Perhaps the cuteness of the snufflelump will distract you from the fact that it means “horrible uterine infection” or “prison sentence”.
Often, someone will present me in arguments about reproductive rights, the statistic that demonstrates that women are anti-choice in roughly the same rates as men, and sometimes a little more, as if this is damning evidence against the idea that anti-choicers are working from a misogynist worldview. Usually, I respond by pointing out that sexism is a unique oppression in the levels of internalized self-hatred in the oppressed,* and that many of the women who call themselves “pro-life” do in fact have abortions, and a lot of them are even more likely to than your average pro-choice feminist, because they’re also less likely to be educated about and using contraception. So it’s as much a pose about kissing patriarchal ass as anything.
But there’s another aspect to anti-choice advocacy that can’t be ignored when examining the statistics, and that’s the stupid factor.
I’m asked all the time, “Do you really think that all anti-choicers are crazy nuts who hate women and sex?”, and I say, “No, I think the leadership definitely is, but the followers are mostly sheep, albeit sheep who are drawn to this issue because they have deepset issues about sexuality.” And considering that women, being equal to men, are as likely to be dumb sheep as men, then it follows that as many will label themselves “pro-life” and scream about murdering babies while giving Bush license to murder actual babies with his war in Iraq.
The stupid factor cannot be underestimated. Right now, there’s a raging, um, debate, in comments about whether or not the word “consequences”, when used by an anti-choicer describing what he would like to happen to people, especially women, who fuck, is synonymous with “punishment”. The dumbass anti-choicers think they are incredibly fucking clever using the word “consequences”. “With this word, we can advocate punishing the sluts without actually saying we’re going to punish them! It’s an amazing plan! They will never see through our clever ruse.”
They must assume everyone else is as dumb as they are and we can’t figure out a word’s meaning from context clues, which is something that your average 3rd grader can ace on a standardized exam. The quote that’s being trotted out as one where “consequences” is a value neutral word is from Sean Hannity:
We live in an age characterized by the maxim “If it feels good do it, regardless of the consequences.” It’s a sex-drenched culture–from movies, music, and magazines to TV, radio and the Internet–that glorifies premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex. You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
If the word is value neutral and refers to good consequences as well as bad, then the statement actually makes no sense. Let’s repeat it, with good “consequences” injected, for the very slow-witted out there.
We live in an age characterized by the maxim “If it feels good do it, regardless of the great orgasms.” It’s a sex-drenched culture–from movies, music, and magazines to TV, radio and the Internet–that glorifies premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex. You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
We live in an age characterized by the maxim “If it feels good do it, regardless of the life-affirming revelations.” It’s a sex-drenched culture–from movies, music, and magazines to TV, radio and the Internet–that glorifies premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex. You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
We live in an age characterized by the maxim “If it feels good do it, regardless of the improved cardiovascular performance.” It’s a sex-drenched culture–from movies, music, and magazines to TV, radio and the Internet–that glorifies premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex. You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
It makes no sense, not even if you’re dumb enough to think a baby can be born alive months after an abortion.
But the fun doesn’t stop here, when it comes to the topic of mocking the neural misfiring of our esteemed opponents on the controversy of whether or not women are full humans with full human rights. Then there’s this awesome story. (Via.)
I decided to go up to the young female students who were passing out their “genocide leaflets” to the students walking by and chat.
I asked each one if they wanted to overturn Roe vs. Wade and make abortion illegal. They all said yes, of course. I asked them if abortion was murder. They all said yes, of course.
I then asked each of them, once this is made illegal, what the preferred prison sentence should be for a woman that has an abortion.
The first girl I talked to seemed bewildered by the question. She literally had never thought about that before. She was willing to stand in front of these horrible pictures and accuse people of murder and genocide, yet she had never even thought what type of penalties women would get if this was made illegal. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights, so I let her go to ponder just what in the hell she’s doing out here.
Another girl seemed a bit taken aback, but then went into the “well, it’s not the women who should be punished, it’s the doctor who performs it” line.
“So wait a second, if someone hires a hitman to kill someone, they’re charged for murder, right? Then why wouldn’t the woman who hires the person to perform the abortion guilty of murder”.
Silence. “Well… maybe. I don’t know.”
“Well, you’re out here calling people murderers and accusing them of genocide. What do you mean you don’t know?”
“Ummmm…”
Read the whole thing, though you might want to wear protective equipment to save yourself from the caustic exposure to the stupid. There are many theories as to why anti-choicers dodge the question of what should happen to someone who actually breaks the law and gets an abortion, should they get their way. The leadership, a bit more intelligent (though not exactly a box of super sharp crayons), realizes this is a P.R. issue, and people should stay away from describing women being thrown in jail for something 30-40% of women do at some point in their lives. But I think the sheep—like these women here—just get so involved in thinking about the poor fetuses being attacked by those horrible doctors, and are immersed in so much language that ignores the rights and very existence of women, that they actually forget that women are out there, getting pregnant and badly not wanting to be. They just forgot. They didn’t think about it, because the idea of a desperate pregnant woman seeking relief from her problem hasn’t been spoon fed to them, and they don’t have the imagination to fill in the details.
At our panel at the WAM! conference, someone asked about what we do with the anti-choice movement to frame their arguments in pro-woman terms. You have anti-choicers making arguments about how women should be banned from aborting because we’re simple fools** that will regret it, and we all will, because women are magically transformed into eager, blushing mothers by magic sperm and if we get abortions, it’s not because we wanted them, oh no, it’s because someone made us. So abortion has to be banned so women aren’t exploited.
I’m of two minds on this argument. On one hand, it’s got some legal teeth, as Carhart v Gonzalez, decided on just this point, that women are too stupid for full citizenship rights. On the other hand, it’s a really terrible strategy for recruitment. Most people accept the idea that a woman can actually be pregnant against her will, so the argument that all women secretly want all pregnancies and just need the law to show us the way is not going to get traction. Also, by even bringing women up, you are shifting the frame away from fetuses and towards women, and once people start to think about women—and about women dying from illegal abortion, or being thrown in jail, or even just having to cross state lines to get what is one of the most common outpatient surgeries in the U.S.—they’re going to be less inclined to take away women’s rights.
*Not that other people can’t embrace their oppression, but it doesn’t seem to be as bad a problem with racism or even, nowadays, homophobia. Maybe I’m wrong. But I don’t see like 40% of gay people polled saying they shouldn’t have the right to marry or 40% of black people polled saying they should sit at the back of the bus.
**This may just be more projection.
One thing I think we can do is point out just how ridiculous their rules are when taken to their logical extreme. I blogged today about Florida’s latest attempt to redefine the fetus at conception as a human for the purposes of criminal prosecutions, including being able to charge drunk drivers who cause accidents with homicide of a fetus. So, are cops going to start carrying pregnancy test alongside their breathalyzers if this passes?
“On the other hand, it’s a really terrible strategy for recruitment. ”
It’s an excellent strategy for recruiting *men*, who, like Fox Mulder, ‘want to believe’ that women are foolish and easily manipulated and need to be protected by big strong manly men like the new recruits. It feeds the patriarchial male ego.
And once you have the men, you have their wives and daughters as well, because even if they don’t buy the propaganda line, they know what they’ll get if they don’t do what they’re told. And as for women not in abusive relationships (ie, not married to conservatives)? If the anti-choicers think about them at all, it’s to dismiss them - they don’t want that sort of person around giving their chattel bad ideas. Just hold your sign like a good little girl.
Wow. This is a revellation:
straw-consequences. and straw argument in general.
No one is denying that Hannity is referring to negative consequences. The point is that you stated that negative consequences are punishments in this debate about women, when often times you refer to negative consequences, as well, just negative consequences. For instance when you refer to men having to pay for 18 years of child support if they get a woman pregnant. You say that’s not punishment, that’s just the logical consequences.
