I wrote an article for RH Reality Check about how anti-choicers could try to ban menstruation without missing a beat. It was supposed to be satire.
But unfortunately, it was close to the truth. Anti-choicers are pushing a Colorado ballot initiative to define a fertilized egg as a person.
I’ve seen numbers from 40-80% of eggs that get fertilized won’t implant in the uterus, meaning that any random menstruation could have an egg in it that was technically fertilized, making your average tampon a potential scene of negligent homicide under this law. That aside, when you define a fertilized egg, much less and embryo or a fetus as a full person with rights, how on earth do you handle miscarriages?
They blow past your satire faster than you can write it.
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Teh Stoopid don’t burn anymore because I’ve developed asbestos eyes for reading things like this. Idiots.
Get ready to Turn In Your Tampons, ladies.
What fucking idiots. Now I have to wash Teh Stoopid off of my contacts.
I had similar take on it when I saw the story, though I also think the citizen initiative is a bad idea in general. And I’m a bit insulted, frankly, that someone would compare me, a full-blown human, with a blastocyst.
According to the 14th Amendment, fetuses are not American citizens, which the amendment defines as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Will anti-choicers apply the same restrictions to fetus-Americans as they do to undocumented immigrants?
According to the 14th Amendment, fetuses are not American citizens, which the amendment defines as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Will anti-choicers apply the same restrictions to fetus-Americans as they do to undocumented immigrants?
According to the 14th Amendment, fetuses are not American citizens, which the amendment defines as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Will anti-choicers apply the same restrictions to fetus-Americans as they do to undocumented immigrants?
According to the 14th Amendment, fetuses are not American citizens, which the amendment defines as “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Will anti-choicers apply the same restrictions to fetus-Americans as they do to undocumented immigrants?
Virginians voted against criminalizing unreported miscarriages two years ago -
QUOTE: This latest assault is VERY reminiscent of Nicolas Ceaucescu’s Romania, a country that did in fact have “menstruation police” that knocked on women’s doors and questioned them. END QUOTE from http://democracyforvirginia.typepad.com/democracy_for_virginia/2005/01/legislative_sen.html
But Romania at least didn’t go after breast-feeders.
QUOTE: Breastfeeding infertility partially works by causing luteal phase defect,[2] which makes the uterine lining hostile to implantation; as such, defining implantation as the start of pregnancy would indicate that breastfeeding can be a form of abortion. END QUOTE from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortifacient
So to be morally tidy, The State would have to ban breastfeeding and try to prevent airing of nursing-baby-Jesus poems like this: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week917/essay.html
Yikes.
“Teh Stoopid don’t burn anymore because I’ve developed asbestos eyes for reading things like this. Idiots.”
I hear ya. Sometimes I think that is part of the plan, keep us trained on the clowns while the rest of the circus changes the venue without our noticing.
If they wish, I’ll put my menstruation in a little cup and send it off to them every month so they can resusitate the wee little ones that slid through.
Has anyone asked the fetuses what they think of all this?
Virginians voted down a bleeding-panty-sniffing law two years ago. QUOTE:
This latest assault is VERY reminiscent of Nicolas Ceaucescu’s Romania, a country that did in fact have “menstruation police” that knocked on women’s doors and questioned them. END QUOTE
from http://democracyforvirginia.typepad.com/democracy_for_virginia/2005/01/legislative_sen.html
Plus:
QUOTE: Breastfeeding infertility partially works by causing luteal phase defect,[2] which makes the uterine lining hostile to implantation; as such, defining implantation as the start of pregnancy would indicate that breastfeeding can be a form of abortion. END QUOTE from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortifacient
So to be morally tidy and consistent they’d have to stop the breast-feeding or stop the sex, to prevent “abortion.” In actuality, they’d have to arrest a breast-feeding woman and make her sit in prison, while someone else bottle-fed her baby, until her milk dried up.
I’m actually in a discussion over at Liberal Avenger…on precisely this issue. The premise is Marquis’ assertion of the “future like ours.”
If it is okay…I will cut and paste once LA is up and running again.
I wrote a little blog post way back when about how menstruation was murder. I thought I was pretty clever at the time. Not so entertained now.
Virginians voted down a bleeding-panty-sniffing law two years ago. QUOTE:
This latest assault is VERY reminiscent of Nicolas Ceaucescu’s Romania, a country that did in fact have “menstruation police” that knocked on women’s doors and questioned them. END QUOTE
from http://democracyforvirginia.typepad.com/democracy_for_virginia/2005/01/legislative_sen.html
Plus:
QUOTE: Breastfeeding infertility partially works by causing luteal phase defect,[2] which makes the uterine lining hostile to implantation; as such, defining implantation as the start of pregnancy would indicate that breastfeeding can be a form of abortion. END QUOTE from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Abortifacient
So they’d have to stop the breast-feeding or stop the sex, to prevent “abortion.” They’d have to arrest a breast-feeding woman and make her sit in prison, while someone else bottle-fed her baby, until her milk dried up. Talk about an unenforceable law.
Anti-choicers really hate women and their bodies.
I think I said this before. If not, I will say it now: any anti-choicer that says the he or she doesn’t hate women, I will brand them as a 100% liar.
Croatan, you are absolutely correct. The 14th amendment ONLY applies to living people and fetuses are NOT living. And to answer your question about whether anti-choicers will apply the same restrictions to fetus-Americans as they do to immigrants, the answer to that is NO. Anti-choicers are anti-female and pro-forced birth.
And you ever wonder why the anti-choice zealots always get mad whenever we try to hold them accountable. We all know that the far-right networks such as CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, and ABC will not point them out and hold them accountable. That’s why we need to hold these anti-choice fundies accountable.
Also, the IRS need to do their job and revoke the tax-exempt status of the National Right to Life Committee and all other anti-choice organizations.
How would that effect women who have what are medically called ‘missed abortions’, where the fertilised eggs have ceased development. Does that make us murderers?
When did reason and rationality become so uncommon.
How would that effect women who have what are medically called ‘missed abortions’, where the fertilised eggs have ceased development. Does that make us murderers?
When did reason and rationality become so uncommon.
How would that effect women who have what are medically called ‘missed abortions’, where the fertilised eggs have ceased development. Does that make us murderers?
When did reason and rationality become so uncommon?
My partner sez:
“Well, that’ll kill all the fertility clinics in Colorado…”
XtinaS your partner has a good point - if this became law, Colorado IVF procedures could be forced to imlant all zygotes created, or barred altogether.
What worries me though are ectopic pregnancies. This is when a fertilized egg implants itself in the fallopian tube rather than the uterine lining. It can grow here for a short time, but cannot sustain itself for long. Absolutely zero chance of sustaining a viable pregnancy - the fallopian tube ruptures. And this event in turn, of course, kills the woman. So do these antichoice nuts in CO really propose women with ectopic pregnancies should die, because to save her the zygote - a legal person in their eyes - must be destroyed?
