Fitz!

If you hadn’t given me the author’s name, I’d have thought it was a Pantload production.

It was only a matter of time before the government started forcing people to burn down their own houses.

Obamalamadingdong keeps sending me kerosine and matches, but I bravely resist his dictatorial pressure. BOO-YA WOLVERINES!!!“1

How Healthcare Insurance Kills More People Than It Saves will be Teh Next Great Teabagger Talking Point. Thanks…

He is an excellent argument for retroactrive abortion.

Even with all that bullshit he can’t even get his own dumb logic right. It’s the marginal cost and benefit of each subsequent baby that would determine whether it should be aborted. It’s not “well we need some babies, so we need infinite babies!”

Such a dum-dum!

we need infinite babies!

Crisis On Infinite Babies, the DC universe blockbuster. Oh, Substance…

Wait, but I heard that the health care bill was, itself, an abortion. If the bill is an abortion, then wouldn’t voting to kill the bill be supporting abortion, and by extension mean the Congressperson opposed to it was pro-choice? Because I’m pretty sure voting for universal health insurance defines you as pro-life. Of course, I did once see an advertisement that said, “Choose Life”, which may suggest that pro-lifers are in fact pro-choice, because life was the choice they choose. But if the proclaimed pro-lifers vote against the bill, and they kill the abortion, making them pro-choice, shouldn’t they support the bill, because it’s a pro-choice bill?

If only a large insurance company would cut me a massive check to fund my campaign for office. This would all be a lot clearer.

Yes, if everyone becomes financially responsible for everyone else, we might start having serious conversations about how best to allocate resources for the greater good. Some people may even get benefits of LESS THAN INFINITY, all this at the hands of a popularly elected government, even!

This is 1000 Auschwitzes worse than what we have now, which is no discussion at all, the poor just die and that’s that.

This guy, and J.D. “in Massachusetts you can marry your horse” Hayworth illustrate the newest wingnut meme: There are no lies, only differences of opinion.

More Taranto goodness:

Bush now seems a distant memory–a memory, surprising as it is to say, of simpler, stabler times.

One great way to predict which babies might not be born into the loving home and socioeconomic advantages that are most likely to steer them into a productive life?

The pregnant woman taking a look at her own life and deciding whether she can provide a child with this environment might actually be a suitable way to sort that out.

But don’t listen to me, I’m a lady (a feminist!) and you know we can’t be trusted with thoughts of our own.

“in Massachusetts you can marry your horse”

You can? Then what am I still doing here in GA?

OK, I know that horses aren’t mules, but when in Rome…

Bush now seems a distant memory–a memory, surprising as it is to say, of simpler, stabler times.

Simpler, sure.

Stabler? I never thought of free-fall as stable, but I suppose if it’s a bottomless pit.

Bart Stupak has a primary challenger.

I recall donating some money to Dems who have deeply disappointed this year.

So this year, my funds go only for liberals, and primary challengers. Like Connie Saltonstall.
~

“How Health Care Insurance Actually Kills More People Than It Saves,”

Megan McArdle actually tried that one, but you probably knew that.

Bush now seems a distant memory

Long-term memory is much over-rated.

How Health Care Insurance Actually Kills More People Than It Saves
First Time, and now McArdle is writing for the Post? Tsk-tsk…

Snorghagen said,

March 18, 2010 at 0:26

More Taranto goodness:

Bush now seems a distant memory–a memory, surprising as it is to say, of simpler, stabler times.

“Remember how good things were before I set the city on fire?”, asks the arsonist.
~

‘It’s only a small step from this to …headlines like “How Restricting Calories and Increasing Exercise Actually Makes You Fat,” “How Health Care Insurance Actually Kills More People Than It Saves,”

How about “How cutting taxes produces more tax revenue.”

I think these guys are way farther than you give them credit for, in the area of believing things that are obviously untrue.

If we don’t believe the country should at least help provide pre- and post-natal health care, paid parental leave, childcare, welfare when needed, etc, and we also throw a nutty about poor wimmins having babies just to get the sweet couple $100 a month, but still try to argue abortion is wrong because “children are the future” etc, we should die a horrible death. And by we I mean him.

Bush now seems a distant memory

Kind of like how, when you leave a really horrible job, you quickly forget how bad life sucked before you quit. Memory is merciful in that way.

‘How Having An Enormous Obama Cock That You Shove Down Conservatives’ Throats Means All The Hot Chicks Really Dig Small-Cocked Teabaggers With Giant Obama Cocks Protruding From Their Gaping Mouths Forever And Ever’

by James Taranto

But from society’s standpoint, that expense is a necessary investment–the only way to produce the next generation of productive adults.
As tigris has pointed out, the “necessary investment” is to be paid by individual women, rather than by the nebulous society that expects to benefit. But this is NOT SLAVERY.

A society in which […] the average person consumes more over his lifetime than he produces–is unsustainable.
We’ve been telling you that for a LONG TIME.

and that they plan on funding the cost of all these abortions with huge tax credits for serial killers.

As I read these words, I realize I have an erection. It is the largest erection I have had since sometime last December, or was it January, when I strangled a woman (early 30s, wearing too much Chanel, total hardbody) with her own Hermes scarf in a private back room at Alex Goes to Camp, where the swordfish omelettes are outrageous.

Tonight I am going to call Allison Poole to come over for some very nice Merlot and a little semi-consensual torture and then see if she still has any pull over John Edwards and can maybe expedite this whole deal because, until I start getting bonus checks again, I could really use a new tax dodge.

For Taranto I prefer yabbadabbadoucebag.

-G

Choir, Preaching to:

“We love us some sweet innocent fetuses!!! They are precious gifts and blessings!! Providing health care and pre- & post-partum health benefits, thereby insuring that these gifts are born as healthily as possible, is the worst sort of abomination, and should be punishible by law. People who say that we should care for the slut-mothers that carry these sweet innocent gift-babies, are America-hating socialists who want American Sharia & animal-marriage. Not like us god-fearing, adulterous, boy-raping, dildo-wetsuit fetishist, AmericaPatriots”

Shockingly, the article gets even worse. Here’s the next paragraph:

Getting government into the eugenics business would have disturbing implications for reproductive liberty. What would happen to a woman who received, say, a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome? She would be free (as she is today) to exercise her right to have an abortion. But would she be free to exercise her right not to have an abortion?

He then goes on to suggest that Democrats would try to actively encourage women to get abortions, even using coercive measures. Of course, being James Taranto, he sets this up as though its all undisputed fact that Democrats are doing this.

Then he argues that pro-choicers should support his position.

I got nuttin’.

Yep, the conservative view on abortion/contraception combined with their position on social programs would lead one to think that they are either really dumb or totally insane. The only thing that will bring it into focus is being aware of their real feelings about sex. Namely that even sex should be just another thing reserved as a privilege for the wealthy. Unless you can afford every single expense of raising a child to adulthood, you should be abstinent. The fact that lots of people will never really be able to afford it is just tough titties for them. Should have thought of that before you were born to someone who was not independently wealthy.

Bush now seems a distant memory–a memory, surprising as it is to say, of simpler, stabler times.

I thought that sounded familiar.

Anyone checked out the comment section yet? I’ve never swam in the WSJ sewer before. They’re like collegiate freepers.

The thread quickly degenerates into a debate on Social Security (spoiler: They’re against it), but there are few other healthy nuggets floating down there. Let’s see…there’s a guy saying that the key to fixing health care is taxing the poor more heavily…”death panels” pop up again…some weirdly racist comments about the Japanese…a Godwin violation…yeah, pretty much what I expected.

Getting government into the eugenics business would have disturbing implications for reproductive liberty.

Whether or not I could bear younguns wouldn’t necessarily be my top worry if government got into the “eugenics business.”

But as a matter of cold cost-benefit analysis, not all babies are equal. Some are costlier than others, and not all grow into productive adults.

He’s right. Just look at Eric Erickson.

Funny how those who write most passionately about children being our most valuable resource are fist in line to cut Medicaid and SCHIP and school budgets and Head Start and…

I recall donating some money to Dems who have deeply disappointed this year.

So this year, my funds go only for liberals, and primary challengers. Like Connie Saltonstall.
~

It may also do well to find the one or two good guys who might have trouble this year. The only one i can think of is Grayson, but he’s a millionaire, so he doesn’t need the help.

Marcy Winograd is challenging Jane Harmon in Ca. All the districts are drawn safe, so there is 0 chance of getting a Rep

Funny how those who write most passionately about children being our most valuable resource are fist in line to cut Medicaid and SCHIP and school budgets and Head Start and…

Not to mention contraception, which would stop those precious snowflakes from being murdered.

On the bright side, they probably support child molestation. Has that catholic league douchebag chimed in on that lovely scandal?

Getting government into the eugenics business would have disturbing implications for reproductive liberty.

The eugenics business should be left to the eugenics businessmen.

The eugenics business should be left to the eugenics businessmen.

In Russia, the business will be left to Yevgenycs businessmen.

I just want to say that I’m impressed by the sheer undiluted mendacity of someone willing to take his own economic argument for forced pregnancy, extrapolate it into an economic argument for forced abortion, then accuse his opponents of intending to get “government into the eugenics business” when he is the only person making the argument.

Getting government into the eugenics business would have disturbing implications for reproductive liberty.

Yep, the government shouldn’t be in the eugenics business. It’s much more moral to be in the business of blowing up random brown people in somebody else’s country.

The eugenics business should be left to the eugenics businessmen.

The biggest problem in the eugenics business right now is excessive government regulation.

But would she be free to exercise her right not to have an abortion?

That’s right, folks: Abortion panels! Next comes forced impregnation solely so that the fetus can then be aborted. Nothing makes the world go ’round like abortions. Someday, medical science will advance to where we can abort pregnant foeti – oh frabjous day!

medicalPENIS science!

Bush now seems a distant memory–a memory, surprising as it is to say, of simpler, stabler times.

Maybe he meant this kind of Stabler:

http://www.rollbamaroll.com/2008/6/9/548485/ken-stabler-arrested-for-d

This is right down there with David Frum’s recent article at CNN blaming the lack of peace in the Middle East on the peace process. What a douche!

“That’s right, folks: Abortion panels! Next comes forced impregnation solely so that the fetus can then be aborted. Nothing makes the world go ’round like abortions.”

Well, what’s so unconservative about that? The People’s Republic of China had abortion panels for a while, and here’s what Pat Robertson had to say (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/18/politics/18ABOR.html?pagewanted=1) about it;

“If every family over there was allowed to have three or four children, the population would become completely unsustainable. So, I think that right now they’re doing what they have to do. I don’t agree with forced abortion, but I don’t think the United States needs to interfere with what they’re doing internally in this regard.”

In the religious right’s world, abortion is apparently okay as long as it reduces the number of Chinamen. Say, that sounds a lot like, what’s the word, eugenics, man.

The biggest problem in the eugenics business right now is excessive government regulation.

Tigris for the win.

By the way, didn’t you yoostabee Tigrismus?

That’s right, folks: Abortion panels! Next comes forced gay impregnation solely so that the fetus can then be aborted.

Flexed. Like a gay muscle.

Pat Robertson was also a fan of Charles Taylor’s particular form of post-partum eugenics:

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Alt/alt.politics/2006-04/msg00248.html

Maybe…

In the religious right’s world, abortion is apparently okay as long as it reduces the number of Chinamen.

That Robertson quote is gross, but unsurprising. These self-described moral absolutists don’t really care about anything they claim to care about, they care about POWER.

The pregnant woman taking a look at her own life and deciding whether she can provide a child with this environment might actually be a suitable way to sort that out.

