I really should avoid looking at these atheists against abortion sites — they just fill me with righteous rage at their stupidity and pretentious abuse of science…as with this promotional image.
But that’s an 8-cell zygote. It hasn’t even gone through compaction yet; it hasn’t so much as formed a blastocyst. This thing was only fertilized perhaps two days before — it would have been tumbling through the fallopian tubes still, wouldn’t have reached the uterus yet, and definitely wouldn’t have gone through implantation. Implantation is one of those critical phases in development: one half or more of fertilized zygotes fail to implant and are spontaneously aborted, and the woman wouldn’t have even known fertilization had occurred, her body wouldn’t have begun the physiological changes of pregnancy, and if the process ended here, she wouldn’t have even noticed a delayed menstruation.
The odds favor this zygote ending here or shortly afterwards, even without any intervention. Nature spawns these embryos freely, and throws them away casually, almost with the wild abandon that we produce gametes in general. It is not a precious little person, it is an experiment, a trial run, a test probe, a pilot study, a beta run. No one should care if it aborts or not; most of them do, and we are completely unaware of most of them.
No one does abortions at this stage. The woman isn’t technically pregnant until implantation occurs, and she wouldn’t be going in for an abortion two days after insemination. The only time this would be an issue is in the case of in vitro fertilization, which would yield a dish with a dozen or a score of zygotes at this stage, which would be evaluated for implantation. Are they really arguing that women getting IVF should be compelled to carry every single conceptus to term?
And the wording is just bizarre and misleading. No “one” ever ends at this stage; because any spontaneous abortion at this point would not produce a “one”, in the sense of an autonomous, aware individual. You might as well be looking at a field of ejaculated human sperm and insisting that NO ONE SHOULD END HERE! It makes about as much sense.
Gah. It makes no sense. And worse, it’s atheists indulging in ridiculous magical thinking.
(via Beth Presswood)
I didn’t get the point of the image at first. I was like, “Wait, is there like some horrible illness that reduces you to a puddle of cells? How does that work?!?”
If I’d known up-front it was anti-abortion propaganda, I’m sure I would have gotten it right away. But I only saw the image at first, and I was like, “Wut?” heh…
In fact, at this stage you could cut it in half with a hair and it would grow into two individuals.
Interesting logo: A v A implying not only Atheists vs. Abortion but also that there might already be a heartbeat! As we all know, heart cells automatically and individually throb.
1. Isn’t a significant fraction of that ball-o-cells going to become the fetal placenta? Why isn’t every birth accompanied by a funeral for the late, lamented placenta? Which heroically gave up its soul for its other half?
2. Pretty sure the ad is intended to be against the misconception (see what I did there?) that Plan B, etc. work through preventing implantation.
Which is why the movement is about scientific thinking and not atheism. Disbelief in skydaddies is just part of the package, not the whole thing.
As a vegetarian, it amazes me even more, how these guys are okay with eating cows but not okay with killing a fucking blastocyst. Consistency people.
It is ones Ethical Duty to slice apart all zygotes. If you do not, you prevent a potential person from living!!!! Imagine all those lives ended because their murdering parents did not split apart all their zygotes!!
Yeah, but only one of them gets the soul.
I’ve never gotten a coherent answer to the question that if souls are created at the moment of conception, and God hates abortion so much, why do most fertilized eggs not come to term? If they even implant at all, they are often aborted spontaneously, many times without the woman ever knowing about it.
Except for maybe a few hardcore Calvinists, Christians will tell you that the souls of aborted fetuses go straight to Heaven. Since most people who become adults don’t go to Heaven, if you take their theology seriously, doesn’t that mean that most “people” in Heaven were never actually people in the first place? They literally never had a thought before they went to Heaven, because they didn’t have a brain, let alone language, or a shared culture, or distinctive personality, or any of the other things that make people people. Does God magically bestow a brain, language skills and a personality on them? Do they have a human-looking body, or do they continue to look like the picture above?
Yeah, but only one of them gets the soul.
Or, being as these are atheists, only one gets the nervous system. But they’re not worried in this picture about niceties like nervous systems, right?
Who will speak for the placentas?
Awwwwww, what an adorable baby picture!
All “pro-lifers” are dishonest liars. They also seem to share a blissful ignorance of how people work.
Please don’t give them any ideas!
Soon they’ll be picketing my house protesting against masturbation…
They also seem to share a blissful ignorance of how people work
But not of how they “think.” That’s why the message is all emotion, zero logic.
I hate everyone.
I’m confused. Are they saying that we all start of as a zebra fish embryo?
Well, a blastocyst just isn’t a meal…
Serious quest for info: (not trolling)
Could someone point me toward some study/references that back up the oft seen assertion that some 50% to 80% (or other numbers) of fertilized ova spontaneously abort?
Thanks
I imagine they’re still having a hard time deciding whether to dress it in pink or blue, though.
And since the Bible, in Leviticus 17:11 and 17:14 defines “the life of the creature” as being “in the blood,” and there don’t appear to be any blood vessels, I’m waiting for a coherent explanation of how a creature that is not even “alive” yet could actually have a soul.
Fortunately, I’m doing other stuff while I wait.
Killed By Fish
Is there any way to just look at these blobs and distinguish them as a human zygote? I’m not a biologist but I suspect not.
Josh:
Me two.
Madbull, being okay with the slaughter of food animals and being against abortion aren’t exactly comparable, are they? I think you’re being disingenuous or fallacious.
You should get a better imagination, I can see the implications in your statement and, for one, food animals are not equivalent to human people. I’m probably not the only one who sees the logical problems with your amazement and implied argument.
A real problem with the inconsistency of most anti-abortionists is the importance they place upon the unborn by contrast to how much they actually care for the born. That is to say, as a born human person, I’m amazed at how they are okay with poverty and not okay with killing a fucking blastocyst (in this case an 8-cell zygote).
Consider that a reality check, dear amazed vegetarian.
I see previous thread being reincarnated.
Can’t we just all agree up front that women aren’t people and go to the bar?
Whaddya mean that’s discriminatory? Hey! I’m just throwing ideas out there…
;-)
Louis
P.S. Predictable douchenozzles on abortion thread will be predictable.
More proof that Atheist ≠ Universally Rational
Are you unable to use Google for yourself?
Seriously, why do people in this day and age continue to ask others to be a reference librarian when the world’s biggest instantaneous card catalog is right at their fingertips? I don’t get it.
Well when they decide (they’ll have to flip a coin), I’ll knit it a tiny hat in the gender-appropriate hue. It’s in my nurturing, feminine nature to do so. The matching booties will have to wait until it grows some limbs.
With enough of them, we could make a nice stew.
Interestingly, myocytes leak electrolytes across the cell membrane and do spontaneously depolarize and contract, at different rates for different cell types. Still, not guided by a brain, just by electrochemistry and membrane potentials.
Josh, Official SpokesGay, they’re stupid. It’s one of the reasons you hate everybody, isn’t it? *wink*
It’s true, Thomathy. There’s only one solution.
KILL ALL HUMANS.
Sheesh. Less than 1 in 20 of these zygotes even manage to successfully implant.
I wonder if the poster-maker even realizes this.
jstackpo:
This is not FreeEducationOnDemand.com, ya know. You’re on the internet. Go forth and educate thyself.
The “everyone was a zygote” argument is not compelling for all the reasons given above. As someone who is pro-choice, the only really compelling argument I’ve heard against abortion deals with the current arbitrariness of boundary between being fully human (with all natural rights) and not having these rights. Viability and the development of the nervous system seem to provide scientific “cutoffs” for making this distinction in general; although, viability iseems like an ever moving target and these lines are not helpful for late term abortions when the mother’s life is at stake.
Bender, izzat you?
It’s pretty much a standard figure given by any embryology text: Moore & Persaud, for instance. It’s derived from analysis of genetic aberrations in observed spontaneous abortions; we know that the probability of monosomy in meiosis is equal to trisomies, so we can infer the missing examples as likely to have been spontaneously aborted before detection.
No. It’s clearly a mammal, though, so I can narrow it down that much. #15 is silly…it’s definitely not a fish.
jstackpo @ 17 — knowing how long it takes to wade through the misinformation in the millions of Liars for ProLife sites, I’ll give you a starting point:
http://discovermagazine.com/2004/may/cover
Can we please just settle the late term abortion debate with the following statement: Women have the right to control what is in their uteri. That’s it, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Yup, I’m exactly the same as that thing in the picture. No difference at all.
/snark
I don’t get out much, but that’s what I’m supposed to be losing my citizenship and bodily autonomy rights to? Sheesh. Squid on a nail-encrusted cracker, it could at least look, I dunno, impressive or something, you know?
Someone stole their image from Wikipedia! Look at it upside down.
TX_Secular
Well, then here’s another angle: It’s nobody’s fucking right to access another person’s body without permission.
End of story.
Really, I’m sick and tired of the viability and personhood bullshit: It doesn’t freaking fucking matter.
No person on planet earth is allowed to have even an ounce of my blood if I deny it, much less of my whole body.
That’s where you can draw an easy line: When it’s out of another person’s body, it gets protection. As long as it’s inside, her right trumps everything else.
And then you just trust women to be sensible human beings who only have 8.5 minth abortions of health fetuses if they run out meat for a barbecue.
Here you are.
I use to feel like this too, until it was brought to my attention that even a fully conscious “full” human being does not have the right to the use of anybody’s organs without that person’s explicit consent, which consent can be withdrawn at any time.
We don’t force anyone to provide the use of their kidneys for dialysis to those whose kidneys are failing. Hell, we don’t even force anyone to donate blood. In fact, it is illegal to use a person’s organs without their consent even after their death.
So why is it suddenly so different when talking about pregnancy?
That’s why arguments of viability are red herrings.
That, and the fact that, as mentioned in the other thread, the woman who just wakes up one morning in her third trimester and decides out of the blue and on a whim that she doesn’t want the fetus she’s happily carried for the past 6+ months in her anymore without any other extenuating circumstances, just purely on a whim? This straw woman doesn’t exist.
I’ll go even further and say: But even if she did, I’d still support her right to rid herself of the unwelcome parasite.
(Just a note: if the scenario I just made up out of thin air is indeed the full story, the chances of the fetus surviving “abortion” or termination of pregnancy at this stage (more commonly called “induced labour”) is significant in any case).
Food animals have more of the traits that we see as making people special than blastocysts.
Someone said this on the last thread, but the most common method of terminating a healthy pregnancy after sixish months is called premature birth. Genuine late term abortions are quite rare, and often only happen in extreme circumstances. But even if a woman wanted to abort a healthy fetus at any stage, it’s her right to do so.
THANK YOU.
I don’t understand this at all. The position against the destruction of zygotes is one of the least defensible I’ve ever encountered. Prior to seeing this, I was under the impression that nobody could honestly hold it without a sincere (though obviously inappropriate) belief in souls that transcend physiology.
I think the vast majority of us comprehend that a functional central nervous system is absolutely the bare minimum for an organism that we should consider ascribing any ethical or legal value to.
Just sad.
But seriously, forward their logo guy to the rest of the movement.
They could probably just change the photo and never discuss this debacle again.
Prolife is a perspective, not a science. Whoever vetted the phote was (were) likely not considering the scientific details but was (were) excited to have something else to use as an image other than those baby-looking things we usually see. I can just imagine some giddy science chic with Buddy Holly glasses saying to herself, “This shit rocks!”
That said, pro-lifers generally TRY to defend their positions with science; especially if they’re atheists. So whoever came up with this is probably feeling a little deflated now; that is, if they’re even aware that there’s a science problem.
At any rate, you know the message they’re getting at: Life ending for a person before becoming a whole person. So you probably shouldn’t expect the next “little person” in the advertisement to have a face or appendages, either. Personally, I’m looking for something kind of like a snowman with 2 or 3 balls clumped together in the next advertisement.
We’ll see.
Ooo! Uhh! Yeah! Shake it out baby!
I’m starved for new episodes of Futurama. Can you tell?
I would say that a woman is entitled to have a fetus removed from her body whenever she wishes. I don’t think it follows that she’s entitled to specifically have it come out dead, where there’s a choice and it won’t be substantially more of a burden. (I’m speaking in the general case here; I’m sure you can find severe-birth-defect exceptions and so on).
…and yes, I know that no real woman would insist that; I’m answering a hypothetical with a hypothetical.
Gilliell and AR-as I posted above, I am pro-choice. I only mentioned the argument against abortion as the only remotely plausible point for the other side in the whole debate we have here in the US. As a woman, I would not want anyone forcing me to carry a pregnancy to term so I would never support policies that forced someone else to do so. I thought the argument raised an interesting point about rights, it was not meant to be a policy statement.
A couple years ago I thought of a fun little prank to pull on the anti-choice crowd, but it would probably be very expensive.
It involved setting up a barbeque where we could all sit out and have some burgers and ribs etc. Then after the meal we would bring someone up with photos of a developing fetus at several steps along the way and asking them at which point is this a person, going backwards from a newborn all the way back to just fertilized egg, but for fun swap the human embryo with that of a cow after it reaches the stage where they look almost identical, and seeing how many people will keep calling the cow embryo a person.
This would be even better if you could make it so that the photos were of the specific cow that was used to make the burgers so you could now congratulate the mob on their new found cannibalism.
