"The Handmaid's Tale" is supposed to be fiction.

It is now a preview of upcoming events.

If this doesn't scare you, I don't know what will.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/alabama-supreme-court-chief-justice-spreads-christian-nationalist-rhetoric

Written by Payton Armstrong

Published 02/21/24 11:00 AM EST

During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.

Enlow is a “prophet” and leading proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a “quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy” that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.

Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.

On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

In the interview on Enlow’s program — which was uploaded the same day as the ruling was issued — Parker claimed that “God created government” and said it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.” Parker then invoked the Seven Mountain Mandate, saying, “And that's why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.”

Parker suggested a familiarity with Enlow’s work, telling him, “As you've emphasized in the past, we've abandoned those Seven Mountains and they've been occupied by the opposite side.”


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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2024 06:22PM by Maude.

Would Joseph Smith have married a frozen embryo?

I don't know if he'd have married one. But as the narcissist he was, he would definitely have frozen as many as he possibly could.

For some reason I've got Monty Python's Every Sperm is Sacred stuck in my head today.

Just put it back in the cupboard with all the others and you'll feel better.

anybody Wrote:
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> "The Handmaid's Tale" is supposed to be fiction.
>
> It is now a preview of upcoming events.

"The Handmaid's Tale" is a badly written melodrama and about as prophetic as the Book of Mormon. Margaret Attwood actually disowned it for a number of years, because she was embarrassed by it. Then she started making money from it, and soon changed her tune.

Doesn't the Alabama Supreme Court have more than one justice? The other ones could have disagreed if they wanted to rule another way.

I don't get the FUD over IVF embryos. It makes for good conspiracy theory but it's not reasonable.

Religious freedom, like many of our other freedoms, has its foundation in the rule of law. If the rule of law dies, freedom dies. The fact that religious freedom exists and is free to be exercised is a good sign regardless of how you personally feel about religion.

The blastocyst (the stage at which the fertilized eggs are frozen) is basically a small ball of about 200-300 cells that in no way resembles a fetus. It's literally a round ball. This is what all the fuss and bother is about.

A study about five years ago found that women, during their lifetimes, have more spontaneous abortions than live births. Birth control helps women to have fewer spontaneous abortions.

https://www.sciencealert.com/meta-analysis-finds-majority-of-human-pregnancies-end-in-miscarriage-biorxiv

Maybe Hobby Lobby will finance birth control after all, in an effort to save the blastocysts? /s

I agree.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YfvBnTe16o

That from the man who praised Pol Pot the other day.

Pol Pot was democratically elected. Shouldn't you be thanking Kissinger for defending Cambodian democracy?

Surely you don't mean that. Pol Pot was not "democratically elected." Nor were his predecessors.

What the US did was not to destroy a democracy but rather to undermine a tolerable dictatorship, which is bad enough.

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(First 500 customers get matching Wuhan-brand N95 face masks!)

“The Alabama Chief Justice Who Invoked God in Deciding the Embryo Case”

“Chief Justice Tom Parker has long been revered by conservative groups as an architect for the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

“ In an Alabama Supreme Court decision that has rattled reproductive medicine across the country, a majority of the justices said the law was clear that frozen embryos should be considered children: “Unborn children are ‘children.’”

“But the court’s chief justice, Tom Parker, drew on more than the Constitution and legal precedent to explain his determination.

“Human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God,” he wrote in a concurring opinion that invoked the Book of Genesis and the prophet Jeremiah and quoted at length from the writings of 16th- and 17th-century theologians.

“Even before birth,” he added, “all human beings have the image of God, and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”


<<SNIP>>

“ The majority, in its opinion, cited a 1872 statute that allows parents to sue over the wrongful death of a child and found that “unborn children,” including “extrauterine children,” were included in that.

“In his concurring opinion, Justice Parker reached further back, citing Genesis: “The principle itself — that human life is fundamentally distinct from other forms of life and cannot be taken intentionally without justification — has deep roots that reach back to the creation of man ‘in the image of God.’”

“It underscored the philosophy that has guided him through two decades on the court.

“When judges don’t rule in the fear of the Lord, everything’s falling apart,” he once wrote, citing the Book of Psalms, according to the ProPublica investigation. “The whole world is coming unglued.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/us/alabama-ivf-tom-parker.html?unlocked_article_code=1.XU0.2cOI.-02_Emh9LthM&smid=url-share

No matter your religious persuasion or lack thereof, this practice should scare you if you support the separation of church and state. One day the religious text being cited to make decisions that affect you might not be your text of choice.

Beth Wrote:
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> One day the religious text being cited to make
> decisions that affect you might not be your text
> of choice.

A most excellent point, Beth. I was just thinking this when I saw your post. I was wondering whose holy book I could mention as an example without being too offensive.

I have experienced more than I want to in the realm of fundamentalist-type religion. That was mild though in comparison to this chief justice's approach and that of others like him. That creepy malignant imperative to call the shots for everybody else according to one's own holy book is beyond scary.

Are not these people wading into deep waters they aren't equipped to deal with? What qualifications do they have to impose judgements like this - have they ever sought enlightenment from, oh I don't know, a gynecologist or surgeon maybe? Or spoken to a woman enduring agony of body and mind due to the inevitable results of a non-viable embryo? Unfortunately, the way the system works is they *do* get to lay down the law, literally, and others suffer, also literally, from their ignorance.

Surely this cannot be happening. Or at least, won't last or spread? Someone somewhere somehow has to get them to read up on the medical side of things.

If this type of decision leads to women being denied the medical care they need, the justices and their supporters themselves will be the sinners in the crowd. Not to mention likely legally liable, as lack of treatment or delayed treatment, in the midst of the inevitable rupture of a fallopian tube by a non-viable embryo* can have devastating consequences for the woman, including losing the ability to bear a child in the future.


*An embryo isn't yet even a fetus


And as an aside, can I say that it would be wonderful if these people so concerned about other people's "children" would figure out a way to better help actual living human children in dire need of assistance in so many ways - hungry, homeless, orphaned, ill...

Very Scary...

I appreciate all the work you do to keep us abreast of these issues. Thank you, anybody.

:)

“An explosive device was detonated early Saturday outside the Alabama attorney general’s office in downtown Montgomery, Steve Marshall, the attorney general, said in a statement on Monday.

“The explosion, which Mr. Marshall said had not injured anyone, was set off one day after he announced that he did not plan to prosecute I.V.F. providers or families seeking treatment after a recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are legally considered children.”

<<SNIP>>


The Alabama Supreme Court ruling — which was issued earlier this month in appeals cases brought by couples whose embryos were destroyed at a fertility clinic in Mobile — has shaken the world of reproductive medicine, casting doubt over fertility care for would-be parents in Alabama and raising complex legal questions. It has also led some clinics in the state to halt I.V.F. treatments and has left many women in limbo.

“On Friday, the attorney general’s office moved to ease some of those anxieties. Mr. Marshall “has no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting I.V.F. families or providers,” Katherine Robertson, the office’s chief counsel, said in a statement.“

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/26/us/alabama-attorney-general-explosive.html



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/27/2024 12:03AM by Beth.