I’m a flaming liberal and a man but I gotta admit that I’ve always had a problem with a “woman’s right to choose.” Like this right here, I have to ask, why become pregnant in the first place if you have an issue with being able to raise and care for the child? Unless you are forced by rape or other coercion, as a woman you never have to carry a fetus unless you choose to, right? So if you aren’t forced to conceive and only do so as a byproduct of having sex, I think you should give up the right to abort a potential life that you are carrying by a choice you have already made. Somebody explain to me where I’m wrong with this.

“I’m a flaming liberal and a man but I gotta admit that I’ve always had a problem with a “woman’s right to choose.” Like this right here, I have to ask, why become pregnant in the first place if you have an issue with being able to raise and care for the child? Unless you are forced by rape or other coercion, as a woman you never have to carry a fetus unless you choose to, right? So if you aren’t forced to conceive and only do so as a byproduct of having sex, I think you should give up the right to abort a potential life that you are carrying by a choice you have already made. Somebody explain to me where I’m wrong with this.”

I’m reliably liberal on most things as well, but I have to admit abortion is the one issue where (except in cases of rape or danger to the woman’s life) I agree with the conservative position. (Though I’m under no illusion that they have any intention of sticking their necks out for an issue as quaint as human life, which is why it doesn’t really factor into my voting). Throw tomatoes at me if you will, but I’m with chimpevil on this.

I have to ask, why become pregnant in the first place if you have an issue with being able to raise and care for the child?

That makes perfect sense because contraception (which you are not allowed to know about) is 100% effective. And there could never be any medical problem with the child or your carrying it. And you intended to get preganant, dinchha? No,?! Then what the fuck are you doing having sex?? YOU FUCKING SLUT!!

Quick: name a 100% reliable contraceptive.

Ooo, PeeJ beat me to it.

RE Robertson: At the time Robertson made that quote, he had business interests in China. The PRC tends to be a bit touchy about other people airing their dirty laundry; this isn’t exactly a secret. Look back over the last twenty years and you’ll find plenty of examples of businessmen making excuses for Chinese policies. Rupert Murdoch did this as well.

In other words, Robertson didn’t say that because he was a hypocritical racist monster. He said it because he was a hypocritical greedy monster. Big difference.

So if you aren’t forced to conceive and only do so as a byproduct of having sex, I think you should give up the right to abort a potential life

If a “potential life” has rights and interests, then why the rape / coercion exemption?
If a “potential life” has rights and interests that are sufficiently important to over-ride the preferences of the mother, why do they not also over-ride the interests of any other woman incubator into whom it could be transplanted?

Ooo, PeeJ beat me to it.

Veiled premature ejaculation reference?

Didn’t know that about Robertson-China-business. But it makes perfect sense. He also had business ties to dictators Mobutu of Zaire and Charles Taylor of Liberia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Robertson_controversies#Financial_ties_to_Charles_Taylor_and_Mobutu_Sese_Seko).

Among his shadiest dealings, apparently, was making an impassioned speech to his viewers to have them donate money for refugees in Zaire, then taking that money and putting it into a company he and Mobutu owned jointly.

Mobutu, I suppose, has some kind of twisted consistency because of his Cold War ties to the U.S. Charles Taylor on the other hand… the man was trained in Qaddafi’s terrorist camps (back when Libya was supporting anti-Western terrorism on behalf of the Soviets) and he’s also harbored al-Qaeda fugitives. Pat Robertson really will lie down with anyone.

Pat Robertson really will lie down with anyone.

It’s his missionary style.

As I recall, Robertson and Taylor were tied up together in some kind of gold biz. Robertson vigorously defended war criminal Taylor almost until the end. He’s a Xian, he can’t be a bad man!

Fuck. If Taranto can’t see the problem with taking Stupak’s spin of the motivations of people opposing Stupak are – and in fact believes that Stupak is cutting them too much slack…

Damnit, wot a fucking maroon. It’s like asking Orly Taintz for her opinion on the judge that upheld the $20K conviction against her, and deciding that she was being too nice to the guy.

Can God create a dictator so vile that God won’t forgive Pat Robertson for collaborating with him?

So if you aren’t forced to conceive and only do so as a byproduct of having sex, I think you should give up the right to abort a potential life

I hate to add to the pile-on here, chimpevil, because in general I sympathise with your inclinations – but no. ‘Potential life’ is not to be valued above actual life and I’m not certain whether it should be valued at all, and whether or not a foetus is actually a life equivalent to that of a biologically-independent human being is… well, shall we say highly debatable. Personally I’m unwilling to ascribe personhood to any being which does not have a functioning brain – so second trimester at the very earliest.

That said – ehm, yeah, I agree. Because there is no such thing as a 100%-reliable contraceptive, restricting yourself to sexual activities that don’t involve risk of pregnancy is usually kind of a good idea if you don’t want to be saddled with it. I think it’s sort of a no-brainer – generally speaking, there are ways of getting off that don’t involve putting parts together in risky fashions. And if you can’t be buggered (no pun intended) to do the research and talk about it with your partner, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

And if you can’t be buggered (no pun intended) to do the research and talk about it with your partner, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

Oh how quaint. I shall omit the obligatory reference to saddlebacking. Oops – I did it again!

I have to ask, why become pregnant in the first place if you have an issue with being able to raise and care for the child?

PeeJ and others have answered this one to my satisfaction, but I’d like to address it in Libertarianese: If the woman wishes to avoid the consequences of childbirth, she will simply choose not to become pregnant.

I wish to add, the same argument can be made against penicillin.

PeeJ and others have answered this one to my satisfaction, but I’d like to address it in Libertarianese: If the woman wishes to avoid the consequences of childbirth, she will simply choose not to become pregnant.

… well, that explains Ron Paul’s stance on the issue, I guess, the bastard…

Yeah, I don’t think it’s realistic to expect people to abstain completely, but even so there have to be ways of reducing the number of elective abortions without punishing women on the lower end of the economic ladder – like the Pregnant Women Support Act.

the same argument can be made against penicillin.

But remember, penicillin stops your PENIS illin’!

There’s something really important that I have to say right now.

Zorbing Grannies.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100318/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_fox_news

Try to imagine George W. Bush subjecting himself to the same kind of treatment. Just try.

Funny thing about Universal Health Care and abortions. Take England as a case for comparison.

England is about 8% Catholic, compared to almost 25% in this country, and is overall less religious in general.

Abortion is not only legal in England, it is free, no questions asked, covered by National health.

Yet England has fewer abortions than the United States (17.0 per 1000 women, compared to 20.8 in thins country)

Did somebody say Bush got Stabler to come back to the NFL? Jeebus, I hope he’s not going to the Browns, he’ll be dead by midseason. Course, he’s on Medicare this year, so keep the government’s hands off his health care, which he’ll need trying to play again at age 65.
Good news, he’s known as the SNAKE. (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

Try to imagine George W. Bush subjecting himself to the same kind of treatment.

About the closest I can think of is Colbert’s gig at the Press dinner.

(and that wasn’t exactly voluntary, was it.)

Dragon-King Wangchuck said,

March 18, 2010 at 3:49

There’s something really important that I have to say right now.

Zorbing Grannies.

wife spanking
~

“Yet England has fewer abortions than the United States (17.0 per 1000 women, compared to 20.8 in thins country)”

You’ve hit on the main reason the American right wing holds the EU in general in such contempt and spends so much time spreading lies about the way it works; it disproves pretty much everything about their worldview.

Western Europe by and large has a far less religious population than the United States, and yet divorce and abortion rates are both significantly lower than they are in the U.S. Their economies all have vastly more extensive welfare states, have had them in most cases for sixty years at least, and yet not only are their economies not ruined, they’re keeping up with ours (maybe even pulling ahead). In international trade, they created a multinational (pansy) and government-funded (commie) company called Airbus, and it’s to date the only one that’s been able to match Boeing’s abilities.

It’s not just that conservatives disagree with Western Europe; WE defies everything conservatives think they know about the world (and want people to think about the world) simply by EXISTING. Small wonder there’s so much hate going around.

““I’m a flaming liberal and a man but I gotta admit that I’ve always had a problem with a “woman’s right to choose.”

…and endless blah blah blah about how you think a woman should be obliged to report to you or anyone else about whether or not she will allow her body and life to be usurped by a zygote.

Your problem is not in your inability to to get right with allowing a woman the right to make a choice about her body, but the fact that you haven’t seem to have evolved to the point where you see women as capable of making that decision for themselves, without consulting with or asking permission from, the likes of you or anyone else.

Its her damn body, she’s a living individual and knows more than you or anyone else whether she is able to bear nine months of pregnancy, the impact it will have on her life, her body and those who may need her without further encumbrances or her moral makeup.

Last I knew, full individuals, as citizens of this country were supposed to be afforded the ability to pursuit their life, liberty and happiness free of the encumbrances of prior male approval.

That is of course, if you are a man.

If you can’t see woman as worthy of allowing the benefit of full freedoms as human that you allow yourself, then I’m sorry, you can’t call yourself a flaming liberal, a hardcore liberal or whatever.

Feel free though, to accept the Flaming Dick Award.

You are generally liberal but are willing to compromise on the one issue that you can be completely sure will never bring itself home to roost in your own body. Bargaining away other peoples’ rights. That’s what I call moral bravery.

Also, abstinence always seems more reasonable an option when other people are the ones who have to abstain.

Most heterosexual women likely don’t find it reasonable that they should abstain from the most natural and satisfying parts of their sex lives until they have a house with a yard, money in the bank, a breadwinner husband, great health insurance and money for a nanny. (aka. ready for a child)

You know what? People have sex. Shocking! Like gambling in a casino. Unwanted pregnancies happen. Forcing a woman to have the baby when she doesn’t want to will only create more societal problems, including deaths of women who get illegal abortions. I know it’s an emotional issue, even for people who aren’t raging idiots, but it makes no practical sense to outlaw it. “Just don’t get pregnant” isn’t an option that comport with reality.

Plus what kate and GumbyAnne said.

…including deaths of women who get illegal abortions.

Sounds like a self-correcting problem.

I just don’t think that the “pro-life” argument against abortion rights is really facing the issue of bodily integrity squarely.

Let’s leave aside the question how much the rights of merely potential life should be discounted. Do the rights of fully-grown, fully human beings include the right to make invasive use of someone else’s body? No — on the contrary, acts involving the intrusion on someone else’s body against their will are classed as serious crimes: rape, assault, etc. That this is so is proof of the central importance we accord the right to bodily integrity — that the individual alone decides what to uses their body will be put.

Critically for the abortion question, this right to control our own bodies holds even when the survival of other fully-grown, fully human beings is at stake. Even if my life is threatened by kidney failure, whether my identical twin donates a kidney to me is still left to them as a matter of choice.

If fully-grown, fully human beings can’t usurp use of another’s body over and against that person’s right to bodily integrity even when their lives depend on it, then certainly the right of a fetus, which is only a potential human life, to do the same can’t be reasonably asserted over and against those of a pregnant woman.

A fertility clinic in Britain is “raffling” a human egg to promote its new so-called baby-profiling service, which circumvents British laws.

The winner will be able to select the egg donor according to race, upbringing and education.

While illegal in the UK, the free in vitro fertilisation treatment will be carried out in the US.

Tim Friend has this report.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2010/03/2010317182125420437.html

If fully-grown, fully human beings can’t usurp use of another’s body over and against that person’s right to bodily integrity even when their lives depend on it, then certainly the right of a fetus, which is only a potential human life, to do the same can’t be reasonably asserted over and against those of a pregnant woman.

You are absolutely right for values of right that (1) consider women to be fully “persons” and (2) don’t rely on voices from the sky to define fetuses as fully “persons.” The irrationality of the people who disagree with 1 and 2 is what makes the fight so fucking awful.

