Friday, March 29, AD 2024 3:57am

Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby: The U.S. Solicitor General’s clever, but illogical deceit…

 

Today, the Solicitor General of the United States, Donald Verrilli, will tell the the Supreme Court during oral arguments in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby that killing a human embryo by preventing the embryo from implanting in his or her mother’s uterus is not an “abortion” and, thus, the drugs approved by Obamacare that kill embryos in this way are not “abortion-inducing” drugs. Verrilli will also argue that every business that provides its employees’ healthcare insurance plans—even businesses owned and operated by Christians who are pro-life—must provide the drugs Obamacare mandates.

Yet, when Verrilli first petitioned the Supreme Court in September 2013 to take up Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, his petition conceded that among the drugs and devices Obamacare approved were some that prevented human “fertilized eggs”—conceived human embryos—from implanting in their mothers’ wombs. In his petition, Verrilli wrote:

The FDA has approved twenty such methods, ranging from oral contraceptives to surgical sterilization. Four of the twenty approved methods—two types of intrauterine devices (IUDs) and the emergency contraceptives commonly known as Plan B and Ella—can function by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg.

Then, in a footnote, Verrilli went stated:

Both the government and the medical amici supporting the government concede that at least some of the contraceptive methods to which the plaintiffs object have the potential to prevent uterine implantation.

So, Virrelli concedes that the drugs and devices the Obama administration mandates can terminate the life of a human embryo by preventing “implantation.” However, Virrelli also asserts that terminating the life of a conceived human embryo by preventing it from implanting in the womb is not an “abortion.”

Verrilli is weaving a clever, but illogical deceit. What the FDA and the Federal regulations call “contraceptives” include drugs and devices some of which work not by preventing conception but by terminating a human life after conception. In other words, these government-approved drugs and devices are not contraceptives but post-conception abortofacients.

The Motley Monk prays and is remains hopeful the more sober and honest members of the Supreme Court will see this charade for what it truly is and rule on behalf of innocent children.

 

 

To read the Solicitor General’s petition for a writ of certiorari, click on the following link:
http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2013-0354.pet_.aa_1.pdf

To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, Omnibus, click on the following link:
http://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/omnibus.html

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Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 8:22am

This implantation nonsense is not new. Pro-abort forces have be fairly successful in convincing many medical organizations to consider human life as starting with implantation as opposed to conception. There is no logical reason whatsoever for this, but it suits their objectives. Of course, after implantation the human life that has been created is not a person and therefore irrelevant anyway. Sigh.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 9:58am

[“after implantation the human life that has been created is not a person and therefore irrelevant anyway.”
Human existence is the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights precisely because the rational, immortal human soul created by “our Creator” for the newly fertilized human body is a sovereign person made in the image and likeness of God. There is no life without God willing and creating a sovereign soul with personhood and with unalienable human rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, that which is attaining his destiny. The soul is the form of the body. The body without life would not necessitate abortion to end his life. The human body, even if one cell, without a soul, the soul with his sovereign personhood, is dead.
If this man has taken an oath to fulfill his office he is guilty of perjury. And prejudice in not fulfilling his representation of his entire constituency. Instead he has substituted his own opinion or politically correct opinions of others.
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As T. Shaw has said: “opinions are like anuses. Everybody’s got one.”

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 10:14am

God, our Creator gives man a rational, immortal human soul, endowed with life, free will, sovereign personhood, intellect, intuition, talent, unalienable human rights and man’s one celled, newly fertilized human body’s response to life is to grow. Growth is a sign of life. Without life and growth there is only death.
The state, our government, gives us citizenship and a tax bill.
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The Preamble to our Constitution spells out the state’s duty to citizens.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
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Our Constitution must deliver Justice and protect the innocent, the most morally and legally innocent are the newly conceived, to secure the Blessings of Liberty to our selves and our posterity. Our Constitutional posterity, George Washington’s constitutional posterity start as a single celled fertilized human egg endowed with an immortal human soul.
“human existence is the criterion for the objective ordering of human rights” Subjective ordering of human rights are an opinion imposed on the sovereignty of the government citizens.
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Roe v. wade did not realize it but when they took on the abortion issue into court, they actually codified the sovereign personhood of the newly conceived.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 10:30am

Anyone as George Washington’s constitutional posterity who started his life as a single celled fertilized human egg endowed with an immortal human soul, ought to be emboldened to demand the truth, or he might then be liable to hell.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 10:45am

