But she’s from a smart and sassy group!
TBOGG ends another great day’s work by taking a look at Rachel MacNair‘s contribution to National Review. MacNair lists for our convenience the many real imaginary evils of abortion:
MacNair, who is a psychologist much like Charles Krauthammer, also lies, much like Charles Krauthammer
But when Tom writes that MacNair is a former president of Feminists for Life, he neglects to mention that K-Lo has called the organization “smart and sassy.”
We especially liked this part of MacNair’s argument about why abortions aren’t good and stuff because:
There has been an upsurge rather than a decrease in child abuse.
We’ve used this Monty Python quote before but it’s worth repeating: Explain the logic underlying that assumption. Assuming we missed the argument about how children born to parents that do not want them are condemned to be abused (and that legalizing abortion would hence lead to a lower incidence of child abuse than not,) why should women/parents who don’t have abortions be influenced? What is the causal link that allows us to see any relationship between those women who have abortions in greater numbers than in the past, and parents who don’t who then abuse their children? Does this have anything to do with Meghan Cox Gurdon? Your answers will be graded for both style and logic.
Bonus points: MacNair is now the president of Consistent Life, the group formerly known as The Seamless Garment Network. [You can’t make that shit up.]
Update: Patrick Armshaw offers some interesting thoughts on the Seamless Garment Network in the comments, and finds our mocking partly (if not entirely) undeserved.
I can’t explain McNair’s logic (hey, I’m not Krauthammer), but I can say that the Smart and Sassy Feminists for Life named K.Lo as one of their “Remarkable Pro-Life Women” who prove that “Cool women are pro-life!” ‘Cause when you think “cool,” you think of the woman who wrote “Brit [Hume]just rocks.”
The logic behind MacNair’s quote is to refute an ‘argument’ apparently used by the left: that abortions, by reducing the number of unplanned and presumably unwanted fetuses, prevents child abuse. Therefore, since child abuse rates have not gone down, the argument is faulty and the left is simply pro-death. I have no idea if this argument has ever actually been SAID by anyone but pro-lifers talking about pro-choicers, and I’ve never met anyone on the left who advanced it, but that’s another story.
BUT, don’t knock the seamless-garment movement: it does stand on the left on issues of war, poverty, the death-penalty, and imperialism. The religious Left’s arguments against abortion tend to be much more based on the inherent sanctity of life, than on the decay of sexual morality and its threat to our way of life. This is a real distinction, and while there is a huge divide between this branch of the Left from other branches who are pro-choice, there is also at least a confluence of outlook on the necessity for real structural change, both economic and political, as a precursor to social change.
I think a real test for the Left is going to be drawing support from groups exactly like Consistent Life, not by dropping our insistance on pretecting a woman’s right to choose, but by articulating a vision of a world where fewer abortions are necessary (through sex-education, birth control, equality of the sexes, meaningful prosecution of rapists, etc.). I think there are enough religious who would be willing to work with such a vision. Or I could be fooling myself, but I think it’s worth thinking about.
I suppose the “pro-lifers” would claim that by allowing “baby killing” we encourage people to think that the lives of children (whether born or “pre-born”) are not valued. Thus, if you’re told it’s OK to kill your “pre-born” child, you’re apt to think that it must equally be OK to beat your “born” child within an inch of his/her life.
Thanks, Patrick! That’s exactly my position. There are at least two of us . . .
In other news, since George Bush took office, the stock market has not gone up. That means that Republicans are bad for the economy.
In other news, since George Bush took office, the stock market has not gone up. That means that Republicans are bad for the economy.
If you look at Joe Conason’s “Big Lies” book, he says that in fact the economy has done much better under Democratic Presidents than under Republicans. Let’s face it, Republicans suck like a White House intern.
well 9-11 happened on george bush’s watch so republicans really, really suck at national security. and naming a boy Paris is child abuse
This Rachel MacNair really has a lot of irons in the fire. Three phone numbers, one which is suppossed to be FNSA as posted on her website seems disconnected. She is linked to numerous sites with little reciprocation from those sites. I would like to know more about her biography. Can anyone out there help?