N_B: I think what That Thing is trying to point out is, even if we grant (2), which is the stated premise of the pro-life argument, it’s not enough to call abortion criminally wrong.

Also:

Even if my life is threatened by kidney failure, whether my identical twin donates a kidney to me is still left to them as a matter of choice.

And this is where the distinction between what is legal and what is moral comes in. It may be immoral, even profoundly so, to deny one’s sibling a needed organ, just as it may be immoral to abort one’s fetus for kicks. But it can’t be made illegal without raising all kinds of hell.

I think what That Thing is trying to point out is, even if we grant (2), which is the stated premise of the pro-life argument, it’s not enough to call abortion criminally wrong.

The day that we grant 2 is the day that this country becomes Atwood’s Gilead. Beyond that, since a fetus is not equivalent to an extant person, abortion is a medical procedure of interest only to the woman in question.

You know what? People have sex. Shocking! Like gambling in a casino. Unwanted pregnancies happen. Forcing a woman to have the baby when she doesn’t want to will only create more societal problems, including deaths of women who get illegal abortions. I know it’s an emotional issue, even for people who aren’t raging idiots, but it makes no practical sense to outlaw it. “Just don’t get pregnant” isn’t an option that comport with reality.

Um – first off, you’ll have to ask chimpevil for his opinion, but speaking for myself I wasn’t advocating outlawing abortion completely. I’m in favour of middle-ground positions like PWSA (or similarly-constructed regulatory legislation).

I find myself disgusted, though, with the ideological polarisation on both sides of the debate. On the one hand, you have people with REALLY warped moral compasses, laughingly calling themselves ‘pro-life’, making the comparison between abortion and murder, whose arguments almost solely rely upon appeals to emotion and (in my opinion) entirely unconvincing philosophical a prioris for which there is no proof and little external justification. On the other hand, I’m about equally fed-up with the pro-choicers who seem to want to claim that the human body is a piece of property that its owner can do whatever he or she pleases with it, damn the consequences. And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement, and that sticks in my craw – for the same reason the glibertarians do (and often using the same language about ‘individual rights’).

Critically for the abortion question, this right to control our own bodies holds even when the survival of other fully-grown, fully human beings is at stake. Even if my life is threatened by kidney failure, whether my identical twin donates a kidney to me is still left to them as a matter of choice.

Fine and dandy, but you’re not talking me out of an ‘opt-out’ law which makes vehicular accident victims automatic organ donors.

But as a matter of cold cost-benefit analysis, not all babies are equal. Some are costlier than others, and not all grow into productive adults. In particular, certain disabilities … limit productive adulthood by causing … lifelong dependency.

So, the best bet is obviously to make sure they can’t get any health insurance, being born with a pre-existing condition and all.

ouch. it burns.

And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement, and that sticks in my craw – for the same reason the glibertarians do (and often using the same language about ‘individual rights’).

This makes about as much sense as saying “you have black skin, therefore you are a slave.”

It doesn’t matter whose uterus an unwanted zygote impants itself in; whatever their social or wealth status, they aren’t a slave to your wishes, nor are they a slave to an unwanted fetus. And that’s what you’re saying you don’t really have a problem with – making women slaves to their reproductive abilities.

Even if my life is threatened by kidney failure, whether my identical twin donates a kidney to me is still left to them as a matter of choice.

Evidently society’s bioethical standards are not as clear-cut as yours. It seems to be acceptable for couples who discover that their child has some manner of disease that can be treated by a transplant from a compatible donor (e.g. child needs bone marrow or a kidney) to have a second child, who then serves as the source of spare parts for the first. The donor is too young for issues of consent to come into it.

This skeeves me out completely, but the media reports tend to be congratulatory of the couples involved, focussing on how deeply they must love the first child and not so much on their feelings for the new infant they have bred for spare parts.

Of course in this case the body-integrity rights being ignored by parents and doctors are attached to a newborn child, demonstrating that newborns have less moral standing than the slightly older sibling who benefits, but this is central to my point.

Jennifer, I shouldn’t have to repeat myself here. I am not advocating making abortion completely illegal. Such a position would make women slaves to their reproductive abilities, but since I don’t hold such a position, you are attacking a complete straw-man.

Secondly, I don’t see what’s wrong with acknowledging that there is a definite difference between those who terminate because they must (a category to which I think we can agree sexual assault victims belong, and arguably one to which women who are fiscally or socially unable support the child belong), and those who terminate because they can (said spoiled rich kids).

The failure of libertarians to make such distinctions when, for example, wanting to deny people health care necessary to their survival in order to protect the ‘property rights’ and ‘freedom’ of for-profit insurance companies is precisely what drives me up the wall about them.

And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement

I don’t think that’s correct. The spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement have always had access to abortion and always will, whatever standards we may attempt to impose upon society. The medical and moral questions have been whether to make abortion available to poor women, and if available, how guilty they should be made to feel.

I find myself disgusted, though, with the ideological polarisation on both sides of the debate.

It is a difficult moral issue, which is why I am happy to wimp out from my obligations to hold an opinion, and leave the wrestling-with-the-conscience business up to the women involved.

Somebody explain to me where I’m wrong with this.

Oh, where to begin…

Like this right here, I have to ask, why become pregnant in the first place if you have an issue with being able to raise and care for the child?

Nine months is a long time, and shit happens.

I personally know more than one woman whose life completely fell apart between the time the planned and wanted pregnancy started and when it ended. In the worst case, the woman’s placenta started to detach; to prevent a miscarriage, she would have to be either in bed or a wheelchair through the remaining four months. Less than five weeks later, her husband walked out on her and their other two kids (both under 10).

Would it be OK with you if that woman considered an abortion? I mean, she DID get pregnant on purpose, but, you know, somebody is gonna have to take care of the other two kids, and those medical bills will be way more than a normal pregnancy… How much more shit has to hit the fan before you feel like she gave it a solid try?

And when you consider that situation, what makes you think you should have any fucking say in the decisions made by this woman or anyone like her?

Unless you are forced by rape or other coercion, as a woman you never have to carry a fetus unless you choose to, right?

As a man, you would never have carry a fetus period, right? So you’ll never have to consider this entire issue as anything other than an abstract thought experiment, right? So we have already given your opinion much more consideration than it deserves, right?

So if you aren’t forced to conceive and only do so as a byproduct of having sex, I think you should give up the right to abort a potential life that you are carrying by a choice you have already made.

Since conception is a byproduct of having sex, I think all men should give up their right to having testicles.

If you want have problems with “elective” or “non-medical” abortion, here’s my suggestion:
As soon as each male hits puberty, we take a sperm sample and freeze it. Then, we perform a vasectomy. (Of course, we’ll have to check their sperm counts at least once a year since sometimes the tubes grow back.)

No accidental pregnancy, no need for expensive and dangerous hormonal birth control.

Problem solved.

I never defensed any type of abortion seeker. I defended reality. Unwanted pregnancies are a fact of life and so is abortion, even if it makes some people uncomfortable.

That being said, I don’t think it’s any of my fucking business who wants or needs an abortion or why.

ass-hattery

from asshatten, i guess

i already know that trolls come from trollhatten

It is a difficult moral issue, which is why I am happy to wimp out from my obligations to hold an opinion, and leave the wrestling-with-the-conscience business up to the women involved.

Agreed, SC. But I think it’s incumbent on all of society – men and women – to help make that individual decision a less-costly one, namely by providing better health services to women and newborns (*ahem*singlepayeruniversalhealthplan*ahem*).

On the other hand, I’m about equally fed-up with the pro-choicers who seem to want to claim that the human body is a piece of property that its owner can do whatever he or she pleases with it, damn the consequences.

Um…isn’t bodily autonomy kind of an important principle in free societies? What things should humans NOT be allowed to do to their own bodies, and on what grounds?

I’m fairly certain Taranto sent this gem of profound macroeconomic analysis to his WSJ editor with an email saying “Dat whiny-assed, sissy-faced Paul Krugman don’t got nuttin’ on me, baby!!!!1!1. LOL. Woohoo. Stockholm, here I come!”

Pauliekins doesn’t have nuttin’ on fucking arguments I make at bars, FWIW.

The worshipping of this less-than-Beltwayish-Beltwayer has just fucking got to stop, dammit. He’s part of the goddamn problem, not the solution. But hey, he butchered some Obama quotes and made the Preznit out to be a wingnut, so go him. Maybe he can run with Hallibutron Nadroid as his running mate. That story be cool, bro. He’s a progressive hero, dammit, as long as the LibDrudge $s be pumpin, the strawmen be shakin, and for fuck’s sake, can someone redo his makeup? He’s got a Newsweek cover, dammit, this is serious.

In short, fuck Paul FakeVillageyButStillVillagey Krugman with your dullest of grapefruit spoons. What a useless sack of shit be him.

No-one should be allowed to breed without a feckin license anyhow

Darth Revan is against spoiled rich kids’ getting to fornicate without consequences. Unless they’re dudely spoiled rich kids, the ones with Y chromosomes. Then it’s fine.

You are absolutely right for values of right that (1) consider women to be fully “persons” and (2) don’t rely on voices from the sky to define fetuses as fully “persons.”

Here’s the thing: Opposition to abortion is completely extra-biblical. Until the last few decades, it was only a personal issue for Catholics (as they were supposed to be fruitful and multiply), and Protestants – including most evangelicals – didn’t care at all. The original pro-life movement was comprised of feminists who were opposed to coercive abortions that were generally compelled by husbands or relatives.

The whole “abortion as a religious issue” thing is only about as old as the Southern Strategy. Consequently, all those evangelicals who didn’t care back in the day have had to hastily find any biblical excuse for their position. Have you ever seen the Bible passages that allegedly condemn abortion? Most of the time, these fucksticks just find any passage that included the word “womb” and wave it like a flag. An extreme example of this can be found at Conservapedia (home of extreme examples of conservatism), where Andy Schlafly has declared that any edition of the Bible that contains fewer instances of “womb” than the KJV is irredeemably liberal and untrustworthy.

Look, here’s the thing: NO ONE is “pro-abortion”, OK? It’s perfectly OK to be both “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice”. That means you don’t agree with it, and would never condone it unless absolutely necessary for yourself or anyone you care about. You can shun people for having “elective” abortions, disapprove of them, shame them, disown them, excommunicate them or wave pictures of bloody fetuses at them. What you can’t do is demand that the law prevent them form making that choice for themselves. That’s what being “pro-choice” means. That you trust people to listen to their own consciences, and make their own choices.

Um…isn’t bodily autonomy kind of an important principle in free societies? What things should humans NOT be allowed to do to their own bodies, and on what grounds?

Generally speaking, things that would be harmful to the body politic: Deliberately spreading infection, smoking in public places, drinking and driving, that kind of thing. Nothing out of the utilitarian way there.

It’s a subtle thing I’m arguing here – I don’t generally like this idea the empiricists foisted on us so long ago that persons are mere constellations of property and negative rights, and that we don’t have any obligations to any other persons in the society save through some kind of ‘social contract’. The commoditisation of the human body is not a development of society I’m particularly happy about, and I can’t say I think the reductionist view that boils any discussion about sex down to a consumer ‘choice’ while discounting or framing discussion of other factors (like relationships and intimacy) in such terms is either helpful or healthy.

People are complex beings, not simply Humean adding machines.

Darth Revan is against spoiled rich kids’ getting to fornicate without consequences. Unless they’re dudely spoiled rich kids, the ones with Y chromosomes. Then it’s fine.

Are you fucking kidding me? Especially them. If said spoiled rich kids do get an abortion, the father should be the one to fucking pay for it.