I remember seeing an article in the NY Times last year about this problem in El Salvador. El Salvador passed a draconian antiabortion law. Doctors are afraid to aggressively treat ectopic pregnancies - they have to wait until a sonogram tech (if I am rememberieng the right specialty here) shows the zygote has died before the docs will treat, lest they run afoul of the law. Needless to say, putting off treatment endagners these womens’ lives and future fertility.
It is amazing how much suffering these misogynistic wingnuts are happy to cause…
Unsurprising considering the importance they place on the implicit, scientifically proven false, belief that pregnancy is something men do to women, who are mere flower pots for the male seed. The reductum ad absurdum of pregnancy to fertilization (which you’ll remember is imagined in the collective consciousness to occur almost immediately after intercourse) while wholly ignoring that a baby is literally made by a woman’s body demonstrates this in spades.
Every sperm is sacred; every sperm is great… and now every lil fertilized egg can carry on this tune. Women are half a step from being caged up and eggs counted like in “Chicken Run”. Those whose production is down will be made into pies…
Where can I get asbestos coating for my glasses instead of this silly anti scratch stuff, MA Jeff?
I’m surprised they’re not putting in a clause that says “murder of people is okay if Gawd does it” to explain away those unfortunate non-implantations.
I saw this article and nearly choked on my tea. Last I remember hearing, there are about 1 million 1 reasons why a fertilized egg won’t implant, probably more, because I don’t think there’s any way to tell why it didn’t implant.
It’s improbable, but say sneezing is detrimental to implantation. These wing nuts would make it a crime to sneeze (but only for women) because sneezing can cause that fertilized egg-American to jettison.
I have allergies, so I could be potentially commiting negligent homicide up to maybe 30 times in an hour when I have a fit.
Gee, that sound like a dandy idea.
If you believe that life begins at conception, then actually this is the logical follow-through to that belief. The likely ultra-authoritarian result would probably be mandatory pregnancy testings and boards of inquiry into premature ending of any pregnancy, to see if the miscarriage was caused by negligence of the mother.
That bill in Virgina got swatted down by anti-choice groups who didn’t like people skipping ahead a few steps, showing people what laid down the road from what they were advocating.
It’s more about power than anything for these people.
Contributing to the burning stoopid on this: Pope Benny “The Rat” getting past that Limbo loophole for (unbaptized) foetal Catholics by waving the wee tamponical souls into the flock. Well, this raises a bunch of (sticky, icky) issues of hallowed burial ground, NTM clouding what’s up with and in the Holy Water Font.
If the hard line Catholic patriarchy was skeeved about menstruation before, this adds a whole new dimension to things. Making the sign of the cross will never be the same again.
Jovan
“the far-right networks such as CBS, CNN, Fox, NBC, MSNBC, and ABC”??? You must be joking. Fox is the only one of those who can be considered right wing.
When you make statements like that and like this: “fetuses are NOT living”, you paint yourself a left wingnut, way out on the fringe. Fetuses are living tissue over which the mother properly has the ultimate control, but to deny it is alive is, well, lunacy.
Could you explain to me why anti-choice interest groups deserve less tax exempt status than pro-choice groups? The only reason I can see is that you don’t like their message. I don’t like their message either, but I’m not willing to expand the thought police powers of government more than it is already.
In my book, Sixties, you have to have a birthday to be alive. “Conception Day” doesn’t count. Yes, a fetus has life, but so does a cell in a petrie dish. So does a plant. So do the cells in my thumb. That doesn’t make them seperate persons whose right supercedes all others. That’s why my family mourns the death of my brother who died at age two, but not the three or four miscarriages my mother had.
On behalf of all Coloradans who are not loons I would like to apologize to the world.
They need 76,000 signatures to get this on the ballot. In Colorado you can use paid signature collectors (great gig for the homeless) and many people here sign anything they put in front of them so it will likely be on the ballot.
I honestly do not know how it will fair at the polls. The state is much more liberal than it used to be but we still have a lot of loons.
I just hope this isn’t the start of a nationwide “Let’s put something on the ballot to get Value Voters into the polls.”
Don’t bother them with the scientific facts, they’re on a crusade!
As someone who had a luteal-phase defect miscarriage at 10 weeks (of an embryo that I probably WOULD have aborted), I think that this is really the highest format of stupid possible.
What would happen to tubal pregnancies? Would women be sacrificed on that alter?
I think opponents should have a show trial for God under the terms of the statute. Get an old guy with a beard and everything. I think it would make great inflammatory theater - sort of a trial for murder or even a civil suit over a glaring design defect! After all, the majority of fertilized eggs and a damn high percentage of embryos are flushed out early on, and that doesn’t sound like an intelligent design to me!
In my book, Sixties, you have to have a birthday to be alive.
Yep. Until it’s surviving on its own outside the womb, a fetus is a potential life, not a life on its own.
That aside, when you define a fertilized egg, much less and embryo or a fetus as a full person with rights, how on earth do you handle miscarriages?
With lots and lots of money. If every fertilized egg is a person there’s a freaking pandemic going on and abortion isn’t even on the map as far as public health problems are concerned. Fund the National Institute for Prevention of Spontaneous Abortions NOW! Seriously. Can you imagine the outcry if 40-80% of newborns died before their second week of life? Yet when you talk to “pro-lifers” about the miscarriage problem, they try to convince you that it’s no big deal somehow. Screwed up priorities to say the least.
random question: this bill refers to “fertilization” and anti-choice slogans tout the line that life begins at “conception”. are the two words interchangeable?
dictionary.com tells me:
fertilization - the act of being fertilized
conception - the act of being conceived.
this is why no one uses dictionaries.
definitions 3-8 refer to conception as simply an idea or suggestion, or a “sketch of something not actually existing” which puts a really awesome spin on the entire idea of life beginning at conception. how many times have i *thought* i was pregnant and turned out not to be?
i’m just curious if they both refer to the same medical occurrence and are perfect synonyms of each other.
At the anti-choice diner, when you order an omlette, they give you fried chicken.
Praxis:
And rachel:
You might have both hit the same idea from different directions. The magical thinking that allows belief in an invisible Sky Daddy, “creation” and a literal worldwide flood is the same kind of magical thinking that allows the belief about Daddy putting his Special Juice into Mommy’s Special Place to make a whole new baby grow.
These clowns aren’t just playing fast and loose with the facts — they are ignoring reality completely, attempting to legislate into existence a world which we know cannot be.
The sad part is that (1) there will be a huge waste of time and energy put into shouting these morons down; and (2) if the law actually does get passed, there will be at least one woman’s life made into a miserable hell of legal contortions while the law gets challenged and found to be both unrealistic and unconstitutional.
I hear missions to Mars are expected to be extremely dangerous, possibly with very high mortality rates. Can we send these cretins on a Mars mission? Please?
Absolutely correct, Warren. This part of your post illustrates why we need to continue putting real human faces on dangerous anti-choice laws. Again, we all know that the far right MSM, which all of our current crop of news channels are (thereby defeating Sixties Liberal’s argument), will not put a real human face on the deadly anti-choice laws, so we have to do it.
milukfrog, thanks for telling us about another country that passed a cruel anti-choice law. And El Salvador is just to the west of Nicaragua although the two countries don’t touch each other on the map. I’ll bet that thousands of women have been slaughtered by that law in El Salvador.
