The other day I posted on Facebook, “Is abortion ever the MORE ethical choice over giving birth?” I left it at that. I didn’t want to explain why I was asking the question or what my views were because I was curious how my friends would reply. Here are some of the answers I received (with permission to share):
“Certainly, especially in cases of extreme disabilities.”
Joel Klinepeter:
“Tay Sachs, Bringing a child into the world for no more than a couple weeks of abject agony is deeply immoral. Aborting a child with Tay Sachs is absolutely more moral than giving birth to one.”
“In my opinion, wiping out a non-sentient bundle of cells rather than forcing a rape victim to undergo months of further psychological trauma during pregnancy and giving birth, no to mention her mental state afterward whatever decision she makes regarding adoption, is pretty fucking ethical.”
Nick Wallin:
“With population as high as it is, an ethical case can be made for any abortion. (This is, of course, if the woman wants said abortion.)”
Anonymous:
”(w/o reading previous comments) one possibility is if you have strong reason to believe you’ll be a terrible parent (you’re an alcoholic, say), and adoption options aren’t practically available.”
“Mother’s life in danger, child’s life in danger, can’t financially provide for a child, trying to make sure you can support your other children (both financially and emotionally).”
“In my opinion, any time a woman does not want to go through a pregnancy, forced birth is less ethical than an abortion. That is psychological and physical torture that will likely leave wounds for life”
Anonymous:
“A friend of mine was going through chemotherapy for brain tumors. She got pregnant by her husband, a complete freak accident (the pregnancy, not her husband). Doctors said that the baby would not survive the chemo, and the pregnancy hormones would boost the tumors’ growth. Her husband, her family, and her friends all think she made the right choice by aborting. Besides, she didn’t want to leave her 2-year-old without a mother, or her husband without a wife. I’d say that’s ethical. :)”
So, why did I make that update? I wasn’t looking to be convinced - I already thought there are many, many situations where abortion is the more ethical choice over giving birth. But I never see abortion framed in terms of being “more ethical.” I always see it described as this necessary evil that we all have to feel sad and guilty about. That the choice must be a terrible struggle only allowable when followed by a certain amount of weeping and self-destruction as penance. We never talk about women who decided to give birth in those situations as making the less ethical choice. Birth is by default seen as morally superior and self sacrificing, when there are a number of situation where it is actually the unethical choice.
I obviously still think women have the right to choose either way. Forcing a woman to give birth or get an abortion against her will is so unethical it trumps the other arguments about ethics, at least in my mind. But I hate whenever I find a thread in 2XC where a woman says “I don’t feel guilty about my abortion…is something wrong with me?” No, nothing is wrong with you…something is wrong with our culture.
That shuffling sound you hear is thousands of atheists squirming uncomfortably in their seats.
I admit, I’m skeptical. It’s an understatement to say that Republicans don’t exactly have a great track record when it comes to secular issues. In most cases they’re the direct cause of much of our religiously motivated problems. It makes me nervous putting one in charge of a lobbying group meant to represent a number of secular organizations, including one that I’m a board member of (the Secular Student Alliance).
But I’m going to give Edwina Rogers the chance to prove herself before I lay down any judgment. From this interview with Hemant Mehta at Friendly Atheist, Edwina states that she’s a non-theist who’s fully committed to the values of the SCA, and that her previous work with Republicans was mostly on economic issues. She also emphasizes that this gives us a chance to reach across the aisle and utilize allies that we have previously written off. She insists that there are Republicans out there who agree with secular values.
So what do you think about SCA’s decision? A shrewd political move? Something that will be effective in gaining more support for the SCA? A train wreck waiting to happen? Is this going to affect your support for member organizations?
Yes, I do choose. I choose the answer “No.” I choose putting a woman’s right to control decisions about her own body before a clump of cells. I choose letting women make their own choices, instead of forcing my personal beliefs on them.
I guess I’ve naively been thinking that I’ve escaped this sort of stuff, but I was wrong. What’s worse is this isn’t a tiny event. That room in Kane Hall is one of the biggest venues on campus. And Abby Johnson is one of the worst anti-choicers out there. She used to work at Planned Parenthood and uses outrageous stories from her time there to explain her stance…outrageouslyfabricatedstories. I guess her superior morals don’t cover the whole “no lying” bit.
If you’re interested, some cranky baby killing feminists will be protesting her talk. I’m not sure if my blood pressure can stand the whole thing. Anything with the trolltastic title “Do women have too many rights?” is destined to be enraging and pointless.