You wrote a nice long post, which is a pity, since you immediately decided to attack a nice straw word.
In the prior thread you were last seen calling me a liar. I asked you to do more than label, but to actually lay out your argument. Can you explain how and where I lied? Or is namecalling the level of logical argument here?
When I was a younger women, I think I was a bit more concerned about Heffalumps and Woosels, myself.
I think our pet MRA troll is getting pretty boooooorrrrinnnngg.
Can’t even spell his name right, either.
nope,
I thought teh babieees! were a blessing from god, no matter how they were conceived. That’s why they have to be saved from the hands of reckless womenz who don’t realize that they’re a blessing until they’ve been forced to have them against their will. How is it that they’re a negative consequence of having had sex outside the approved parameters then?
Because, nope, no one is denying that pregnancy is a possible consequence of sex, and abortion is a possible consequence of pregnancy.
However, when you argue that women should not be allowed to have abortions because they have to face the consequences of sex, then you mean for babies to be a punishment for sex.
If a man impregnates a woman, and she doesn’t get an abortion or give it up for adoption, he’s on the hook for 18 years of child support, sure. That’s a consequence. SO IS SHE. That’s a consequence. The man could have protected himself from the consequence by getting a vasectomy or wearing a condom. The woman could have protected herself by getting her tubes tied, using birth control, or getting an abortion. If people declare, however, that she should not be allowed to get an abortion because she must face the consequences, this would be like arguing that men should not be allowed to wear condoms because they must face the consequences.
In other words the consequences are the logical results of your actions. *Punishment* is when people attempt to take away your options to deal with the consequences, and force you into a much more limited set of choices as to how to deal with your consequences.
The Catholic Church at least is consistent. They believe that death or pregnancy should be the punishment for *anyone* who has sex unless they are in a monogamous relationship and were mutually virgins before the relationship began. Thus, they oppose condoms, which save both male and female lives from STDs, as much as they oppose abortion. However, your average right-winger is not interested in stopping *men* from avoiding the possible consequence of sex… only women.
BTW, abortion is unpleasant… I’ve never had one, but I had to have a D&C after a miscarriage, and it was not remotely fun. So abortion is *also* an unpleasant consequence of having sex… something right wingers and anti-choice nuts avoid mentioning in all their rhetoric about having to “accept consequences”.
Nope, you’re funnier than a dog chasing its own tail, sure that this time it’s going to be something different. Dumb. As. Fuck.
You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
That is a damnable lie. I’ve been looking for YEARS for someone to fulfill my Amelia Bedelia fetish, wherein “blowjob” involves professional quality balloon animals and “intercourse” is a small platter of food to be served after the salad but before the main dish.
For a snufflelump that cute, I will overlook all kinds of words.
I thought teh babieees! were a blessing from god, no matter how they were conceived
Well, perhaps in your black and white world, that’s what you might think conservatives feel. But I suspect that conservatives are more sophisticated than your model allows. When I listen to anti-choice conservatives they tell me all sorts of things. Mainly that abortion is murder. Beyond that I suspect they think that babies are blessings, but that babies also require lots of attention and money. Who knows? As covered in the prior thread, I’m a liberal who is pro-choice, just reality based unlike you Mr. Nacho Daddy.
I have no problem disliking Hannity, disagreeing with Hannity, and yet, not othering Hannity. And so I can readily understand Hannity thinking that babies are a logical consequence of pregnancy, that babies are positive consequences in many ways, and that babies are negative consequences in many ways.
What I don’t understand is the question I’ve asked and no one here is willing to answer:
You ARE forced to carry to term 2nd and 3rd trimester babies. When the state forces women to carry those fetuses to term, is that a punishment or a consequence?
Amanda and you all insist that Hannity insists that forcing women to carry a first semester baby to term is a punishment. And yet the state forces women to carry 2nd and 3rd trimester fetuses to term. So is the Amanda feminist viewpoint that the state is punishing women by doing this, or is this just the logical consequence of being pregnant?
If 1st is a punishment and 2nd is a consequence, what is the difference? If they are both punishments, than what about 3rd trimester babies? Punishment or consequence?
So far, no one has answered this.
karpad,
Call me.
Nope, can you scurry along now? Heaping more stupid on the previous stupid doesn’t make you smarter. It just makes the pile of stupid deeper, which makes you seem stupider.
See, stupid is like shit. You can’t conceal shit by piling more shit on it. That just makes the pile of shit bigger and stinkier. You keep thinking by piling the shit higher and deeper, it will morph into roses. And no, it’s just a really big pile of shit.
Nope, you’re funnier than a dog chasing its own tail, sure that this time it’s going to be something different. Dumb. As. Fuck.
I accept your concession that you were full of shit when you called me a liar, and that you are unable to provide any evidence that I have lied in any way.
I accept your concession and thank you for that, but I suggest you learn how to apologize more graciously. Or perhaps better yet, don’t call others a liar, without some proof.
Just words?
My university has a significant minority of dumbshit fundies who feel the need to assert their moral superiority over others. I just give them both barrels whenever they say they’re “pro-life”. So… what do you think about the death penalty, Ashley? They’re always for it. What about women who have abortions: should they go to prison? Certainly not. What about if the woman was raped? Then it should be okay to have the abortion. Usually after about six of these questions, I throw up my hands and ask the rest of the class whether they see any kind of logical coherence to Ashley’s position. They don’t. Sooner or later, Ashley folds her arms and says “Abortion is just wrong!” My response is “See if you still think that when your boyfriend dumps you.” This is childish and wrong, but much too entertaining to pass up.
BTW Amanda, I reviewed your book and gave it five stars on Amazon. One of my wonderful, clever, fun feminist students had it and let me flip through it during my office hours. Then I plugged it in my classes, but it will probably be a week or so before anyone actually has it.
nope,
You have nothing to be indignant about. You came in, acted like an asshole, and got called on it. You should be the one apologizing. Better yet, you should just skip the apologies and fuck off.
Let’s hear it for the MRA Troll - the guy who is bitching about being responsible for his lack of initiative in the contraception department - then mentions his kids IN THE PLURAL!
Honey, if you didn’t figure it out after one of them ….
I followed the link to the guy who confronted the protestors and saw that he’d submitted it to the DailyKos.
Then I made the mistake of reading the comments where the geniuses over there started calling for a man’s right to an “economic abortion”.
One brilliant line was: You want 100% of the choice, you get 100% of the cost.
I really want to dive in, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I want to dive in and talk about choice and how it an abortion isn’t as simple as signing a piece of paper and how childbirth isn’t as simple as writing a check and raising a child full-time isn’t as simple as having your pay docked.
I won’t, though. I’m going to stay sane and also out of it.
Sigh.
Nope,
Although it’s clear you don’t want a serious answer, I’m still going to give you one.
Well, perhaps in your black and white world, that’s what you might think conservatives feel.
Nice try, but I haven’t seen things in black and white since I upgraded to a color tv some time back in the 80s. Okay, that’s not quite the case. I saw things in black and white up until I stopped being a christian conservative, which happened in the mid-90s, not coincidentally around the same time I started attending college and realized the world was nearly as simple as the church had made it out to be.
But you wanted an answer to your question.
You ARE forced to carry to term 2nd and 3rd trimester babies. When the state forces women to carry those fetuses to term, is that a punishment or a consequence?
Actually, you don’t always have to carry a 2nd term fetus to full term, or a 3rd term, if the life of the mother is in danger. The state can restrict abortion in those trimesters, but cannot fully outlaw it, at least not yet.