Won’t somebody think about the poor Blastomere-Americans?
Not that it contradicts anything, but the actual language is here and here.
Considering that they emphasize due process and access to the court system for property (along with life and the liberty to infringe on others’ life and liberty), you could have a fetus try to buy a house or take someone to small claims court.
Are they going to put that two-year-old Indian girl on trial for partially absorbing her twin, or vilify the doctors who removed the remains of it so she can walk?
Hope Amanda’s going to delete all the duplicates at some point.
As a lesbian, I can disposed of used sanitary towels without fear. All heterosexually active women, however, should obviously make a point of taking the bagful of used blood rags (or whatever you use) to the nearest Catholic church, and demanding that the priest give the “baby” - the load of tampons etc - proper Christian burial.
In fact, you could just dump the bag in the church porch. After all, it’s the priest’s job to deal with it.
Heh, heh! Smoking is generally considered to increase the likelihood of miscarriage. Pit Big Tobacco against the Blastula-Lovers, and see what’s left.
MURDER!
BJ, I’m not arguing that a fetus should have any person status, I’m suggesting that to say it is not alive is an extreme position. Taking extreme positions, in my view, is counterproductive in trying to win arguments or persuade people on edge issues, such as parental notification laws for second or third trimester abortions. (Don’t jump on me, I’m not in favor of them.) When the anti-choice forces propose something that sounds reasonable to open minded folks, those folks will not be persuaded by extreme rhetoric.
So do these antichoice nuts in CO really propose women with ectopic pregnancies should die, because to save her the zygote - a legal person in their eyes - must be destroyed?
It’s not inconsistent to believe that embryos are people and still be 100% A-OK with killing an embryo in the case of an ectopic pregnancy: if someone is doing something that could kill you, you have every right to act in self-defense, even if it means you’ll kill them (*). Of course, as the experiences of other countries show, this consistency doesn’t stop the anti-choice nuts from wanting to even ban removal of ectopic pregnancies.
And certainly, the idea that a fertalized egg counts as a person (duh — they’re alive … let’s leave the mis-use of language to the anti-choice nuts … we can specialize in mis-spelling
) is crazy … while you have a right to kill someone in self-defense, you also have an obligation to avoid creating situations that lead to human death. As has been pointed out above … if every non-implantation is considered to be the death of a person, then, nu?, that makes procreative sex an act of criminal negligence, etc.
Of course, if one is paranoid, one might say the real agenda here is to weaken and undermine criminal neglegence laws so that way, e.g., companies can dump toxic waste and if people die from it, when authorities try to slap them with criminal negligence, they’ll respond “by your standards, women who have procreative sex are criminally negligent”.
* my religious beliefs dictate that one, generally, has not only a right to self-defense, but an obligation to defend your body, which is God’s holy creation, against harm. Thus, e.g., a woman who’s pregnancy is threatening her life is obligated to have an abortion, according to my religion — to not have an abortion would be considered an immoral desicration of the holy body God has given you (I wonder if Jews who think they are pro-life realize that many of their so-called allies consider this mitzvah to be a sin?). How ’bout we Jewsians make a compromise: I promise I won’t push to mandate abortion in some cases if the fundies promise they’ll stop pushing to ban abortion? That, and we won’t complain about you eating blood sausage, even though it’s against the covenant of Noah which, unlike the kosher laws the observance of which we Jews only consider to be required of Jews, we consider to obligatory for everyone.
What Praxis said. Some people who apparently don’t believe in science anyway, and are obviously ignorant of basic reproductive biology, ignore the fact that without actual implantation and maintenance of a pregnancy, by a woman’s body, of a fetus to term or near-term, THERE IS NO BABY.
All those folks used to say “life beings at conception.” Well, conception is implantation, so at least there is a reasonable potential for baby there. But to say “life begins at fertilization” is akin to saying it begins at ejaculation, and a woman’s failure to conceive afterwards should be construed as a criminal act. If that is not woman-hating, tell me a better one!
Which came first, the anti-abortionist or the egg?
Oh, and if life does begin at fertilization, then they have to give all those embryos that have been frozen more than 18 years voting rights. I wonder how they will make that work?
First, the cancerous tumors growing in certain peoples’ bodies are also “alive.” Should people with living and growing cancers be denied the right to cut out their cancer?
Second, the “extreme positions” argument assumes that people who think women should have the right to bodily autonomy are taking an extreme position. I believe the opposite to be true.
It is utterly irrelevant whether or not a fertilized egg has rights.
No one has the right to force another person to donate their body, even if it means saving a life. The government can’t force you to donate your kidney to your alcoholic brother. It would be nice if you loved your brother and were healthy enough to want to sacrifice to save him, but there should never be a law forcing you to donate a kidney, even though you have 2 and might never need the extra.
Maybe you fear surgery and it’s complications. Maybe you worry about your health. Maybe you think your brother is just going to waste it. Maybe you just don’t want scars. No matter if other people think your reasons are specious or shallow, the government still has no business forcing you to give up your bodily autonomy against your free will.
So please explain to me why a blastocyst/fetus/embryo gets extra and special rights that fully-born folk don’t have. If none of us can hijack another for parts (legally, at least) why can a b/f/e?
The circumstances don’t matter. Maybe the brother above became an alcoholic b/c you poured alcohol down his throat and continued to enable him. Still doesn’t entitle him to any of your body parts. Not even a pint of blood.
So you had sex. Birth control failed. Or implantation failed. Or development wasn’t optional. Why the hell does anyone think it’s okay for the government to FORCE one of the two “responsible” parties to sacrifice her bodily autonomy for another?
Oh yeah. Patriarchy.
Sixties, pregnancy tests measure hormonal changes that occur upon implantation, which, BTW, is the medical definition of pregnancy, rather than conception or egg fertilization, for which no convenient test exists. So mandatory pregnancy tests for women whose eggs are fertilized but do not implant would come out negative, even though they would have technically run afoul of the law.
There would only be two ways of enforcing this law — (1) to test all products of menstruation to be sure that no fertilized eggs were passed (and, if one or more were, to prosecute for negligent homicide for each one that was), or (2) to develop technology whereby women would need to subject their menstrual cycles to constant evaluation, so that their ovulation could me monitored and confirmed (likely via ultrasounds, as there’s already a fertility treatment infrastructure in place to do so), and then to monitor the largish follicles to see which are released and whether or not any is fertilized and, if so, implants (and, if any such fertilized egg does not implant, then the woman may be charged with negligent homicide).
Transvaginal ultrasounds cost a fair bit of money even with decent health insurance (hundreds of dollars per scan, with a few scans each and every month). Will the state incur these costs, or just insist that they be paid by women? Would the state pass a law causing its citizens of childbearing age to have to cough up, say, $1500/month in additional diagnostic costs? Would the state subsidize or just outright pay for the additional costs? These are questions that the state really ought to answer if they want a legal regime that even is consistent with itself, much less common sense (and, of course, to say nothing of the insanity, offense to women’s dignity or any other moral failure of it in the first place).