I agree 100% with Chris and chimpevil about abortion. I take responsibility for my own body and none of my friends have ever been so irresponsible as to get pregnant. I’m a card-carrying liberal but let’s be sensible on this issue. I agree with Chris and chimpevil. Sometimes people get what they deserve.

A policy aimed at reducing the number of babies born would be economically ruinous, because within a few decades it would result in a shortage of workers and taxpayers.

Economist Dean Baker has been debunking this point for years. What society ends up with are fewer jobs that people don’t really need to get done in the first place, like people who park your car for you. It’s a nice-to-have service, not a needed one.

What you can’t do is demand that the law prevent them form making that choice for themselves. That’s what being “pro-choice” means.

Well, Steerpike, if that’s all that being ‘pro-choice’ means, then I guess I’m that. The remedies I’d like to see are more of the Western European variety.

Darth Revan makes some excellent points too. I’m a hardcore liberal, guys, but c’mon. It’s important to have some sense of personal responsibility, right? It just comes down to making good personal choices.

May I kindly call bullshit on this “men don’t have a right to have an opinion on abortion” idea? This general idea that you have no right to have an opinion on something unless it personally affects you? Replace “Keep your hands off my uterus” with “keep your hands off my property” and you have the exact same argument libertarians use to justify not paying taxes and dismantling the public sector, the exact same argument states’ rights folks use to explain why Lincoln was a dictator and the Civil War violated their rights to own slaves, and the same argument used by both them to excuse away every wretched, horrifying action ever taken by a corporate entity by calling it business’ rights. And if it’s not the same argument, I’d like to hear why.

I am personally uncomfortable with abortion, but I’m aware that in a free, democratic society, there have to be some freedoms available that not everyone may agree with. But these arguments that hold that 50% of the population isn’t even allowed to talk about a subject, they’re stupid, illogical, and they don’t even help the pro-choice cause.

You sound surprised. Yes, that’s all that being “pro-choice” means.

Just as I am an atheist, but it would never occur to me to want to outlaw religion, as stupid and pointless as I believe it to be. I can rant about it, argue with people about their beliefs, ridicule them, shun them or ignore them. What I can’t do is tell them what to believe or disbelieve. I am both “anti-church” and “pro-religious freedom of choice”. It’s that simple.

Let me just add to what Darth and Spaghetti are saying by carrying it to its logical conclusion and point out that it only seems fair, since the unborn child is the responsibility of both the man and the woman, it’s unfair for the man to have no say-so at all in the status of the unborn child.

Abortion rights is like the right to hunt; it’s okay if you eat what you kill.

How is a fetus the responsibility of a man? What laws constrain a man who has fathered a fetus? Are they doing paternity tests in utero now? I say it’s unfair for a man to be forced to take responsibility, against his wishes, for a child he inadvertently fathered. Woman gets free reign over her body, and takes full responsibility for her choices. Man is not entitled to force pregnancy.

Michael Medved says Obama is not a socialist. Average rating: One Star.

If you want have problems with “elective” or “non-medical” abortion, here’s my suggestion:
As soon as each male hits puberty, we take a sperm sample and freeze it. Then, we perform a vasectomy. (Of course, we’ll have to check their sperm counts at least once a year since sometimes the tubes grow back.)

No accidental pregnancy, no need for expensive and dangerous hormonal birth control.

Problem solved.

Dorothy wins the internetz. And, to more fully kill this horse, Hitler — and Esther/Troofie, time to take a hit for the team.

Wow, I go away for a few hours and all of a sudden this turns into a slut-shaming thread.

And Esther, I’ve totally changed my mind about you. You are the best parody troll ever.

Got off the boat for Medmed, and the mangoes were looking pretty tasty, until I picked up one and it turned out to be Sean Hannity’s head asking if I wanted to buy his book.

Needless to say, I shat myself and ran back to shore. So, you know, be careful out there.

I’m about equally fed-up with the pro-choicers who seem to want to claim that the human body is a piece of property that its owner can do whatever he or she pleases with it, damn the consequences. And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement, and that sticks in my craw

Well how do you feel about middle class people having abortions, since one’s financial status is so important in your little calculus of who is a contemptible dirty slut who deserves to suffer through an unwanted pregnancy, and who is deserving of an abortion? Let’s take me, for example: I am a married 25 year old with 3 jobs. It takes all three of these jobs (and my husband’s 2) to pay the expenses and responsibilities that we have and also to pay off our various debts at a rate that will allow us to be financially stable in time to afford kids (who we definitely want someday) before we are too told. If I had a baby I would surely have to quit 2 of my jobs and in my city, day care costs approxymately half of what I bring home in a month from my primary job. This would be an enormous hit to our income and increase in our expenses in the short and long term. We may never get out from under our debt and the extended family members that we support (my husband has siblings abroad who we take some financial responsibility for) would have to be cut off from their educations and their healthcare.

We are careful about contraception but there is always a risk. Since I don’t want to have a baby now, would you advise me to unilaterally decide to stop having sex with my lawfully wedded husband for the next 3 years or so until our cars and student loans are paid off? Are we gonna have to just do oral until we’re 30, in order to be morally right in your worldview? If I do get pregnant, do I deserve an abortion? Is avoiding bankruptcy, putting some Africans through school, and just hoping for a decent middle class life someday a good enough reason for you? I am not living on the street or in a gang-ridden project so I think your little categories might make me a “spoiled rich kid with over-inflated sense of entitlement.” How dare I think I might be ENTITLED to do things like have sex with my husband while also expecting to have some sort of control over where my life ends up. To want to not be a parent until I can be a good one. Real over-entitled whore, I am.

Excuse me if I get a little bit shrill, but I get that way when people act like the issue of choice is not importnat, or like they know all there is top know about who has abortions and why, acting like they are the perfect judge of who deserves what. This issue is not frivoluous to me or any of the other adult heterosexual women out there. The chance of pregnancy is just a part of life for us, and the existence of legal abortion makes the world a good bit less scary for very good reason. It is the last line of defense between us and a world where our lives can end up in a very different place from where we set out to go, and THAT is why men will never have a full understanding of it and will always sound like real assholes when they say things like the quote above. I am just so SORRY if me insisting on the right to have the final say over who lives inside my body “sticks in your craw.”

Unless you are forced by rape or other coercion, as a woman you never have to carry a fetus unless you choose to, right?

I’ve never understood this argument. You’re against abortion except in cases of rape or coercion. So, basically, if the father’s an asshole, you can suck the little darlin’s brains out with a Hoover? Why not extend this? Say, if some 20-year-old’s father robs a liquor store, we get to kill that 20-year-old.

Tintin, that was fucking genius. That choad deserved it.

Replace “Keep your hands off my uterus” with “keep your hands off my property” and you have the exact same argument libertarians use to justify not paying taxes and dismantling the public sector

You sound exactly like the libertairians who say that having to pay taxes is exactly like slavery. The government taking control of a portion of your material wealth is not even in the same ballark of liberty-infringement as having someone (government or otherwise) take control OF YOUR PHYSICAL PERSON. It is scary to me that someone (who calls himself a liberal!) would advocate for a country in which my own decisions about who gets to use my internal organs, the very cells of my body, could be vetoed by the government. Where a party besides myself legally decides that my body must be used for a purpose against my wishes.

May I kindly call bullshit on this “men don’t have a right to have an opinion on abortion” idea

Men should have limited voice in this discussion because they are (by no fault of their own) just never going to really see it with clear eyes. The vision of a world where women’s bodies are public property will never strike fear into your heart. It is nothing personal. If I could go back in time I would tell my teenage (never-seen-sexually-active) self to keep my opinions on abortion to myself, that I sound like a fool, speaking without thinking I had anything on the line. I do understand where men are coming from, but you just have to believe that you don’t really get it on this topic. You can’t. I have been on both sides of that get it/don’t get it line. The epiphany happens when you can look at a calendar and go “if I don’t get my period this week, I’m gonna either have an abortion or have a human infant come out of my body before the end of the year,” while knowing all the details like whether you have health insurance, a dependable male partner, maternity leave, money in the bank, too much debt, too many kids already, etc. THAT is when a person really gets it and it will just never happen to a man.

“I say it’s unfair for a man to be forced to take responsibility, against his wishes, for a child he inadvertently fathered.”

Yeah, well, life’s unfair all over. You see, once there is a baby, as opposed to a fetus, in the picture, it’s no longer simply about the woman’s choice: there is A BABY who needs support no matter how big an asshat either or both parents may be.

Don’t want to “inadvertantly father” a child? Then get your tubes tied or swear off vaginal sex (probably no anal sex either: those little sperms can move, by damn, and the vajayjay is awfully close by…). Or, of course, we can twist the usual accusation around and say that any man who whores around deserves his punishment…

The point is, as a society we can’t just allow women to have sex and not carry a fetus to term if they happen to become impregnated, if a man is not involved in their decision.

And it doesn’t necessarily have to be the man who contributed the male gametes to the zygote — any male voice is enough to make the decision on the female carrying the zygote to term, such as an ice cream truck driver, or bus passenger, or local prisoner.

As long as a man is directly or indirectly (through the repressive intervention of government) making the decision, then we are able to deal with this thorny subject of women as irresponsibly involved in unpredicted breeding.

And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement, and that sticks in my craw – for the same reason the glibertarians do (and often using the same language about ‘individual rights’).

Well said, citizen. I appreciate that in a single paragraph you’re able to clarify whether your position on abortion is based on resentment toward those terrible, terribly entitled little coquettes who wouldn’t fuck you (Yes. It is.).

“…resentment toward those terrible, terribly entitled little coquettes who wouldn’t fuck you..”

Oh, hell– _another_ “Nice Guy?” Or “Sorely Put-Upon Nerd Who Those Ebil Women Keep Overlooking As The Man Who Will Give Them Real Love?” Ugh.

Opposition to abortion is completely extra-biblical.

It doesn’t matter. It matters what people believe. Once an issue becomes based on religion (for one or both parties) it’s much more difficult to have a rational discussion. To use a lunatic-fringe example, will discussion convince Fred Phelps that god doesn’t hate fags? Of course not. Well, convincing someone who believes that the bible bans abortion that they he (the more vocal examples I see in the press are overwhelmingly male) is wrong is in the same ballpark of impossible. You can defeat him politically but you can’t change his mind.

Someone convinced Frank Schaeffer

Anyone checked out the comment section yet? I’ve never swam in the WSJ sewer before. They’re like collegiate freepers.

and they luuuurve banging on about ‘statists’, but obviously have no idea what it means. Statist has become the thinking (right-)wing man’s ‘fashist or mauist’.

Well said, citizen. I appreciate that in a single paragraph you’re able to clarify whether your position on abortion is based on resentment toward those terrible, terribly entitled little coquettes who wouldn’t fuck you (Yes. It is.).

Wonderful. Another ‘sensible Village liberal’ who thinks any discussion of class privilege is motivated by personal resentment. Bra-fucking-vo.

Statist has become the thinking (right-)wing man’s ‘fashist or mauist’.

Mauist? I do not think that means what you think it means.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mau_Mau_Rebellion

Wait — there’s a Marxist class analysis unified position on abortion now? Is it a mode of production? If it is a mode of production, would this make the woman part of the bourgeoisie for owning the tools of production? A pre-capitalist artisan for having expert input and not yet having been alienated from the good produced? A proletariat working unskilled labor for a capitalist elsewhere?

Someone convinced Frank Schaeffer

I had to look him up, so my apology in advance if I’ve misunderstood.

Schaeffer left his original faith. That’s different from what I’m talking about, which is convincing people who believe that they are wrong about a tenet of their faith. IMO, there isn’t going to be a mass exodus of people from the fetus-obsessed churches.