But let’s get to some ugly truths here. In many cases, women miss the 1st trimester unrestricted window for abortion because it has been restricted through things like mandatory waits or required sonograms or zoning restrictions for clinics or simply the threat of physical violence against abortion providers. Let’s not act as though it’s easy for women in many parts of the country to get a first trimester abortion, okay? Can we at least be that honest?
So if state restrictions keep a woman who wants an abortion from getting one in the time frame that’s supposed to be restriction free, does that make her fetus a consequence or a punishment? I say it’s a punishment, then, because the state has undermined the woman’s ability to access her chosen health care. And the same is true if, instead of the state, it’s a woman’s partner or parents or anyone other than the woman herself.
Nope, the second you started splitting hairs about the word “consequences”, you demonstrated that you are stupid beyond repair, and a liar. An honest person would accept that this is about punishment, and let it go. But you rant pointlessly, and honestly, reading you is beside the point. The very moment you started to quarrel with this, you were a liar, an idiot and a rube. Now, don’t you have some pencil shavings to snort or a dog to court? Anything but clutter my blog with your bullshit?
Thanks, felagund!
Thanks for the link Amanda. I wish I would have had a video of their responses. Mind-numbing.
Well, this thread was not about what I thought at all.
The other day, Barack Obama responded to a question about reproductive education in a way that a lot of pro-choice folks liked. He referred to the challenges of teaching his two daughters strong values, and then said that he feels that f one of his girls makes a mistake she should not have to be punished with a baby.
I thought that was a strange way to put it. As an adoptive parent, I’m aware that my child’s existence on the planet, and presence in my family, is the result of some (probably young and poor) woman’s lack of reproductive choice and education. That woman clearly did experience this child as a punishment.
But my kid is not someone’s punishment. She’s not the expected consequence for immoral behavior. She’s a person.
The language of punishment and morality shouldn’t be stuck to babies, not only because it’s unfair and dehumanizing to women but also because it’s dehumanizing to the babies, who grow into people.
I could say more, but the fatherless bastard (see how these ‘morality’ laden terms become deeply rude and insulting when attached to people?) needs her hair washed. Which is a consequence of spending the afternoon playing in dirt.
Sometimes pleasurable acts have less pleasurable consequences, and part of being a second grader is learning about those relationships.
Hannity is a fuckwit who thinks women have the moral reasoning skills of a second grader.
Funny story.
Operation Outcry came to my campus last week, hosted by the Students for Life group here. I decided to attend because I figured it’d be good to hear what sort of arguments the anti-choice groups are making these days (especially one that collects women’s stories on abortion and asserts that it’s empowering women), and because I’m a sucker for an easily won debate.
So I attend, watch the video they provide (my personal favorite is a woman who’s had an abortion, and regretted it, quoted as saying “women have the right to make an informed choice”), and prepare my questions for the Q + A. As soon as I have an opportunity to speak, I set up the Libertyville questions: do you believe that abortion is illegal (yes), do you believe that abortion is the murder of a human life (yes), how much time should she do? And I got two responses. The first was from the speaker, Kelly Roy, who basically said that the issue is very complicated and that of course they don’t want to be jailing women, but if we ban abortion and turn all of our abortion clinics into planned pregnancy clinics, nobody would have an abortion anyways.
The other response came from an audience member, who pointed out that suicide is illegal in the US as well but you don’t go to prison for it, you get psychiatric care. The assumption being that in both suicide and abortions, the perpetrator is also the victim. Now I can see at least one level of flawed logic here. If the perpetrator is also the victim in an abortion, then the unborn child is not a human being separate from the mother, which invalidates the entire “abortion is murder” argument. But the suicide analogy has me a bit confused and I was wondering if anybody else could throw some light on the convoluted logic behind it. Thoughts?
But the suicide analogy has me a bit confused and I was wondering if anybody else could throw some light on the convoluted logic behind it. Thoughts?
They’re basically saying that any woman who would have an abortion is mentally ill and has to be restrained because she’s unable to make a rational decision. It’s a clumsy bit of circular reasoning, because it depends on the notion that a rational woman would never have an abortion, while we all know that there any number of rational reasons a woman would make that choice, given the option.
“But the suicide analogy has me a bit confused and I was wondering if anybody else could throw some light on the convoluted logic behind it.”
I’m guessing the line of reasoning is that the woman seeking an abortion is basically engaging in self-harm. Of course, if you really want to go with “it’s like suicide”–well, it’s actually like a murder-suicide if you’re rolling with the fetus=baby mindset. To the best of my knowledge, we still prosecute murder-suicide perpetrators who happen to survive for the murder unless they were demonstrably insane by criminal standards at the time.
My favorite brain stopper is to find a rather sincere baby saver and ask her what her organization is doing about the appalling infant mortality rate in vulnerable communities.
I have twice has “controllers” swoop in and steer the person away from me. Fascinating - they don’t want their most sincere and sweet people even thinking about actual dead and stillborn babies. All fetus, all the time!
Oh heavens no, nope; you can’t be described as a liar—you’re just an obfuscator, a caster-up-of-dust into smarting blinketty eyes. And there’s no resemblance whatever between those two things; no, not a bit.
(How’s that for name-calling?)
[the bekabot turns aside and laughs, silently, like a cat]
Re: internalized oppression: I’d wager that the percentage of fat people who buy into almost every negative thing that’s said about them is well over 40%. So it’s not unique to female forced-birthers.
Thanks for the link, Amanda. I wish I could have got those responses on video. Mind-numbing.
A lot of rant on your part Amanda, but you apart from your name calling you still haven’t shown where I have lied about anything. And I admit to being stupid, but since I’ve pwned you about your hypocrisy regarding consequences for men vs. punishments for women, I guess that makes you stupider than I.
Nacho Daddy, in the older thread, Ithaqua was also of the feeling that 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions are no different from 1st trimester abortions. It’s hard to make sense of what she is saying — I think though she does consider forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term in the 2nd and 3rd trimester is a punishment.
And yeah, I am ignoring 2nd and 3rd trimester pregnancies that would be harmful to the mother or would result in a severely deformed or disabled or ill child, because abortion is legal for those.
But basically, the law of the land as it is now is that pregnant women are forced to carry to term in their 2nd and 3rd trimesters.
I think it’s really fascinating that you and others consider that to be a punishment.
While I think that the majority of society wants abortions to be safe and legal, I suspect your view that 2nd and 3rd trimester babies should be abortible on demand and that forcing women to carry them to term is a punishment is a very very minority view, even among feminists. It’s one thing to abort a mass of cells without neural tissue or a functioning brain, but I think most people feel very differently about aborting 2nd and 3rd trimester fetuses due to this thing called science clearly showing all sorts of aspects of life and responsiveness to touch, sound, and other stimulation.
So best wishes on that Nacho Daddy, and you too Ithaqua.
Amanda, if you agree with Nacho Daddy and Ithaqua that you favor abortion on demand for 2nd and 3rd trimester kids and consider the illegality of abortion to be a punishment, than I think in the name of intellectual honesty you should make that clear. I think Daddy and Ithaqua would appreciate your support on that account, and so would other feminists. And so too would the feminists that are pro-choice but who disagree with you and think that it should be illegal except in cases of threats to mom’s health, etc. in the 2nd and 3rd trimester.
I would still be interested Amanda in a clear response from you. Is being forced by the law to carry a pregnancy in the 2nd and 3rd trimester to term a punishment or a consequence?
I think most people and many (if not most) feminists consider it a consequence.
Anyway, enjoy your Church Chat. I hear there’s a sex positive feminist sex worker in the fourth pew, so that should give you someone to gossip about and she reads Chaucer! Rabelais! Balzac! and enjoys giving blowjobs.
Incertus Brian, Nacho Daddy: #
But the suicide analogy has me a bit confused and I was wondering if anybody else could throw some light on the convoluted logic behind it. Thoughts?