Tlazolteotl:
Yes. Yes! Which makes it obvious that masturbation in men must be outlawed too.
Wonder if that’ll fly with these forced-birth halftards.
oh amanda. i can’t get my head around this one AT ALL. A fertilized egg is a person? this is all getting a little too margaret atwood “the hand maid’s tale” for me.
i have an idea, instead of considering a fertilized egg a person, let’s take it back even further and target men in this equation. i say ejaculate should be considered a person!
“Yes. Yes! Which makes it obvious that masturbation in men must be outlawed too.”
…a prison in the near future:
Hey, new guy! What’re you in for?
Mass murder. I was convicted on 1st Degree masturbation…
Ha ha ha ha ha!…
Wouldn’t a circle jerk be mass murder? Hell, there goes the Republican candidates…off to Levenworth!!
ekf, I’m not sure if your post was addressed to me but let me be clear that I have been pro-choice since I first became aware of abortion and that was before Roe v. Wade, back when NY was the only place to get one legally, and I am not about to do a Mitt Romney.
But I think it is a mistake, actually and strategically, to call or label all anti-abortionists as women haters and liars. And I think it is wrong to advocate abolishment of governmental privileges such as tax-exempt status, to opponents of our views, privileges which we enjoy on our side of that fence.
Unless you’re not trying to win the argument and are simply attempting to move the Overton window. Which in most cases would be a logical course of action as the opposition is already taking an extreme position on the right in the hopes of moving the window of discourse further onto their turf. They don’t have to win on this issue to get everyone talking about the rights of unborn bayyyybeeees as opposed to the rights of women.
Um, I think Sixties Liberal has been more than clear that women should retain personal autonomy over their bodies, regardless of the living/non-living status of their fertilized eggs. I don’t think we need to jump all over him/her for it. It is potential life. Potential life doesn’t trump already here and breathing and living and wanting and suffering life. But it is potential life. And many women mourn miscarriages precisely because they are potential life that they would have rather brought into being than flushed down the toilet.
Personally, I kind of wince when people compare fertilized eggs to tumors. I don’t want to make some sort of federal case about it (ha!) because yes, it’s parasitic and yes, it just might kill you, but it’s rhetoric I’d rather not hear. I think you can make a very strong case for women’s right to bodily autonomy without it.
Let’s not equate “alive” with “person,” please. Many things in the world are alive.
But I think it is a mistake, actually and strategically, to call or label all anti-abortionists as women haters and liars.
Indeed, because the strategy used so far (pandering to them, being on the defensive, countering propoaganda with facts, logic and calls for greater understanding and cooperation) has been so utterly effective.
Personally, I kind of wince when people compare fertilized eggs to tumors. I don’t want to make some sort of federal case about it (ha!) because yes, it’s parasitic and yes, it just might kill you, but it’s rhetoric I’d rather not hear. I think you can make a very strong case for women’s right to bodily autonomy without it.
Difficult to make a case for women’s right to bodily autonomy without mentioning reality.
The government can’t force you to donate your kidney to your alcoholic brother. It would be nice if you loved your brother and were healthy enough to want to sacrifice to save him, but there should never be a law forcing you to donate a kidney, even though you have 2 and might never need the extra.
Here’s an interesting question: should there be a law mandating that every qualified adult give blood as often as physically possible, you know, cause there’s a war on and we have to support our troops.
Giving blood doesn’t threaten one’s life (hence the “qualified” part), doesn’t create significant inconvenience (like ruling your life for 9 months), has been proven to save lives, and could be seen as a civic duty or support of the public good just as much as jury duty.
Any chance it would stand up to judicial review? If it doesn’t, how could anti-abortion legislation stand, even if they do manage to declare a fertilized egg a person.
(Then there’s the problem of “no way to tell if the egg has been fertilized until it implants or flushes”: in other words, I don’t know there’s a person there until they die and I am charged with contributing to their death–WTF?)
My favorite comment on this bill on DKos was “I’ll get myself a freezer and 10,000 frozen embryos–think of the tax credits for 10,000 dependents!”
A friend’s pregnancy was 2 weeks overdue, and they were going to give 3 more days before inducing. Another friend–a lawyer–wrote up an eviction notice informing the fetus that it had 3 days to vacate the property or be subject to removal by the owner and/or her authorized agents. It was really funny…until this bill came along. Now it kinda seems like I should get a “no trespassing” tattoo…
I’ll do Tlazolteotl’s post one better: if life begins at fertilization, then the anti-choicers must:
give those embryos that have been frozen for more than twenty-one (21) years the right to purchase and drink alcohol legally
allow those embryos that have been frozen for at least twenty-five (25) years to be eligible to run for the House of Representatives
allow those embryos that have been frozen for at least thirty (30) years to be eligible to run for the Senate
give those embryos that have been frozen for more than sixty-five (65) years the right to be a Senior citizen
give those embryos that have been frozen for at least sixty-seven (67) years the right to get Medicare
give those embryos that have been frozen for at least eighty-five (85) years the right to a discount at every retail store
Sorry to go overboard, but Tlazolteotl made an excellent point and I wanted to build upon it.
And I wince at this rhetoric … because it tells me a person is buying into the argument that, in discussing abortion, we are no longer speaking about women and their bodily integrity, we are discussing a “potential life” of a whole ‘nother person. Indeed, an “innocent life.” A baby who is so new that he isn’t even born yet. What could be more awwww-inducing?
In fact, who gives two spits about the stupid, slutty, selfish, sinful women, when you have sweet and innocent little babies to think about?
And perhaps I’m not understanding the points people are trying to make above about the idea of “potential life,” but the very idea that a fertilized egg (i.e., a couple of cells) immediately owns personhood status trumping the rights to liberty, bodily integrity, and safety of a living, breathing woman (or a living, breathing 9-year old girl) is so utterly extreme and inhumane that it stuns one like a punch in the nose.
I’ve seen numbers from 40-80% of eggs that get fertilized won’t implant in the uterus, meaning that any random menstruation could have an egg in it that was technically fertilized, making your average tampon a potential scene of negligent homicide under this law.
Only if the woman has been jumping up and down more than normal over the course of the month, preventing implantation.
Otherwise it’s just, you know, desecration of a corpse.
Only if the woman has been jumping up and down more than normal over the course of the month, preventing implantation.
—
That’s why they call them TRAMPolines.
But I think it is a mistake, actually and strategically, to call or label all anti-abortionists as women haters and liars.
No, of course not. Strategically what you do is label some anti-abortionists women haters and liars and label some as “having their hearts in the right place” and get huffy and puffy about those evil anti-abortionist leaders for misleading good, Christian folk in order to indoctrinate them into the anti-abortion movement which has its own, anti-woman agenda.
It’s called “divide and conquer”, people.
But it is potential life. And many women mourn miscarriages precisely because they are potential life that they would have rather brought into being than flushed down the toilet.