Stop it. Women have the right to control their bodies. Full stop. No more discussion.
As the mom of monozygotic twins, I’ve often wondered if that “soul” nonsense belief was what was behind what seemed to be an almost visceral reaction from too many people toward twins. It was astonishing and disturbing how often I was asked “which one is the good one?” and “Is he the evil twin?” and these people were not really kidding either. Everything with MZ twins is binary to other people – if one seems cheerful (on a brief acquaintance) then the other “must be” ill-tempered. If one is sweet and honest, the other must be nasty and a liar. Oh and “they” are always out to trick people. :( Even when they are not. Not hard to get that if on some level you believe that one has a soul and the other doesn’t. :(
I fucking hated people from the day my boys entered kindergarten (when I couldn’t protect them well from that shit anymore) until the day one of my boys (then age about 11) told a fundy Xian asshole he was wrong about creationism and human exceptionalism (including “souls’). The crap that my boys took because of other peoples’ problems/squickiness about MZ twins was unbelievable and something I wasn’t prepared for at all. But the day each of them stood up and said “Fuck off, you have a problem, not me” was the day I was finally able to let go of my anger about that. I know now that my boys will be OK – they are both complete, amazing and perfect (human) just as they are – with or without the imaginary and oh so selective “soul”!
And the best part is that that stage is called the Pharyngula! (If my embryology is correct)
P.S> Sorry for the rant above – the soul-twin thing really set me off!
But to the topic – yes, it has seemed to me for awhile that although most objection to abortion is filtered through a religious lens in our culture, I don’t think it would go away if religion was taken out of the equation. I think it goes down to misogyny. Also fear of women – of women’s perceived “power” over reproduction. If women get to “choose”, then that leaves men afraid that they may be left out of the reproductive pool. That can’t be allowed to happen, therefore control women. Or something like that (all unconscious, of course – usually).
@Thomathy #21,
It seems many anti-choicers make the argument that we can’t abort because the fetuses are alive. By that logic, we shouldn’t kill livestock because we know for sure that they are alive. This is when I see that the comparison to “pro-life” and “veganism” as apt. I was actually thinking about this on the last post on abortion where the poster implied those for abortion support it because they don’t believe the fetus to be alive. Because if they are saying we can’t kill the fetus because it’s alive, then that means they’re essentially saying we can’t kill *anything* that is alive. This line of reasoning ignores the fact that the issue of whether the fetus is alive doesn’t matter to most pro-choicers.
Josh, Official SpokesGay, if you say it, it must be so, though you may reconsider due to the existence of people like A. R, who rightfully point out that abortion involves aborting something within a woman’s body and that’s the end of it. I like to term it by stating that something born, by whatever way it is born, cannot be aborted, thereby rendering moot objections to so-called late-term abortions (well, exceptions include a good deal of those pesky humans you want all killed).
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven, that’s a fair point, but they still don’t chalk up to being people equivalents. I have to grant that it’s better the blastocyst than the cow if you’re going to kill something just to kill it, but I’ll point out that cows get slaughtered for food, not aborted because a woman doesn’t want a cow growing within her. It’s a bad comparison no matter how I look at it.
His google must be broken. Send a repairperson, quick.
It’s estimated that 30-50% of fertilized eggs fail to implant. Some of those that do implant will die before birth. So a spontaneous abortion rate of 50% is reasonable.
That makes god the world’s all time champion abortionist.
niftyatheist:
Yes and yes. Granting women bodily autonomy threatens the patriarchy, gets those old pillars to shakin’. Honestly, if it actually had anything at all to do with “the precious baaaybees”, every single one of the dishonest liars would be out ferociously campaigning for comprehensive sex education and contraception access for all. That’s how you help to ensure that the majority of sproglets are wanted*.
*Don’t even get me started on just how fucking important wanted happens to be.
@ niftyatheist,
Every time I think I’ve heard them all, I come across something like your experience and my jaw is just left swinging like a gate in the wind. I swear, I would want to hit these idiots. When my kid was an infant, I was annoyed enough at the people who asked, “Is he a good baby or a bad baby?”. WTF? He’s a baby! How can a baby be BAD? Sure, some babies are easier than others, but what has that to do with good or bad? If somebody asked me if a kid of mine was evil, man, I would blow a gasket!
Also, about 30% of early pregnancies (post-implantation) will spontaneously miscarry. So… 70% surviving early pregnancy, of the 70% (generously speaking) that manage to implant, = 49%.
That was easy.
Caine, Cruel Monster, 58
QFFT. *Clenched tentacle salute*.
Dear pro-lifers: here is a picture of living, human sperm penetrating a living egg. Is the result a precious little baby that must be protected against evil people who might kill it?
Betcha can’t eat just one.
Yeah, Jamie. That makes it poorly thought out (evidenced by following the logic to the conclusion that all killing of alive things should stop) and a red herring.
A request, PZ. Could you comment on Bradley Monton?
I’m asking this group two questions-
1- How come you don’t have a website called: Atheists Against Rape? How come you are doing nothing to combat these unwanted pregnancies besides blaming women.
2- What are you doing to promote sexual education, specifically in young people so that they can avoid an unwanted pregnancy?
Must be nice to go through life with your head up your ass.
Using Science to justify or “prove” religion leads to bad Science and bad religion each by its own standards.
OK.
He’s an idiot.
Immediately preceding the line you quoted:
You used to be intellectually honest. What the hell happened?
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven, you may have missed the memo, but when it comes out alive, it’s not an abortion. And then it follows, if it is alive, that the woman then has significant responsibility either to raise it or to put it up for adoption. And it may be news to you, but adoption is not a hands-off business, but carries life-long implications for the woman, whose very much alive not-aborted child may come looking for her later and be fully entitled to look as well as to find.
It follows then, that Josh wasn’t being intellectually dishonest, you were just being wrong. Josh is right: Stop it. Women have the right to control their bodies. Full stop. No more discussion.
The woman can and should be entitled to have it come out dead -because that’s what an abortion necessarily entails.
Hmm. random thought of the day:
[quote]You might as well be looking at a field of ejaculated human sperm[/quote]
What kind of harvest would you get from that?
So establish a hands-off adoption procedure that can be engaged immediately after birth. I thought that had been done already.
However, that’s hardly necessary to establish the right to control one’s own body, which was the subject of dispute. You’re moving the goalposts.
Azkyroth:
No, that would be you. Also, it would be damn nice to get through a thread without you starting a fucking grudge match with someone.
It would be nice to be able to post without having someone take the worst possible interpretation of my words, actively twist it, and attack me for it. Can’t have everything, I guess.
This picture shows two zygotes, one of five cells and one of ten, before they were placed in my wife’s uterus. One of them now looks like this, the other never implanted. If anyone can tell which of the zygotes in the picture actually became my son, or, rather, reliably predict which of any collection of zygotes will successfully implant and become a child barring further intervention, then they have cleared the hurdle of showing the clump of cells is a protohuman. They haven’t even done that yet, and that’s before thinking about whether a protohuman has the right to be a parasite in an unwilling human for nine months.
Seriously, you’re blaming me for the fact that I defend myself when my words are twisted and people talk down to me? What the hell is wrong with you?
Firstly, let’s look at late term abortion of healthy fetuses from a practical standpoint. Abortions of this type are rare, and abortions of healthy fetuses almost never happen beyond about six months. But if a woman wanted it out, she, of course, has that right. But if a woman wanted a, say seven month old healthy fetus removed, most physicians would be compelled ethically to preform induction of labour, and not an abortion. So, the fact that what we are discussing would almost never happen aside, let’s look at a way to keep everyone happy if ever the situation were to come up. Perhaps a system of uninvolved adoption with some sort of legal barrier preventing the child from finding the biological mother? Sperm banks already do something similar.
I continue to wonder how the whole “life starts at conception” handles:
Monozygotic twins (one fertilized egg spits in two to make two organisms): was there one life that stopped existing to make two lives, one life that created a second life but continued to exist, or . . . ?
Chimeras (two fertilized eggs fuse into organism): did we have two organisms that both went out of existence to make a new organism, two organisms and only one one out of existence, or . . . ?
Fetus in fetu: You either have a Teratoma (type of cancer) that developed into a strangely strangely fetus-like bunch of tissue, or one parasitic twin is growing inside another twin. Two lives, or one? And is it allowable to remove the fetus-like tissue, or is that tissue a separate human with its own rights?
The world wants to know.
It doesn’t.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven, goal-post moving is on you. Failing to understand the implications of adoption is on you. Failing to understand the meanings of ‘abortion’ and ‘bodily autonomy’ are also on you.
Simply, if it comes out alive, then it has been born, not aborted. And whether you acknowledge it or not, if it comes out alive, then the woman has further choices she must make, that she wouldn’t have had to if abortion had occurred. She also has life-long consequences to deal with for the alive not-aborted child, including and not limited to dealing with the stress of that child finding her later, which is something that is facilitated by the government because of the rights of that alive not-aborted child as a human person, which are now equivalent to the rights of the mother that gave birth to it instead of aborting it.
It’s really not that hard to see the significant difference.
@twist http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/04/03/irrational-humans/#comments
Good point. Not sure how I would proceed right now. I was mostly winging it – you know, trying to bring out my own moral views through discourse.
—-
@PZ http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/04/03/irrational-humans/#comments
Ok, so I don’t want to run afoul of the rules. Do you define “anti-woman, anti-choice idjitic trolling” to include questioning or disagreeing with the following absolutist moral assertion?
If so, I’ll lay off. Your place, your rules.
That’s true but irrelevant. The subject of MY comments is the right to control one’s own body.
That’s a different issue than “the right to control one’s own body.” I contend that having the right to remove a fetus at will is sufficient to establish this with regards to abortion.
That’s easily prevented by a better-designed system, and the absence of one arguably meets the “substantial burden” caveat in my original post. But even so, “the right to control one’s own body” doesn’t imply “the right to never have stressful things happen.” Would you extend this argument to, say, restricting the free speech rights of people who state that they feel abortion is wrong? That could be stressful to listen to. If not, why draw the line here?
Louis:
Oh fuck. Being an incubator (which makes me even less of a real person than women who aren’t preggo) means I can’t drink. I mean, I can totes agree with you, but sitting around drinking club soda just isn’t my idea of a good time, you know?
Fuck, I want a whisky.
Donny:
Jesus ass licking Christ, your questions are fucking stupid.
Here, I’ll use small works so your pea brain understands:
Consenting to sex does not mean consenting to pregnancy. Herp a derp!
Many of us do fight against rape. Many of us volunteer at PP, or donate money. Many of us fight.against abstinancee only education.
A. R
There is legal precedent, and there are in fact laws, that stipulate that the adopted child has a right to seek out their biological parents with the cooperation (facilitation) of agencies with information pertaining to their adoption. They have the right to contact their biological parents. It would be unethical, for what I hope are obvious reasons, to keep such poor records as to, or by force of law, prevent them from getting information about their biological parents and acting upon it.
Also, sperm/egg banks /= abortion/adoption.
That’s not a moral assertion, you rancid asspimple. Women are human beings with a right to bodily autonomy.
He explicitly stated he wanted to ask the “Atheists vs. Abortion” that. It wasn’t aimed at Pharyngula. WTF?
I don’t see why there’s an ethical barrier in that case, but not in the case of sperm/egg donation.
I always wonder about these pictures. I assume that the zygote didn’t live to adulthood after they took that picture. Why are they supporting people who kill zygotes by buying their pictures?
But it has the potential to be!
***
There’s no such thing as a “food animal.” There are nonhuman animals, living beings like us, and humans in different cultures eat different species of them.
Argument by assertion. Speciesism. Go read.
Argument by presumed popularity.
***
As long as it’s human. More speciesism.
You know, it would be nice if we could take even a small part of the time that is spend arguing about the hypothetical “elective abortions of healthy, viable third trimester fetuses” and instead focus it on discussing how we can make all the other abortions more accessible.
It’s not like our country has settled all abortion issues except this “elective abortions of healthy, viable third trimester fetuses.” Out there in our country today people are succeeding at getting the right to abortion curtailed even in those non-elective abortions of non-health, non-viable, non-third trimester situations. Yet that doesn’t seem to be the priority, and I don’t understand why.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies, I think, ‘How come you don’t have a website called: Atheists Against Rape?’ is a rip at the skewed priorities of a group that has a website called ‘Atheists Against Abortion’. I also would wonder if such thoughtless atheists find rape a topic as deserving of their interest and women a class as deserving of their advocacy against bad things. I suspect not, but then bat-shit Christians are often my only reference for anti-choice rhetoric.
Thomathy: Yes, in fact there are. But we have to realize that while talking about aborting 8.5 month old fetuses is fine here, the general public would never accept anything like that. So an alternative must be found, otherwise late term abortion will probably never be legalized. I’m looking at the from a public policy standpoint, even though I would generally agree with you otherwise.
@Thomathy, Holy Trinity of Conflation: Atheist-Secularist-Darwinist
Now this is just beyond the pale. If I understand your argument correctly, please correct me if not, you are saying that a woman has the moral right to kill her born baby in the case that it’s an unwanted burden to raise it? Really? I don’t even…
It’s not a subject of disagreement here, or of rational dispute so 1) pro-choice groups get derailed with internal arguments and 2) anti-choicers redirect the conversation to limiting cases where their positions are less obviously idiotic.