They’re basically saying that any woman who would have an abortion is mentally ill and has to be restrained because she’s unable to make a rational decision. It’s a clumsy bit of circular reasoning, because it depends on the notion that a rational woman would never have an abortion, while we all know that there any number of rational reasons a woman would make that choice, given the option.
Jebus, Brian, you’re really off the deep end.
All they are doing with teh suicide analogy is trying to demonstrate things that are illegal that we don’t jail people for. That is, we don’t jail failed suicide victims. Therefore “your reasoning that we must throw women in jail who’ve had an abortion” is flawed. It’s finding the one counterexample to show a theorem is wrong.
But the suicide analogy has me a bit confused and I was wondering if anybody else could throw some light on the convoluted logic behind it.
Basically, they’re saying, “We want the law to enshrine our ridiculous sexual mores that no one—including ourselves—can follow, but we know we can’t say that, so we’re going to throw a bunch of shit at the wall and see what sticks.”
See, for instance, this new troll we’ve picked up. Nothing he says makes a bit of sense, but he’s going to keep ranting, hoping he can wear you down and let his illogical nonsense slip in.
See, nope, the trick to successful concern trolling is *learning the language.* It’s always easy to spot an anti-choicer who talks like an anti-choicer, despite claims to the contrary, and you’re a textbook case. “Abortion on demand” is not a pro-choice term because it ridiculously trivializes the effort of decision any woman puts into her abortion. Only anti-choicers would do that. As for the suicide thing, you’ve simply missed the logic train, here. What crimes do we not jail people for here? A) the trivial
B) those excused by insanity
(I know there are other exceptions but I defy you to come up with one that remotely makes sense)
If abortion is murder than A is out, and so the suicide analogy leaves only B, which, btw, is PAINFULLY OBVIOUS as suicide is not trivial, but is DIRECTLY TIED to insanity.
All they are doing with teh suicide analogy is trying to demonstrate things that are illegal that we don’t jail people for. That is, we don’t jail failed suicide victims.
No, they don’t go to jail–they go to fucking psychiatric care, which is in the subtext of that example, much as you may try to deny it.
So which is it–are you stupid or dishonest? Or are you self-aware enough to know the difference?
“Usually after about six of these questions, I throw up my hands and ask the rest of the class whether they see any kind of logical coherence to Ashley’s position. They don’t. Sooner or later, Ashley folds her arms and says “Abortion is just wrong!” My response is “See if you still think that when your boyfriend dumps you.” This is childish and wrong, but much too entertaining to pass up.”
I hate to say it, because I agree completely with you on the issues, but if you’re teaching these kids, ‘childish and wrong’ is too mild a criticism. Try ‘unprofessional’, with perhaps a side of ‘abuse of authority’ - it’s not your job to deprogram Christians, much less belittle them in front of the rest of the class. It annoys the heck out of me when fundie teachers do it to non-fundie pupils, so I can’t consistently let it pass here. Sorry
“It’s one thing to abort a mass of cells without neural tissue or a functioning brain, but I think most people feel very differently about aborting 2nd and 3rd trimester fetuses due to this thing called science clearly showing all sorts of aspects of life and responsiveness to touch, sound, and other stimulation.”
THE FETUS IS NOT THE POINT. There is a WOMAN around the fetus somewhere - remember her? She’s the one you want to punish, er, have-face-the-consequences-of-her-actions-which-does-not-actually-mean-punish, even-if-you-take-great-satisfaction-in-the-thought-of-that-slut-suffering - HER rights are the issue here, and SHE does not suddenly become less than human because her fetus starts wiggling around a bit. Tell you what, nope: if you think post-2nd-trimester abortions are wrong, don’t have one
“I followed the link to the guy who confronted the protestors and saw that he’d submitted it to the DailyKos.
Then I made the mistake of reading the comments where the geniuses over there started calling for a man’s right to an “economic abortion”.”
Ayup. To rephrase a certain whiny conservative, any online forum not explicitly feminist eventually becomes anti-feminist (due to the corrosive effects of patriarchy and male privilege, male posters have an edge over female ones - they’re told from birth that their (male) opinions are important and should be shared, while women are told to stay quiet and agree, and this tendency bleeds over in the aggregate) and Daily Kos is an excellent example of this.
nope,
Amanda has asked that you stop cluttering up her blog.
Would you please cease posting here?
Thanks.
Ya know, you folks could use google, but that might challenge some of your groupthink and you probably can’t do that.
But I did and found this, actually pretty informative considering the source:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZjkwNWQ4ZDQ2NTljNDg4MjUyYWIxZWQ0NDVjMTkxYjg=
An NRO Symposium on Abortion & Women on National Review Online
At the link they talked to lots of law professors and pro-life folks specifically about Quinlan’s question.
You may wish to read it. Turns out none invoked suicide as an example. And several were actually somewhat thoughtful about it.
But I know you come here not for thought but to help get your hate on. So have at it.
Anyway, Ithaqua, we’ll mark you down as pro abortion at anytime in the pregnancy for any reason whatsoever.
I am curious if Amanda agrees with that. Or if there are any pandagonians that disagree with you.
If anyone disagrees with Ithaqua, well, you may wish to speak up, and as you do so, you can explain if you think that carrying a third trimester fetus to term is punishment or consequence.
Ya know, you folks are really too easy. Sad. I’d expected better from my liberal blogosphere.
nope,
Amanda has asked that you stop cluttering up her blog.
Would you please cease posting here?
Thanks.
Ithaqua wrote:
My position is diametrically opposite of this. The fetus is exactly the point, and the mother’s “rights” are irrelevant. My main priority is to prevent that baby from being dismembered. My secondary priority is the mother’s political rights, the mother’s health, the mother’s life… All of this is a political position — a matter of opinion. It’s not that I am a lower life form than you “pro-choicers;” I just disagree with you and operate from fundamentally different premises and moral priorities.
Consequences vs. punishment? Semantics. Jail the doctor or jail the woman? Whichever results in fewer babies dying. Criminal charges vs. contraception? Whatever works — as long as there are fewer abortions, I’m happy.
If anyone’s “rights” get trampled on as a result of preventing that abortion, I really am not bothered by it. Now cry and moan.
I won’t address the ‘punishment’ or ‘consequence’ argument because it is so peripheral to the subject at hand -that being my right to control my own body -that it isn’t worth the time spent addressing it.
I find that people usually rely on semantics when they have nothing else.
Th truly astounding thing about nope is his willingness to declare a win for *no fucking reason*. It’s just… He’s right, so obviously he won that round. Look! He’s right again! He must have won again!
I spent an extremely unpleasant year living with lunatic catholic fundies. Really. Other catholics I’ve spoken to want to disown these wing-nuts. Amanda is spot on the money here. For all the idealization of the woman-as-virgin, there was some serious stench going on around *any* woman once she’d had sex.
Even virgin-till-marriage no contraception sex. *Once the hymen is broken, the woman is a walking womb*. That’s it. Any pattens of behavior that might make her second-guess that after the third kid in four years are ground out. Boys didn’t talk about Dirty Sex where girls could hear them, but the internalized patriarchal loathing was astounding. They were like music boxes: wind them up, and listen to them prattle about the divine feminine until they pass out, then discourse on why women should reneg on brain usage once they get hitched.
Weirdly enough, these people sincerely believed that babies were evil (see the written works of St. Agustin of Hippo for details).
Never, ever let anyone tell you that it’s “only about the babies”. The leaders have a fever, and the only cure is turning me legally into a milch-cow.
Mmmmm, chattalicious.
nope (and has anyone ever had a more apt handle? And the rhyming possibilities……) has confused semantics with the real world.
one of the problems with language as a modeling tool is, it ain’t math. It isn’t rigorous. In the real world, there are no paradoxes. In language, there is. This clearly illustrates the weakness of language as a modeling tool, not the perversity of reality.