Interestingly, the Jewish tradition, which can hardly be said to be pro-abortion (although any sensible Jew you’d think would be pro-choice considering that abortion sometimes is a mitzvah in Judaism, and you can’t trust the secular authorities to get it right by Jewish law if they were to try and regulate abortion) actually precludes mourning rituals for miscarriages because — c.f.that the Bible noteworthily does not consider killing a fetus as homocide (Exodus 21:22-23) — fetuses are not considered human beings for which you’d mourn. Even more interestingly, it is liberal Jews (who are almost overwhelmingly pro-choice) who have taken the lead in realizing that women who miscarry sometimes do need to have some sort of religiously recognized mourning period and have adapted rituals for this purpose.
Man, my represenative, Paul Broun (who was touted as being the least wingnuttiest Republican candidate) introduced a similar bill into the U.S. House yesterday. It’s called the “Sanctity of Human Life Act”, and it’d redifne fertilization as the beginning of life, and thus, sacred. It’ll also protect clones from being used solely for research because, ya know, that is a big deal.
Funniest part? The co-sponsors of the bill are Duncan Hunter and that lover of liberty Ron Paul. ‘Cause, ya know, he’s really all about liberty and personal freedom and not at all a raving, Bible-thumping loon.
Here’s a link to the story. And no, a fetus is not a living being. That’s just stupid, but not as dumb as thinking the vast bulk of anti-choicers don’t hate women or that the movement itself isn’t based on some serious loathing of the vagina. It just is.
give those embryos that have been frozen for more than twenty-one (21) years the right to purchase and drink alcohol legally
Somewhere, sometime, some 19 year old who was born after the implantation of an embryo frozen for 2 years will sue for the right to purchase alcohol on the basis of this. Then some 15 year old with a history of 6 years in the freezer and so on. At the very least, if “life” begins at conception (and we all know life began in the precambrian, right…all life has arisen from other life since that time) then everyone is “really” 9 months older than their birth certificates and passports claim.
But to say “life begins at fertilization” is akin to saying it begins at ejaculation […]
Yes. Yes! Which makes it obvious that masturbation in men must be outlawed too.
Don’t be silly - a sperm is too small to carry a soul. It’s the eggs - it has to be mandatory for a woman to be as pregnant as often as possible from the time of menarch…
Oh, hell, that bit of sarcasm just gave me a really ugly image of the Xtian right’s obsession about fathers and the purity of their daughters… Let’s not go there.
For what it’s worth, as I understand it:
- Conception/fertilisation - fusion of sperm and ovum. This occurs before
- Implantation/pregnancy - actual attachment of the thing.
- Abortion - technically termination of a pregnancy.
One thing I think the pro-choicers are missing is that the other side consider themselves pro-lifers. To them, drawing a distinction between pregnancy and conception sounds like weasel wording. Since they think that a fertilised egg IS a baby, any form of contraception which prevents implantation of fertilised egg is, from their perspective, functionally the same as abortion.
It’s important to realise that - they are legitimately driven wild by us making that distinction because, from their point of view, it is splitting hairs with no real difference - the morning after pill is the same as a D&C - they both kill babies.
Of course, conception is a multi-step process itself. If you want to puzzle a pro-lifer, ask them what part of the conception causes the soul to enter. The fusion of the sperm and egg (technically, still an oocyte at this point) membranes, the alteration of the oocyte membrane to prevent further sperm from entering, the completion of the second mitotic division, the injection of the sperm pronucleus into the egg, the fusion of the pro-nuclei, or some other point altogether.
Sixties, my post was addressed to you because you appeared to have a misapprehension about both the distinction between fertilization and implantation as well as the way that pregnancy tests worked. As for whether or not you’re pro-choice — groovy. Glad to know it.
Since you addressed me in the first paragraph, I feel compelled to note that I did no such thing. However, I do think it’s very often the case that people who are against a woman’s right to get a safe and legal abortion hate women. They may not cop to this hatred, so I may agree with you strategically, but actually? I think it’s very often the case.
Also, I lost the tax-exempt status point a while back, but as a legal matter, most political organizations in the abortion debate are not tax-exempt, and most service organizations in the abortion debate are tax-exempt. Planned Parenthood, for example, has a lobbying organization that is not tax-exempt, but its service arm is tax-exempt. NARAL, Feminist Majority, NOW — none of them is tax-exempt. On the pro-choice side, it’s fairly obvious which is appropriate for a tax exemption and which is not, because the pro-choice folks organize their entities to live within the tax rules.
This is not true on the anti-abortion side, where there are “crisis pregnancy centers” that are tax-exempt because they provide “services” such as unnecessary (and possibly harmful) ultrasounds, inaccurate and purposefully misleading “information” and opportunities to earn “free” products associated with pregnancy and parenthood. These organizations are frauds filled with liars (good-hearted or no, although they often talk a Machiavellian line more than anything — that the misleading information, for example, is okay so long as the woman does not get an abortion), and their donations are tax-deductible in a way that I believe should be revoked, because these organizations are engaged in demogoguery, not service providing. The anti-abortion camp also blurs another tax-related line, which is that of relgious organization and political organization, a blurring that is not remotely done on the pro-choice side. So while the anti-abortion side does have organizations that are not tax-exempt and engage in pure lobbying, they also have several tax-exempt organizations that at best skirt the lines of the regulations and at worst ignore that such lines exist in the first place. For that reason — and not because the viewpoint is contra that of one I support — those organizations should not be granted exemption from taxation.
And to add to what ekf said at 70, religious organizations are MUCH MORE tax-exempt than any other non-profit organization. They are required to meet much less stringent auditing and reporting standards, and they have much more flexibility in terms of unrelated business income.
SmallTownPsychosis: That’s why they call them TRAMPolines.
I bow to your perfectly phrased silliness. We’re not worthy!!
ekf, I first entered this string at comment 26, reacting to post 14 (not yours) which said this: “any anti-choicer that says the he or she doesn’t hate women, I will brand them as a 100% liar.” And this: “Also, the IRS need to do their job and revoke the tax-exempt status of the National Right to Life Committee and all other anti-choice organizations.” So, your second quote of me was in reaction to that and exchanges that followed and not directed to you at all. I’m sorry if it reads that way.
I only addressed you because it seemed you were reading me as either anti-abortion or ambiguous about it and I wanted to make it clear I am not. I knew most of the biology stuff you recited, but I don’t mind your doing it again. When I was in college in the early 70’s (pre-Roe) the medical center there had access to the morning after pill and at least one of the doctors there said they would prescribe it, though they had to write some mumbo-jumbo in the patient’s medical chart about how it was essential to the health (including mental) of the patient. They explained to us how it worked to prevent implantation.
Some definitions:
Fertilization: Mr sperm meets ms egg
Conception: when the fertilized egg has moved down the fallopian tube and implants in the lining of the uterine wall
The two events are often days, if not weeks, apart.
