Per my request, with intercessory help from Gregory Popcak, Kevin Miller at Heart Mind and Strength has posted clear and consise rebuttals that address the scientific and bioethical claims made by Bovens. Kevin has degrees in biology, chemistry, and moral theology, so he knows his stuff. He also got to the point much more quickly than did (Part I, Part II). 😉 Tolle, lege.
Read Part I of "The Great Embryo Killer?"
Having used what he believes to be sound reasoning to implicate NFP in avoidable embryo deaths, he then entertains some possible pro-life responses. Since there’s little actual reasoning in Bovens arguements, I’d just as soon skip his charicatures of pro-life rebuttals. However, since they involve subtle changes to his arguments and could easily stand on their own, I’ll briefly address them, if only to highlight his slight of hand.
"So what is the alternative? If one is concerned about minimising embryonic death, then one should avoid types of contraception whereby each unintended pregnancy (due to its failure) comes at the expense of a high embryonic death rate. Given our first assumption, a condom user (who makes no distinction between HF and non-HF periods) can count on one embryonic death for each unintended pregnancy. A rhythm method user, however, should count on two to three embryonic deaths for each unintended pregnancy. Assuming a success rate of 95% for condom usage, we can count on an expectation of .5 pregnancies in 10 years. Hence, the expectation of embryonic death is .5 per ten years for a condom user, which is substantially lower than the expectation of two to three embryonic deaths per ten years on the rhythm method. Even a policy of practising condom usage and having an abortion in case of failure would cause less embryonic deaths than the rhythm method."
"So how can this argument be blocked? First, one could say that the empirical data are questionable. However, the result really depends on the simple assumption that embryos conceived outside the HF period are less viable than embryos conceived during the HF period. If this is the case, then the success of the rhythm method is contingent on a higher embryonic death rate and so every pregnancy due to a failure of the technique will come at the expense of a higher embryonic death rate—and this is all that is needed to get the argument off the ground."
If that’s the case, then the argument is grounded. Continue reading
[Errors in my arguments were fixed and additional material was added after initial publication. – Funky]
St. Blog’s Parish will soon be all aflutter with news that Luc Bovens, a professor of philosophy at the London School of Economics, has written an article ("The rhythm method and embryonic death", J Med Ethics 32: 355-356) that links the use of the "rhythm method" with embryonic death, i.e. early miscarriage or spontaneous abortion. (Fedora Tip: UnSpace)
"Some proponents of the pro-life movement argue against morning after pills, IUDs, and contraceptive pills on grounds of a concern for causing embryonic death. What has gone unnoticed, however, is that the pro-life line of argumentation can be extended to the rhythm method of contraception as well. Given certain plausible empirical assumptions, the rhythm method may well be responsible for a much higher number of embryonic deaths than some other contraceptive techniques."
Though some responses to the sloppy arguments made in this paper have been made by American Papist, Epiphany, and other bloggers, I do not believe the responses I’ve so far seen address the scientific/statistical aspects of Bovens’ claims. For instance, they rightly point out that the rhythm method was long ago replaced by much more reliable empirical methods collectively known as natural family planning (NFP). However, I suspect that Bovens chose to deliberately seem ignorant of pro-life/anti-contraceptive terminology in order to subtly mock what he sees as ignorance of reproductive medicine on the part of those who call the birth control pill abortifacient. I fear that Catholic bloggers have allowed themselves to be distracted by a red herring.
The nice people at Fantasy and Science Fiction sent me a copy of their July Issue, on the condition that I blog about it. I am happy to oblige.
As an overall assessment, this is issue is a lot of fun. I subscribed to this magazine for about a year in college before being broke and swamped with three majors knocked me out of the habit. But I do have fond memories of reading F&SF on Saturday mornings in the Oakland Bruegger’s Bagels. This issue took me back to those good memories, and is a nice change from the grim turn that so many stories have–I like a good dystopia, but a lot of the stuff in Gardner Dozois’ more recent Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies are really sad, and I can use the periodic break!
For starters, we have a novella by Ysabeau S. Wilce entitled "The Lineaments of Gratified Desire", which is a very trippy adventure set on a sort of Halloween night where magickal currents run high and a magickal grandson of a ruling family must track down Tiny Doom, his wife and heiress to the Pontifexa’s reign. It’s a very funny, intelligent story.
Terry Bisson’s "Billy and the Unicorn" has his classical warped sense of humor where a boy gets a magical companion to keep him company at his dysfunctional home and at school. Matthew Hughes tells us about a world in the far future where someone discovers a magical spell that can tell you a person’s salience action in life, your purpose, as it were. Now the question is do you really want to know?
Now onto the SF side of issue’s offerings.
Robert Garcia y Robertson delivers a novelet called "Kansas, She Says, Is the Name of the Star", which is an SF takeoff of the Wizard of Oz series. I don’t want to say more, but it is neat to see how he makes the classic mythos work.
"Just Do It" is a satire by new author Heather Lindlsey about a society where marketers use chemicals to trigger cravings and behaviors in people walking around town, and a woman who is trying to destroy the industry. Some nice, tart commentary on modern society made that story a pleasure to read and reread. Robert Onopa’s first-contact story, "Republic" was very evocative, but he left so many tantalazing hints about the alien culture that I really hope he’ll write another story about them, perhaps even a novellas.
Steven Popkes takes us to the lives and times of replicants of a Central American dictator who were built just before America captured him. One of them may be the real guy. Jerry Seeger has a tale of espionage and assassination that seems inspired by the classic Dark City movie from several years ago. The former was a nice little puzzle story, and while the latter started strong, it seemed like an incomplete mystery. Maybe the author was more concerned with the world he built and the struggle going on than with any mystery per se. One doesn’t usually say this, but maybe he should have expanded the story a bit.
To sum up, the issue is very strong–stronger than most of the issues I’d seen in the past. I can see why they spread this among bloggers, because I can heartily recommend it to you when it appears on shelves next month or so.
I feel the need to write a political post, for a change. I've been observing the recent debate over immigration, and it's got me thinking. The part of the debate I dislike the most is the idea of a guest worker program. First of all, this system is in place in Germany (you know, one of those evil European powers that didn't support the war), but doesn't work that well. In Germany there is a sizable Turkish population (Turkish, but not born in Turkey), but the Turks stay low income and separated. In some parts of Europe this ghettoesque set up is fueling the terrorist cells. It doesn't work in Germany, but that's not what makes me cringe at the idea of an American guest worker program.