s top doctor, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, has thus far failed to instruct students in the affected schools to get vaccinated because he and Governor DeSantis took a strong stand against getting vaccinated for COVID.

The Miami Herald editorial board criticized Dr. Ladapo for putting students at risk:

Is there one mainstream piece of public health advice — no matter how long-standing — that Florida’s top doctor won’t buck?

Joseph Ladapo, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ anti-vaxx surgeon general, has spread misinformation about COVID-19 and has advised against coronavirus vaccines, citing debunked claims. 

Perhaps Ladapo saw, in the novelty and divisiveness of the pandemic, an opportunity to become the go-to, Ivy League-educated doctor for vaccine deniers. Now, he’s turned his focus to a long-known virus — up until now, largely non-controversial, but highly contagious and dangerous for children: measles.

Following an outbreak at Manatee Bay Elementary in Weston, where six measles cases have been confirmed, Ladapo sent a letter to parents that pediatricians, immunologists and infectious disease experts have criticized. The letter acknowledged what has been common practice to contain measles outbreaks — that unvaccinated children or those without immunity should remain home during the incubation period of the virus, or up to 21 days. 

Ladapo, then, however, wrote that, “due to the high immunity rate in the community,” the Department of Health “is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.”

This should have been Ladapo’s opportunity to tell parents, “Get your children vaccinated — now!”

The MMR vaccine, approved by the federal government more than 50 years ago, offers 98% protection against measles after two full doses. That’s a widely known statistic that not even Ladapo can deny — he acknowledges it in his letter but stops short of recommending the vaccines. 

Instead, Florida’s top doctor is telling parents it’s OK to send kids to school sans immunization, even though they could contract a potentially lethal virus or spread it to others who are also not immunized. Worse, the Broward County school outbreak could spread to other communities…

The vaccine skepticism that gained force during the pandemic, thanks in part to public figures like DeSantis and Ladapo, is a threat to not only public-health efforts to keep COVID at bay but other diseases we thought belonged in a bygone era.

Many states (most?) require children to get vaccinated against a long list of diseases before they can start school. Apparently, Florida is not one of them. The state lets parents decide. Public health, be dammed!

Categories DeSantis, Ethics, Florida, Health, Science

Florida: Orlando Sentinel Denounces a Bill to Declare “Fetal Personhood”

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2024 //
17

The editorial board of the Orlando Sentinel spoke out against a bill that would declare fetuses to be persons from the instant of conception. Not only would this extend Florida’s draconian six-week ban on abortion, it would outlaw abortion for any reason—rape, incest, the life of the mother. Even if a woman learns early in her pregnancy that the fetus will be born without a brain or has some other fatal defect, she will not be able to terminate the pregnancy. At this time, the Florida Supreme Court is deciding whether to allow a referendum on abortion to proceed; its sponsors have collected over one million signatures. Will the people of Florida have a chance to express their views?

The editorial board wrote:

For Floridians who are already deeply uneasy about women losing the right to control their own bodies, what happened Wednesday in the House Judiciary Committee was truly terrifying. One by one, lawmakers voted yes on legislation that would, for the first time, declare fetuses to be people from the moment of conception — turning wombs into war zones before most people even know they are pregnant.

Bill sponsor Jenna Persons-Mulicka, R-Fort Myers, did her best to hide the radical nature of her legislation, which creates civil liability for anyone who causes the “wrongful death” of a fetus in utero. But everyone in that committee hearing room — and those watching remotely — knew exactly what was at stake. Conveying full rights on a fetus would be a shattering blow to reproductive independence for Floridians capable of becoming pregnant, reaching past debates over viability and bans on abortion at a specified number of weeks. HB 651 would kick in at the very start of a pregnancy, and create an easy stepping stone from wrongful deaths (including from abortions) to anything that threatens the health of a fetus, even if it is meant to benefit the mother’s health.

Floridians should bombard their state senators and representatives with messages letting them know that this potential law is far too radical for anyone who cares about freedom. Then they should turn to their congressional representatives and call on them for legislation to nip this hazardous movement in the bud.

They can start by letting lawmakers know they see through the pretense here. Persons-Mulicka pointed out, more than once, that the language of her legislation (HB 651) specifically excludes a pregnant person. But that’s a nearly negligible speed bump, especially if Florida’s Supreme Court picks up this theme and uses it to obliterate abortion rights in Florida.

Think they won’t? Think again. Justice Carlos Muniz was already hinting in that direction last week, during oral arguments over a ballot question that would (with voters’ approval) explicitly protect abortion rights in Florida.

But advocates of so-called “fetal personhood” think they’ve found a way around that language. By declaring a fetus to be a person, the Legislature and/or court would at best set up a collision course between two competing interests that just happen to share a body — along with the well-being of medical personnel being asked to care for both.

Because the fetal personhood bill does not protect the doctors, nurses and other people who perform abortions, even if the procedure is otherwise legal. Taken in context, that looming threat is clearly a large portion of the intention behind this bill…

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Gender, Science

Alexandra Petri: Congratulations! That Cluster of Cells is a child!

By dianeravitch
February 23, 2024 //
38

Alexandra Petri is a humorist for The Washington Post. She wrote today about the crazy decision by the Alabama Supreme Court that a frozen embryo (a fertilized egg) is a child. Destroying the frozen embryo is murder.

She begins:

Having kids is nothing like they tell you it will be! How tiny they are, and how you can hardly see them without a microscope. How you can’t hold them, not even once. How they don’t have anything that could be regarded, even optimistically, as a laugh, or a face. Isn’t being a parent the best? Isn’t it laughably cruel that the Alabama Supreme Court says that this is already a child? That this cluster of hopeful cells that you have been dreaming could become a baby is actually a person already? You would be laughing, if you could stop crying.

What an appallingly cruel thing to say to people already going through so much to have a child, people who were prepared to endure the grueling in vitro fertilization process of treatments and injections and embryo development before their pregnancy could even begin. What a ridiculous thing to say to anyone with a modicum of sense.

Don’t believe the evidence of your senses. Embryos are children. Flour is cake. These acorns are an old-growth forest. This half-baked insulting nonsense of a ruling is justice.

You know what they always say about people: They are invisible to the naked eye and can be stored conveniently in vials in a hospital freezer. They are discernible only to God and the Alabama judiciary. You don’t need to feed them, ever. They don’t need books. They don’t need clean water or fresh air or sunshine — in fact, they couldn’t survive a minute outside the glass dish.

How did the Alabama judges know? God told them.

Trump came out against the Alabama decision, and most Republicans are rapidly backtracking. They say they want motmre children to be born, and IVF is good. Now that Trump has given his blessing to IVF, watch the Republicans pivot. only poor Nikki Haley is left out in the cold, because her snap reaction was to praise the decision.

Categories Alabama, Childhood, Humor, Religion, Science
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