No, it’s not to spend years blogging about atheism, giving talks about how fucked up religion is, or helping run atheist organizations. It’s to get retweeted by Dan Savage. I know not all of you follow me on twitter, so I thought I’d share the highlights.
Dan retweets someone:
I make a quip, which Dan also retweets:
And then came the flood of angry Christians:
Ironically, she cared enough about my atheism to waste five seconds tweeting at me.
Wait, I’m the one who thinks she’s important? Not the one who thinks they’re the special and highest creation of an all powerful being? Riggghhhttt.
Hooooooo boy, not even touching that one.
But this one was perhaps my favorite:
He never responded. Turns out he couldn’t clarify.
Dr. Bruce Alberts who President Obama has appointed as one of his first Science Envoys. Dr. Alberts is editor of Sciencemagazine, author of The Cell, and former President of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Natalie Angier who is a science writer for The New York Times and the Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. In 1991 she received the Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.
Dr. James Evans who is the Bryson Distinguished Professor of Genetics and Medicine at University of North Carolina and directs the Clinical Cancer Genetics Services at UNC.
Dr. Keith Yamamoto who is Vice Chancellor for Research, Executive Vice Dean of the School of Medicine, and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco.
The moderator is Dr. Maynard Olson, who is a Professor in the Departments of Genome Sciences and Medicine at the University of Washington and is one of the founders of the Human Genome Project.
If you’re near Seattle, I hope I’ll see you there!
Religious bigots are furious with Dan Savage yet again. This time their rage is inspired by a speech Dan gave at the National High School Journalism Conference, where he points out the “bullshit” in the Bible and a trickle of Christians get up and walk out of his talk. Watch the video for a wonderful speech and the poor butthurt Christians leaving (in a single file line that starts in unison…smells like a planned walk-out to me):
Here’s a transcript of the speech for those of you who can’t watch the video:
“People often point out that they can’t help it. They can’t help with the anti-gay bullyings because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things.
The Bible is a radically pro-slavery document. Slave owners waved Bibles over their heads during the Civil War and justified it. The shortest book in the New Testament is a letter from Paul to a Christian slave owner about owning his Christian slave. And Paul doesn’t say Christians don’t own people. Paul talks about how Christians own people. We ignore what the Bible said about slavery because the Bible got slavery wrong. Sam Harris in Letter to a Christian Nation points out that the Bible got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong: slavery.
What are the odds that the Bible got something as complicated as human sexuality wrong? 100%. The Bible says that if your daughter’s not a virgin on her wedding night – that a woman isn’t a virgin on her wedding night, that she shall be dragged to her father’s doorstep and stoned to death. Callista Gingrich lives. And there is no effort to amend state constitutions to make it legal to stone women to death on their wedding night if they’re not virgins. At least not yet. We don’t know where the GOP is going these days. People are dying because people can’t clear this one last hurdle. They can’t get past this one last thing in the Bible about homosexuality.
One thing I want to talk about is – ha, so you can tell the Bible guys in the hall that they can come back in because I’m done beating up the Bible. It’s funny that someone who’s on the receiving end of beatings that are justified by the Bible, how pansy-assed some people react to being pushed back. I apologize if I hurt anyone’s feelings but I have the right to defend myself, and to point out the hypocrisy of people who justify anti-gay bigotry by pointing to the Bible and insisting that we must live by the code of Leviticus on this one issue and no other.”
I transcribed that speech so I’m sure you know exactly what Dan Savage said… because right-wing lunatics seem to have listened to an entirely different speech. Focus on the Family was the first time chime in, opportunistically on their bigoted anti-Day of Silence event:
“Using profanity to deride the Bible—and then mocking the Christian students after they left the room—is obviously a form of bullying and name-calling. This illustrates perfectly what we’ve been saying all along: Too many times in the name of “tolerance,” Christian students find their faith being openly mocked and belittled in educational environments. Incidents like this one stand in stark contrast to the principles we’ve continually espoused on our Web sites, truetolerance.org and dayofdialogue.com, which call for a free exchange of ideas and respect for different viewpoints, including those that are faith-based and socially conservative.”
You see, it’s exactly the same. On one hand, we have someone pointing out that certain ideas of an oppressive majority group are wrong. On the other hand, we have that oppressive majority group bullying children until they commit suicide because those children have a biological trait that the oppressive majority finds abhorrent because their invisible sky daddy told them so in a really old book. And Focus on the Family is pro-dialogue because they’re allowed to talk about their beliefs, but you have to shut up about yours.