As for Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby: Intellectual property is what a corporation is to its founder. The corporation belongs to the founder and is founded on his beliefs and abilities and is continued in its existence on the founder’s beliefs as intellectual property. When the court changes or forcibly changes the rules according to the current political opinion depriving the free person his rights as a free citizen, the court than takes control of the corporation, does it not? The court cannot collectivize property in a free nation for that is communism.
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The government in and of itself cannot own anything. All public lands and entities belong in joint and common tenancy to each and every person. When Hobby Lobby becomes an entity of the U.S. Government everyone will own it in joint and common tenancy. But I will not receive stolen property.
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The HHS Mandate was added after the Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress, thereby denying informed consent of the governed, the will of the people. Congress is the voice of the people. The HHS Mandate was not voted on by Congress. The HHS Mandate is tyranny and Sebelius is the stooge of Obama, the Hitler.

trackback
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 11:13am

[…] D. R. McClarey Criticism Mounts Over Crd Kaspers Speech on Divorce & Remarriage – NCRg Sebelius v Hobby Lobby: Her Clever, but Illogical Deceit – The Motley Monk MSNBC on SCOTUS & Rel. Lib.: Don’t Trust Those Catholics – […]

Thomas
Thomas
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 12:50pm

“However, Virrelli also asserts that terminating the life of a conceived human embryo by preventing it from implanting in the womb is not an “abortion.”

This lie is nothing new, ever since the pill has been marketed this lie has been told. The whole basis for ‘redefining when life began’ had to do with with the marketing of the pill; when first marketed – abortion was illegal. Hence the definition of the beginning of life had to be changed….

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 1:09pm

It was clear to me that Mike Petrik intended his reader to understand that it is not his opinion but the opinion of “pro-abort forces” that “after implantation the human life that has been created is not a person and therefore irrelevant anyway.”

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 1:13pm

Perhaps one of the trained legal minds that occasionally comment here can tell us if moving the goal posts as Donald Verrilli, Solicitor General of the United States, is attempting to do is an accepted method of legal argumentation.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 1:14pm

Yes Micha, and thanks.

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 2:18pm

Edited to render comprehensible:
Micha,
I agree with Motley’s criticism of the cert petition’s footnote, but doubt that the matter will be raised as part of the oral argument. While I have not followed this case that carefully I think this slight of hand is simply playing to their fan base, but is not central to the case. Instead the question presented is whether a for-profit corporation can be required to offer a group health plan that covers certain contraceptives in violation of the religious beliefs of the corporation’s owners under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA), 42 U.S.C. 2000bb et seq., which provides that the government “shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion” unless that burden is the least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest. I don’t think the moving of the abortion definition goal posts, however cleverly deceitful, is likely to be that important to the case.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, March 25, AD 2014 8:20pm

Sorry, Mike Petrik. Thank you Micha Elyi.

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”—-Thomas Jefferson.

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So far, I have been told that the Founding Fathers are dead and do not count anymore and that the Constitution is not the Law of the Land, that only Roe v. Wade is the Law of the Land. Catering to this mentality, Donald Virrilli will have his mob rule, in spite of birth control pills polluting the ground water, condoms that do not prevent HIV/aids or herpes, IUDs and chemicals that cause abortions.

Charles
Charles
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 5:21am

Implantation? Heck, even the pro-aborts don’t believe that. They recognize tubal pregnancies as pregnancies worthy of sacrifice to Molech. Honesty? Integrity? Morality?

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 6:11am

Micha, I was wrong. The definition of abortion did come up in oral argument, and Verrilli did indeed rely on his slight of hand definition in his response. I think Justice’s Kennedy and Roberts are troubled by the law requiring someone to pay for abortifacients. Justices Kagan and Sotomayer are implicitly acknowledging the same concern when they focus on employer options to avoid insurance altogether.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 6:27am

If the one celled newly fertilized egg is not a sacred human being endowed with an immortal soul, growth and life are proof, then all IVF, all egg cell manipulations, all sex selections are legal, moral and ethical, but if the one celled newly fertilized egg is a sacred human being endowed with an immortal soul, growth and life are proof, then all IVF, all egg cell manipulations, all sex selections are illegal, immoral, and unethical.
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A great red dragon appeared in the sky before the woman about to bring forth, that when she brought forth he might devour her son. Apocalypse 12: 1-10

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 11:17am

It is a curious fact that gestational age is traditionally reckoned from the end of the preceding menstrual cycle, even though fertilisation (which is a process, rather than an event) typically occurs some fourteen days later.