So an alternative must be found, otherwise late term abortion will probably never be legalized.
The compromise is called Roe V. Wade. It’s been attacked ever since by absolutists on the anti-woman side.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven,
I took “this group” to mean us— donny wasn’t terribly specific.
If I was wrong, my bad. I’m at work and reading fast on my phone. *shrugs*
Looking For An Applicable Political Name: I don’t think anyone here is advocating that particular position.
No, idiot, he’s saying that a woman should be permitted to have a fetus not just removed from her body, but killed prior to (or in the course of) removal, when it could just as easily (from an immediate perspective) be removed without killing it, because that prevents making decisions about raising it or having to deal with the ramifications of adoption.
Whereas I’m arguing, correctly, that this position does not follow from “the right to control one’s own body,” whereas the right to the removal itself does.
The fetus shouldn’t have to come out dead in order to have an abortion. It just has to still be connected to the mother via the umbilical chord. That way the fetus can still be technically regarded as a parasite since it’s still physically attached to the mother. The fact that its entire body is completely outside the mother is irrelevant. And because it’s still part of the mother’s body, she can choose to end its life in however manner she wants. That way, dangerous late term abortions being performed while all or part of the fetus is inside the mother can be avoided.
But once the umbilical chord is cut, or the mother expels the placenta, then the two life forms become completely separate, and thus the parasite classification can no longer be justified.
Eris:
Because people would rather be asshats and argue non-relevant issues, like how adoption really, truly is a solution to an unwanted pregnancy. For realz!
caseyo @88: Look at my links @75, one shows a pair of zygotes, the other the human one of those zygotes became. It’s easy to photograph zygotes and have them become people with IVF.
Removal of the fetus from the body is a solution to unwanted pregnancy, insofar as it causes the pregnancy to cease.
I’m not asking why we aren’t fighting over first trimester abortions, I’m asking why we spend so much more time and space fighting over these hypothetical abortions than we spend actually doing something (or trying to plan doing something) about ensuring access for abortion that isn’t this hypothetical edge. Because this post could be about organizing ourselves to fight abortion restrictions that we all oppose. But it’s not.
Citation needed.
That wouldn’t keep the woman in your scenario, who you’ve said wants to abort, happy.
er, I meant 103 @Azkyroth.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, #83,
Ahhh but my beloved Audley, if I may be so familiar, you have forgotten that we live in The Land Of Make Believe, where god is real and women aren’t people. See also: black people, the “special” and Teh Gheyz (with their Agenda {shakes fist}).
In The Land Of Make Believe I can use my special Safety Foetus Teleporter to put your BAYBEEE* in a special Fundy-Friendly Stasis Field outsideof your body (your slutty, slutty body, you contraceptive gobbling whore). Then we can go and drink to our hearts’ content. And take crack, AND punch the Holy Ghost.
This is, after all what science is for, because this makes The Baby Jesus Cry.
True story.
Louis
* In the ranking of importance BAYBEEZ are in at number 3. It runs: 1) MAN FEE-FEES (Important), 2) Baby Jesus, 3) BAYBEEEZ. Notice that women are NOT ON THE LIST DAMMIT. Sammich?
@Eris
Because I want to be careful of the issues I support, one “to do less harm / do goo”, and two “not look like an asshat”.
I cannot in good conscience support the hypothetical right to allow a mother to kill the fetus before removal when it’s perfectly viable and birth is no more tedious/dangerous/etc., contrary to the completely deplorable position of at least one poster in this thread. I see this hypothetical as as evil just as evil as the evil perpetuated by the pro-choice side in denying condom use, the day after pill, and so on.
Also, I do try to help increase access to abortion, and I fight against abstinence-only sex education.
SC (Salty Current), OM, for the love of fuck could you please explain to me the substantial difference between ‘food animals’ and ‘There are nonhuman animals […] and humans in different cultures eat different species of them.’
Food animals = animals that are used as food = nonhuman animals and humans in different cultures eat different species of them.
I get that you’re against meat-eating. I understand that you view statements like mine as speciesist. I don’t understand, however, how you could fail to parse what was meant by ‘food animals’. Are you really arguing that if some species are considered food and because humans are also a species, and that is the only difference between humans and other animals, that humans should also be considered food by meat-eating humans? If that’s the case, I’m a meat-eating human who doesn’t consider other humans as food and who doesn’t find it necessary to reconcile that fact with a contradictory reality (because there isn’t a problem with considering some animals as food and not humans).
Umm …if not, I’ll just shut up and take your punishment.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name, no. You are wrong. Read it again for comprehension. Try not to be stupid.
Eris:
That has been discussed, many, many times over the years here. I don’t know where you live, but where I am (ND), it’s too late. Draconian laws (especially in SD) have been in place for a number of years and clinics have been shut down, one by one. There is an informal collective here which helps raise funds for women, get contraception to them when needed, provides transportation help and offers places to stay.
Supporting PP and other legit clinics should be a given. So should fighting for comprehensive sex-ed and contraception access and coverage.
SC: I believe dianne mentioned something about that earlier.
Maybe their image is intended to be some kind of emotional appeal, but it’s failing to convince me.
I look at that ball of cells, and I see a ball of cells. It reminds me of studying fertilization of sea urchin eggs in developmental bio. It doesn’t look the least bit like a human being.
(Not that what it looks like actually matters, of course. I’m just not sure how they expect this to work.)
Now that’s just bullshit, insofar as we’re arguing an almost certainly hypothetical limiting case and attempts to restrict birth control cause a great deal of harm and anxiety to numerous real people.
Azkyroth, Former Growing Toaster Oven, your bald assertion is delicious! YUMMY!
SO YUMMY!
@Looking For An Applicable Political Name
So it’s more important to you to sit around and fight about a hypothetical woman (that is so hypothetical that I’m guessing you can’t find any examples) that every single discussion we have about abortion must turn into a discussion about this hypothetical abortion rather than deal with actual abortions.
I suppose I should have guessed. Who cares if women are actually dying due to not legally being allowed to have life saving abortions? The hypothetical abortion deserves not just as much attention, but MORE.
I’m sorry, but that frustrates me.
OK, so we all have different standpoints on late-term abortion of healthy fetuses. I think we all get that. Now let’s look for viable, actionable solutions that we could argue for as a group.
Sure. The defining of some animals as “food animals” or “companion animals” is defining them in terms of some humans’ use of them. It’s similar to defining people as “slave peoples” or “cheap labor pools” with the same effect. It’s a manner of erasing them as beings deserving of full moral consideration by a verbal sleight of hand, and thus avoiding tough questions about our treatment of them.
You’re welcome.
Louis,
Being a slutty slut might be my problem, but using contraception certainly wasn’t. :p
Did you offer me a sammich? Chicken salad, please, with plenty of pickles.
@Caine, Cruel Monster
I’m actually in ND. Is there anywhere that I could go to get information on helping out with that?
@Thomathy, Holy Trinity of Conflation: Atheist-Secularist-Darwinist
Apparently my stupid is unavoidable today. Again, after rereading post 51 and 70, I understand the argument as:
Women can do whatever they want to their body (including a fetus). Even in the case when birth would be as easy as, or easier, safer, cheaper, etc., than an abortion, including at 9 months, the woman has the right to control her body (and the fetus) absolutely and can choose to have the fetus ended before birth. While the primary justification is the woman’s absolute right to control her body, and that justification is more than sufficient on its own, we can offer additional justification because the would-be mother may not want the burden of having a kid.
Again, is that about right?
I see we have “Hey I’m just throwing ideas out guy” back. Hello LFAAPN.
Just for everyone’s delectation, here’s the other recent abortion thread from just a couple of days ago.
I asked you some questions, LFAAPN. About your, you know, “just thrown out there ideas”, I did a sum and everything. Be nice if you could pull your head out of your arse for a second and actually put some effort beyond, well, pulling other things out of your arse and give it a bash. As opposed to sitting there with your dick in your hand and pontificating that those crazy ladies can’t make decisions about their own bodies after some magical amount of pregnancy.
It’s like I said on TET: Conservatives: people who think their wallet should be free and your vagina should forever be in chains.
I see the fuckwittery growing strong already on this thread.
Louis
WTF.
This sounds suspiciously similar to the reasoning used in Dawkin’s Muslima letter. Specifically, someone suggested something evil, several people called him on it, and now you complain that we can’t talk about that minor (hypothetical) evil because there’s bigger evil afoot. So yes, exactly the Muslima letter.
SC: Can we please avoid that particular derail. It didn’t turn out well on TET for anyone a few months ago.
LFAAPN: OFFS, what RW experienced was not a “hypothetical evil.”
Eris:
Cool! Which part are you in? I’m about 60 miles out of Bismarck. If you have a local clinic anywhere near you, hook up with them. I met people when I was in Pine Ridge, trying like hell to keep a clinic open there.
Dr Audley Z Darkheart, #118,
Louis,
Being a slutty slut might be my problem, but using contraception certainly wasn’t. :p
Did you offer me a sammich? Chicken salad, please, with plenty of pickles.
I see.
You make good points. My argument has been totally refuted and I concede utterly. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter also.
What sort of bread do you like with your sammich? I have some lovely sourdough, fresh out of the oven. And does madam require a beverage of any description with her sammich? Perhaps a side of chips? Does madam wish for her sammich to be toasted….
….Hey something’s not right here….I’m going to think about it verrrrrrrry carefully.
Louis
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate.
Louis:
Yes, in more than one way.
@Louis
I’m sorry. It was a stupid evil idea. A very stupid evil idea. I should have thought more about a possible implementation before posting. I should have been more careful with my wording.
more laws more restrictions because
voter fraud!errterrorists!I mean, late-term abortions of healthy fetuses! sheesh.—
Folks who want to help and aren’t necessarily in ND: start with National Abortion Access’s bowl-a-thons, coming up around the end of April. There will be fundraising events in multiple US cities, plus online team fundraising.
http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/
Full reproductive rights, including abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy (like in Canada).
Wait….Rebecca Watson has come up in a thread about abortion? From a poster who previously was pulling asinine Nazi analogies from his peepee hole?
This. I. Erm.
{BANG}
[Robot voice]
Your Louis 3000 Reinforced Snarkinator has broken due to encountering simply too much stupid in one go. Please point it at a picture of Carl Sagan to reset it to it’s original factory settings. It may be a little over sarcastic after a reboot, don’t worry this is normal and your Louis 3000 will adjust to ambient levels after a small period of internal calibration.
[/Robot voice]
Louis
Also, Eris, this is a good place to start: http://www.fundabortionnow.org/funds/north-dakota-women-need-fund
Actually, anyone who has a spare 5 bucks? Please think about helping out. We’re in the dark ages here.
SC: If only we could get that to work here…
To make the analogy, I had to hazard quotes “hypothetical” in some way, lest someone jump down my throat with a porcupine to say “late term abortions like that don’t happen!”, as is prevalent in the thread. It was another attempt at an olive branch, to show I’m not unreasonable. My intent was in no way to demean or diminish her experiences. If that was my intent, “purported” would have been a better word, instead of “hypothetical” which refers to the lack of abortions that meet these strict criteria. No good deed here goes unpunished.
PS: I can see this one coming. “Intent isn’t magic!”. It’s also impossible to engage in civil, meaningful conversation if no matter what you say is interpreted in the most negative light possible.
Also, Eris, this is a good place to start: [redacted] godsdamned fucking link filter. PZ, what the hell is wrong with it?
Trying again: http://tinyurl.com/8xbqr6c
Actually, anyone who has a spare 5 bucks? Please think about helping out. We’re in the dark ages here.
@Looking For An Applicable Political Name
*inhale* *exhale* *inhale* *exhale*
You know what? Fuck you. All I’m asking is that we sometimes get to talk about the actual, real issues that are facing women in regards to abortion rather than always talking about hypothetical issues that people can’t even provide examples of. It’s not that anyone talks about it at any time, it’s that this discussion always seems to swallow ALL the space and energy in the room whenever abortion is brought up. If it offends you that I, as a woman, want to be able to OCCASIONALLY deal with the real threats that women face (both in this country and abroad), then you’re a lost cause, and I can’t see what else there is to say to you.
@Caine, Cruel Monster
I think I’m about an hour away from the only abortion clinic in the state that I know of. It’s too far away to do escorting or that kind of thing, but if someone in my town needed a ride to the clinic to get an abortion, I might be able to make that happen. Do you think the clinic would have info on that kind of thing?
Oh for fuck’s sake. LFAAPN, #130,
Look if you’re going to be decent and reasonable about stuff then I simply cannot take the piss out of you.* And no one wants that.
Good work on the apology. Impressive. This does not occur often enough in life and on the web. You gain at least 1 cool point for that. No mean achievement. Don’t lose that by failing to consider the potential booby trap of privilege blindness over the elevatorgate thing. And since it is a MASSIVE derail, never EVER mention it again. Go away and think about it very carefully. Or alternatively, google on this blog for the threads where every possible view (and a few impossible ones) were hashed out at length.