“Personally, I kind of wince when people compare fertilized eggs to tumors. I don’t want to make some sort of federal case about it (ha!) because yes, it’s parasitic and yes, it just might kill you, but it’s rhetoric I’d rather not hear. I think you can make a very strong case for women’s right to bodily autonomy without it.”
The fact that you get a little squeamish about it doesn’t stop it from being a very handily appropriate comparison. Hell, a lot of tumors even come from people deliberately engaging in “irresponsible” (with a serious bleed into “immoral”) behaviors like smoking and not wearing sunscreen and so forth, just like a lot of pregnancies come from women who go out and voluntarily have sex, the sluts.
The thing is that because anyone could wind up with a tumor at pretty much any stage in the game, everyone’s on about the same page re: tumors being Not Fun and potentially dangerous. Nobody argues that you shouldn’t be able to remove a benign tumor, or talks about how people who want their slow-growing tumors removed are mentally ill, or tries to badger you over what happened to your tumor. Nobody’s out there trying to pass laws saying that you can only ditch a tumor when it’s life-threatening, or arguing that you can’t have chemotherapy because God’s punishing you with a tumor. You and your tumor get all the privacy to make whatever medical decision you think is best that you could possibly want. This in spite of tumors fitting a lot of the criteria anti-choicers like to trot out in their “But it’s a baaaaaaaaby” arguments.
Of course, if the potential for tumors was confined to a small and female segment of the population, and everyone else would probably be just as able to stick their fingers in their ears and go “La la la tumors aren’t that bad and if they are, you deserve it for being a whore.” as they are about pregnancy.
Of course, if the potential for tumors was confined to a small and female segment of the population, and everyone else would probably be just as able to stick their fingers in their ears and go “La la la tumors aren’t that bad and if they are, you deserve it for being a whore.” as they are about pregnancy.
C.f. HPV vaccine …
Matt, since you can see into their hearts and minds, o great master, I will yield to your superior beingness. It must be so because you say it is.
There are reasonable people in this world who haven’t given the legislation or hard issues a lot of thought. They have friends and acquaintances who are pro-life and others who are pro-choice. When they hear someone say all pro-lifers are liars and women haters, they think, “Wait a minute, that’s not my experience” and they put our arguments into the “reject” pile. CAll it divide and conquer if you wish. To me if’s more like alienate and disaffect. From a strategic point of view the only time extreme rhetoric is valuable is in energizing your own core troops. Everyone works harder if the other side is demonized.
“C.f. HPV vaccine …”
Yup. It’s the most glaring and recent example. Any bets on how fast it would have been approved for mass use in school-aged kids and tax-payer funding if it was developed as a vaccine against penile cancer?
Aaaaaaaand, the natural consequence of pretty much every problem with the righties, the forced birth folks (I really like that term) and everything else we’re discussing here, from SFGate:
Workers find newborn’s body at recycling plant
Jeeeeeezus.
Wow. Well, hopefully Colorado’s registered voters will read between the lines and check the proponent’s anti-choice rhetoric before endorsing the ballot initiative.
Darsana Srinivasan here at the National Women’s Law Center has more on this at our blog.
Sixties Liberal: ekf, I first entered this string at comment 26, reacting to post 14 (not yours) which said this: “any anti-choicer that says the he or she doesn’t hate women, I will brand them as a 100% liar.”
which you then mutated to: But I think it is a mistake, actually and strategically, to call or label all anti-abortionists as women haters and liars.
Those are two entirely different statements.
An anti-choicer is a person who thinks that women ought to be forced through pregnancy and childbirth against our will. Obviously, regardless of what lying justifications anti-choicers present for their support of forced pregnancy, these people hate women. Further, unless they are very, very stupid, they know that the policies they actively support do nothing to diminish the number of abortions, but tend to make it more likely that abortions will be carried out unsafely and illegally. Anti-choicers therefore cannot even reasonably be described as anti-abortion: they have no problem with a high abortion rate, so long as women run higher risks in getting the abortion.
An anti-abortionist is a person who thinks abortions are bad. These people are often also pro-choice, or can be turned pro-choice, because they think abortions are bad because they want to reduce human suffering, and being anti-choice increases human suffering and does zip for reducing the number of abortions.
Don’t confuse the two groups again. Anti-choicers like to claim they’re anti-abortionists, but as all successful strategies for reducing the number of abortions derive from increasing the range of choices open to women, anti-choicers invariably oppose any useful anti-abortion legislation.
So do these antichoice nuts in CO really propose women with ectopic pregnancies should die, because to save her the zygote - a legal person in their eyes - must be destroyed?
Ummm….
Ectopic and zygote are strange multi-syllabic Greek words which are not in the vocabulary of your basic anti-choice nut. Therefore the words have no meaning and do not exist.
I mean really, get with the program….
Or is that get with the pogrom?
with my background, I read just the title and thought “whats new? the torah doesn’t spell it out so talmud does: during their “unclean period” women should just get the hell out of sight.
But CO has a deep streak of shivering bone-headed religious conservatism…same folks that shove death threats under the doors of profs in the molecular biology department at CU are ready to kill to prove that every sperm is sacred. If they weren’t armed, if they were required to pass an IQ test and a test demonstrating an understanding of the constitutional provision for separation of church and state in order to get voting privs then we could just laugh at the fecundamentalists and the talibangelists…and on this blog, plenty of fun and alarm are raised.
These anxious nazis of natality are ignorant as dogs about the medical facts…as your observations imply. Can we start there? i.e. can we say “look at Pennsylvania. Spending public money to enforce a narrow religious view that is just plain wrong on the facts was tossed out by the courts.”
[well, of course we can SAY it…lots of things get said. What can we do?
but what do we DO about this attempt to curtail rights?
I thought it was the sperm that had the homunculus thing. How wonderful that science has proven that false (unless I’m just wrong). Now everything is proven to be women’s fault, as it should be; God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.
All those poor little swimmers, the little men in them doomed by one wank. So sad.
Okay. I take it back. Fertilized eggs are not potential life. Fertilized eggs are exactly like tumors. No women ever feel bad about their miscarriages. Sixties Liberal is anti-choice nutjob who deserved attack. Carry on.
I thought it was the sperm that had the homunculus thing. How wonderful that science has proven that false (unless I’m just wrong). Now everything is proven to be women’s fault, as it should be; God’s in his heaven and all’s right with the world.
This has been fully covered in the scientific literature. See, for example, Falwell, J. and Roberston, P. (2005) Regulation of ensoulment functions through phosphorylation of mitochondrial DNA. Journal of the Institute of Creation Research 20(2), p.347-358.
Honestly, do I have to do all the research around here?
fertilized eggs can become tumors - there is a special type of cancer for when they do, known as a trophoblastic pregnancy or molar pregnacy.
When this happens, the woman must have extensive chemotherapy to stop the metastatic process!
I suppose that since this cancer arises from a fertilized egg, then removal of molar pregnancies and chemotherapy would be outlawed too?