Some physiologists reckon pregnancy (not life) from implantation; an entirely different question.

eddie too
eddie too
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 11:18am

both abortion and contraception have long been the objects of religious teaching.

the obama administration is attempting to favor its own religious teachings about abortion and contraception over the religious teachings of other establishments.

the ACA is simply the first installation of the federally designed religion trying to be forced on all americans.

if the federal government gets to define which religious beliefs may be applied to one’s life, it is far along the path to establishing a government-sponsored/supported religion.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 11:33am

The Church has traditionally refrained from defining the moment of “ensoulment.”

in its 1987 Instruction, Donum Vitae, the CDF says: “The Magisterium has not expressly committed itself to an affirmation of a philosophical nature, but it constantly reaffirms the moral condemnation of any kind of procured abortion. This teaching has not been changed and is unchangeable”

The hesitation may well have to do with the conundrum posed by monozygotic twinning.

Tertullian (160-200) says, “With us, homicide being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even what is conceived in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood for its sustenance. To prevent a birth is to hasten homicide; nor does it matter whether you take away a life [animam] from one that is born, or destroy one that is coming to the birth. That is a human being which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed.” [My translation – I take “animam” to have its common Latin meaning of “life,” as the context makes clear]
Tertullian’s reasoning would plainly hold, whether the zygote is gong to be one person or two (or more) and avoids any need to speculate about “ensoulment.”

Paul W Primavera
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 1:48pm

I like Mary DeVoe’s quote from Revelation 12:4

“A great red dragon appeared in the sky before the woman about to bring forth, that when she brought forth he might devour her son.”

This quote describes well the present day and age of the dragon that is the Obamanation of Desolation. That said, we must remember the promise given in subsequent verses 5 and 6:

“…she brought forth a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which to be nourished for one thousand two hundred and sixty days.”

Michael the Archangel defeats the dragon. Obama and his demonic minions of darkness do NOT win. Except they repent, there is a place for them, and it is very hot.

Mary Stoessel
Mary Stoessel
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 2:04pm

Governor Sebelius did everything she could to destroy AG Phil Kline because he had the courage to follow the laws of Kansas with regard to Planned Parenthood, that corrupt organization that keeps her in office. Kathleen Sebelius is just her like her mentor, that wicked Queen Jezebel, whose lies and deceit finally caught up with her!

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 7:18pm

Will an unfertilized egg live and grow? NO.
God designs creation of an individual substance of a rational nature, Thomas Aquinas’ definition of the “person”, contingent upon the act of procreation by the mother and by the father, the human egg fertilized by the human seed.
Ensoulment occurs when our Creator creates an immortal soul for the newly fertilized human egg. The egg is no longer an egg. The seed is no longer a seed. The fertilized egg grows into a one celled human being complete with his own scientific DNA, ensouled with his own rational, immortal human soul, endowed with free will, intellect, every unalienable human right and belonging to the species: Homo Sapiens.
God enters into human affairs, in time and space at the request of his people. A husband and a wife become a mother and a father as a consequence of the fertilization of the female egg by the male sperm. Ensoulment is simultaneous and contingent upon procreation.
The newly begotten human being experiences his existence and identity as a child of God: “I AM” in innocence and virginity, morally and legally innocent in truth and Justice, the standard for Justice, the compelling interest of the state in the newly begotten human person. The Supreme Sovereign Being has deigned to create his people.
The sovereign personhood of the newly conceived in free will, wills to live. The individual’s will to live is inscribed and endowed as the right to life. The person who does not will to live becomes a miscarriage, a spontaneous miscarriage.
The scientific proof of the life of the one celled human being is carried out by IVF and somatic cell transfer or three parent manipulation.
It cannot be both ways at the same time. The one celled human being exists and is alive. There is no life without the human soul. There is only death without the human soul.
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“The hesitation may well have to do with the conundrum posed by monozygotic twinning.”
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The human soul is the form of the body…Aquinas.
In twinning, there are two souls, two individual substances of a rational nature present to whom the human body grows to become whoever the soul is. Man procreates the human body. God creates the human soul.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, March 26, AD 2014 7:27pm

Paul W. Primavera: “…one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron,…”
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This is my favorite verse. “…One who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. Jesus came to serve, not to be served.

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Thursday, March 27, AD 2014 4:31am

Mary de Voe writes, “In twinning, there are two souls, two individual substances of a rational nature present to whom the human body grows to become whoever the soul is”

The Church has always objected to procuring abortion, but to this day has not adopted the doctrine of immediate animation. After all, in one place, St Thomas follows Aristotle in holding the rational soul is infused, when the matter is sufficiently formed to receive it [Commentary on the Sentences Bk. III, dist. 3, q. 5, a. 2, Responsio] They both thought the rational soul was infused at 40 days for males, and at 90 days for females. How they hit on this figure, I do not know, for Varro [116-27 BC] describes the early development of the fetus quite well: “”when the life-giving seed has been introduced into the female womb, in the first seven days it is compacted and coagulated and rendered fit to take shape [Could he be describing the morula?]. Then afterwards in the fourth hebdomad [week] the rudimentary male organ, the head, and the spine which is in the back, are formed. But in the seventh hebdomad, as a rule, that is, by the forty-ninth day,” says Varro, “the entire embryo is formed in the womb.” The figures of 40 and 90 days would appear to have no observational basis at all.