I shall watch your progress with interest. Don’t fuck up again or I may have to make rude jokes. ;-)
Louis
* British euphemism for “mock”. In case you don’t already know.
Hmmm, apparently Canada has some access problems in the more remote provinces. Also, chemically induced abortion is less common than it is here. Also:
If only it worked like that here.
I’m still trying to grasp the problem with “Feminism: The radical idea that women are people.”
This concept seems to escape a whoooooooole lot of people.
Louis
@Louis
I’ve looked at it, and it’s indeed a shitstorm. I didn’t quite realize the purportedly large potential for derail. Sorry, hot button issue. I’ll avoid it in the future.
Look, I’m not the one who brought it up. After someone did, several people chimed in about how “personhood” arguments are irrelevant and uninteresting and some others said some stupid things.
I’m not particularly interested in having the conversation here, or, like Josh, particularly confident that it could be fruitful. But I will talk about whatever I want, and I don’t appreciate people attempting to silence others on subjects that make them uncomfortable. I don’t like you, and don’t care if you’d rather I avoided certain issues. In fact, I’d prefer that you killfile me. I hope we understand each other.
Eris:
You’re by Red River. Yes, they will. I managed to get a link posted, check that out, you’ll find most of the info you’re looking for.
@SC (Salty Current), OM
But Conservative fundie wackjob politicians are nibbling away at it.
SC: Oh, I understand. But I won’t killfile you, as you’ve not done anything that I feel deserves that. I will however avoid discussing the topic with you again.
@Caine, Cruel Monster
Ohh, thanks, I’ll see about shooting them an email.
Louis:
You aren’t kiddin’. I am so sick to death of all the asspimples who still think that women are walking about with tiny, atrophied, fuzzy pink brains, fully dominated by hormonal surges and who the fuck knows when their hysteria machines are going to go off, I mean they walk around with those things embedded in ’em!
(By the way, I didn’t mean to imply that the state of reproductive rights in Canada is perfect; the parenthetical remark referred to the legality of abortion on demand.)
But if a woman wanted a, say seven month old healthy fetus removed, most physicians would be compelled ethically to preform induction of labour, and not an abortion.
Actually, I can think of at least two circumstances in which abortion would be the more ethical alternative, possibly three, without trying too hard.
Scenario 1: The fetus is healthy but the mother is sick. Labor and delivery are stressful. So is c-section. A D and E or D and X is less so and may be the only way to save a very ill woman.
A variant on this scenario is obstructed labor in a place where a c-section is impossible or will kill the woman. A sort of D & E procedure is used to save women in obstructed labor in places like Somalia.
Scenario 2: The fetus is “healthy”–as long as it’s a fetus–but will die at or shortly after birth. This may be stretching the point-maybe the original poster will say, “Duh! That’s not a healthy fetus!” but some “pro-lifers” claim that you ought to force the woman to go through the stress of labor when it’s all hopeless. Actually, they’ll usually claim that you should demand she continue the pregnancy until spontaneous labor, going through the mental torture of being congratulated by strangers and so on, until the baby is born and dies, knowing nothing but pain in its short life.
Scenario 3: A woman is kidnapped and raped. She becomes pregnant through the rape. Her rapist imprisons her for 7 months and then she escapes. She is extremely distraught and suffering mentally from the idea of the rapists’ baby being born. An abortion would be the more ethical resolution to this pregnancy, even though the fetus may be healthy and the mother technically well enough to stand labor.
If a woman presented with the complaint that she wanted an abortion at 7 months, stated that nothing much had changed, the fetus was healthy, she was healthy, she just woke up one morning and decided she wanted an abortion, my first thought would be that she was a pro-life plant. I won’t say that no one has ever done such a thing-people are strange-but I don’t think it can be a very common behavior.
dianne: Yep, I agree with all three of your scenarios without hesitation.
Grr.
***
I’m going to be posting about it on my blog, but this is a good place, I think, to mention the terrible contraceptive situation in Honduras. This is what the coup that the Obama administration has supported has brought, and one of the reasons the Catholic Church and evangelicals were behind it to begin with.
I’m sorry – this has been bothering me for a while, due to the “rape apologist” comment brought up else-thread. It’s not even a hypothetical. I wonder if there’s even any case law on it.
Do we think that porn is morally ok? Do you think that being a paid porn “actor” is ok? That is an exchange of money to have sex with someone, isn’t it? Hell, this is definitely enforceable as contract law. Do you think that the existing contracts in this field are phrased to only offer payment after completion of services, to avoid potential problems that might arise from payment before services rendered and the actor decides to not follow through? What if someone was silly and made a forward payment to the porn actor, and the porn actor walks? Surely this can carry compensatory damages (the initial payment), and additional punitive monetary damages? I would think so…
Look, I’m not being a rape apologist at all. I’m trying to get a consistent coherent moral view.
I admit contract law is usually AFAIK only enforced when money or property changes hands, and usually organs ala organ transplants are not usually considered “property”. Hell, still I suspect that if someone ever agreed to an organ transplant, but later changed their mind causing the death of the recipient, in a court of law this would be cause for at least civil damages in the current climate and legal theory. I suppose it’s (almost?) never happened because the person is either dead, or the family is friends with the potential organ donor, or other circumstances that prevent bringing suit. Damn, now I need to do some research to see if a suit like this has ever been brought.
LFAAPN: This is a sex positive blog. As long as said pornography is not misogynistic, penis-worshiping drivel, most Pharyngulites are OK with it in my experience.
Eris
+ 1,000,000. Exactly. Well said.
LookingForACluestick, do you really believe that the hypothetical and (even in the hypothetical itself!) extremely rare, so rare as to be all but unknown, “problem” of women deciding to abort late in the pregnancy at a complete whim is important or realistic enough to derail a discussion about lack of those very same services that would make your hypothetical less likely?
Seriously.
I get the feeling you’re a conditional ally, as in “I’ll protect your right to be human BUT….”
I don’t like that.
The only one who should be able to decide if AND when an abortion should be done is the woman whose body is on the line. Literally.
There are NO exceptions. We don’t make exceptions on bodily autonomy for anyone else even after death(see my comment @40 and Gilliel’s much better statement of the same principal at 38), why should exceptions be made for pregnant women?
Until you can answer that question or at least attempt to do so honestly, I see no use in further discussing the issue with you.
LFAAPN (the FAAP is appropriate), I find it interesting (read: disgusting) that you keep attempting to frame your semi-random moral questions in terms of contract law, particularly where women-bodies are at stake.
LFAAPN, stop fucking derailing. This is not a conversation about porn, nor about contract law, nor about your shitty fucking misogynistic hypotheticals. As I requested on the last thread you derailed with your preference for made-up shit, at least pretend to have some fucking respect for the fact that you’re talking about real people’s lives here.
Take your “we” and shove it up your ass. You aren’t part of the Horde™. If you want to know what people here think about things, shut the fuck up and read. Read every fucking post and following comments here at FtB Pharyngula, then go to Sciblogs Pharyngula and do the same.
That said, stop derailing the thread with your crap. Either comment on topic or shut up.
You are wrong, at least where I live, and you’d loose that bet quite badly.
Even if I committed attempted vehicular homicide on you by running over you intentionally with my car and you loose both your kidneys because of that, and we are a perfect tissue match, I cannot lawfully be forced to donate even one kidney to you to keep you alive.
Look into contract law and pay specific attention to the parts that mention the conditions under which a contract CAN NOT be established or claim for performance according to the contract CAN NOT be claimed.
Bodily autonomy cannot be contracted away. Even with prostitution and pornography, consent can be withdrawn at any stage and must then be respected as such.
Knowing this, please answer the question I asked.
Hell, to further my hypothetical in 159, it holds true that I cannot be legally forced to donate a kidney to you, even if I have 3 perfectly healthy ones (hey, it happens), even if you are my child, a minor and my legal responsibility.
Looking: get the fuck out of here. You’re loathed and you’re shitting on a community you do not belong to. Shut. Up. And. Leave.
Gen Fury:
Please, don’t dignify FAAP’s posts with a response. It’s just attempting to derail the thread while spewing its misogyny all over the place.
I was under the impression that it was not particularly legal for a medical establishment to carry out a transplant if there is even a whiff of coercion in the air. “We’ll sue if you back out” eems pretty coercive.
I apologise for my part in the latest derail, when LFAAPN started going on about verbal contracts and one person having the right to use another’s body because at some point the first person had said they could, rape apology just popped into my head. I’m going to leave this thread alone now.
Thousandthed.
Again.
@LFAAPN
For all your fussing about the contract law: who on earth do you imagine the pregnant woman to be in contract with?
It’s not like an unembodied “soul” has requested her to be a vessel to its incarnation and they’ve made a formal agreement about it.
You know, until I came here I honestly never saw it. I never saw how casually women’s opinions and thoughts are dismissed all the fucking time. But every time there’s a thread like this we get a version of LFAAPN, some fucking young turk with half a philosophy degree, or half a poli sci degree, or half a law degree under his belt waltzing in an insisting that women have clearly never thought about the implications before. These threads are irresistable to them, though they cannot stand to have the conversation on any term but their own: C’mon, let’s talk predicate logic here. Let’s talk law. Let’s talk contracts. Let’s talk porn. Let’s talk hypotheticals. Let’s talk about anything but the conversation that the women are having, the way the women are having it.
And the implication is crystal clear, even if they aren’t conscious of it: I’m going to teach you women how to think, and maybe next time you won’t so casually extinguish a potential philosophy student after fucking a man who isn’t me.
twist:
Yeah, me too. I’m pretty sure my blood pressure isn’t looking too good right now.
P.S. To every woman, to every GLBT person, to every person belonging to a minority to whom I pulled the exact same derailing bullshit when I was young and too stupid to know I wasn’t half as smart as I thought I was, I’m really sorry.
LFAAPN: We have a special thread for people like you.
@Gen Fury 159
First, I’ll agree that your example is comparable. Your question deals with what is an allowed fine, or what is allowed for compensatory or punitive damages. A contract was not made between you and the person you hit in your car. A person who offers his kidney, and they come to an agreement and a time, has much more of a basis for contract than you who did not even converse with the person you hit in your car.
I assume this is your question:
I have a narrowly tailored objection, that I do not find it obviously morally acceptable to allow a woman to know she’s pregnant with a fetus without a mind, to not get an abortion, wait to a state where the fetus gets a mind, and then get an abortion on a whim. If there’s health concerns for the mother or the baby, of course I’m on board with abortion. In cases of rape… maybe/probably too.
That is my distinction. I understand my complaint is very rare if it happens at all, but nonetheless many people are still claiming this right as sacrosanct and disagreeing with this hypothetical.
I didn’t frame this in terms of contract law. That came up from another sub-thread. Still, now that it’s up, it’s a useful metaphor IMHO.
Great fucking work, LFAAPN.
Fucking self-centred piece of shit much?
“First, I’ll agree that your example is comparable.”
Shit. “disagree”, I meant.
Brownian, hear, hear to all you said. It’s been disgustingly eye-opening to me, too. You’re quality people, B.
@Brownian
What? twist apologized for a derail he/she partly(?) caused, and has decided to be gracious and leave before ire is drawn on him/her, and somehow this is my fault? What?
Argh, LAAFPN –> killfile
We heard you the first five fucking times. NOTED. NOW GO THE FUCK AWAY.
I’m waiting on PZ to confirm that questioning this absolutist sacrosanct holy cow of “the mother can do whatever she wants to the fetus on a whim with absolutely no consideration whatsoever except her desires” is misogynistic. If a yes, I’ll drop it on this blog and never mention it again. I disagree that it is misogynistic, and meh.
HATE.
Someone obviously didn’t, as they asked me a direct question, and then asked again for me to answer it.
You stupid PIG. LEAVE. PZ’s not gonna answer you you dumb fuck. You’d be lucky if he doesn’t ban your ass soon.
What part of “Go the fuck away” did you misunderstand?
Nobody fucking wants you here, slimeball. You’re a derailing, obtuse asshole who demonstrably doesn’t give two shits about women’s lives. As has been pointed out to you repeatedly, you seem completely fucking unable to understand how fucking shitty it is to babble about your grave moral concerns about fictional fucking scenarios when people are talking about their right to their own fucking bodies.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name: You do not get to demand that I concur with your asinine cartoonish claim of an “absolutist sacrosanct holy cow”. You could, possibly, listen to the many people who have tried to explain it in terms that aren’t pre-loaded by you, but obviously you aren’t interested in an honest discussion of the issue.
So never mind your leading paraphrase. I will say, though, that you are coming across as a misogynistic dipshit yourself. Also as a dishonest asshole. You might want to fuck off before you paint yourself even more repulsively.
Okay, I’m out. I’m going to bathe in the warm glow of Greta Christina’s anger and let it ease my aching head. Before I go, I’m going to shout out, one more time, for the Red River Clinic (http://tinyurl.com/8xbqr6c), the only clinic still standing in all of ND. If you spare money for PP, please spare a buck or three for RR and the ND collective. I’ll beg and gladly so.
I retract my previously offered cool point. LFAAPN, you fucked up. One of the classic ways misogynists marginalise women is by distracting from the very real problems they face with irrelevant drivel. Whether or not you intend to do this, you are doing it. The reaction you are getting should be a clue. Stop now.