The Right Wing eats its own

“If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says.

The stooge recording this asshole’s words reporter missed the sotto voce where Stupak says “That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing…from the My Little Ponies that I have tea parties with.”

One great way to predict which babies might not be born into the loving home and socioeconomic advantages that are most likely to steer them into a productive life?

The pregnant woman taking a look at her own life and deciding whether she can provide a child with this environment might actually be a suitable way to sort that out.

This is one of the curious points that the anti-choice folks never talk about.

With all the abortions that have occured in the past thirty-odd years, the US birthrate has not declined. In fact, it’s gone up.

And if you factor out babies born here to immigrants, it’s been stable.

That means that American women are still having babies, but that abortion has given them the option to delay birth until they are better equipped financially and emotionally to have them.

So the babies are still being born, and if anti-choice people had their way, all those happy babies born to mature mothers with incomes and resources would be replaced by miserable poor babies many of whom we’d have to support for life anyway.

Somebody explain to me where I’m wrong with this.

because its not mine or anyone else’s business what a woman does with her body… its that simple…

Is it a mode of production?

Only for Soylent Green.

Wait — there’s a Marxist class analysis unified position on abortion now?

Funny you should ask. Professor of philosophy Bill Martin on the subject:

“At a demonstration at the state capitol in Topeka a few years ago, a woman was carrying a sign that said, “Choosy mothers choose choice.” That seems to sum up the whole consumerist ideal right there. Although some fellow demonstrators said that they found this slogan “cute,” I found it disgusting—just the sort of thing that says that, out of concern for “my choices,” I don’t want to deal with any of the hard questions that should be at the heart of the abortion controversy…. the rhetoric of choice is embedded in a general ideology that has it that there can be no larger struggle over values. Of course, in one sense, that is true—in an anti-participatory society such as the one we live in, there certainly is not going to be any substantive official debate over values. But the rhetoric of choice simply accepts this state of affairs—and therefore has nothing more substantive to tell the people who are genuinely concerned about the moral questions of abortion than, “don’t tell me what to do”—accepting that the best solution is simply for each person to be able to decide what they want, in the atomistic isolation and serialization that is the stock-in-trade of anti-participatory society.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Martin_%28philosophy%29

Naturally, this is not a unified position, but it is certainly in line with the trends in classical Marxism of critiquing social behaviours with regard to the economic factors enabling them.

Mauist? I do not think that means what you think it means.

yes, my eurotrash illiteracy showing…..

however, Mau Mau were Kenyan, so is Obama (when he is not a Indonesian Muslim Marxist), so we may have stumbled onto something here…..

Oh, and the book from which that came is Politics in the Impasse: Explorations in Postsecular Social Theory.

“Choosy mothers choose choice.”

I have to admit, this does disturb me. Equating having a baby to buying peanut butter is not helping the cause.

Mau Mau were Kenyan, so is Obama

Um, Papa Mau Mau?

completely off topic, but Actor 212, I love your diving pics. Hoping to get to Bonaire this year and dive somewhere other than thailand….

That quote is about how the debate on abortion is so superficial that there is no discussion of any bio-ethics. Not the point that you were making that abortion rights should be revoked because it benefits rich white women

Wonderful. Another privileged douchebag who dodges the question of gender privilege when he is being told that he is blinded by his own.

Also, Darth, I would honestly like to know whether your little abortion worthiness formula allows me to get one if I need it (see my story above), or whether you would honestly expect me to abstain from sex with my husband for the next several years. Your theory seems to have a huge hole between destitute and trust-fund baby, between rape victim and frivolous slut. I would like to know where you would put a boring married lady like me. If you are willing to appoint yourself as the judge of all women in the abstract, you shouldn’t shy away from telling individuals to our faces exactly what you think we should do.

In fact just appealing to class resentment makes you just as guilty of superficiality as the choosey women.

Not the point that you were making that abortion rights should be revoked because it benefits rich white women

For the third (and probably not last) time, that wasn’t the fucking point I was making. I’m not arguing for overturning Roe v. Wade here. My problem was the mode in which pro-choicers tend to argue, not with the issue of the laws themselves.

Lobbey, thanks. Oddly, my daughter yelled at me this year about going there…again. You’d think she paid her way.

I’ve never been to Thailand or any of the Pacific for diving (snorkeled off Maui once and would love to get to Phuket) so I can’t really compare. Bonaire is the closest to a diving paradise you can find in this hemisphere: viz is usually 75-100 feet, the water temps stay in the 80s nearly year round, and anyplace you can park a car, you can dive a reef.

All that said, there’s nothing, and I mean nothing, topside apart from shopping and eating. The island is geared for divers and almost no one else except the occasional celeb who wants to get away from the madding crowds. Hell, the obligatory casino is two blackjack tables and a bank of slot machines!

I would like to know where you would put a boring married lady like me.

*thumbing thru the Kama Sutra*

I have a few ideas…

That was your original point, but that’s not what you said that provoked the Marxism question that you responded to with Martin.

And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement, and that sticks in my craw

That’s a total red herring if the point you are trying to address is the unseriousness of the debate.

Darth, I think Anthony was referring to the Taranto article, not your post.

…or not. Carry on.

That’s a total red herring if the point you are trying to address is the unseriousness of the debate.

Well, I agree that that sentence was glib and insensitive, maybe even superficial of me, and for that I apologise. But I have never on this thread supported a prohibition on abortion, which you (and GumbyAnne and others) seemed to be using as a false premise.

Sorry, I came in late to the discussion

And the people whose privileges they are defending are not rape and assault victims or even poor women who get pregnant but generally spoiled rich kids with over-inflated senses of entitlement, and that sticks in my craw – for the same reason the glibertarians do (and often using the same language about ‘individual rights’).

Oh, hey, go fucking fuck yourself.

Really. Who the fuck gave you the right to determine whose choice is morally legitimate and whose isn’t? Why the fuck do you think it’s okay to make a judgment call about a FUCKING MEDICAL PROCEDURE that does not AND NEVER WILL AFFECT YOU.

Hey, people have heart attacks all the time because of their lifestyle choices, and some could say that treating them diverts resources from people who are sick and are more morally deserving of treatment. Should we start grilling people about how many fucking bacon cheeseburgers they’ve eaten before they can get an angioplasty?

grilling people about how many fucking bacon cheeseburgers they’ve eaten

I see what you do here.

A society in which […] the average person consumes more over his lifetime than he produces–is unsustainable.
We’ve been telling you that for a LONG TIME.

Sounds like JT is on board with Cap and Trade! Alert the media!

On the other hand, I’m about equally fed-up with the pro-choicers who seem to want to claim that the human body is a piece of property that its owner can do whatever he or she pleases with it, damn the consequences.

Because having an abortion isn’t a “consequence” of whatever action it is that you deem to be irresponsible?

Yup, you’re right. These rich whores who can’t keep their legs shut just pop in for an easy, fast, and hassle free abortion and then go on with their lives. It’s like getting a manicure!

Shit, now a bacon cheeseburger sounds really good.

I say it’s unfair for a man to be forced to take responsibility, against his wishes, for a child he inadvertently fathered.

Inadvertent? How? From a toilet seat he wanked over?

Once you put the cock in the vagina, it’s no longer inadvertent no matter how many layers of condoms and other birth control devices you throw in front of them sperm.

Men can learn to say no just like women can.

That said, I think the decision to have a child, while resting primarily with the mother, ought to be weighed nearly as heavily to the father’s wishes, too, something on the order of 60-40, since there is the whole lifelong responsibility issue.

And as soon as someone comes up with a way to deliver 60% of a baby when the man says he doesn’t want to be involved, I’ll be so behind that. Until then, sorry, them’s the breaks. Ask John Edwards.

Shit, now a bacon cheeseburger sounds really good.

They’re even better sprinkled with crunchy liberal baby bits.

Now that I’m calmer, let me address this: I find myself disgusted, though, with the ideological polarisation on both sides of the debate.

I see that some have already addressed this idea, but I’d like to look at this particular point.

The reason why the pro-choice “side” of the “debate” is so “polarised” is because we are dealing with OUR OWN LIVES. This may be some sort of abstract, political discussion that the male-bodied types can get into dispassionately and with the ability to see “both sides,” but for those of us who are seeing our bodily autonomy and the potential to live our lives the way we want assaulted EVERY FUCKING DAY, it’s not just an “issue” or a “debate.” Do you dig what I’m saying here?

It’s not that men can’t weigh in on the “debate.” It’s that men need to understand the GRAVITY of what they’re discussing before they open their fucking mouths. I am not talking about “ideology” when I talk about abortion–I am talking about my rights!

Shit, now a bacon cheeseburger sounds really good.

They’re even better sprinkled with crunchy liberal baby bits.

Yum! Though I prefer my babies sweet, not savory.

Also, I shouldn’t try to write when I’m angry. Or I should at least proofread…

Politics in the Impasse: Explorations in Postsecular Social Theory.

Don’t we have to be secular before we can get to the Postsecular?

And “social theory” sounds like wealth distribution to me.

On the other hand, I’m about equally fed-up with the pro-choicers who seem to want to claim that the human body is a piece of property that its owner can do whatever he or she pleases with it, damn the consequences.

Well that’s your problem right there. See, cause the human body is exactly a piece of property that it’s owner can treat how they please and damn the consequences.

Except whatever the consequences are, they get to live with them or die with them. And it’s none of your business how people treat their own bodies and lives.

This may be some sort of abstract, political discussion that the male-bodied types can get into dispassionately and with the ability to see “both sides,” but for those of us who are seeing our bodily autonomy and the potential to live our lives the way we want assaulted EVERY FUCKING DAY, it’s not just an “issue” or a “debate.”

Anyone who thinks this is an abstract discussion that doesn’t touch them (for example, because they’re male) isn’t thinking too far ahead. If a precedent is established that people can lose their bodily autonomy based on popular opinion, then we’re all fucked. Nearly everyone has to face issues like this in terms of end-of-life discussions, medical proxies, and incapacity. My parents are in their 80s – do I want (hypothetically) the government saying that, since a bunch of people believe that the bible says we should only live to 70 that they can’t get medical care?

But potentially you’re also talking about killing babies, that isn’t an abstraction, and you can’t address the issue if you refuse to address that reasoning. And pro-lifers can’t address the issue if they can’t address the burden on the mother. And that’s why the debate is so trite and as such has degenerated into terrorism and counter-terrorism.

it’s none of your business how people treat their own bodies and lives.

THIS is at the heart of what America should be.

Instead it’s: Keep your hands off my guns but ignore mine on your body.

My problem is not just with that specific sentence, it is with your whole attitude that you are a qualified judge of other peoples’ choices. LOTS of people out there are like you and feel like they can make grand statements of what type of women can have abortions and what reasons are not good enough, but when they are confronted with the messy details of an individual’s life, their sense of personal decency kicks in and they realize that it is not really for them to say what an individual should do, especially when you don’t know them at all.

The thing that I wish I could somehow beam directly into your brain is the fact that the cookie-cutter blonde college slut that you imagine doesn’t actually exist. Every single woman is her very own set of messy details and circumstances that you don’t know anything about. In your head you are judging someone who you have imagined to be unworthy of an abortion, but when you speak that judgement out into the world, it falls on real women with lives and our own minds and such. Try to imagine it from our perspective and you will maybe understand why you look like such a jerk.

Anyone who thinks this is an abstract discussion that doesn’t touch them (for example, because they’re male) isn’t thinking too far ahead. If a precedent is established that people can lose their bodily autonomy based on popular opinion, then we’re all fucked.