We have a zygote A. A divides to form B and C. B and C cannot both be identical with A, for, were that the case, then, by transivity of identity, B and C would be identical with each other; which is absurd. B and C cannot both say, “I was once A.”

Now A is a living individual whole, that is, an organism and to say that one organism can have two souls is very odd. If A has a (rational) soul, what becomes of it on division? Can we say that B is identical with (and has the same soul as) A and that C is not; that is that the same soul animates A and B and C’s soul is infused on division? This would amount to saying that C is produced from B.

Do we have any grounds for thinking any of these speculations are true? I do not think so and, unless the Church pronounces on the matter – which she refused to do in Donum Vitae – we are free to confess our ignorance.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, March 27, AD 2014 8:10am

Michael Paterson-Seymour: “St Thomas follows Aristotle in holding the rational soul is infused, when the matter is sufficiently formed to receive it”
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St.Thomas also held that the soul is the form of the body. Therefore, the soul forms the body sufficiently to receive said soul. There is no life without the soul, only death. No soul, no life, therefore, there must be a soul for the fertilized new person to grow and live. Growth, St. Aquinas said is a proof of life and the newly fertilized human being is alive and grows.
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There is no void in the human person from conception (of the human soul) through death, the soul’s departure from the human body.
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Mary De Voe
Thursday, March 27, AD 2014 8:14am

An innocent life may not be put to death for the crimes of his parents. The one-celled sovereign person begotten at fertilization is endowed with a rational, immortal human soul. His soul has sovereign personhood, free will, a will to live, intellect, genius and grace. What science has quantified genius? Who has the authentic power to live another person’s life for them except for those persons who acknowledge the human person’s right to life. Who has taken hold of grace, or genius, or talent or any intangible right and forced grace and genius to live other than his pursuit of Happiness, the attainment of his destiny, the fulfillment of his grace and genius, the fulfillment of his life, of who he is? Who defines grace and genius? Who defines the human person other than our Creator?
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Father Paul Marx,OSB founder of Human Life International called the culture of Death, the Death Peddlers. God is the Supreme Sovereign Being over life and over death, not Obama, not Pelosi, not Harry Reid, and certainly not Planned Parenthood. The Death Peddlers in Washington, D. C. cannot objectify innocence and virginity or genius or the immortal human being, yet, they have destroyed the Constitutional posterity of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Now these Death Peddlers are salivating over our children.
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Our Population is overgrown with Death Peddlers. If death is the solution for every problem, in their opinion, then let them go to hell where death reigns supreme.

Mary De Voe
Thursday, March 27, AD 2014 8:15am

Oh, that’s right, Planned Parenthood does not call it DEATH

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Thursday, March 27, AD 2014 8:34am

Michael,
Speaking of speculation, could not one speculate that A comprised B and C and therefore two souls from conception?

Mike Petrik
Mike Petrik
Friday, March 28, AD 2014 9:25am

A very good explanation of the legal issues in Hobby Lobby, which are often misunderstood or conflated with absract policy and philosophical issues:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/03/27/prof-michael-mcconnell-stanford-on-the-hobby-lobby-arguments/

Michael Paterson-Seymour
Michael Paterson-Seymour
Friday, March 28, AD 2014 11:06am

Mike Petrik asks, “could not one speculate that A comprised B and C and therefore two souls from conception?”

One could, which would mean that “A” is not really an organism at all, but two collocated organisms. A could say with the demoniac in the Gospel, “My name is legion, for we are many.”

It might fit cases of natural twinning quite well, but raises problems, where the twinning is artificially induced. Again, until it produces eight of them by fission, the zygotes cells are totipotent and each can form a new embryo, so a lab technician could produce an indefinite number of them from a single zygote

Then again, there are cases, not only of fission, but of fusion (chimeras) Do we conclude in that case that the two apparently discrete organisms were, in reality, only one, with only one soul between them?

More to the point, why should we suppose any of these speculations are true, any more than we should think immediate ensoulment is true?

Tertullian’s reasoning, “That is a human being which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed ” hold good on any theory about ensoulment. Tertullian, by the by, was a traductionist, so, for him, the question of ensoulment simply did not arise, but one does not have to be a traductionist to accept his reasoning.

The CDF was wise not to commit itself to any theory.

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