Louis
Azkyroth, if you repeatedly experience various people “twisting your words”… the problem isn’t with their interpretation. Stop whining and learn how to communicate clearly.
Yeah, it’s everyone else’s fault that you’re repeatedly pegged as an asshole.
LFAAPN:
And if you were to provide proof that this actually happens IRL, not just in your perfervid misogynist imagination chock-full of stupid baby-killing sluts, we’d give a shit.
Your slip is showing.
Oh, and fuck you again for dragging Elevatorgate into this, with your implied dismissal of Rebecca Watson’s experience.
NOBODY who wants women to submit to monthly pregnancy tests by the state is “reasonable,” you mendacious malignant sarcoma.
Not just a tone troll, but a tone troll who wants his panty-sniffing policy ideas interpreted in a “positive” light.
If this were a just world, a family of botflies would drill new homes in your forehead and you’d be forbidden to have them removed because they’re alive.
THIS.
Actually, I have something to add to my previous statement.
Normally I try to let this hypothetical third trimester healthy fetus thing go. In fact, in the last thread that PZ made, this “hypothetical” situation dominated the discussion, and I let it go on without saying anything. I was saddened that hypothetical situations involving fetuses generated more emotion than all the other abortion related topics we could have discussed (including the real death of real women), but I let it go.
However, here we have a thread specifically dealing with people are currently arguing that unimplated zygotes are equal to born human beings. That picture up there isn’t about a hypothetical, healthy fetus in the third trimester. It’s about the very real position by many people that fertilized eggs are equal to born people; even worse, these people have real power, not only making access to early abortion more difficult, but also decreasing access to BIRTHCONTROL. And yet it isn’t enough that this hypothetical third trimester fetus dominated that other thread because apparently it needs to dominate this one as well.
And I don’t know how to deal with that. I don’t know how to deal with the fact that the wellbeing of a hypothetical third trimester fetus occupies more space in people’s heads than the welfare of women does. I’ve never even seen one real life example of this hypothetical third trimester fetus, but I’ve seen all kinds of examples of women truly dying in real life because of a lack of access to abortion, or of women who would have died if the pro-life community had their way. I don’t know how to deal with the fact that I’m in real danger, but I warrant less attention than imaginary fetus.
My body doesn’t really belong to me. It belongs to my fetus.
You know, I got this the first time. You really don’t need to keep fucking repeating yourself.
Instead of listening to THE MANY WOMEN ON THIS THREAD and the previous who have already stated, and explained, that it is. Why should PZ be the arbiter of misogyny? …Oh, right, penis. (And beard, to be fair.)
Oh and lest it is not clear, I endorse the views of the horde that you should make with the off fucking about now. Your apparent misogyny is stinking the place up.
Louis
Clenched-tentacle salutes to Josh and Brownian.
CC, I strongly suspect FAAP’N has been typing one-handedly the whole time.
And, Pteryxx, I wondered if it were just me picking up that FAAP’N much more readily responds to commenters with masculine or neutral-sounding names than he does to commenters with feminine names (or who state in their comments that they’re female).
You know what? I just had a thought. If the fucking anti-woman asspimples would allow free and unrestricted access to contraception to every fucking one, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Pteryxx,
Well the beard always does it for me.
Louis
OK, gang, stop addressing him now, because he has announced a few times that he’s going to leave…and now he really is. For sure. Because I and my powerful penis have answered.
And also because I’m giving him warning: if Looking For An Applicable Political Name makes another comment on this thread, the banhammer will fly.
All Hail the Powerful Penis!
Oh my, that brings up blush-y memories. . .
LFAAPN
OFFS, FUCK OFF. FUCK OFF ALREADY.
How thick are you? You can’t fucking think worth shit. You don’t care worth shit. Stop this. I am so fucking done with this thread now because of you. You see what you’ve done? You are shitting on our rug in our house and everyone is fleeing from it. WTF is wrong with you? It’s all about you instead of real women dealing with real problems. You are not a goddamn ally, you are part of the problem.
Lurk moar. Think moar. Stop commenting.
I fucking hate you so much right now.
*ROAR*
I’m going to retreat into a fucking book. Nobody needs this shit.
A.R:
Uh huh, ’cause everyone knows that contraception never, ever fails. :eyeroll:
Powerful penis? Not what the graffiti in the ladies toilet says.
What do you mean how do I know that? Who do you think put those webca…
…I’ve said too much.
Louis
Hail PZ’s peepee!
FYI, it IS possible to type with one. …Just thought y’all might want to know that. >_>
PZ:
It’s magic – this made my head stop hurting. Thanks, O Mighty One.
Oh shit, I am so so sorry. I didn’t refresh from yesterday when I opened it. I didn’t see PZ’s comment until after I submitted. Thank you PZ, and my apologies for being late. =(
NOTHING CAN DEFEAT THE PENIS!
…Too loud. Very unseemly.[/Xander]
Also, sometimes women who mean to get pregnant need to get abortions.
Maybe she lost her healthcare. Maybe she lost her job. Maybe the fetus has a defect of some type. Maybe her health took a turn for the worse (either because of the fetus or not). Maybe she and her partner broke up, or maybe her partner died.
Even contraception that never failed would not negate the need for abortion.
Just a Lurker- You haz happy mail.
Also, I have a new drag name.
Interesting nickname for your peen, PZ.
Josh, OSG, Abortia N’ondemande, mmmmm, love the dominatrix-y vibe. Delicious.
Caine: Oh, I know that, but the point that I was trying to make was that contraceptives reduce abortion rates.
So is that pronounced like N’ondemandé?
A.R:
No, that is not the point you were trying to make or you would have said that. You don’t think things through and almost every one of your fucking “points” is made long after other people have made that actual point and done it correctly.
Also, I have pad thai in my sinuses.
My apologies for addressing a direct question to the asspimple – I do tend to err on the generous side of people’s motivations. Yes, I am naive.
What it all boils down to, from the restriction of birth control to the ever-present existential wangst that is the “healthy fetus and mom third trimester abotion-on-a-whim” is the inability to trust women to make the best decisions, not only about their bodies, but about the moral issues surrounding their bodies.
This “morality” may not give the same answer for every woman every time and that scares the FUCK out of people, from what I can see.
It seems so very simple: every woman should have the absolute and unchallenged and unrestricted and yes, even free right to exercise whatever option or options she’s willing and slash or able to live with for the rest of her life.
The line differs from woman to woman, but once again, the only one who should be making the decisions regarding both if and when an abortion should be done is the person whose body is on the line.
I really don’t see how this is such a huuuuuuge fucking deal. Really, I just don’t.
Eris,
Absolutely. Why just last year, I needed an abortion. The Horde are familiar with the story and the reasons, but quite frankly the reasons shouldn’t matter. I didn’t want a baby, and yet I was pregnant, so I sought an abortion. This is fully legalized and theoretically unrestricted in my country up to 12 weeks, so we’re ahead of the curve in that regard, at least – kids don’t even need parental consent to have it done, theoretically it MUST be available and if it isn’t at the site of the clinic you went to, you’re to be referred to another doctor/clinic where it will be available), with some added restrictions (GRRRR) from 12+ weeks, restrictions increasing as the time pregnant increases.
I wasn’t even in week 6 of the pregnancy yet. I hadn’t even missed a period yet when I peed on a stick and it came out positive. And the (intern) doctor at the ob/gyn public clinic STILL talked about having to ultrasound so that they can accurately “date” the pregnancy (this is a pre-requirement in most places to make sure you’re under 12 weeks, but not mandated by law) and she said that once I’ve seen the beating heart, I’d know I was killing another human being, one that has no one other than me to depend on.
She tried to feed me bullshit about how “the baby” was going to suffer, how having an abortion is something like 300 times more dangerous than giving birth, how I would develop sepsis and die and then rot in hell forever.
THE DOCTOR SAID THIS. When I tried to counter her “arguments”, she became REALLY abrasive and insulting, even using the word “murder”. I insisted on seeing her superior, not that it helped.
The head of the unit was pregnant herself and said that coz she’s pregnant, she can’t intervene coz she’s not comfortable with abortions. Because she’s pregnant. Since THAT makes sense.
The nearest other clinic is too far away for me to afford at that time. I was seriously considering doing myself with a hanger or ODing on aspirin or something.
(Luckily I managed to pick up a piece-meal job that netted just enough to pay for a private abortion and a trip to the clinic in the other town to do it, so all’s excellent that ends well, I guess).
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS when you don’t have free, unobstructed access to abortions. WOMEN DIE.
I think that certainty (and we have the historic proof of this) weighs MUCH more heavily (or should, at least) than a few hypothetical so rare that it literally almost never happens viable third trimester aborted-on-a-whim fetuses.
Me:
Also, I like the Ndnd quality.
Gen Fury, would it be possible and/or helpful to report the first doctor to whatever medical board oversees her licensure?
consciousness razor: Sure. It should be pronounced in the most affected and pretentious way possible!
Hahahah Caine! You can rule my Omicron Persei 8 anytime.
Caine: Um, what, exactly about my original (admittedly rather unclear) statement suggested anything than “contraception reduces the need for abortion.” Perhaps I should strive to be more clear in my comments. Regarding repeating others remarks, my statement was intended for our wonderful (and hopefully departed) misogynist.
Jesus Fucking Christ, Gen. Fury. Outrageous. Outrageous.
Gen Fury:
Oh ffs. I am so sorry, Gen. No one needs that shit. Back when I had an abortion, in the ’70s, no one cared, no one thought it was their right to poke their nose into my business and medical decisions. I would love to see that again, because the whole thing is very simple: it’s none of my business. Or yours or theirs. What a woman decides to do is her business, full stop.
Have you thought about putting your story up on http://www.imnotsorry.net/ ?
Ah, Gen Fury, it breaks my heart that you had such trouble.
It’s so unspeakably terrible that we’ve gotten to this point, and yet we must speak, because there are people out there trying to make it worse.
This cannot be borne.
Josh:
Oooh. Prrrrr.
Gen: Oh, it’s so nice to know that fucking doctors are doing this shit now too. I hope xe looses hir license to practice somehow.
Gen Fury:
I understand the fury.
What the fuck is so hard about treating human beings like human beings?
PS:
I just went to look up the fees for an abortion in my area, and Jesus Fucking Christ that’s a lot of money. $550.00 for a Medication Abortion? Holy shit. I did not know. I don’t know that I have that much money in the bank that I could use if I needed an abortion. Thankfully, my mother would do anything to help me, but wow.
I’m beyond frustrated and outraged; this atmosphere around abortion and women is full-on surreal and I didn’t expect it. This has been said many times by others but I don’t mean it hyperbolically at all: we’re getting close to the Republic of Gilead for real.
From the women old enough to remember the Roe v. Wade fight: can you help me understand this? How does a culture change so thoroughly, how does it become so depraved and toxic? What did this to us? How are so many women taken in by it? What worked against the anti-choicers before?
I’m desperate to figure out how to contribute to changing the cultural attitude; it’s so goddamned frightening. The kind of people who 40 years ago would have been fighting for legalized abortion are today making all kinds of concessions (safe, legal, rare) because the Overton Window has been so thoroughly shifted to the right that what should shock them as an obscene denial of women’s agency is seen as normal ethical concern.
Ogvorbis:
Oh Oggie, did you forget? Women aren’t human beings.
Duh. Descartes knew this about dogs back in the day when he was vivisecting them. Like dogs, women don’t have minds. When they seem to suffer they’re merely exhibiting Human-like reflexes. That these perfectly mimic the affect of a sentient, conscious man should not mislead one to believe there’s any “there there” in a woman.
“It’s Not Human. . . It’s Humanique™!”
Gen Fury:
Exactly this. How does anybody know better than the person involved?
So it is French, then. Okay. Just didn’t want to sound like an idiot!
I’m sorry, but I can’t get over this:
Cost of an abortion from the single abortion clinic in my area:
All days are counting from FIRST day of Last Normal Menstrual Period.
If it’s been less than 63 days: $550
6-11 weeks: $550
12-13 weeks: $600
14 weeks: $750
15 weeks: $850
Waaah!
There aren’t even prices listed for after 15 weeks. That must mean they aren’t offered?
Hypothetical viable, healthy third trimester fetus my ass. Jesus Christ.
Josh:
“It’s Not Human. . . It’s Humanique™!”
Oh, so that’s what I am, Humanique™? Well, it sounds suitably pink and fuzzy, to go with the lady brain and the built in Hystera-Matic unit.
She tried to feed me bullshit about how “the baby” was going to suffer, how having an abortion is something like 300 times more dangerous than giving birth
How did this person pass the basic biology part of med school? So many factually wrong bits of that statement…
Also, I’m sorry you ran into this jerk.
Josh:
More than three decades of depraved and toxic propaganda, funded with obscene amounts of money and expressly designed to drive wedges into longstanding deep divides among Americans.
That’s it, really.
Eris:
Not only in your area, the only one standing in ND. There’s only one left in SD, too – a PP in Rapid Fucking City, the ass end of the state. Women have one hell of a time getting there, especially as you can only obtain an abortion for a few days every month, a doctor has to be flown in from elsewhere.
It’s also the only abortion clinic that I know of for Northwestern Minnesota. You have to get down to Duluth or Minneapolis for an abortion clinic, I think.