Clumps of cells are not humans, abortions are not murders.
Really, he’s just winding you guys up: ban his ass already– he’s consumed enough energy, and you’ll never ‘convince’ him, although faced w/an offspring himself …. well, that probably won’t happen.
Meanwhile, he consumes valuable energy, like a vampire. DTMFA, to quote my favorite columnist.
The juxtaposition of these two captures perfectly what, at base, this is really about.
Do you know why it is that anti-choicers are dumbfounded when asked what the penalty should be for women who terminate their pregnancies?
Because compulsory pregnancy is the punishment.
Nope-
Your “consequence” vs. “punishment” conundrum is not that tricky and goes like this…
Since a consequence is the logical outcome of an act-basically all pregnancies are consequences of sex. If a woman chooses to terminate pregnancy and is denied and must carry the pregnancy full term, that would be a punishment.
Again…..pregnancy can be the logical outcome of sex (consequence), unwanted pregnancies required by law to carry full term (punishment.)
So Nope, if you put a fork in your eye, the logical outcome would be pain and most likely you would be blind (consequence) in one eye. Now if you are denied treatment for your eye and had to just suck it up, then that would be (punishment).
See? It is not so hard.
The other day, Barack Obama responded to a question about reproductive education in a way that a lot of pro-choice folks liked. He referred to the challenges of teaching his two daughters strong values, and then said that he feels that if one of his girls makes a mistake she should not have to be punished with a baby.
…
But my kid is not someone’s punishment. She’s not the expected consequence for immoral behavior. She’s a person.
PhoenixRising, I know you from your comments and I know that we generally agree. (And if I wasn’t so stingy about commenting, you’d know me better; it’s my loss that we don’t.) So I hope you’re not offended when I say I think you’re taking this a bit too personally.
And don’t get me wrong. If I were in your circumstance, I probably would too. But I think there is another way to look at this. And maybe I come at it from my particular point of view because I watched my sister place her baby with an adoptive family. She had been pregnant for months before she and my mother sat down and let me know what was going on. We’d recently celebrated Christmas, but nobody had told me she was pregnant. They were afraid I would be mad at her, you see.
Ha! As if. I’ll never forget that moment right after I was told that she was pregnant, but before I knew how she intended to approach it. What it means to be ‘pro-choice’ has never been so clear to me. Like Schrödinger’s cat, I existed for a moment in several different states that at first glance seem mutually exclusive. On the one hand, she might choose to keep her baby. If she did, I would fully support her decision! From her point of view, she had a baby growing inside her. She was the mother, and she wouldn’t be comfortable with anyone else raising her child. I have two kids of my own, so that’s certainly something I can understand. How could I look down on her for wanting to raise her own child?
But on the other hand, she might choose to abort her pregnancy. If she had, I would have completely understood that too! From that point of view, the ball of cells growing in her wasn’t a baby at all. If it had eventually become one, well, it *would* feel like a punishment to her — a baby she never wanted would be forced out of her vagina (or surgically extracted from her, which isn’t much better).
As it so happens, when push came to shove*, she felt like that ball of cells was a baby. But she also felt like she didn’t have the resources to give her baby the kind of life she wanted her to have. So she chose adoption. And this too is something I can understand. I had no problem supporting her decision.
But that brief moment where I didn’t know — I’ll never forget that. The feeling of, Wait, which way should I go to be supportive of her decision? That made me see more clearly than I ever had that I can empathize with every point of view; that I don’t think any of the viewpoints are more right or wrong than the others. How you’d react in that situation is something you can’t know until you’re in there yourself. As a man, I never *will* be there. But I can understand all too well how it must feel to suddenly be faced with that decision. In that situation, there often isn’t a decision to be made. You just find that you know how you feel.
In general, I think this is where Obama was coming from. But I also think that pro-choicers are put into the position of defending abortion so often that it’s easy to see how someone might think that it is the only option on the table. I think Obama was attempting to reassure people that he isn’t “pro-life;” that he can empathize with women who choose abortion. And that made him give the shorthand explanation he gave without including the long winded explanation that I’m giving now**. Unfortunately, “pro-choice” has come to mean “abortion advocate” in in a lot of ways to our collective conscience. But I learned very well from my sister’s experience that that isn’t always what it means.
PhoenixRising, I hope I didn’t overstep any boundries here. Really, I think Obama’s explanation without the caveats would make me feel uncomfortable too, if either of my kids were adopted. But I don’t think that’s how he meant it to be taken, and I hope this far-too-long comment was worth something, even if we ultimately end up disagreeing.
* Horrible pun. I’d say it wasn’t intended, but nobody would believe me. And rightfully so.
** Sorry, Amanda.
Quoth the forced birther:
Wonder how you’d feel if the tables were turned and it was your “rights” that were taken away because someone wanted to impose their religious beliefs on you.* It’s attitudes like this that make me suspect that there’s no way to get the men of the forced birth brigades to see women as anything other than walking baby factories.
Some of the women, on the other hand, might be reachable by forcing them to acknowledge that their abortion = murder equation doesn’t stand up to logic. Force them to think through their position and really think about what they’re advocating.
Another possibility is to get them to recognize that they might be in need of an abortion themselves some day, especially if they’re one of the hard-core forced birthers who thinks a woman should die rather than have an abortion to save her life. (Your own experience, or the experience of someone you know, can sometimes help here. For example, I have a SIL who wouldn’t be alive today if the forced birthers had had their way. Make it personal and you might be able to get through to them.)
* In my experience, the vast majority of the forced birthers I’ve encountered have been religious zealots; the rest of them have joined in because they’re misogynists. Perhaps I’ve lived a sheltered life, but I have not yet met a non-religious/non-misogynist forced birther.
Sez
trollnope:“But I […] found this, actually pretty informative considering the source:
[link deleted]An NRO Symposium on Abortion & Women on National Review Online
At the link they talked to lots of law professors and pro-life folks specifically about Quinlan’s question.
You may wish to read it. Turns out none invoked suicide as an example. And
several were actually somewhat thoughtful about itmost dodged the question entirely.”There. Fixed that sentence for you.
OK, here’s a suggestion. Every man could be forced to have a vasectomy. There could be a policy of storing several sperm samples before the procedure, or perhaps a system whereby one could apply for a temporary reversal in order to have a child. I think adopting such a policy would bring the abortion rate down to virtually zero, don’t you? So, given your insistence that it doesn’t matter whose rights get trampled on as long as the number of abortions is reduced, can we assume that you’d be entirely in favour of this?
The anti-choice argument as to why women shouldn’t be punished is a little more complex than “they havent thought about the women at all” - and believe me, I know, because I’m the one here who was raised a die-hard sign-carrying prolifer from age 3, remember. So I do know the rhetoric from the inside.
The argument goes - see the “Feminists For Life” newsletters for the latest articulations of this - that women who have extramarital sex, or who are married but don’t want kids, and have abortions, are simply brainwashed victims of the sexist liberal establishment propaganda, not realizing that they’re just being used by men as sex objects, and thus being deprived of their right to *real* happiness as Mothers.
Doctors who perform abortions are part of the abusive liberal male predator population, preying on the poor deluded weak abused women and convincing them to get abortions, to make themselves rich. (There is a long and complex and vile history of anti-semitism tangled up in the prolife movement, which I don’t have the time to dig up the resources, but which I will eventually.)
Thus, doctors should be punished with death, but the women who get abortions should be consoled and taught the truth, and not punished, just as a mentally-handicapped participant in a crime would be treated as another victim while the fully-cognizant party would have the book thrown at them, in a just world.