ABSOLUTELY. I really do think that bodily autonomy is one of those places where the “slippery slope” argument applies.

But potentially you’re also talking about killing babies, that isn’t an abstraction, and you can’t address the issue if you refuse to address that reasoning. And pro-lifers can’t address the issue if they can’t address the burden on the mother.

There’s a difference in quality of those two arguments: “potentially killing babies” is an opinion about which people can, and do, disagree, and those who don’t believe it can make science-based arguments for why it isn’t true, while “burdens the woman” is something neither sides denies, one side just discounts as less important or even unimportant.

Anyone who thinks this is an abstract discussion that doesn’t touch them (for example, because they’re male) isn’t thinking too far ahead. If a precedent is established that people can lose their bodily autonomy based on popular opinion, then we’re all fucked.

Hear, hear! It’s about the death panels.

It’s not that Sarah Palin thinks Obamacare will require them, no, it’s that any mind twisted enough to come up with that neologism has already thought that far ahead to a time when they may become necessary.

Also, anyone who believes a man is not impacted by an abortion is being silly. Men are as psycholgically impacted by abortions as they are by miscarriages and while the damage is not nearly as great as for a woman, it exists nonetheless.

Every single woman is her very own set of messy details and circumstances that you don’t know anything about. In your head you are judging someone who you have imagined to be unworthy of an abortion, but when you speak that judgement out into the world, it falls on real women with lives and our own minds and such.

I’m also wondering how a system that judged the moral correctness of an abortion would work, you know? Like, would their be a set of questions on the intake form about how many sexual partners the woman has had, how the fetus was conceived, whether or not she was using birth control? Would there be guidelines on how poor she would have to be to get an abortion? If she has health issues, how bad would they have to be before she could get one? I mean, really.

I’m not sure I’d have a baby right now if I were to get pregnant, and I’m married, educated, and have a stable income. Some people may think that’s selfish, but they don’t have to live my life.

It’s not that Sarah Palin thinks Obamacare will require them, no, it’s that any mind twisted enough to come up with that neologism has already thought that far ahead to a time when they may become necessary.

Let’s not forget: we’re not that far removed from the times when a human being could be owned, and even less removed when we had an actual recognizable caste system in this nation.

Also, anyone who believes a man is not impacted by an abortion is being silly. Men are as psycholgically impacted by abortions as they are by miscarriages and while the damage is not nearly as great as for a woman, it exists nonetheless.

I think that there are plenty of men who are impacted on an individual level. It’s just men who tend to speak of it abstractly or as if it’s some sort of academic debate who get to me, whether they’re pro-choice or not.

It’s just men who tend to speak of it abstractly or as if it’s some sort of academic debate who get to me

“It” in this case can be abortion, or health care, or education, or any social issue and I agree. I am so fucking tired (not tired of fucking, not yet) of issues that affect real people being treated as parlor games. And I blame Reagan for the current incarnation of this perversion of public life in this country.

It’s just men who tend to speak of it abstractly or as if it’s some sort of academic debate who get to me, whether they’re pro-choice or not.

It’s not just men, Ann Coul–

I concede your point.

“It” in this case can be abortion, or health care, or education, or any social issue and I agree. I am so fucking tired (not tired of fucking, not yet) of issues that affect real people being treated as parlor games. And I blame Reagan for the current incarnation of this perversion of public life in this country.

I blame Reagan for pretty much everything.

War is abortion of the living. Why no protests against that? Why all the flag waving and fake support of our troops while we nickel and dime them to die for us then ignore them when they come home with debilitating injuries? How come so many living people are ignored?

Oh, I forgot — money.

My problem is not just with that specific sentence, it is with your whole attitude that you are a qualified judge of other peoples’ choices.

Interesting. Once again, you seem to want to place me in a position of far greater authority than I’ve allowed myself. If I did think I was a ‘qualified judge of other people’s choices’, as you put it, I wouldn’t have had any reservation about making prohibitive policy prescriptions.

The rest of your statement seems to be a deliberate exercise in hubris, given that you don’t know anything about my own ‘details and circumstances’, yet make incredibly wild categorical assumptions about what my worldview is and what my view of women in general is and finally dismiss me as a ‘jerk’. If I had come out in favour of legislating prohibitively against abortion, you’d have every right to call me out on it. But I haven’t.

The closest I came to policy prescription was advocating giving people, particularly poor people, broader access to medical care, as per PWSA and (I hope) something resembling the health-care bill the House passed. If there’s something you find too judgmental about that, I’m sure you’ll let me know about it.

I blame Reagan for pretty much everything.

At the risk of sounding like a skeezy old man, you’re too young to remember first-hand political debate pre-Ronnie. It wasn’t pretty or high-minded, but people were at least ashamed to speak their base motives publicly.

I blame Reagan for pretty much everything.

Amen to that.

Megaditto

It wasn’t pretty or high-minded, but people were at least ashamed to speak their base motives publicly after the civil-rights, women’s right’s and Vietnam fights had tapered off in the mid-70s.

Fiqqst to not sound like a complete moron.

At the risk of sounding like a skeezy old man, you’re too young to remember first-hand political debate pre-Ronnie. It wasn’t pretty or high-minded, but people were at least ashamed to speak their base motives publicly.

You don’t sound skeezy. It must have been nice. I mean, you know it’s bad when I am pining for the civil, dignified days of the Clinton administration.

Photographic Evidence That Obama Is a Kenyan Mutant Space Alien Zombie Socialist.

I play that game on XBox! I just can’t seem to beat the spear-throwing Obama Boss and his space alien “brothers”. Although I did find a glitch that allows him to pass health care… *Spoiler* Most of the West Coast is destroyed in a massive earthquake right after it passes.

It wasn’t pretty or high-minded

I have to take issue a little with this. For instance, when Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) realized that Nixon was guilty as sin, he had no problem jumping ship and supporting impeachment.

That would never happen today. Well, at least not to a Republican president (fuck you, Joe “Impeach Clinton” Lieberman)

It’s just men who tend to speak of it abstractly or as if it’s some sort of academic debate who get to me, whether they’re pro-choice or not.

Exactly. And I can understand how men are able to think about it this way because I used to think about it as some lofty academic subject back when I was younger and had never been sexually active. I used to say “oh, I am pro-choice politically but i would never have an abortion myself” but I honestly DID NOT REALLY GET IT. Not until one day I looked at my calendar and went “my god, if I don’t get my period this week, I’m gonna have to choose between an abortion and giving birth before finals week” and basically my first thought was “well, thank God I would actually have my options.” I hadn’t even really been at high risk for pregnancy but it was not a TOTAL impossiblity and that was enough to cause this complete epiphany. If I could go back in time I would tell my young self “hey, hold your judgement, you just don’t get it yet” and that is what I have to say to men. I am sure you are a fine person and a good liberal, but on this subject you don’t get it, not REALLY.

It wasn’t pretty or high-minded

I have to take issue a little with this. For instance, when Howard Baker (R-Tennessee) realized that Nixon was guilty as sin, he had no problem jumping ship and supporting impeachment.

My point was that the 70s weren’t a golden age. Yes, no current R would have the balls Baker showed then to publicly call for impeachment of an R prez, but one could also argue that Baker did so with the political calculation that doing so helped saved the party from the effect of Nixon fighting all the way.

You know, Darth, it might help matters if you actually tell us what you are advocating. You keep throwing around the tern PWSA, so I went ahead and looked that up. I’ll let the others draw there own conclusions on that particular bit of legislation. Personally, there are too many poison pills to advocate it. The whole thing is based on the pro-lifer premise that women are silly creatures who don’t know what they’re doing. The “Women’s Right to Know” section (among others) recalls those pro-life “clinics” where they intentionally deceive women, and the “Parental Notification” section is a particularly bad idea for reasons that have been discussed at length.

given that you don’t know anything about my own ‘details and circumstances’

Given that you are a man, your details and ciscumstances are completely irrelevant to the subject of abortion unless a pregnant woman decides to include you in her decision.

Although I did find a glitch that allows him to pass health care…

I understand that in the second secret ending, he successfully turns America into a Marxist state, at which point zombie sorceror Lenin bursts out of his grave and beats Obama for his hubris. Then they let you use the 50-foot tall Reagan-bot to clean up the mess.

If I could go back in time I would tell my young self “hey, hold your judgement, you just don’t get it yet” and that is what I have to say to men.

This is a good point that I will retain in case I need to make it in the future.

Personally, there are too many poison pills to advocate it. The whole thing is based on the pro-lifer premise that women are silly creatures who don’t know what they’re doing.

Yeah, it’s a fucking paternalistic piece of shit.

Then they let you use the 50-foot tall Reagan-bot to clean up the mess.

If you press X, Y then Select, he yells “REAGAN SMASH” every time a commie/Marxist (they’re the same now, right?) is..well, smashed.

People who want to restrict access to abortion are misogynists.

The “Women’s Right to Know” section (among others) recalls those pro-life “clinics” where they intentionally deceive women, and the “Parental Notification” section is a particularly bad idea for reasons that have been discussed at length.

D, in practice, the ‘Women’s Right to Know’ probably wouldn’t be a ‘poison pill’, since the bill doesn’t specify what forms such notification should take, and the language in the bill is such that it would likely have very little effect on what clinics actually tell their patients. The parental notification part is more problematic, I’ll agree – but IMHO the bill has enough good policy ideas in it that it’s worth amending rather than scrapping outright.

but IMHO the bill has enough good policy ideas in it that it’s worth amending rather than scrapping outright.

Yeah, there’s some awesome shit in there. But why can’t that awesome shit be implemented because it’s simply good for women and children? I mean, we can’t extend women just the basic, fundamental help that they get in every other industrialized country unless it’s to prevent abortions? Do you understand my anger when I say that women are shown every day in this society that a fetus is shown more respect and care than a grown ass human being?

“At a demonstration at the state capitol in Topeka a few years ago, a woman was carrying a sign that said, “Choosy mothers choose choice.” That seems to sum up the whole consumerist ideal right there. Although some fellow demonstrators said that they found this slogan “cute,” I found it disgusting—just the sort of thing that says that, out of concern for “my choices,” I don’t want to deal with any of the hard questions that should be at the heart of the abortion controversy…. the rhetoric of choice is embedded in a general ideology that has it that there can be no larger struggle over values. Of course, in one sense, that is true—in an anti-participatory society such as the one we live in, there certainly is not going to be any substantive official debate over values. But the rhetoric of choice simply accepts this state of affairs—and therefore has nothing more substantive to tell the people who are genuinely concerned about the moral questions of abortion than, “don’t tell me what to do”—accepting that the best solution is simply for each person to be able to decide what they want, in the atomistic isolation and serialization that is the stock-in-trade of anti-participatory society.”

It sounds like this guy would like to use the rhetoric of class-informed individual choice when what is happening, in reality, is a discussion of bourgeois state-enforced influence over primarily working class women’s decisionmaking, and not a discussion within a participatory economic retreat.

“Don’t tell me what to do“, as Marx recognized, is different when it’s a moral admonition and/or discussion by class and social group equals in society than it is when it is a discussion of the enforcement of laws by a bourgeois state and/or the allocation of scarce resources to primarily poor and working class women, given that upper and upper middle class women have used relative social and class positions to obtain resources enabling them to “choose” abortion as an option without financial considerations.

Do you understand my anger

Yes, T&U, I do. That’s what I don’t seem to understand. It seems like every generation there is a portion of society that is being told what to do and how to act by another portion. The “founding principles” of this country seem to be twisted and thrown around just to suit some people’s beliefs but others aren’t allowed to dissent because…because.

It seems like every generation there is a portion of society that is being told what to do and how to act by another portion.