Holy fuckity fuck.
An abortion in New Brunswick (Canada), unless you can get two doctors to sign off on it and therefore get it at one of the two hospitals that do them (hope you live near one!) costs $500 to begin with. Oh, and the one clinic is open one day a week, hope you enjoy the protesters. Still, better than PEI, the Territories, Nunavut and much of the rest of the North, who have no access at all. Go Canada!
Essentially true story with altered details: Young woman with a curable cancer gets pregnant in the middle of treatment. She initially says she wants to keep the baby, but when she’s alone she admits that she doesn’t want a baby, but she’s afraid that her boyfriend’s mother will kick her out and she’ll be alone and on the street if she has the abortion. If she doesn’t have the abortion, she will die because while you can treat some cancers through pregnancy, you can’t successfully treat a cancer in the early first trimester with chemotherapy that includes methotrexate.
So we (with pt’s permission) talk to the mother out of law. She says she won’t accept any decision from the pt except to carry the pregnancy to term. We point out that she’s unlikely to be able to maintain the pregnancy and survive. MOOL shrugs. Fortunately, in this case, the ultrasound saved the day by showing that the embryo didn’t form and the “pregnancy” was just an empty sac. MOOL then agreed that there was nothing to be done. Happy ending, that time. What we would have done if this woman had insisted on death for the young woman, I don’t know. Tried to get her to a shelter I guess.
Another story: A young woman with a disease that makes pregnancy very high risk and a history of having completed one pregnancy that nearly killed her (as in five months in the hospital, 3 intubated in the ICU kind of “nearly killed”) gets pregnant. Lots of people tell her it was a dumb move. No one, as far as I can tell, tells her that she can get an abortion. (If you’re wondering why I didn’t bring it up, the answer is that this was before my time, I only reviewed the chart, much later.) She dies during delivery. Totally avoidable.
Yeah, lack of access to abortion kills. Pregnancy is dangerous. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or hopelessly ignorant. Statistically, booking a flight on 9/11/01 was safer than completing a pregnancy. It should never be taken lightly.
Josh:
For a while, after Roe v. Wade, there was palpable relief in the air and there was little fuss over women obtaining abortions. As I’ve said, I had my abortion in ’75 and no one at all cared about me or the waiting room stuffed full of women waiting to terminate.
The beginning of it all was religion based. In the early 70s, this was Catholic-based. The Catholic opposition was rapidly picked up on by other flavours of religion and the “pro-life” movement was born. (So to speak.) Very few religious women were found to disagree with it, especially as religious leaders tied in feminism to abortion, along with deliberately deepening the sluts vs good girls rhetoric.
As it grew, the republicans glommed onto it and there were two anti-abortion presidents in succession, Reagan and Shrub Sr. The “pro-life” movement has continued to grow and morph, in particular, there are many young women heading anti-abortion groups under the heading of “women’s rights from a Christian perspective”, which of course includes being “pro-life”.
zmidponk @ 71 said,
Answer: Dickweeds. The Internet is full of them.
From 92:
You know what this reminds me of? People refusing to make trans-inclusive ENDA because the public would “never” be willing to vote for “letting men into women’s bathrooms”.
I don’t understand why we’re supposed to cater to stupid people with their heads up their asses, who won’t change no matter how many people we use (emphasis on USE) to “compromise” with them, and who will not only use this as “evidence” that it’s totally a horrible immoral thing and should never be allowed, but will also try to use it to undo whatever fucking progress was made in the first place. If they refuse to allow ANY abortions because of some hypothetical “I’ma kill my baby two seconds from birth tonight!” bullshit, then they’re not our allies, they are the people we’re fighting against, and catering to them will result in DEAD PEOPLE.
Saying that women have complete body autonomy only in certain circumstances means that women don’t actually have complete body autonomy.
This shit makes progress take even longer, if not completely grind it to a fucking halt. (“We already made it legal to abort at X months, isn’t that enough? Can’t we find more important things to work on now?”) And it gives the anti-women assholes a clawhold to start picking away at it. If you give them one circumstance when it isn’t allowed, that means they can go looking for more, because it’s already been established to them from the very beginning that women don’t actually have body autonomy.
No compromises. No throwing women under the bus just because they aren’t fortunate enough to fall within a certain window of time. There is no “alternative” necessary, because women don’t need an alternative to CHOOSING WHAT THEY CAN FUCKING DO WITH THEIR OWN BODIES.
And I thought I couldn’t get any angrier today.
Dianne:
How lovely to know the young woman’s worth – absolutely nothing outside of incubator status.
Caine:
OH BIG FUCKING SURPRISE.
Josh,
I’m sure that your plea for help was a rhetorical question, because you don’t need any help understanding this. You answered your own question:
So how did this happen? From a distance, and it’s only my take:
The cold war (communism=socialism=godless) gave religion a very hefty boost, and made atheists the “enemy”, along with anything vaguely left wing. This idea is so pervasive that I’m not sure that people recognise the attitude as a cold-war artifact, but the tell is in the phrase “godless commies” being applied to any atheist. It’s made the very concept of social justice problematic – especially with the lingering wounds of slavery still evident.
Reagan. There was a defining moment in the campaign against Carter who had just given a better policy statement than Reagan ever could: “There you go again” – which legitimised and crystallised anti-intellectual sentiment. From Australia, it was not at all clear what happened to the US during that campaign. I only managed to resolve the apparent step-change in attitude in the US when I was actually living in the US.
Control of all forms, especially religious control, thrives in an anti-intellectual environment, because whether something is true or fair or correct is not as important as fitting in. The religious movements have been playing a very long game, as far back as you care to go.
Mak:
Yeah, no one would ever guess!
From the women old enough to remember the Roe v. Wade fight: can you help me understand this?
I was 5 at the time of the Roe v Wade decision, but one of the senior OBs at my medical school gave a talk on abortion pre- and post- and why he was pro-choice. He said that prior to RvW, a lot of an OB’s practice involved treatment of women with perforated uteruses, sepsis, and other complications of unsafe abortions. He ended up saying he hadn’t seen a case of sepsis with a uterine source in nearly 20 years and didn’t want to see another one before he retired. Wonder if he made it.
The ease in which people can just shrug off dying family (?) members for the sake of their precious superstitions is outrageous.
And yet they claim that atheists don’t give a shit about anything because we think it’s all just chemicals and shit.
Yes – that’s what I was thinking when I was reading the other thread. I don’t like it that “compromise” is thrown around so freely in this context. I can choose to make compromises concerning myself in fighting for my goals, but I question the ethics of compromising other people‘s lives, especially those of less privileged people.
Nor do I see how arguing for abortion on demand is contradictory to supporting the most basic abortion rights. It includes these.
One of the things getting in the way of clear discussion is the misuse of the term “abortion”. Abortion refers to interrupting a process, in this case pregnancy. It does not apply to babies.
The whole “aborting 8.5 month old fetuses” is a contradiction in terms. Interrupting the pregnancy that is so far along will probably (but not necessarily) result in a live birth.
One of the things that the religious people do so well is to make words and ideas as slippery as possible, so that it is difficult to argue with them.
It’s interesting – Max Blumenthal, in Republican Gomorrah, talks about the early rise of the religious right. Frank Schaeffer’s commune in Switzerland, L’Abri, was progressive and even gay-friendly….
The prospect of women’s control over their own bodies creates this sort of authoritarian, destructive rage in some people.
SC:
Too bad he couldn’t think things through earlier. All of the activity which led to various pro-life movements can be laid at the door of the Catholic church. They were actively fighting any type of abortion in the ’60s, because there were those of conscience who were helping women and they went bugshit over Roe v. Wade.
OK, I’ve gotta leave this thread. If I see the anything else about the fucking RCC fucking people over, I’m going to do something unpardonable.
Okay.
So.
Late to the thread (getting the last of my peppers and tomatoes into their pots [I live on bedrock–all my veggies are in raised beds or pots]).
I…..
I am getting too old for this shit. My blood pressure is usually very well controlled with 10 mg of Altace once a day, but I don’t even want to know what it might be right now.
Josh, Eris, Caine, Dr. Alethea, Ms. Daisy, Gen Fury, dianne, Louis (don’t worry about actually trying to treat that creep like a reasonable person–it happens) and all you other wonderful people, when I die because my head explodes because some of these people piss me off JUST THAT MUCH, it is comforting to know that you will carry on. Thank you. Knowing that actually makes the explosion slightly less inevitable.
dianne, I know your stories are true because my ex has seen cases where the young woman herself just shrugged when told flatly that another pregnancy would kill her. Not might, would. “We’re Catholic.” She died 4 months into her next pregnancy, about 9 months after her first pregnancy ended with an extremely premature baby due to her medical problems.
One more thing: Did that asshole really, really think his agenda was not readily apparent from the moment he hit post the first time? The fact that the people here will never give up trying to make others understand gave him the opportunity to argue for a while, but if he thought he wasn’t being obvious, he is even less clever than I thought. Which is pretty impressive, actually.
…
…I’m never going to look at a church again without seeing its steeple, its tower, its flagpole or its cross as a giant sharp-edged phallic middle finger raised to the humanity of every compassionate person on the face of this planet.
Because the stupid people with their heads up their asses vote.
And because not all the stupid people with their heads up their asses are entrenched in their position, and some can be unglued. Or at least, partially unstuck.
It’s a discussion about tactics, not about ethics. Will you vote for Obama, with all his failings, or will you vote for a 3rd teeny tiny party that you agree with who has no hope of winning? Most people support choosing the lesser evil in that case. You vote for the lesser evil because that way you get less evil. A country with restrictions on abortion in 3rd trimester kills fewer women than one with restrictions on all abortions. Fewer dead people.
And because it’s a question of tactics, the answer is always going to vary by history and geography. It depends on who you are trying to persuade. I’m reasonably sure that the compromise to require a medical exemption for 3rd trimester is worthwhile in Australia & Europe, but not in the USA, for example. I thought for a while that it might work in the US, but recent history shows I was wrong there. When your opponents are utterly impervious to facts and won’t accept any compromise, then you can’t afford to, either.
From the women old enough to remember the Roe v. Wade fight: can you help me understand this? How does a culture change so thoroughly, how does it become so depraved and toxic? What did this to us?
Nixon’s Southern Strategy finding full flower in the verminous piece of shit
R
E
A
G
A
N.
It cannot be emphasized enough that Reagan the idiotic fucking scumbag piece of shit douchenozzle is the source of 99% of this crap now. He bashed everyone, but he did it with a smile, so dumbass bigoted scumbag fuckfaced Americans thought that was perfectly okay in politics, and joined in. He made it not only okay, but also laudable to be moronic scumbag bigots.
To everybody.
That was the real intent of the scumbag’s “revolution”. That’s what they were wanting–a bunch of mouthbreathing bigots lulled into thinking they were specshul and voting for moronic bigot filth just like him forever and ever, and all so that the rich could laugh at the show Joe Six Pack put on–all the way to the fucking bank.
otrame, I think you mean not me but Dr Audley, who has been incredibly awesome! Being pregnant and facing these stories about what could go wrong must be horrifying. She has got All The Courage.
So, a clump of cells that hasn’t even implanted yet is a life that can’t be done away with ? What are they going to do when (as is the probability) the host organism of those cells expels it ?
SC @250 : rather horrifying isn’t it. That a simple decision to allow* women a right they should have had already brought on a political backlash of epic proportions. (*allow… no one should ever have to be allowed rights. )
Josh, OSG @ various: You hate everyone ? Ahh, so you have finally embraced the Atheist darkside. welcome. your black robes are on the hook over there, but be sure to take them off before approaching the baby barbeque.
My few cents more to folks who want to help: besides the National Abortion Access bowl-a-thons (first ones are April 11th), follow Reproductive Health Reality Check, and contribute to the newly formed TeamUterati wiki which will be an information hub to keep abreast of the flood of anti-woman legislation.
For a bit now I’ve written into my schedule and budget a number of letters, emails, and phone calls every week, and keep a shortlist of sites to monitor for the latest candidate outrages and local protests.
http://bowlathon.nnaf.org/nnafbowl/findevent.asp
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/
http://www.teamuterati.com/wiki/
Aquaria,
He was an absolute disaster for the US. From his being an union-leader/ FBI informer identifying suspected communists in the late 40’s, through gutting California public schools while governor there, through to his disastrous presidency on nearly any level you care to talk about, he was scum.
@aquaria
Worst of all, this kind of right wing douchebags are taking hold of the Western world, not just the US.
While refreshing myself of Reagan’s presidency, I found a map of the election of Reagan’s second term. HOW!? HOW DID THIS MORON WIN 49 STATES?!!!
Mak:
Well, I mean, it wasn’t like the young woman was her flesh and blood or anything. She was just the incubator for the Spawn of GoldenSon™.
Otrame:
Delightful, a baby born with serious health problems becomes motherless due to religious stupidity. But we’re the selfish ones.
You know, I figured him for a hoggling troll earlier, but it’s quite possible he doesn’t see his POV as “an agenda.” Some people just can’t grok the concept of women as fully human and with complete moral agency. Such people would see nothing offensive in the arguments FAAP’N put forth and would be utterly baffled to reap a whirlwind of anger from them.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
It wasn’t that long ago that a moron of FAAP’s ilk repeatedly tossed a pile of hay at me:
It’s a very popular pile of hay with the men.