There is editing of facts, Minitrue style, going on (the rates of natural miscarriages, the fact that doctors are also women) but there is a perverse logic to it, and how the anti-abortion rank-and-file think of themselves as the chivalrous protectors and helpers of women, on the rational thinking level. (On the subconscious, there is tremendous resentment and disgust for women generally and “loose” women particularly, and the “punish them with childbirth consequences” is entirely correct a translation.)
That the logic all revolves around considering women not human enough to be rational moral agents (and thus deserving of punishment) until and unless they have embraced conservative beliefs (at which point they become wise and just and so on, being now in tune with Nature and God and all) is ellided.
But then, that’s kind of like the empowerful feminist attitude that women who support the patriarchy shoudn’t be criticized, poor dears, because *they* aren’t autonomous moral agents, *either*.
Oh Alexander, where’s the fun in planning your child’s existance in advance versus a “oh this is fun don’t wanna stop whoopsie, your problem NOW bitch!”??
Honestly, will no one think of teh fun???
I love it when people say “I hate to say it,” then proceed to criticize at length. The passive-aggressive smiley face icon at the end is especially appropriate.
You’re missing the point. It’s not my job to deprogram Christians. It IS my job to deprogram stupidity. Not all Christians are stupid: many of them are pro-choice. Many others who are anti-abortion understand that they don’t get to impose their morality on others. Mocking Ashley’s incoherent logic is a (childish, admittedly) tool used to clue her and the rest of the class into the incoherence and authoritarianism of the anti-abortion lobby. If Ashley is saying that she, personally, would not have an abortion, that’s her right and I wouldn’t give her grief for it. But Ashley is saying that abortion is wrong in general, and should be punished. And too many people have absorbed through propaganda the idea that the “pro-life” position is morally correct and/or logically consistent, and has something to do with actually being pro life, that this idea must be challenged. Yes, I should engage with her in a respectful manner. But her ilk don’t respect others by virtue of their attitude toward others’ bodies.
“Thus, doctors should be punished with death, but the women who get abortions should be consoled and taught the truth, and not punished, just as a mentally-handicapped participant in a crime would be treated as another victim while the fully-cognizant party would have the book thrown at them, in a just world.”
And yet, strangely, one conservative beit noir is the idea that mentally handicapped criminals aren’t eligible for the death penalty. It’s like their ethics are only situational
Felagund:
Part of being a professional educator, IMHO, is recognizing the power of your authority over a captive audience and the ethical limitations on that power. I don’t know what classes you teach, but unless it’s Introduction to Logic and you’re using anti-choice rhetoric as an example of logical fallacies, the abortion debate is probably not relevant, and you do have a duty - to your own professional ethics and to the students who’re paying you to teach - not to use your privileged position to push a particular political paradigm, especially given that the power imbalance between teacher and student makes it difficult for a student to effectively argue against you.
Argue with them all you want - but do it outside class, where the power imbalance isn’t so pronounced.
This is a novel argument, and a good one to get people to admit they haven’t thought about it, but I question where it leads. Really, there are only three possible responses, and none of them actually move the conversation forward.
First, they could (and most likely) will go blank and say they never thought about it. Thing is, you haven’t flipped their thinking to “oh, abortion shouldn’t be illegal,” they’re still stuck thinking it has, just that they never thought about punishment. This leads them to joining one of the two following answers.
They could say a woman should receive jail time. While this is useful in letting you know what kind of asshole they are, it also doesn’t move the conversation forward. At this point, you’re not discussing whether abortion should be legal or not, you’re discussing whether a woman should receive a murder or manslaughter sentence, which is an interesting legal quibble, but even if you manage to get them to admit that they think women deserve life sentences for fetus-murder, they aren’t going to change their mind. These are not people with an excess of compassion and empathy, remember. They actually believe in retribution and general deterrence, even in spite of historical evidence that it doesn’t work. I’m sure you could lead them to say that a few hundred or thousand women should be put to death so that it will deter other women from obtaining abortions. But all you’ve done is get them to prove that they’re assholes.
Finally, they could say that women shouldn’t receive jail time - this is the most likely response, and it’s the one we’ve heard before. They say that the doctors should go to jail, but not the poor, misled women. They even talk about attempted suicides, as noted above. Again, you could probably lead them to say that pregnant women who are not overjoyed about their condition should be placed in community Birthing and Re-education Centers. This argument may work on a few of the female protesters, but maybe not - they don’t think that they’re insane, just the women who choose abortion. Again though, you’re not getting them to change their thinking about abortion being legal or illegal, you’re just arguing about what the punishment should be for it.
I don’t see any way in which this argument leads to someone agreeing that abortion should be legal. Anyone, help me out?
I got into an argument with an anti-abortion “libertarian” yesterday, who, had I used the “should women go to jail” argument would have happily said yes. His main argument - one we’ve heard over and over - was that women should face the “consequences” of their “risks”: that if birth control is 99.9% effective, then they’re accepting a known .1% risk and like a losing gambler, should accept their loss.
So, I led him around to finally making (and agreeing to) two categories of allowed abortion and not-allowed abortion… abortion was to be allowed where someone didn’t voluntarily accept the risks (such as rape, or unforeseen medical problems) and wasn’t to be allowed where they did (such as failed birth control). And then I pointed out that birth control can fail due to manufacturing defect, or that antibiotics can prevent oral birth control from working, and that while someone may believe they’re facing a .1% risk, they’re actually facing a 100% risk, and this should place them firmly in the “didn’t voluntarily accept the risks” category. It would be just as wrong for a casino to cheat a gambler, taking the almost 50-50 odds on red on roulette and making them 0%, and that if it were him at the table, he’d be justifiably upset, and that it was immoral to hold someone responsible for involuntary, unknown risks. This actually worked. Mind you, it would only work on the “libertarians”, not on people who believe in a fundamental right-to-life-for-blastocysts.
Theaetetus — because a lot of these women have themselves had abortions, or know someone who has had them. Ask them if they know anyone who had an abortion, an if so should they be in jail. Explain that there are no “extenuating circumstances” that would have gotten them, or their sisters, or their friends out of jailtime, or community homes, or whatever, and that their little “oopsie, ‘but this is different’” logic won’t stand up in a court of law, because every woman has her own reasons for getting an abortion, and having it be illegal (particularly with the threat of jail time) isn’t going to decrease the need for the procedure.
As for the people who believe that it’s perfectly acceptable for women to go to jail, ask them if it’s ok for them to die… to get the death penalty. If they say no, point out that women tend to die a lot more when abortion is outlawed. If they say yes — ask them what charges should be brought against a woman who miscarries — involuntary manslaughter? I mean, there’s no doubt about it, when a woman miscarries, her body is ejecting the baby. It may not have been intentional, but this results in Dead Baby and should be accounted for legally.
Whatever works — as long as there are fewer abortions, I’m happy.
Oh, so you’re for comprehensive sex education, then? Tubal ligations and vasectomies for anyone who wants those, right? Condoms and EC in a plethora of vending machines that are easily accessible even to teenagers? No pharmacy in America can ever refuse to fill a birth control prescription? Family planning services free to all? Insurance must cover all contraception, even the installation of IUDs, or male birth control? Oh, and giving more opportunities for women to make decent wages so that if she does want children, that she can take care of them? That her career or schooling doesn’t suffer because she’s pregnant? Or support for women who’ve been abused, so that they don’t have to rely on their abuser?
Because that’s just the tip of the iceberg on how to reduce abortions - there are so many other ways to reduce abortions other than outlawing them, that if you only consider outlawing it, you suffer from lack of reality and/or creativity.
In other words, to reduce abortions, you should want to give women full and equal rights.
The law enforcement aspects to illegal abortion bother me. My grandmother had 9 miscarriages over the course of her marriage, good Catholic lady in the 1940s trying to have babies. In this brave new world, is she going to be investigated for possible homicide every time?