“I didn’t call anyone’s religion bullshit. I did say that there is bullshit—”untrue words or ideas“—in the Bible. That is being spun as an attack on Christianity. Which is bullshhh… which is untrue. I was not attacking the faith in which I was raised. I was attacking the argument that gay people must be discriminated against—and anti-bullying programs that address anti-gay bullying should be blocked (or exceptions should be made for bullying “motivated by faith”)—because it says right there in the Bible that being gay is wrong. Yet the same people who make that claim choose to ignore what the Bible has to say about a great deal else. I did not attack Christianity. I attacked hypocrisy. My remarks can only be read as an attack on all Christians if you believe that all Christians are hypocrites. Which I don’t believe.”
Sure, not all Christians are hypocrites. We have the Westboro Baptist Church, Ken Ham, and other Biblical literalists as perfect examples of unhypocritical Christians. But they’re still wrong. They’re still following a bullshit book and a bullshit religion. And despite the whining of Focus on the Family, Christians deserve to have their faith mocked and belittled, because it is an idea worthy of only mockery and belittlement.
And I’m not just talking about the Phelps of the world. I mean the moderate and liberal version of Christianity too. Because it all boils down to believing in ludicrous superstition you have no evidence for, and much evidence against. That sort of thinking wouldn’t be tolerated or respected in our society if it weren’t for the unfairly special status religion holds. We can use “bullshit” to describe ideas like astrology, reptilian conspiracies, alien abductions, Big Foot… but God is off limits, despite being equally ridiculous.
That’s why Christian groups cry foul when someone points out flaws in their religion. It’s not their emotions that are so fragile: It’s their faith. Because Christianity, like all religions, simply cannot stand up to questioning. It’s why so many parts of the Bible actively denounce questioning faith. It’s why Christians have to run out of talks and make press releases about persecution. Because Christianity crumbles in the face of history, biology, and analytical thinking. Silencing dissent is the only way for Christianity to survive.
And I don’t want a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, anti-science, and simply false idea like Christianity to survive.
Now, am I going to be violent toward Christians? Am I going to enact laws banning Christianity? Am I going to run around burning churches? Of course not. I’m going to be a radical evangelical atheist by writing blog posts for whoever cares to read them, and by giving talks for whoever cares to attend. I’m going to destroy religion through convincing arguments that people have to understand on their own time, not through guilt or social ostracization or threats of eternal damnation (the tactics of religious evangelicals).
That’s why Christians want to shut up people like me and Dan – because they know our tactics work.
This is the cover of The Humanist for their story “Getting Real: A Look at the New Skepticism.” It’s a large article featuring a number of different types of skeptical activism, and I made my way onto the boat because there are a couple of paragraphs about boobquake.
Not a single female musician exists in the examples of good singers or bands.
8 out of 12 of the “extremely disappointing” musicians are exclusively female or have female lead singers
Yes, we know you hate Justin Bieber. Because he’s not hyper masculine and appeals to young girls. Therefore he sucks. Yawn. Old news.
Yes, yes, it’s a dumb site that pumps out top 10 lists and memes. But this sort of sexist thinking is everywhere in our culture. These female bands and singers are all just shitty compared to real music.
Not to mention this bothers the scientist in me. Of course newer artists are going to sell more albums and singles than 50 years ago, because you didn’t correct for the increasing rate of singles and albums sold. But science doesn’t matter when your goal is to laugh at female musicians.
That noise you hear is millions of scifi nerds squeeing in unison. The startup Planetary Resources has announced its mission to investigate and mine resources from asteroids in space. While the fact that fricking asteroid mining is theoretically possible is awesome on its own, I really like their big picture view of the project:
“This is an attempt to make a permanent foothold in space,” he said. “We’re going to enable this piece of human exploration and the settlement of space, and develop the resources that are out there.”
…“The investors aren’t making decisions based on a business plan or a return on investment,” he told me. “They’re basing their decisions on our vision.”
I love it. Sure, some of the investors probably aren’t totally selfless. Just imagine if you went down in history books as being one of the first people made a new era of space exploration possible. But I love that some people aren’t just motivated by profit, and they see the inherent worth of settling space. I’m just jealous that I don’t get to live forever and see how this plays out.
I highly recommend you check out the rest of Phil Plait’s coverage. He breaks down the steps of their plan and explains the feasibility of the project. It’s really fascinating stuff.
Jen McCreight is a liberal, geeky, nerdy, scientific, perverted feminist atheist who recently escaped Indiana for Seattle.
Learn more about Jen here.
Disclaimer: The views on this blog are mine and not associated with my school or employer.
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May 3, 2012 at 6:53 pm 
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