Gee, and I wonder why THAT might be. /dripsvenom
I just found out about Mississippi passing a TRAP law designed, specifically and overtly, to drive its one abortion-providing clinic out of business. I can drive that far, if they need me.
They Also Ran Good: Walter Mondale
Caine:
Oh, that shitbag. Yes, the masturbatory Depe Thotz of Philosophy 101 dudebros are more important than the reality of women’s lives.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
:Tucks this most beautiful descriptor away for later use:
These fappers infuriate me more than outright lifers, because of their insistence on the hypothetical over reality. I don’t give a shit about hypotheticals, I care about women dying and kids getting fucked into the ground because a woman was forced to birth.
I am so sick of that stupid crappy irrelevant 3rd trimester red herring. Perhaps we could start a betting pool. Count how many posts it takes until the hypothetical 8.5 months pregnant woman aborting on a whim makes her appearance?
It reminds me of the female “circumcision” discussions. Post, start countdown to how soon it takes to get to the terrible terrible harm to Teh Menz by male circumcision! Or start a discussion of rape, start countdown to how soon it takes to get the terrible terrible harm done to Teh Menz by false accusations!
hmm, would that be the Abortion Queen version of the “welfare queen” myth?
Alethea:
That particular pile of hay tends to come on a bit later. I’ll take #58.
Wait a second. If I’m not mistaken, that photo looks like it was taken by an electron microscope. If that was the case, that zygote had to have been “killed” to make that picture.
Actually, Isaac Domagalski, I think it is a light microscope. Maybe with phase contrast (or not….)
Of course even with light microscopy, if they didn’t implant the thing afterwards, they still killed it.
But I’m giving it 50:50 odds that its just a stock photo of a blastocyst that’s not even a human one.
Amphipox: Yep, looks like phase contrast to me.
Oh, you know that doesn’t matter, Amphiox. To be sure, an evil abortionist and a slutty woman using abortion as contraception were behind it!1!!
“Evil abortionist”? “Slutty woman”? So redundant, Caine. I’m sure it was an evil slutty woman abortionist who killed that zygote to make that photo. And she did it all on a whim.
This is an issue that really means a lot to me, and I just want to say, I read this whole thread and you all are AWESOME! Thanks for so consistently being The Good Guyz.
Woo_Monster:
Oh yes, how could I forget the magical whim? It’s ever so important.
In the ensuing discussion on Facebook AAA comments
personally I’d say, yeah those cells can easily be defined as life. However if THAT is the main issue then how about the life of one of these that gets turned into these on a massive scale worldwide. Isn’t that also life by the same definition and therefore should be protected with the same vigor?
The same argument counts for this
By strategically dropping the word “human”, this is just an attempt to equivocate(or redefine) “human life” to “life”
I don’t have/want a facebook account so I’ll just rant here :p
Perhaps it’s time to show them this picture in return.
(… forgot how I came by the link, quite possible it was from a previous Pharyngula post but I’m not sure; it’s been turned into a useful bookmark to be used at the appropriate time)
I didn’t read much past this, but….
Yes, and we supposedly all have different standpoints on what to do with purple/green checkered three-footed aliens should they land on earth next Tuesday.
Fucking shit you’re discussing MY RIGHTS and MY BODY as if I were somewhat not existent or capable of actually thinking about it myself. You’re engaging in the salami-tactic (always a tiny slice, always a tiny slice) until you have given in to fucking pro-slavery-lifers without as much of a fight.
Can you gie me a single fucking date during a pregnancy when this miracle occurs at which not only the fetus becomes something fundamentally different from waht it was the day/hour/minute/second ago and how this obviously goes hand in hand with me becoming less of a human, not much of a person and actually not capable of making decisions about myself anymore?
Think about it, long and hard.
And if you can’t come up with an answer shut the fuck up once and for all and keep your squirmishness to yourself. That’s not only for the person who posted this but each and every one of you who indulges in the magical person thinking.
@penningtrap 279, Yes it’s a common strawman. Of course those cells are life, broadly speaking, no one is arguing to the contrary. As you point out, they’re trying to equivocate ‘life’ with ‘human’ or ‘person’. Not that it helps their argument in any way, whatever term they choose.
@ A. R
re your comment #116:
“OK, so we all have different standpoints on late-term abortion of healthy fetuses. I think we all get that. Now let’s look for viable, actionable solutions that we could argue for as a group.”
I agree with you that the big argument here should be about atheist views on late term abortions. I suspect that many atheists disagree with one another on where the dividing line should be. I would really appreciate if PZ and other prominent new atheist figures spoke up about their views on the issue. As far as I can know, very few of them actually have spoken clearly about it.
Following the other abortion article by PZ at the beginning of the week, I finally bit the bullet and started a blog. My first post is on this subject:
http://rookieatheist.blogspot.fr/2012/04/atheist-consensus-on-abortion.html
Maybe we could have a debate over there, cos this place (great as it is) just gets overwhelmed with comments? I’m new to this sort of thing, so there’s a high risk that it may turn in to a shambles.
@rookieatheist
Fucking Hell. Who gives a shit about atheist views on late term abortion. The only view that’s important is the view of the woman with regards to her own pregnancy. Whether they’re an atheist or not.
@rookieatheist
And stop fucking blogwhoring.
RookieAtheist, blogwhoring like you are doing is a bannable offense. You have nothing cogent to say on the subject anyway, so nobody will bother with your anemic, tepid, and insipid blog. You probably heavily moderate comments to make sure your ignorance and stupidity aren’t refuted.
rookieatheist
Fucking shit, who do you think you are? Did PZ die and make you king of Pharyngula?
The argument is whatever people decide it is.
Why? Because you can’t be bothered to think for yourself and need leaders to tell you what’s right
Keep up or shut up.
Seriously, you’re of fucking no importance. If you must insist on discussinf people’s lives and rights as if they weren’t here, don’t expect people to go for a friendly chat.
If you wanna leave for your blog, don’t forget your porcupine
Just googled abortion “on an whim” – 646,000 results. Silly women, being all flighty about their own bodies and stuff!
Really? Do the OP and the Atheists Against Abortion article it refers to, look to you like they’re talking about late term abortions?
I refuse to comment on the blog of rookieatheist as that would only give credibility to his incoherence. Besides, he clearly wants himself and anyone else he can rope in to live in a state of perpetual squickiness.
‘E don’t half write rubbish, though. Try this
Bollocks.
Suicide: decriminalised here (UK) about 1961.
Euthanasia – term far too vague to discuss. Note that availability of assisted suicide within the country is under active discussion, as is a patient’s right to request hastening of death. The right of the patient to refuse treatment and to full palliative care already pretty well established as is the procedure for leaving clear instructions in advance.
In the light of recent court cases the instructions on investigating and prosecuting assistance in a suicide have been rewritten, in a more liberal direction. Further changes are under active discussion.
“Mutilation” – there is a lower age limit for tattooing and piercings; body dysmorphia is recognised by medics and does sometimes lead to amputation.
Drugs – wishful thinking because what the law is has little or no bearing on what happens and what happens has more to do with sociology than with pharmacology!
So there you are, rookieatheist! What you are basing your moral strictures upon and what you are trying to pass off as facts are entirely untrue and can form no basis for an intelligent discussion.
Besides, which bit of this is none of your fucking business do you not understand
Rookieatheist
OK, so you claim to be new to all that stuff.
Fine, we all started at some point or other.
You claim to be interested.
Even better.
So here’s the introduction to being a decent human being:
1.) Shut the fuck up and listen.
If you want to learn, listen to the people who actually know the shit.
2.) Understand that you’re talking about real people and their lives. For you it might be an interesting philosophical question, for them it’s bloody serious.
Whatever the topic: feminism, reproductive rights, racism, LGBTQ: People are being hurt by that shit every single fucking day.
They have (rightfully) no patience for a little privileged dipshit who treats matters of life and death to them as an interesting theoretical phenomenon.
And If you understand the above, you understand why.
3.) People are not here to educate you. We’re not your teachers, we’re not getting paid. If somebody does educate you, it’s their kindness, not your right. You have your hands on the biggest collection of knowledge in history so far. Use it.
@OrangUtan
Fucking Hell. Who gives a shit about atheist views on late term abortion. The only view that’s important is the view of the woman with regards to her own pregnancy. Whether they’re an atheist or not.
I give a shit. And I’m far from being the only one. You may as well ask who gives a shit about our views on a terminally ill person’s right to end their own life. Yes, it’s their body, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have an opinion on their choice. I think what you’re angry (livid) at is the possibility that my views may impact on the woman’s choice. But, fucking hel (to use your own words), let me have a view on the subject!
And stop fucking blogwhoring.
OK.
@Giliell
Fucking shit, who do you think you are? Did PZ die and make you king of Pharyngula?
When I said “here”, I didn’t litteraly mean on this blog. I meant amongst atheists in general. I get the feeling that this is a taboo subject amongst atheists, so I’m just trying to start some dialogue. So shoot me.
Because you can’t be bothered to think for yourself and need leaders to tell you what’s right
Because it’s a complicated subject, to me at least, and I appreciate the views of such people without apology. Sheesh, I mean, why are YOU reading this blog? I apologize that my grey matter is not as efficient as yours when it comes to drawing the line on this issue. Congratulations on having such a wonderful frontal lobe area.
Fo those of you who are replying thinking that the answer is so simple (dividing line = birth) then ask yourselves this one question: would you be prepared to change your mind under any scenario? If not, then you’re stuck in dogmatic woo-woo land and incapable of carrying out a rational discussion.
rookieatheist,
POINT ONE: there is no party line on abortion: we are freethinkers, remember.
POINT TWO: how can abortion be a taboo subject when, just on this one blog, we regularly have items on the subject which run to hundreds of comments?
POINT THREE: do stop wanking and switch on your own brain because, like Gilliel and all the other women here, I do not need you to be a parasite on mine.
Besides, I am trying to watch the Preston Passion – a new creation in a town just over the watershed and, thus far, an impressive blend of the old story with some in-your-face social history and far, far more interesting than you.
Dialogue on something you can’t prove really happens, which is a pregnant woman at 8.5 months saying “I want an abortion”, and it happens. If that isn’t occurring, all you are doing is mentally masturbating. Which we all here figured out very quickly. Take your imaginary dialogue where it belongs, to the dumpster.
Conclusive physical evidence (no mental wanking will do it) that the fetus is more human than the woman. Put up or shut the fuck up. Welcome to science.
For a taboo subject, it sure gets talked about a lot. Usually by derailing arseholes like yourself who constantly try to turn the conversation away from the hard-to-attack reality of most abortions and on to the tiny percentage of abortions that are late-term but, oh so much more emotive.
Here’s a couple of questions, prompted by the actual OP that you’re posting underneath. What are your thoughts on early abortion? What are your thoughts on the moral stance an anti-abortion group who use a picture of a bunch of cells so early in development that the ‘mother’ wouldn’t even be classed as pregnant yet?
Oh, and RookieAtheist, there is one question you do need to mentally masturbate on. Who gave you permission to make any medical decision for another person? In the case of abortion, it is a stranger on the street. Justify yourself for your arrogance and egotism, in thinking you even have a say in their decisions.
Rookie-pro-slavery-atheist
So, who the fuck died and made you king of atheists?
Read what I wrote before. Your fucking little “dialogue” is my fucking life
Let me think, is there any scenario under which I’d consider myself not to be an actual living person but a rightless broodvessel?
Yes, there is: In case I was braindead and the machines would support my metabolism so the fetus can keep on growing.
Apart from that, what Nerd said.
But I’m done with you. Come back once you’ve learned that women are people, and that lots of other folks are people too and absolutely not in need of your better than thou judgemental bullshit.
Please do NOT take it for granted that the people behind this are actually atheists. There was a group called secularprolife.org (which this facebook page Likes) and here is what I posted on both Stephanie Svan and Skepchick re: their “secular” nature:
—————–
This is what their group’s leader said in the lifesitenews article that was written about their participation at the AA conference (emphasis mine):
The fact that group leader Ms. Hazzard uses the term “them” to refer to atheists would indicate that at the very least she does not identify with non-believers. This is consistent with what we’ve seen from her in previous statement.
Namely: by her own admission 1) she stated in 2010 that is a Christian who had 2) grown “frustrated” with the situation that “Abortion proponents, not to mention the media, have seized on our pervasive Christian religiosity with delight” and was 3) previously a member of a Catholic student group.
Update: They’ve now posted two new blog posts in reference to the questions that arise from the above. See below:
Note from their president in which she claims that she grew up in a Methodist church (no mention of the Catholic group she belonged to) and that she has “stopped caring” about faith: http://blog.secularprolife.org/2012/03/personal-note.html
Blog post by the group with the title “Atheists don’t believe in us” which once again indicates a lack of identification with atheism by the group: http://blog.secularprolife.org/2012/03/atheists-dont-believe-in-us.html
In this blog post they also claim to have spent ” a lot of time advocating for secularism in the pro-life movement;”. Mind you, this is the same group who their president had claimed in 2010 that “SecularProLife.org isn’t about Christian-bashing or arguing over church and state issues.”