@ #40: Well, as long as you’ve established that you don’t think women are human beings. Easy position to have when you aren’t one. I hope to god you don’t have daughters, though I’m not naive enough to believe that some poor woman hasn’t married you, the victim of propaganda that tells women we have to settle for men who hate us.
God, you do this for a living day in and day out, and still, the shocking lack of value some men put on women’s lives will astound you.
Shorter bitter men who show up and scream about fetuses on my blog: We will only get one shot to breed and we will not be denied an heir!
That’s a good one. Will definitely use it. The miscarriage = involuntary manslaughter is a good one too.
Not sure how well that one will work - these aren’t people with a great grasp of history or statistics. They believe that putting people in jail provides an effective deterrent (which is why we now have 1 in 100 adults in jail), and ignore all evidence to the contrary. Additionally, the argument that illegal back-alley abortions are more likely to cause death fits nicely into their deterrence and retribution philosophy - it would be another deterrent, convincing some women that it’s better to just have the baby.
There’s another option I just thought of, too, and it’s a horrible one - they could say that women should pay large fines if they get an abortion. Essentially, this would limit it to rich people, something they’ve never had a real problem with.
Well, that’s only reasonable, right? And while we have no problems with oral birth control per se, if it fails and an egg is fertilized, then continuing to take birth control for the first month or two can severely damage it at its most vulnerable, so we’re going to have to outlaw birth control. Oh, and require every woman consider herself pre-pregnant, not drink or smoke, take vitamin supplements, and undergo monthly pregnancy testing so that we can be sure when pregnancy starts. You know, for freedom.
Seriously, you get that impression off so many anti-choice men, like their plan to get married and have kids was basically banking on the off chance someone will stupidly fuck them and then have to marry them because the law says she’s got no choice. And the feminists, with all our talk about women’s right to choose, are depriving them of their major opportunity to never have to do housework again.
Bellatrys, thanks for the summary. What you’ve said really drives home why it’s important to note that 60% of women who have abortions already have children, so the idea that they just don’t know about the joys of motherhood is incorrect.
It’s also important to point out to fence sitters that, using the anti-choice movement’s logic about how women who have non-procreative sex can’t be really enjoying it, but are just dupes, then contraception must also be banned for women’s “own good”.
However, the number one thing that reduces the abortion rate is contraception. Ergo, all those anti-choice groups that also oppose contraception’s legality actually are working to make the abortion rate go up, an astounding gap in logic that nonetheless doesn’t bother the willfully stupid.
But I’m not sure that the dumb girls waving bloody fetus signs thought about it much at all.
They believe that putting people in jail provides an effective deterrent
…except you can’t put someone in jail before they’ve committed the crime. So, are they just going to pre-emptively throw every pregnant woman in jail lest she try to seek an illegal abortion?
And pay for housing and prenatal care? I think not… No, better to simply punish a few women extremely harshly as an “example” to the rest.
Sheesh.
The only way out of the pro-life logic merry go round, for me, who, yes, did worry about later term abortions causing pain and suffering to an innocent, was the realization that the anti-abortion approach *does not work.* It hurts women, often kills them, and increases abortions. I wanted to be pro-life to decrease suffering; I am now pro-choice because that is the only true way to do so.
It is a comforting thing to take refuge in the moral purity of “individual rights begin at conception” but that is because it avoids all the messy, painful, confusing bits of reality that pregnancy actually involves. (and a great deal of science besides).
It is not possible to draw a nice, bright line between mother and fetus. They are, for all intents and purposes, one being during pregnancy, and only the mother is capable of making decisions. Furthermore, as she is actually a full human being with legal rights, to cripple or remove her ability to make decisions that will affect her life in all aspects because she is pregnant is clearly morally wrong. By definition, it condemns all women who will get pregnant to second-class status.
Nothing is more effective at reducing abortions than equal opportunities, contraception and education.
Pregnancy belongs to women because their own bodies belong to women. The presence of a fetus does not change that fact. Trying to reduce abortions via laws rather than via contraception and choice is like trying to prevent obesity via mandatory feeding tubes and food rations instead of teaching kids the food pyramid and how to exercise.
…except that punishment rarely serves as a deterrent to people who are desperate. If you’re starving, the threat of getting your hand cut off isn’t going to stop you from stealing bread to eat. If you’re trying to keep your husband from beating up your kids, the threat of jail isn’t going to stop you from shooting him (if that’s what you think it will take)… and if you’re pregnant and desperately don’t want to be because you can’t afford it or will suffer abuse or ostracization (is that a word?) because of it, it’s better to take your chances and risk jail if succeeding means you’ll get out of a lifetime of punishment.
If you can believe it, I’ve actually gotten people to reconsider their opinion on abortion. The secret is to keep bringing it back to the woman or the man in question.
You know, this debate always confuses me. Well I should clarify, the pro-lifers side of the debate confuses me. I’m a biologist, went to a high ranked college, and not a single one of my professors ever talked about abortion or any of the biological aspects of it directly, we were simply expected as decent biologists in training to be able to form an informed opinion on the subject, and so I did.
People who shout as loud as they can that life starts at conception, show an amazing lack of knowledge about basic biological principles. Life didn’t start at conception, both sperm and egg were alive before conception. Were the two gametes viable outside of the very narrow conditions of their immediate environment and biological purpose? No. Does that make them any less living? No.
Life is life. However, this doesn’t make it a human. Will the fertilized egg become a human at some point…sure, if a huge number of biological and environmental conditions are met. Is the zygote human life from the start? No more than the egg or sperm were. They all have potential, but as of the moment of conception that’s all it is, potential.
Abortion isn’t bad, it isn’t wrong from a biological or, in my opinion, from a moral aspect. It’s a woman’s right, to decide what to do concerning the mass of human cells in her uterus. I’m a guy, I understand that I have no say in the matter. If directly involved as the former owner of 23 of the 46 chromosomes, I may have an opinion, but I will damn well keep it to myself unless asked by the only other person involved and the only person to have a say…the Woman.
Abortion isn’t killing a human being, it’s terminating a mass of human cells. And it’s a woman’s choice whether she has the procedure or not.
An Abortion opponent above said they wanted abortions reduced to zero. I don’t want zero, I’d like something close to zero, but not for the reasons he stated. I’d like to see real sex education in school, real and readily available contraception for both genders (I’d love to see a male version of the pill, it’s got to be possible), and just general improvements in the standard of living for everyone. Those steps alone would reduce the abortion rate. It will never be zero, contraception isn’t 100% and there is the medical requirements of the woman to take into consideration (as well as the cases of rape and incest), but still, if we actually cared about people, and made sure that everyone was treated fairly, and education, and had a decent standard of living, including medical care, we might be able to reduce the abortion rate for good reasons.
I don’t know, I ramble I guess… well there is my opinion for what it’s worth.
“…except you can’t put someone in jail before they’ve committed the crime. So, are they just going to pre-emptively throw every pregnant woman in jail lest she try to seek an illegal abortion?”
You CAN put someone in jail (or more likely commit them) if they are “a danger to themselves or others”.
It would be extremely easy for some fundnut to decide that the “full human being” in the woman (currently cleverly disguised as a blob) is in danger.
If the Cheney/Bush administration has taught us anything, never underestimate just how far ideologues will go in pursuit of their dream/nightmare/utopia/dystopia/white-whale…
MikeEss: I’m just a simple hyper-chicken from a backwoods asteroid, but aren’t there charges that have to be brought before you can put someone in jail–so even if there’s a credible “danger to themselves or others” aren’t there charges that go with that, like conspiracy etc?
I am a woman who can’t use hormonal birth control for medical reasons, and I’ve had a condom break on me when I was a teenager. Regardless of my political opinion, I would never be able to go through an abortion (I freak out just getting a finger prick for a blood test at the doctor), and I am aware of the very negative consequences getting pregnant would have for me.