Jesurgislac, I see I conflated the terms and you are right to correct me on that score. I was just trying to avoid using the term “pro-lifers” because that gives them more dignity than they deserve. I still don’t agree with your conclusions, though, so I’ll amend my original statement to keep the terms consistent:
I think it is a mistake, actually and strategically, to call or label all anti-choicers (or pro-lifers or anti-abortionists, whatever you want to call them) as women haters and liars.
But CO has a deep streak of shivering bone-headed religious conservatism
Yes and it is imported.
The history of the religious movement in Colorado Springs is interesting. (Disclaimer: I grew up in the Springs but moved out when I hit 18 in 1980. After much travel (intrastate, interstate and international) I have settled in Denver)
Colorado Springs, or Colospgs as it is known by old locals, has always had a poor economy. The majority of residents have either been active duty or retired military for many many decades. This has made the town the “home of the minimum wage” for a long time and also made Colospgs more conservative than the rest of Colorado. It still had the standard, biker, hippie, rancher, mountain weirdo feel of the rest of the state but had a bit of a more conservative tone.
It was conservative in an old style sense. The modern religious radicalism did not manifest itself until the mid ’80s or early ’90s. The city, in an attempt to improve the economy, actively sought out religious groups to relocate. The thought was that these groups would provide employment. The problem was they did not pay taxes. The end result was a huge influx of the most radical-fundamentalist-Christians without any economic improvement.
I am not trying to get the state off the hook entirely, I am just pointing out the Christian Taliban in the Springs is not homegrown but attracted from all over the nation–mostly from Orange County California (after the county went bankrupt in the late ’80s) or Texas.
I think it is a mistake, actually and strategically, to call or label all anti-choicers (or pro-lifers or anti-abortionists, whatever you want to call them) as women haters and liars.
And you are still making the mistake of assuming that anti-choicers and anti-abortionists are the same group of people. Not to mention the more serious mistake of assuming that people who enjoy the idea of a woman suffering for nine months through an unwanted pregnancy or risking death/sterilisation in an illegal abortion, and who support legislation accordingly, are people who like women. I suppose it goes along with believing that they’re not lying to you.
chingona: Sixties Liberal is anti-choice nutjob who deserved attack. Carry on.
So far, Sixties Liberal has only demonstrated being a gullible twit who believes anti-choice nutjubs are telling the truth and doing horrible things to women because they like women. Of course it’s possible Sixties Liberal is an anti-choice nutjub who really thinks women like being forced through pregnancy and childbirth, but thus far, we can’t accuse SL of being anything worse than stupidly gullible.
I keep getting these emails from some Christian doctor’s association at my university (in the general grad/prof school announcements). They hold Bible studies, dinners, etc. Once I clicked through to their website. Their official position — and these are doctors, presumably educated people — is that life begins at fertilization.
Now they want to make it law?
I’m going to stockpile Plan B while I still can.
But I’m an Unwoman anyway, due to a fertility-impacting condition, so I guess I can look forward to being sent away to die.
I’m just waiting for my red dress and white hat.
Their official position — and these are doctors, presumably educated people — is that life begins at fertilization.
Now they want to make it law?
I’m seeing a lot of this conflation of the concept of “life” and the concept of personhood in this thread, and indeed, it’s probably that confusion that lets people think that these kinds of laws are good ideas.
A fertilized egg is some form of living being, but it’s not a person, with all the rights accorded born persons.
However.
All those statements about when “life” begins are to prepare the ground for exactly this kind of law. Because, sure, who can really deny that embryos are living beings? Beware the slippery slope, though. What this initiative would do would be to confer personhood on fertilized eggs, not simply say that they’re living.
Personhood carries with it rights, and that, more than “life” is the word you want to watch for, even though “life” always precedes it.
YES. I already said I’m not googling any of that stuff. I don’t want the Stupid (in this case) cooties gunking up my laptop.
Personhood carries with it rights
But not the right to use another person’s body as an incubator against her will. The danger point is not when fetuses are granted rights: it’s when women are regarded as unpersons.
I see the problem in the US: so long as a woman’s right to choose abortion rests on fetuses not being legal persons, it is necessary to keep fetuses not legal persons. But a woman’s right to choose abortion should rest on the fact that she’s a legal person, with a right to decide for herself what she will and will not do.
I recognize the difficulty with the pro-life terrorists on the attack, and the consistent support for the anti-choice movement from US administration: but the goal to aim for is to ensure that women’s rights as legal persons are solidly enshrined in law in the US, instead of -as at present - so shakily defined that they rest on one court case determining that fetuses are not persons,
(I still think that anyone who appears to be seriously supporting this legislative agenda should be receiving regular parcels of used tampons and sanitary towels, so that they can be given the legal burial that this person’s beliefs require.)
Look, this is the last time I’m going to say anything, because probably no one is reading anymore anyway and because it’s all a big distraction from the original post, which is about a very disturbing development in Colorado that puts a lot of things in jeopardy, not just abortion but many forms of birth control as well. Here was my beef, put as simply as possible: Sixties Liberal agreed with absolutely everything said here - that fertilized eggs in no way, shape or form are persons, that such a law would have terrible implications, etc. - then came back to mention that he/she thinks it isn’t correct to say fertilized eggs aren’t alive, basically because you can’t really say they’re dead. They’re living tissue. NOTE: NOT A PERSON. And a lot of people here start jumping all over Sixties Liberal and extrapolating all sorts of things that he/she never wrote or even implied. And all I wanted to do (not very effectively, apparently) is question whether you really want to jump all over someone who agrees with you on every single thing that matters over an issue of rhetoric - an extremely minor issue of rhetoric - when the barbarians are at the fucking gates.
People out there are working very hard to ensure that some of the most widely used and most effective forms of birth control will be redefined as the murder of a human being and we are arguing over whose rhetoric is pure enough. So who is the gullible twit?
Colorado Dave:
Thanks for the background info. I now have offspring in school at CU Boulder and have taken an interest in CO politics and civics. Boulder [unless you happen to ask Ward Churchill] must be somewhere way to the left of Colorado Springs
PiaToR: This has been fully covered in the scientific literature. See, for example, Falwell, J. and Robertson, P. (2005) Regulation of ensoulment functions through phosphorylation of mitochondrial DNA. Journal of the Institute of Creation Research 20(2), p.347-358.
Honestly, do I have to do all the research around here?
Cara; YES. I already said I’m not googling any of that stuff. I don’t want the Stupid (in this case) cooties gunking up my laptop.
To the regular who wrote me and suggested I was being too hard on Cara…
You were saying?
I guess if no one is reading this thread any more this is pointless, but once again I’m going to interject the insight, since the old “is it a fetus or a baybee” argument has flared up once again, that the actual dividing line between a potential human life and not-a-human-life-at-all is not some moment in the developmental process, but that process itself, AKA “pregnancy.”
And pregnancy requires a woman, and as people who believe in gender equality, that means it ought to require a willing woman, and no one but her should make the decision. Thus, it is entirely a woman’s choice whether she should continue a pregnancy or not, and when women choose to do so, that defines the beginning of a human life with human rights and all. If she wants to have this baby, then we should all treat it as human, regardless of developmental stages, and support her in her attempt to bring forth another human life, and if she doesn’t then it isn’t–in principle, regardless of develomental stages, and we should support her in ending it as quickly and harmlessly as possible.