The lyrics madness is in the next thread, but: The sun shines and people forget.

People are amazingly good at disconnecting their actions – particularly when the actions are based on selfish desires – from history.

People are amazingly good at disconnecting their actions – particularly when the actions are based on selfish desires – from history.

I think they rewrite history to fit the narrative.

People are amazingly good at disconnecting their actions – particularly when the actions are based on selfish desires – from history

History is being rewritten, by the dimwitted. (Unintended/Original lyric)

It sounds like this guy would like to use the rhetoric of class-informed individual choice when what is happening, in reality, is a discussion of bourgeois state-enforced influence over primarily working class women’s decisionmaking, and not a discussion within a participatory economic retreat.

Yes. And if you approach it from a Marxist feminist perspective (which I tend to be somewhat sympathetic toward, though I’m certainly not a Marxist), women, even upper-class women, are a subordinated class. I think it’s clear that capitalism could be perceived as being Bad for All Women, though it’s certainly not the only social condition that’s bad for women, and did not originate the subjugation of women. (Hence why I’m sympathetic, but don’t buy that perspective).

I’m not denying the bourgeois roots of movement feminism, of course, and I’m obviously not denying your take on it–just stating another reason why I think this argument is a big fail.

Darth, you are being totally pawwwned here, give it up.

At the risk of sounding like a skeezy old man, you’re too young to remember first-hand political debate pre-Ronnie. It wasn’t pretty or high-minded, but people were at least ashamed to speak their base motives publicly.

Although my Biet Noir was Thatcher, looking back it does seem that although the politics were pretty confrontational, there was a degree of civility. Also with a few notable exceptions the base motives and prejudices were hidden. Don’t know why (in both the UK and North America) the right wing seems (is?) batshit crazy.

I never thought I’d say it, but I miss the 80’s.

Secondly, I don’t see what’s wrong with acknowledging that there is a definite difference between those who terminate because they must (a category to which I think we can agree sexual assault victims belong, and arguably one to which women who are fiscally or socially unable support the child belong), and those who terminate because they can (said spoiled rich kids).

Morally I think I agree with your point. Except that it leaves wide open the question of “who gets to decide which women are terminating their pregnancy because they must and which ones are merely doing it because they can. Legally, I don’t think we really can make that distinction. I guess one can argue that government funded/subsidized health care need only pay for the “must” cases and not the “can” cases (certainly health insurance is happy to not cover things that arguably should be covered anyway) — but that is not exactly what the Stupak amendment, e.g., does. As for the argument that government money shouldn’t subsidize something members of society find immoral — well my religion teaches that eating blood is immoral and yet corn subsidies allow people to raise animals cheaply whose blood ends up getting made into blood sausages. Should I throw a hissy-fit about that?

But as for making any abortion illegal — as pointed out above, the moral/legal distinction is key here. If we are going about making abortion illegal, that is giving a fetus rights we adult humans don’t have. Until such time as one can be forced to donate a kidney, we can’t force women to donate vital bodily fluids, etc., to fetuses. Even the “having a kid from which to harvest organs”, while squicky, is a slightly different issue — the kid might not have consented to the harvesting but the parents, who can give consent for their minor children, have consented. Thus, there is still no issue of the law forcing people to even donate organs. So why should the law force people to donate their wombs, even if only temporarily?

Regarding the issue of the so-called “moderate” position being argued on abortion — isn’t the fundamental assumption here that sex itself is a privilege? If “you can’t afford a kid, you shouldn’t open your legs”?

Of course, as the old quote above shows, lurking in that assumption is some heavy duty sexism (and classism) about who should be “allowed” to have sex.

But interestingly, if you read the Torah (depending on how you translate a word which can mean “ointment”), at least married women are entitled to have sex — sex (at least consensual sex within the context of marriage) is a woman’s right not a privilege!

If a woman has a right to have sex, that kinda undermines the whole “women shouldn’t get pregnant in the first place” argument. B/C fails. Nu? What is a woman to do? She has every right to have sex … so you can’t say she just shouldn’t have had sex …

Blah. I don’t feel free to judge a scared pregnant kid more harshly because her parents are rich. Having a baby is not an obligation.

Blah. I don’t feel free to judge a scared pregnant kid more harshly because her parents are rich. Having a baby is not an obligation.

Me, neither. I don’t know what’s going on in her head. And if she did turn out to be a shallow, horrible human being who had an abortion because she didn’t want to look fat in her new D&G tube dress and I was in the business of judging people for such things, I certainly wouldn’t want such a terrible person to have a child.

Funny how those who write most passionately about children being our most valuable resource are fist in line to cut Medicaid and SCHIP and school budgets and Head Start and… – Doc Amazing

That is his whole point, though, isn’t it? That some kids simply aren’t worth the costs to society (e.g. kids that come from families that don’t have so many resources to begin with and hence rely on public assistance). In essence the argument being made by the author’s ilk is that “we need babies to make society sustainable — so abortion should be outlawed — but only those babies from rich families”. Then they take this to the logical conclusion of eugenics. But, as pointed out above, they put their own reductios into the mouths of strawmen “pro-choicers”.

The real argument here (given who seems to always have eugenics popping up in their arguments and what they are actually saying) is the other side of “if government pays for abortion then they can coerce you to have abortions”: “if government has the power to forbid abortion they also have the power to mandate it.” Given the obsession the so-called pro-life community has with eugenics and how their arguments seem to actually lead in that direction (before they say “oh, that’s what the Democrats think” like my 4.5 y.o. confessing to some wrongdoing of hers then immediately tacking on “that’s what my babysitter said when she told her daddy about that bad thing she did” — in general, GOoPer arguments seem to be on the same level as arguments toddlers and pre-schoolers make — I wonder what that says?)., it would be irresponsible not to speculate as to whether any agreement that government can limit abortions will be used to lay the groundwork for government coercing abortions.

oops — forgot to close italics. The should have ended after “mandate it”

if she did turn out to be a shallow, horrible human being who had an abortion because she didn’t want to look fat in her new D&G tube dress and I was in the business of judging people for such things, I certainly wouldn’t want such a terrible person to have a child. – T&U

I see I am not the only one who thinks this way. I always found it odd how so-called pro-lifers seemed completely unconcerned that women they would judgmentally declare are “teh most evil monsters ever” for having teh sechs and then wanting to have an abortion rather than face their “responsibilities” and carrying the kid to term would be the ones raising said kids! It’s almost like they don’t care about said kids … am I being overly judgmental in my thinking that women who are so vicious they would abort for such “shallow” reasons probably aren’t ready to be parents anyway?

I like the old pro-choice bumper sticker: “if you can’t trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?”

What I really don’t understand in all of these “debates” over abortion is what they hell would the anti-abortion folks (that’s “anti” for whatever reason, including whatever ridiculous “arguments” Darth whatsit said up there) think should be changed? At one end we have an absolute ban on abortion, making all of them illegal, and at the other end, we have some abstract number of abortions judged on some nearly-random criteria being made illegal.

Ok, great, then what?

If “abortion is murder” as lots of folks say, then obviously the woman, the doctor, and anyone else involved in the illegal procedure should be prosecuted as murderers or their accessories, including possibly being put to death. Awesome and completely logical (not).

If “abortion is icky” (or whatever Darth claims), then what? The woman gets a ticket? The doctor gets a fine? They’re both thrown in jail? For how long? Perhaps give them all 30 lashes? Public shaming? Forced to wear a scarlet letter?

I’ve never been able to get a clear understanding of how either of those situations ends up helping society.

Further, say we have a voluntarily-for-whatever-reason-disposed-of-zygote, which maybe might have turned into a baby but didn’t. That’s somehow a horrible miscarriage of justice and deserving of punishment, but if a woman has a miscarriage it’s sad and deserving of pity. Makes perfect sense. (see what I did there?)

This whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. Keep it legal and a decision to be made by the woman involved, and if she chooses to involve her family, pastor, or whatever, in that decision fine. Otherwise, just leave her alone. I can only imagine (because I’m a GUY) the decision will be hard enough. And you know what, if it isn’t a hard decision for her, and it’s super easy and painless, who the fuck cares, it’s still her decision to make, so shut the fuck up about it.

Steerpike referred to this way upthread, but it turns out that if you want to reduce the number of abortions, universal healthcare is a pretty good mechanism.

I like the old pro-choice bumper sticker: “if you can’t trust me with a choice, how can you trust me with a child?”

Of course. But this idiotic logic runs trough our society: “We trust you to do your complicated job, but we want you to piss in a cup because we think you’re a liar.”

I have a hard time believing that any woman who finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy, rich or poor, gives a second thought to how she’s going to look in whatever she wears and factors that into her decision to give birth or not.

As for:

,,,Replace “Keep your hands off my uterus” with “keep your hands off my property” and you have the exact same argument libertarians use to justify not paying taxes and dismantling the public sector, the exact same argument states’ rights folks use to explain why Lincoln was a dictator and the Civil War violated their rights to own slaves, and the same argument used by both them to excuse away every wretched, horrifying action ever taken by a corporate entity by calling it business’ rights. And if it’s not the same argument, I’d like to hear why.

It’s a fucking disgrace that 50% of the world’s population possesses 100% of its uteri, isn’t it? It’s just like some small subset of people controlling all the land or owning other people outright. Through what kind of shady, backroom political maneuvering this state of affairs came to exist I don’t know. Someday someone will write a devastating exposé and you’re just the man to do it I figure.

It’s a fucking disgrace that 50% of the world’s population possesses 100% of its uteri

Uteri concentration is theft! From, you know, you to I.

Genetics is theft.

It’s a fucking disgrace that 50% of the world’s population possesses 100% of its uteri, isn’t it?

We men ought to file a class-action lawsuit under civil rights statutes, because we’re entitled to half the uteri in this nation. Imagine, something like that being hogged by half the population!

because we’re entitled to half the uteri in this nation

It’s not like we even have unlimited visitation rights…

I see how it is, you commies. Some of us are just born lucky, and you want to punish us for that by spreading the uterus wealth!

you want to punish us for that by spreading the uterus wealth!

Mmmmmmmmm, bondage….

“Eugenics”. I do not think that word means what Taranto thinks it means.

Given that Obama is one of the most corrupt pieces of shit to ever occupy a uturis (outdone by GWB himself, and probably nobody else), this argument reaks to high heaven.

Obama wipped too hard to get to THIRDBASE to pretend that Democrats are somehow enemies of vajinas. Democrats are probably going to lose at least one house of congress next year precisely because they are seen as the minions of teh pussey.

Leave it to liberals to try and redistribute organs. Socialists.

Marriage is theft, Anthony.

Hysterectomy is theft.

I like the enforced vasectomy idea. It would solve all these messy pregnancy problems that give men such a headache to worry their pretty little heads over, PLUS it will never ever affect me because I don’t produce sperm.

You know what else I’d like to see? Anyone with prostate cancer can’t eat meat. I guess I could come up with some sort of moral reasoning, possibly backed up by religious texts or economic theory, but basically it just makes me sad panda or uncomfortable so I don’t want it to happen anymore, and what do I care because I don’t have balls so I never have to worry.

That’s because uteri have teeth

Ok, great, then what?

If “abortion is icky” (or whatever Darth claims), then what? The woman gets a ticket? The doctor gets a fine? They’re both thrown in jail? For how long? Perhaps give them all 30 lashes? Public shaming? Forced to wear a scarlet letter?

First, they came for the abortionists, and I said nothing because I do not perform abortions.
Then they came for the mothers, and I did not speak up for I was not a woman
Then they came for the fellaters, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.

Choosy mothers choose choice.

I actually like that slogan. It highlights several important points:
1) Lots of women who have abortions are already mothers who consider the needs of their already-existing children over the possible needs of their potential future children.