Therefore, in my sexual relationships I stick to oral/anal (with a condom)/manual sex. It isn’t the ideal solution (athough I still have a lot of fun), but the cost/benefit analysis says that this is the best one for now.
Sometimes I wish I could consider abortion an option so that I could have the sex I wanted, knowing I had an out. But when it comes right down to it, I just can’t do it. That doesn’t mean abortion should be illegal, but it does mean that PIV sex is a gamble that certainly does have bad conseqences if you don’t want to have a baby or an abortion.
I wish there was an on/off switch for my fertility.
Yes, but they don’t get this. These are the same people who advocate the death penalty for almost every crime, because it scares them so it must scare everyone else, and people always think about all the potential ramifications before they do something.
Protective custody… you can hold someone for a “limited time” in the case of a “credible threat” to cause harm to themselves or others. And that’s so poorly defined that I’m sure some jurisdictions would try to stretch it to nine months in a breeding center.
Well, I’m just an unfrozen caveman computer programmer…
I believe the charges can be brought by the community/state/etc. on behalf of their citizens, which would naturally include The Blob. And, of course, I could be wrong.
The Yoo “Torture Memo”, the rightwing nuts on SCOTUS, the “Unitary Executive”, “Signing Statements”, etc., have left me believing the legal fabric in this country has holes the size of supertankers in it.
I don’t have much faith anymore that reason will win out over ignorance, malice, and Koolaid-flavored ideology…
Mighty Ponygirl: not really, if you are considered to be a “danger to your self or others” you can be detained and placed under observation. It’s the rational behind involuntary psychiatric holds and admissions.
And with the administration we have now, I’m with Mike, I wouldn’t put it past them to try and claim that wanting an abortion, could be considered being a danger to “others” and therefore should be detained.
Nonsense.
I’m not pushing a particular political paradigm. I’m pushing awareness of the distinction between personal beliefs and political agendas, and awareness of the logical and moral incoherence of a set of received ideas. Students can argue all they want: it’s a wonderful tool for getting them to see these differences themselves. If you think that logical coherence is a political paradigm, you’ve spent too much time watching Fox.
Damn, the concern troll really did “win” in this thread, that’s really sad too. Maybe he sucked in the last thread, I didn’t see it, but reading this one on its own he came off as “trying to get a real answer” (with only a tad too much of the armchair quarterback) and he managed to make the regulars look like “screaming close-minded liberals”. Ouch, that right-wing frame survived mostly intact.
Maybe in the future we could just point the concern trolls to a form letter-style post similar to this that has all of their standard lines in it with links to more detailed essays. Something like:
And then after that we can ignore them.
Uh, No. From someone who works at Planned Parenthood.
Just no. You are, entirely and apparently unapologetically, wrong.
So, stop it.
Damn, the concern troll really did “win” in this thread, that’s really sad too.
Well, in the sense that a three-year-old throwing a tantrum “wins” by getting his parents to ignore him.
You may want to read the other thread and find out why all of us who already encountered nope have no interest at all in engaging him — he argues dishonestly and then tries to claim that he “won” on the splitting of the thinnest hairs you’ve ever seen.
i am so very sad that troll number 2 didn’t answer the question about forced vasectomy.
i needed a hearty laugh.
The one true vegan, But basically, the law of the land as it is now is that pregnant women are forced to carry to term in their 2nd and 3rd trimesters.
Uh, No. From someone who works at Planned Parenthood.
Just no. You are, entirely and apparently unapologetically, wrong.
So, stop it.
Well I really am ignorant of this, and that was my understanding, but if you can explain how and why I am mistaken, I really would be grateful.
Thank you.
Not to be too wide-eyed and naive, but … yes, if you’re in danger to yourself or others — do they really throw you in jail ? I know that our CJS is really f-ed up in how they treat the mentally ill, but if you’re actually considered to be so completely mentally distraught that you could harm yourself or others, is it legal to put someone in jail? Doesn’t it hold in the fifth amendment that you are entitled to due process in our justice system?
I guess this does open up another venue for quizzing the anti-choice. Should getting an abortion qualify as a felony or a misdemeanor? If only a misdemeanor — should murder be a misdemeanor, since fetus killing = murder? If a felony — again, not only back to the jail sentence, but there’s that whole slew of “after release” that a woman would have to deal with: she will find it harder to find a job because she’ll be required to check off that box on her application because she’d been convicted of a felony. Lack of money/a stable job is one of the primary reasons women seek abortions, so convicting them of a felony will probably make them MORE LIKELY to need an abortion in the future, not less.
In the United States, abortion is legal, even in the third trimester, to protect the life or health of the mother. There are no restrictions that I know of on second trimester.
Do you live in a different country? We can examine the laws there, too, if you’d like.
I think you mean Carhart v. Gonzales.
Love the blog.
Yes, but it’s not “jail” per se, it’s a hospital with protective custody areas. Think tied to the beds. There are also suicide watch areas in jails that have cameras, round the clock observation, and no shoelaces or blankets that could be used to make nooses. ‘Cause there’s nothing that gets a person feeling like they want to live like a jail cell with no blankets.
Believe it or not, the argument around this is that they haven’t been charged with a crime, and the rights of due process only attach then.
I’m not really sure they’d have a problem with women being forced out of the workplace…
The fetus is exactly the point, and the mother’s “rights” are irrelevant. My main priority is to prevent that baby from being dismembered. My secondary priority is the mother’s political rights, the mother’s health, the mother’s life… All of this is a political position — a matter of opinion. It’s not that I am a lower life form than you “pro-choicers;” I just disagree with you and operate from fundamentally different premises and moral priorities.
So your premise it that a fetus’ life is always worth more than the mother’s. Just out of curiosity, what if it’s a female fetus? After all, once it’s born, she’s going to turn into one of those fetal vessels without any rights anyway, so why would it be wrong to abort a female fetus? Does a female fetus have rights until the moment of her birth, and then those rights are taken away? If she starts off with no rights because she’s female, why would it be wrong to abort since you have two entities with no rights anyway?
I think you mean Carhart v. Gonzales.
Love the blog.
I have lots of things to say, but in the interest of not bloviating as much as usual (and to tend to the small sick one in my care) I’ll just answer nope:
Yes. I believe a woman should have the right to terminate her pregnancy at any point. That’s right, I am full-bore “abortion on demand” for the whole nine months.
I’m a mother, so I do know all about the consequences of sex and the process of pregnancy.
But here’s the thing: being a woman, I’m aware that women are human beings, not second-rate, mentally-challenged walking wombs.
I simply cannot imagine a woman going through 6, 7, 8 months of pregnancy and then deciding on a whim “You know what? I don’t want to be pregnant anymore. To hell with this, let’s go to the abortionist!” That’s a strawfeminist.
Second trimester abortions happen mostly for two reasons: 1. regulations and restrictions placed on first term abortions, or 2. genetic testing done after 20 weeks determining Down Syndrome, or less often, other genetic defects.
“Abortion-on-demand” gets rid of #1.
When women get third trimester abortions, it’s b/c something tragic has happened to the fetus during development–no brain, severe brittle bone syndrome, fetal death. These are wanted pregnancies, but bad things happened and–oddly–these women believe they have a right to health and to preserve their right to future reproductive ability.
This is STILL a long post–aren’t y’all glad I edited?
I’m not really sure they’d have a problem with women being forced out of the workplace…
The leadership, sure. But the groundlings might realize that the sole-breadwinner model doesn’t exactly fit reality (even if they wish it were otherwise).
Gladly. Dispelling ignorance is my job. And actually don’t take it personally. There’s a lot of intentional obfuscation in the media, and some accidental, out there preventing people from understanding these laws with a certainty.
The only thing th