In practice no woman whose freedom was properly respected and supported early in the pregnancy, when she first discovered she was pregnant, would choose to carry it many months, each month compounding the inconvenience and risk she herself goes through, only to end it on a trivial whim. So we can ignore the boogeyman arguments that hinge on such strawwomen, and look at the facts which are that women either choose abortion as early as they can, or choose to try and have this baby–and some of them, tragically, don’t succeed. Some of those failed pregnancies require abortion to prevent an already bad medical situation from getting worse, and these are the infamous “late term abortions.” The vast majority of abortions occur long before any reasonable person could assert an approximation of viable human life.
So, Sixties Liberal, you may be quibbling over a techincality, but it seems very much like a wedge intended to cast doubt on abortion as such, and not anything someone devoted to the principle of the equality of women as human beings themselves would stick on. Yeah, yeah, a fetus is biologically alive, and has different DNA than its mother does, and would probably become a human being eventually.
(How probably depends on which stage we are talking about–apparently well over half of all fertilized eggs don’t stand that chance if we start the clock at fertilization; I don’t know how many of the inevitable early miscarriages have already taken place before women typically find out they are pregnant–but even a few months along, some of them aren’t going to make it anyway.)
But if this fetus does become human, it is because its mother chose to do that, and that is the essential ingredient for human life, not some pettifoging distinction about neural development or whatnot. If that is not her choice, then its viability is moot anyway.
Trust the woman to decide-gee, what a concept. It’s almost like I suspect they are human beings!
And I have issues with people who don’t get that, and am not too concerned with building alliances with them based on humoring their half-baked opinions. If they want to get their thoughts completely baked, they can face real-life pregnancy decisions, or they can fool around on blogs like I do until they get their heads straightened out–or firmly cooked on backwards, as the tougher-minded and more relentless of the opponents of choice do, and face up however eagerly to the fact that they are indeed misogynists, and be battled for their wrongheaded convictions.
The women of the world, for millenia that we know of, have fully understood that abortion is a sometimes necessary option; the tricky bit is getting people to admit this forthrightly rather than pretend to believe one thing and do another while interfering with still others who try to do the same.
“Trust the woman to decide-gee, what a concept. It’s almost like I suspect they are human beings!”
I get the impression that some of these fundnuts don’t think people should be allowed to make any decision more important than what their favorite flavor of ice cream is.
They think god must make all important decisions on their behalf. And since god doesn’t say too much (or anything) to the individual, this usually means relying on some authority figure in their church, or their ignorant interpretations of cryptic bible passages.
While they do single out women as particularly unworthy of self-determination, they don’t think men should have a whole lot more leeway…
Well, that’s the thing. That’s why even if I never have sex with a woman again in my life, and even if I stopped caring about what happens to women in general, I still would have a dog in this fight–because there is an ongoing struggle about the nature of human life in general, about whether we are just robots condemned to mindlessly cheerlead and fight for whatever team most recently recruited us with its memes, or whether we are in fact responsible individuals.
Although the Western ideal of the “free individual” did in fact arise in the context of a privileged minority that took for granted their right to exploit others, it didn’t rest there–and indeed, as it was arising, quite a few intellectually alert people on all sides (we mostly have the writings of the privileged side but historians can and have reconstructed the thoughts as well as the deeds of the various underclasses) immediately realized the implications of this rising ideal; many embraced authoritarian reaction, forseeing “mob rule” and the “many-headed hydra” in which all hierarchial order might break down. And most of even the most outspoken radicals (at least those of that faction among the elites) tried to draw lines pre-emptively; note for instance Thomas Jefferson floundering around for some kind of ideological justification for slavery and the ongoing subordination of African-Americans. (The Curse of Ham didn’t do it for him; as I recall he wound up settling on the pretty blushes of white women).
It’s all one big culture war, with many fronts. If, or how, it will ever be settled is very unclear, but it is clear that to retreat on any front is to lose ground on all of them. This is true of both sides.
And the battle lines are to some extent drawn within each of us too, lest we get lured into simplistic, essentialist “us against them” thinking.
Actually, in prepping for my criminal law exam, I’ve discovered that such a standard already exists in Alabama:
(s) 13A-6-1, the definitions portion of the homicide statute, states that:
So it’s a person from conception; you kill it, you’re a murderer, unless it’s a legal abortion(That’s provided later in the statute) Basically, the entire rest of the definitions section consists of frantic legislative backscrabbling that stems from THAT SENTENCE, which needlessly extends the longest fucking legal code in human existence.
OH. Sorry, PiaTor.
I thought you were making up these studies by Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Like, making a joke. So I made one back. My mistake.
As you were.
You can have your distinction between the groups. It is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make: that demonizing the opposition is wrong, mostly for strategic reasons but often in actuality.
You’ve made the assumption that anti-choicers “enjoy the idea of a woman suffering ….” and I think that’s unfounded or at least pretty rare. That’s like saying people against assisted suicide enjoy the fact that terminally ill patients suffer before they die. Or that proponents of assisted suicide enjoy watching people die. Or it’s like saying Bush continues the war in Iraq because he enjoys seeing our soldiers being blown up. Oh, wait, somebody in Congress already said that. What do you think that did to his credibility in his own party or in his dealings with people across the aisle?
It is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make: that demonizing the opposition is wrong
But correctly identifying a group’s prejudices and motivations is important, especially when the group members are full of face-saving lies.
Not in the least irrelevant, you see. People who oppose abortion do not (necessarily) hate women.
People who oppose women being able to choose abortion - who believe that women should be forced through pregnancy - do hare women.
You’ve made the assumption that anti-choicers “enjoy the idea of a woman suffering ….” and I think that’s unfounded or at least pretty rare.
If you mean that anti-choicers more often consciously deny that their belief women should be forced through pregnancy causes suffering, than that they relish the idea of doing so, you may have a point, but not much of one. You will find, when you take a look at what anti-choicers say when they’re driven back to why make abortion illegal, why try to prevent women from having an early, safe, and legal abortion when they need one, it all comes down to: Women who have sex outside marriage should suffer for it. Pregnancy is seen as punishment, as the fit “consequence” of a woman deciding to have sex.
That’s like saying people against assisted suicide enjoy the fact that terminally ill patients suffer before they die. Or that proponents of assisted suicide enjoy watching people die.
No, it’s not, because there is nothing in either the argments for or against assisted suicide to suggest that either group consists of people who enjoy either. But there is - if you would get down from your high horse and actually inform yourself - a lot of evidence on anti-choice and pro-choice sites that says punishing women for being sexually active is what being anti-choice is all about. (For example, anti-choicers uniformly supported the “Partial Birth Abortion Ban”, even though this would do nothing at all to prevent abortions, merely to prevent women who needed late-term abortions from having one by the safest method.)
I have not “made the assumption“, as you ignorantly claim: I have looked at what anti-choicers are saying and doing, and followed the evidence to the only conclusion possible.