2) Women are choosy about abortion: they think about their options and make a conscious decision about what is best for them in their current situation. Women actually put at least as much thought into getting an abortion as they do picking out a fucking brand of peanut butter.

3) Women are conscious, thinking moral actors in this whole mess. They are not brainless baby machines or naive, unsuspecting pawns in the war between Planned Parenthood and the Catholic church. Women are capable of making grown-up “big girl” decisions all on their own.

4) Women choose to choose: not every woman who considers abortion ends up getting one. “Pro-choice” people support the right of the woman to make that decision without butting in.

I think the decision to have a child, while resting primarily with the mother, ought to be weighed nearly as heavily to the father’s wishes, too, something on the order of 60-40, since there is the whole lifelong responsibility issue.

Here’s the thing: when the woman and her male partner have a good relationship, the man’s wishes and opinions are usually considered as part of the whole “couple talking about important shit” thing. It’s primarily a problem when the man and the woman don’t have a healthy relationship, in which case the man’s opinion shouldn’t be given as much weight. There’s not any easy answer to this whole issue, because we can’t just pass a law saying that people can only have sex in good relationships.

In one of my novels, there were no restrictions on abortion until the fetus had at least a 50% chance of surviving outside the womb (and yes, that does differ from pregnancy to pregnancy). After that, if the woman wanted an abortion, she could sign a “separation agreement” (essentially a parent-child divorce decree), deliver the baby, and walk away. Of course, that only works in a society with universal health care and no seriously fucked up sexual attitudes. You know, fiction.

One two three four
Can I have a little more?
Five six seven-eight-nine ten
I’ve fucked you

A B C D
My servants will not work for free
E F G-H-I J
I’ve fucked you

(Bum bum bum bum ba bum) Sink the bank
(Bum ba bum) Beg for cash
(Bum ba bum) Drive the Jag
(Bum ba bum) Up your ass!

Oh rats. Thread failure.

I BLAME SLUTS!

A policy aimed at reducing the number of babies born would be economically ruinous, because within a few decades it would result in a shortage of workers and taxpayers.

This guy knows what he’s talking about. Just ask China!

Speaking of which, does anyone else get that Pravda circa 1935 “PATRIOTIC MOTHERS MUST DO THEIR PART TO SPAWN MORE VALIANT HEROIC WORKERS TO FULFILL THE NEXT FIVE-YEAR-PLAN” vibe from this article?

The irony, it tickles!

The comments there are really something alright … now I know where all the wingnuts who CAN use spelling & grammar correctly go … yeesh.

Who needs health care??

Oh, and I know you need a vagina to have empathy or whatever, but this is worth a read.

I BLAME SLUTS

We’re having our first really warm weather this week and ohmygodthesluts arewalkingaroundwearingtheseCLOTHES andIcantconcentrateanditsalltheirfault.

They keep pointing their uteri at me!

Over 50% of the population also lack PENIS if we’re talking about inequalities. Get to the CHOPPAH!

Over 50% of the population also lack PENIS if we’re talking about inequalities.

True, but about 45% of the other 50% are quite willing to share the experience with those lacking.

Over 50% of the population also lack PENIS if we’re talking about inequalities. Get to the CHOPPAH!

Well, fine, but I’m unclear how me being in a helicopter is going to help you become a hermaphrodite.

By the way, I’m amazed we’ve gotten this far in the thread without anyone bringing up this classic piece on the subject.

By the way, I’m amazed we’ve gotten this far in the thread without anyone bringing up this classic piece on the subject.

This is my favorite Onion abortion-related piece.

True, but about 45% of the other 50% are quite willing to share the experience with those lacking.

45% may willing to share with some percentage of the 50%, but not 100%. NOT HAVING SEX WITH EVERYONE IS THEFT!

Well, fine, but I’m unclear how me being in a helicopter is going to help you become a hermaphrodite.

Get your l’il actor a little closer to the spinning prop while I explain…

Get your l’il actor a little closer to the spinning prop while I explain…

Um, OK, but Herve Villechaise is afraid of heights.

Um, OK, but Herve Villechaise is afraid of heights.

That is wrongful/hilarious.

NOT HAVING SEX WITH EVERYONE IS THEFT!

Are you D-KW’s mother?

Are you D-KW’s mother?

It’s not theft when she gives it away.

Which she does if you clip her coupon in the Pennysaver.

Once you put the cock in the vagina, it’s no longer inadvertent
It puts the cock in the vagina or it gets the hose again.

Get to the CHOPPAH!
Put down the axe and then we can talk.

“We trust you to do your complicated job, but we want you to piss in a cup because we think you’re a liar.”
The urine-testing argument applies to pilots, heavy-machinery users, and generally anyone who has the lives of others resting in his or her hands.
It never seems to apply to the directors of the companies who impose urine-testing regimes, from which I deduce that their jobs do not have any repercussions for other people, in which case WHY ARE THEY PAID SO MUCH??

Um, OK, but Herve Villechaise is afraid of heights.

Awesome, but part of me(NOT SHARING) wishes you’d said Vern Troyer because a)Mini You and b)TRIPOD!

“Here’s the thing: Opposition to abortion is completely extra-biblical. Until the last few decades, it was only a personal issue for Catholics (as they were supposed to be fruitful and multiply), and Protestants – including most evangelicals – didn’t care at all. The original pro-life movement was comprised of feminists who were opposed to coercive abortions that were generally compelled by husbands or relatives. The whole “abortion as a religious issue” thing is only about as old as the Southern Strategy.”

Sadly, yes!

http://messageboards.aol.com/aol/en_us/articles.php?boardId=455943&articleId=667609&func=5&channel=News

And there’s still a lot of resentment for that from the older generations of Catholic activists! Roe v. Wade happened in 1973, and there was an effort by Catholics after that to gain support from Southern evangelicals whom they thought would share their values on this issue; these efforts were met with frank disinterest, sometimes bordering on contempt for the so-called “Catholic issue” (remember, in the South “Papist” was barely a step up from “nigger” in those days).

It wasn’t until later in the decade, when the federal government started interfering with segregated “Christian” institutions like Bob Jones and threatening to revoke their tax-exempt status, that Southern evangelicals became outraged and mobilized enough to form the Religious Right. And there you have the dirty little secret (well, the original one) of the James Dobson crowd.

Awesome, but part of me(NOT SHARING) wishes you’d said Vern Troyer because a)Mini You and b)TRIPOD!

I’d really one night love to spend a few hours combing through your dreams.

KEEP YOUR GOVMINT HANDS OFF MY HIGHCHAIR!

Anonymous said,
March 18, 2010 at 21:42

True, but as I point out at my blog (whored earlier in this thread, so just click on my nym), that’s falling apart now.

The urine-testing argument applies to pilots, heavy-machinery users, and generally anyone who has the lives of others resting in his or her hands.
It never seems to apply to the directors of the companies who impose urine-testing regimes, from which I deduce that their jobs do not have any repercussions for other people, in which case WHY ARE THEY PAID SO MUCH??

I haven’t been an employee in some time, but my attitude has always been that I’ll piss in a cup as long it’s being held by the guy who created the requirement.

The regulatory agency said “screws holding the front legs of the high chair can loosen and fall out”

YOU SEE!? YOU SEE!? It’s all about the sex with these commiehippiefascist Obambots!

Awesome, but part of me(NOT SHARING) wishes you’d said Vern Troyer because a)Mini You and b)TRIPOD!

This is disturbing on a number of levels.

Awesome, but part of me(NOT SHARING) wishes you’d said Vern Troyer because a)Mini You and b)TRIPOD!

This is disturbing on a number of levels.

All of them very close to the ground.

Don’t you people watch movies? I don’t see many, but can occasionally squeeze one in, STS, between all the drug-hazed gaybortions.

b)TRIPOD!

Apparently not

The regulatory agency

is coming for YOU!

Don’t you people watch movies?

Well sure, but porn is porn so what’s your point?

Well sure, but porn is porn so what’s your point?

He has a point, Tig: a porn named “Mini-Me” would not sell well.

Women choose to choose: not every woman who considers abortion ends up getting one.

Wait, you mean the fact that women can have abortions doesn’t mean they will have abortions? Why, it’s almost like one of the vehemently-anti-legal-abortion talking points is completely untrue!

(Yeah, I admit that one pisses me off a lot, as someone who, in fact, made that choice. I was lucky enough to not only be able to meet and vet the prospective adoptive parents, but also to have them pay for my health care expenses, so that did make it a lot easier. Too bad a lot of other women don’t have that option.)

I was lucky enough to not only be able to meet and vet the prospective adoptive parents

So the child is being raised by wolves?

Wait, you mean the fact that women can have abortions doesn’t mean they will have abortions?

We haven’t passed the mandatory abortion law.

Yet.

Well, I agree that that sentence was glib and insensitive, maybe even superficial of me, and for that I apologise. But I have never on this thread supported a prohibition on abortion, which you (and GumbyAnne and others) seemed to be using as a false premise.

Pro-tip: This is not what an apology looks like, you spoiled, half-educated cuntish little cretin. You’ve really managed to out-Goldberg Goldberg on this thread, which is no mean feat. KUDOS!@

We’re having our first really warm weather this week and ohmygodthesluts arewalkingaroundwearingtheseCLOTHES andIcantconcentrateanditsalltheirfault.

You work at a university too?!?

There’s this nice little place across the street with outdoor seating for proper viewing appreciation and good beer for boozing it up. It’s a veritable liberal utopia of beer and sex, I tells ya. You obviously know what I’m doing after work…

[preemptive]DKW’s mom isn’t involved.[/preemptive]

Ok, great, then what?

Then, you throw all that horseshit out the window and focus on education, easy and discrete availability of birth control, and educating young men as well. The better educated people are, the more likely they are to be cautious. Outlawing things in this country doesn’t exactly have a great track record of stopping the behavior.

Comment from Esteev’s link:

Ms. Psychotic, whose chief qualification for the post was her unsuccessful career as Bill Ayer’s drycleaner, then locked the doors to the press conference and the reporters were frisked for illegal gum and cigarettes and relieved of leather shoes. Final disposal of “anything that might possibly harm anyone under any possible circumstances” was left to the famous “Cuban Vanguard of the Proletariat” operatives, as Ms. Psychotic rushed away to President Obama’s 473rd ceremony awarding medals to Somalian pirates. “Their chief problem is lack of self-esteem”, said she, as they wheeled her away on her gurney.

Now THAT’S some dot connection there! Wow, I wish I was that high right now!

Ahhhhh, the first day of Spring at my alma mater…all those shirtless young men running around on the enormous green space in front of the library…sometimes a friend and I would go “study” there. Of course, we were grad assistants, so looky but no touchy…

I blame Reagan for pretty much everything.”

Humpf. Just wait till he replaces Grant on the $50 dollar bill. You’ll eat your words then…

[preemptive]DKW’s mom isn’t involved.[/preemptive]

The free clinic didn’t believe me, either, when I told them this.

chocolatepie, thanks for that link, very worth reading.

Ok, great, then what?

Then, you throw all that horseshit out the window and focus on education, easy and discrete availability of birth control, and educating young men as well. The better educated people are, the more likely they are to be cautious. Outlawing things in this country doesn’t exactly have a great track record of stopping the behavior.

Not sure if that was meant as a jab at what I had posted or not, but as the husband of an elementary school teacher and as a university faculty (non-teaching) member myself, I say to you:

Yeah, good luck with that.

Heh, I said “member”

Oh, and the book from which that came is Politics in the Impasse: Explorations in Postsecular Social Theory.

No wonder is sounded like complete and utter bullshit.