Law Is Sadly Not A Science

            The law, we have long since learned, is manipulated by agenda, religious belief, personal perception, and everything we can imagine.  Everything we can imagine except science.  Many laws are written that conflict with other existing laws, or embedded definitions which are not consistent with those definitions contain in other laws.  Abortion laws of the past half century are no different.  Ironically, we even create laws which claim to provide a required detail of information to patients and others, yet the limit of information to be provided is clearly not from a fully scientific standpoint, but from a personal perception of religious belief.  The law should not be a platform for such.

            The Woman’s Right to Know Act of 2011 in North Carolina is no different. (NCGA Chapter 90, 2011)  Its limited provisions to impart information are sorely incomplete.  And with a society whose basis of defining the most basic scientific definition of Human life and that which is an individual is based not on science itself but on personal perception and religious ideology.  Even supposed experts in the medical profession ignore that which they have been taught through their earliest science books.  One such science book states in part "If the time is suitable, the sperm and egg fuse to produce a fertilized egg, which is the first cell of a new individual."   (Marieb, 2008)  Defining viability from a scientific standpoint is equally a challenge as historically the meaning of the word has changed thanks to ever evolving scientific knowledge and technology.

            Having had several experiences with that which many would claim to be neither individual Human life or viable Humans due to various medical or genetic deformities, I’ve chosen the path of recognizing individuals through scientific definition rather than personal perception or religious ideology.  A line child having had five siblings my mother told me did not survive birth due to miscarriages.  One of whom would have been older than me and the baby of the family having survived long enough to know that I would have had a baby sister.  And having lived in various communities of individuals with both physical and mental disabilities, constantly treated as less than Human, I have even less reason to follow socity’s desire to use personal perception and religious ideology as definitions of who is and who is not Human and viable enough to be considered as having the most basic Human and Civil Rights.

            The only way either law or society can deal with the inconsistencies inherent to law, including various abortion laws, is to strip away personal perception and religious ideology and set forth base parameters for law to be built upon.  Once base parameters that are built upon basic science and the understanding that knowledge and technology can evolve, the only change needed to be made is the parameter all other laws are to be built upon.

 

 

References

Marieb, E., (2008). Chapter 16: The Reproductive System, Essentials of Human Anatomy and

            Physiology, 9th Edition, DeVry Migration, 2008, p. 545. VitalBook file. 

NCGA website, (2011), NC General Statutes, Chapter 90, Article 1I, Woman’s Right to Know           Act, North Carolina General Assembly website, Retrieved 10/18/2014 from             http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/byarticle/chapter_90/article_1i.html

Further Reading Recommendations

NCGA website, (2014), NC General Statutes, Chapter 14, Article 6A, Section 14-23.1,  Unborn

            Victims, North Carolina General Assembly website, Retrieved 10/11/2014 from             http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/ByArticle/Chapter_14/Article_6A.html

NCGA website, (2014), NC General Statutes, Chapter 14, Article 11, Abortion and Kindred

            Offenses, North Carolina General Assembly website, Retrieved 10/11/2014 from            http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/byarticle/chapter_14/article_11.html

Osler, M., (2013), Roe’s Ragged Remnant: Viability, Stanford Law & Policy Review, January 2013,

          Volume 24:1, p. 216-245

Stam, P. (2012), Women’s Right To Know: A Legislative History, Issues In Law & Medicine,

            Vol. 28, No. 1, Summer 2012, p. 2.