(My husband just lost a year off his life.)(He HATES Arizona...)
Thank the holy good God that I don't live in Arizona. I can't imagine living in a state that is governed by such idiotic, racist, misogynistic, imbeciles.
Now signed into law, LAW, is the supposition that pregnancy begins TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO CONCEPTION.
As in TWO WEEKS PRIOR TO CONCEPTION. What? I mean... what?
If I am understanding this correctly, as far as Arizona is concerned, any woman who is ovulating is pregnant until proven otherwise.
Surprise! Your seventh grader's tampon isn't the only thing making her lose her virginity (don't get me started)! The Arizona state legislature is as well! Well, that's not fair. The loss of virginity supposes some sort of intercourse which this definition DOES NOT. Immaculate conception all around!
Regardless of whether sperm is in the equation or not, according to Arizona, the first day of the last menstrual period prior to conception (generally, for most women, 2 weeks prior to ovulation give or take a few days) is the start of pregnancy.
Oh my God.
Can they just... do that? I mean... isn't pregnancy a medical term?
I'm a doctor. I went to medical school. You can not be pregnant unless an ovum and a sperm have formed a zygote. Those are the rules.
OF NATURE.
OF BIOLOGY.
OF COMMON SENSE.
I hate to go all Elle Woods here, but if this is the precedent that's being set, how is it then that all women who don't have sperm introduced approximately two weeks following the last day of their menstrual cycle aren't recklessly abandoning "children" all willy nilly?
This is just stupid.
Ova are not "life." An ovum is a cell. It's a cell that when met with a specific other kind of cell can proliferate into more cells. LIKE A TUMOR.
TUMORS DO THAT. Why aren't we all up in arms about their excision? Okay, so let's say that someone with a modicum of biological knowledge, which will necessarily exclude the members of the Arizona legislature that voted this heinous monstrosity into existence, shoots back and says, ho ho, but tumors don't have the capacity to generate LIFE!
Fine. So let's talk about pluripotent hematopoietic cells. Oh, I'm sorry, they didn't teach that vocabulary in the institutions of higher education that are now hopefully nationally shamed that they produced such simple minded idiots? Okay.
These cells are cells that each and every one of us, boys and girls alike, has in our bone marrow. They're what enables us to regenerate blood. We aren't born with all the blood we need. We are constantly manufacturing new blood.
You know, blood? The thing that carries oxygen all around the body?
Well, to me, and likely to most of the sound minded world, oxygen is necessary for life. Without oxygen, we die. Cells die, tissues die, organs die. That is a FAR more rational argument for life giving in my mind. But yet, pretty sure bone marrow transplants, bone marrow excision, bone marrow biopsies are all legal beagle, and if anyone were to suggest otherwise they'd be more or less a pitied laughingstock.
Where are these legislators coming up with this stuff? And more importantly, why CAN they? They are not doctors. They are not scientists. They can not just change definitions of conditions that aren't limited by semantics. Pregnancy is pregnancy, end of story.
Potential is not pregnancy.
We don't give NFL caliber contracts, paychecks, benefits, endorsements, et cetera to promising young athletes with potential. (See how I stereotypically gendered this to help out all those male legislators? YOU'RE WELCOME.). Sure, they MIGHT down the line be recruited into a formal professional athletic organization, just like an ovum MIGHT down the Fallopian line meet up with a sperm, but we don't know until it does or does not happen.
Arguments to the contrary are tantamount to fortune telling. But hey. At least those fortune tellers will be right at home with all the rest of the carnival and legislative freak shows going on in Arizona.
And, to be clear, there are zero fetuses in my uterus. ZERO FETUSES. (Interestingly, I think I just named of my next girl group.)
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