Skip to main content

Further Proof that Judges are Not Good Scientists

I recently cited a US Supreme Court decision to indicate that judges often do not make good scientists. Two cases do not a certainty make, but the 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals went a great way toward substantiating my theory today.


The State of South Dakota appeared in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals
today to defend its requirement that a doctor remind a woman prior to her receiving an abortion of the following:

  1. That abortion takes a human life
  2. That women have a right to continue the pregnancy
  3. That abortion may cause psychological harm to the mother
It might have been billed as an excellent waste of time brought on by the bullying of Planned Parenthood--who sees its main livelihood reduced as more and more women become more contemplative--simply because it can. Remind me again how Planned Parenthood has any standing in this case?

But then the following conversation ensued (a recording of which I heard on the CBS radio news at 6:00 PM mountain time this evening):

Chief Justice Loken: This compels the preaching of ideology.

Assistant Attorney General: Sir, we don't feel that this is ideology.

Chief Justice (with great fervor): It's not science!

Me (with greater fervor): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

Item 2 is a generally understood and agreed-upon tenet of political science, but I don't think that's the sentence the judge was referring to anyway.

Item 3 has been statistically and anecdotally proven to occur at least sometimes, but I don't think that was the issue he was looking at either.

Which leaves us with Item 1--which deals the non-science of ultrasound technology. Which deals with the non-science of reproductive biology.

The judge needs to go back to high school. And if he sticks to his guns that abortion cannot be scientifically proven to be the taking of a human life, then he shouldn't be a judge.

Comments

  1. The legal issues here are not as simple as you think.
    http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/dorf/20030528.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. You're right. I think he has a good point that feticide with an exception for the mother would be a good thing. The story of the mentally disabled woman who is pregnant because of rape is particularly troubling, but if she clearly cannot support the child and would be endangered to take the baby to full term and deliver it (which I imagine she would) this is a probably a case where the baby's life should be taken.

    However, my original point is that the science of whether a human life is being taken during an abortion is indisputable. I suspect (hope) the judge wishes he hadn't blurted out what he blurted.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for commenting. If you have a Google/Blogger account, to be apprised of ongoing comment activity on this article, please click the "Subscribe" link below.

Popular posts from this blog

School Vouchers: "The Bramble Memo"

$429 million? What? Where? The legislative fiscal analyst for the State of Utah calculated the costs to the public schools over the next 13 years if school vouchers are implemented. It said the costs would be $5.5M in the first year, and $71M in the 13th year. Suddenly, the number I have started seeing thrown around was $429 million, the total costs for vouchers over 13 years. Where did that number come from? Enter the mysterious "Bramble Memo". In the past few days several of us (Jeremy, Utah Taxpayer, Craig, Sara, Urban Koda, Jesse, and me) have (sometimes?) enjoyed a lively discussion about school vouchers in Utah . Jeremy clarified to me the costs of the venture by linking to a copy of the Utah Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Impartial Analysis (LFA) of the costs of Vouchers , found on "The Senate Site". In my previous voucher article, I quoted some of Lavar Webb's article from last Sunday's Deseret News, wherein he stated that those total costs ...

The Inhumanity of Bob Lonsberry: Waterboarding, Concentration Camps, and the the Bataan Death March

KNRS 570 radio talk show host Bob Lonsberry advocated waterboarding and other forms of torture during his show on April 21, 2009. More grotesquely, he was beaming with pride about his advocacy campaign. It's difficult to imagine then, that, by the same rationale, had Lonsberry been a German at the time of Hitler, or a Japanese during the Bataan Death March, that he would not have advocated torture of Jews in the concentration camps or the bayoneting and shooting of American soldiers on the Bataan trail. Torture, Torture, Everywhere! Nearly 80,000 American soldiers were captured by the Japanese in the To contemplate a discussion about whether or not torture is legal or whether it even works, it is first required to come to the conclusion that 'I am a child of God, but my adversary is a monkey'. Phillipines in 1942 and forced to march with no food and very little water for six days. If a man stumbled, if he didn't respond quickly to a command, or if he tried to get wat...

Amazing Grace: Why Do So Many Mormons Not Get It?

Note on Comments for This Post: Somehow, blogger is displaying about 3 fewer comments than have actually been entered. I have added 3 comments, so that the last relevant ones will be shown. In addition, I have closed comments on this article. Please click on this link to continue commenting on the original article . Sorry for the inconvenience. In large part because of the many childish and tyrannical things we do to each other (and to ourselves), life sometimes seems to suck. God, however, did not intend it to be that way. Unfortunately, our worst tormentor is often ourselves. We Mormons mentally flagellate ourselves on a regular basis. God especially did not intend it to be this way. Instead, he hopes that we will look upward and see the Amazing Grace that he gives to us. We're so busy with the seeming enjoyment of miring ourselves in guilt, however, that we seldom even notice that his grace is at our fingertips. Amazing grace How sweet the sound That saved a wretch l...