Ack, meant to say “there was a group called secularprolife.org” exhbiting at the AA conference.
Oh, I haven’t spoken clearly? Really? Somehow I’ve left a lingering impression that I think there might be something to that anti-choice nonsense?
Here’s what I think.
I am 100% certain that women at the age they can get pregnant have functioning minds, desires, plans for their future, and that they either have the responsibility and intelligence to decide the fate of the embryo/fetus inside them, or they don’t…in which case they certainly don’t have the responsibility and intelligence to be mothers.
I say that as long as the embryo/fetus is biologically dependent on the mother, she has all the say — she has all the rights and powers, and laws should be permissive and hands off.
I say that there is a gradual emergence of autonomy and cognitive ability in the developing fetus and infant, and where we draw the line and say that no, now the infant has rights that the mother cannot deny is arbitrary. Birth is a convenient dividing line, even though newborns are clearly dependent for some period afterwards.
Clear enough now?
Giliell, well-said. +1 internets.
Rookie, is there any situation in which you might consider state-mandated organ donation a good idea? Specifically, your own personal organs. Think about it. Would you be prepared to change your mind under any scenario?
Maybe you could donate your brain, since you don’t seem to be using it.
Reading through the facebook page, I saw an excellent post by Beth that I thought was worth highlighting:”@AAA, no person has the right to use my body. You give embryos more rights than people.”
Caine, #268: You’re welcome. :) I didn’t think it was that impressive, having pooped it out of my brain after a very long day, but I’m not going to argue, either.
And I agree. I understand that philosophy is important and meaningful and that I should reacquaint myself with some of the basics simply to be culturally literate (I had a few 101 courses in college, that’s all), but the way it is abused by these wankers to elevate their supposed intellectual acumen above the lives of others has given me a profound loathing of it.
Pteryxx, #270: Yeah, pretty much.
Crowepps, I’ve been seeing your comments on RH Reality Check for years, and you’re pretty awesome, too.
Giliell, #281: Aside from that breathtaking dismissal of women’s rights, such assholes forget that there are already viable, actionable solutions and some of us have been arguing for them for years. Comprehensive sexual education. Easily available contraception. Fighting rape culture. Will any of these make abortion go away? No; abortion will always be necessary to some degree, and that’s not a problem. IDGAF about “lowering the abortion rate.” But if these wankers do, the ways to do it are not already out there but tested in countries more civilized than the U.S.
Rookieatheist, no, we’re not going to “have a debate over there.” The conversation is here. You don’t get to divert it to a place where you can control the comments, especially those of women who don’t intend to be “civil” about your desire to limit our bodily autonomy.
We talk about it all the time, cupcake. We don’t need you JAQing off… oh, I mean, starting some dialogue about it, you arrogant, posturing shitbasket.
FTFM.
Y’know, like slavery was to many people.
***
I think people might be arguing at cross-purposes here. Fortunately, there exist some places in the world where abortion on demand is legal and reasonably – if not perfectly – accessible, so no one can reject it as a pipe dream.* In any case, I believe people can be clear that they’re arguing for full reproductive rights including abortion on demand while fighting to win and preserve lesser victories, explicitly regarding these as incomplete but important steps along the way. I see it as the difference between reforms and reformism, which to be sure isn’t always easy to maintain. What I don’t think should be compromised is the ethical position about the rightness and necessity of abortion on demand.
***
I’ve done a little looking, and the Harvard Humanist crew don’t seem to be all that involved with abortion or other reproductive rights issues. Hmm. Perhaps that’s for the best….
*The pipe-dream claim isn’t all that sensible anyhow, but it’s common.
Damn, the post I tried to post yesterday (when it still had a chance to be relevant) was swallowed up when my battery died. Just wanted to say to Caine at #58 (sorry!) – ITA and double for the being wanted part.
To #59 pipenta, I hear you. Although I was much too skittery in those days to confront people (also, we moved so often in those days so I felt odd one out AND likely to misinterpret local colloquialisms) but the one or two times that I did screw up the courage to say “You know, I feel uncomfortable with you calling my toddler “evil””, the person came back with the usual “What? Can’t you take a joke? I did NOT call your child “evil”, I asked which one is the “evil twin”!” I never tried to confront people again because I found this was the stock response.
Eris, dianne, Gen Fury, Josh, pteryxx, cassandra and so many others. How good it is to read such spirited passion for justice – and such uncompromising defense of the humanity of women.
Brownian – if there was ever any doubt as to why your queue is the longest, #166 would put it to rest. Sometimes your posts alone are enough to restore my faith in men. Them plus the Horde™ is a balm to the mind.
Sorry for such a late post – looks like there are probably a hundred more comments since I tried to post this yesterday, but I wanted to come back and put it in here anyway because I really wanted to express my appreciation.
Thank you PZ for clarifying your position. I especially wish to thank you for clarifying it without calling me an idiot for questioning where the dividing line should be. Though maybe you held back …
I never said I would not change my mind, but that from what I gathered up until now I always felt that the dividing line was before birth. I just honestly didn’t think that the majority of pro-choice advocats were pro-choice up until birth. Even though this site is not representative of the entire pro-choice movement, the replies I got back have obviously shown that I was naive.
I have taken a serious beating by the rest of the posters here (you have one helluva wolf pack PZ!), and I will not easily forget it, though I probably should since almost all of the replies found it necessary to use the word “fuck” to reply back.
For somebody who was raised a Catholic and who had it hammered into him that a fetus was a human life, I do hope that people here realize just how bloody difficult it is to get out of that way of thinking. Yes, I realize that that’s no comfort to you women who are subjected to people like me who think it’s fine and dandy to dilly dally on the subject while you have to face the consequences. I do sincerely apologize. (Fuck it, there I am again with my “holier than thou” approach; Giliell was right).
I’ll shut up now.
Rookieatheist, here is a really fucking stupid question for you. If PZ was as concerned about how members of the Horde treated people who gleefully asked stupid and insulting questions as you are, would he have put an end to it years ago?
Many women get tired of taking the issue of abortion (most which occur in the first trimester) having having convoluted thought games played with it.
It was nothing personal about it but every time the subject comes up, some man, acting as if women have not thought about the issue, starts lecturing. You raised no new points and acted like all of the other pompous assclams.
Even though you got a lot of “fucks”, you got off easy.
Oh, yeah, before I forget. Fuck you.
Aw, look, just like FAAP’N, Rookieatheist is once again declining to individually address most of the women here… except with a sideswipe at those of us who called him meeeaaaannn names and dropped — gasp!! — the “f-bomb.” Unlaydeelike wimminz make his peepee shrivel up. Why can’t we respect his d00dly authoritay to make sweeping pronouncements on our rights to our own bodies??
Oh, and you’re not the only one here who overcame a conservative religious upbringing. Far from it. Get the fuck over yourself. (Oh, noes, there I go again!!)
blockquote failure. Let’s try again…
Yet no one is willing to provide a clear definition of what “birth” actually means. If we’re all going to agree that birth should be THE dividing line (and push for actual legislation to make it law), then it only makes sense that an absolutely clear and unambiguous definition of the actual birth event should be agreed upon, such that there would be no question that seconds prior to that exact moment it would still be permissible to terminate the fetus. And likewise, there would be no question that seconds after that moment killing the baby would be regarded as murder.
Does “birth” happen when the mother begins having contractions? Or is it when the head is completely outside the mother? Or when 51% of the fetus is outside? Or when the baby take its first breath? Or when the umbilical chord is cut (makes most sense to me)?
Joey obviously thinks he’s got the entire medical establishment stumped.
Hey, Joey, when you take a dump, can the dump be said to have been taken when the turtlehead has completely emerged from your ass but the rest hasn’t? How about when it’s all in the toilet but you haven’t wiped yet?
Thank you, joey for playing the thought game with us unreasonable womenfolk. Because a woman who was going to get an abortion will wait until the water breaks and she goes into labor.
rookie and the other fuckheadedfella : You seem to find abortion so “complicated” and full of nuances and difficulty. Yet it is simple: no state should have laws forcing any of its citizens into sexual or reproductive slavery. Period. No form of “life” has the right to use a human beings body for survival without that human being’s consent. Not even another human being should have the right to enslave a human being for its own survival. And no state should be allowed to legally force that kind of slavery upon any human beings.
When you find yourself so “confused” by the “complicated” questions you imagine around the hypothetical third trimester whim abortion, try asking yourself what it says about you and your attitudes toward women that you imagine this as a real possibility worthy of special debate status. Ask yourself what is wrong with your attitude toward women that you can so easily imagine that a human being like yourself can somehow be utterly devoid of all the gentle humanitarian feelings you ascribe to yourself and other men (and a few women) just like you.
Oh and go fuck yourself.
Since you are being willfully and ignorantly stupid, try here. Birth is a process, and includes a number of things.
I believe most states call it live birth when the baby is outside of the mother and takes its first breath. Since it is a process, it is arbitrary when the call is made, but it is more of a legal question than a scientiific question. You don’t have a point, but think you do ignorant fuckwit.
But there might be a case where a women might decide she wants an abortion when 75 percent of the baby is out of the canal. So, in order to prevent such a hypothetical situation from happening, women should have monthly pregnancy exams.
Oh, and Joey, prove that that women actually ask for the abortion to occur after their water has broken, or they are in the hospital for induced labor. Otherwise, all you have is mental wankery, which is meaningless.
Sweet jebus, the stupid, it burns.
We need an exact, to the second definition of when birth occurs because there’s a devastating epidemic of women in labor who, as soon as crowning begins, grab a sharp object off the table and stab the head emerging from their vagina in order to beat the clock.
And then there are all those swarms of women who go through the travails of pregnancy, put up with months of backaches and exhaustion and awkwardness and strange hormonal waves, and then in the two weeks before delivery declare on a whim, “Screw it, I’ve invested 8+ months of my life in this effort, I’m just going to throw it away on a whim.” Because that’s just how women are, flighty and stupid.
When you even ask the question, you reveal your deep contempt for women.
Agreed. But it is important, as has been said for the last week here, that the right to do so exists.
Nerd #316 why do you switch the goal posts on the poor concerned fella?
For joey and rookie and all the other concerned men out there (and a few oh so motherly women out there, too), women are an inhuman monolith – coldly, cruelly amoral. They do not understand that it is a LIFE inside of them, because they are not human like men such as they are. Women simply do not have normal human feelings, normal human understanding of the preciousness of life or the rightness of rights.
They must be controlled by the law or they might be ripping (men’s) little babbbies out of their uteri left and right with abandon! The human species might be doomed – or at least, the odds of fuckheadedfellas like rookie, joey and the rest managing to reproduce might be severely reduced – and there is the rub!
Oh for fuck’s sake, rook and joey are back? I am so sick of their shit.
Bah.
Audley, there is a reason why I rarely get involved in threads like these.
Bah.
No no no nonononono NO! Damn it, I feel like I’m gong to weep. The big argument here should not be about late term abortions. The big argument here should be about how to stop the wingnuts from destroying women’s reproductive rights and getting rid of a woman’s ability to control her reproduction, including both abortion and birth control.
I’m so angry right now. Caine, Cruel Monster has just provided a concrete example of an entire area of our country where even first trimester abortions are incredibly difficult to get, and where abortions after the 15th week (the early second trimester!) is impossible to get, and do the hypothetical third trimester fetus proponents have anything to say? No. They don’t even have any shock or verbal support to offer to the women who are suffering under this absurdity. The only words offered are for a hypothetical third trimester fetus that no one can even provide an example of.
Fuck this to hell. Real, unambiguous people are being harmed and dying. I like to call these real, unambiguous people women. Where is the concern for these people? Where the fuck is it? Why is it so important that we be talking about hypothetical third trimester fetuses instead of real women in a post that is talking about the very real belief that women must submit their bodies without reservation to pre-implantation zygotes? Why can’t we ever talk about the very real risk that women are going to lose their birth control pills because those things might prevent implantation? Why can’t we ever focus the discussion on the real situation?
Shit.
Really? Fucking go shove a coathanger up your ass. You’re trying to split hairs over the point at which we ought to be legally forced to risk our lives in order to house a parasite in our abdomens, and you have the audacity not just to complain that people used nasty language but to imply that our views on our own fucking human rights ought to be dismissed for that terrible fucking offense. Fuck you, you putrescent slime.
Because women are being unreasonable. Being dismayed by the threats, bombing and murders are taking away from the vital argument of the hordes of women who demand abortions when the crown has crested.
Get you priorities in order.
(Sometimes my sarcasm is so bitter, I gag.)
Ms. Daisy Cutter
Namecalling and dropping “fuck” left, right and center to get your point across is just plain dumb. Wherever did you get the impression it wasn’t? I wasn’t making “sweeping pronouncements”, I was asking questions and just using this thread to express my opinion. What else are comment sections for? You all gave me answers, showed me that most (all maybe) of my arguments had flaws, and sent me back nicely bruised to my thinking box. I’m all the better for it. Maybe you’re just pissed that I’m using this comments section as a free education tool. Tough.
@niftyatheist:
Why do you and everybody else think it’s about my attitude towards women? I realize mysogynists attempt to fuck you over on a regular basis, but why does every person who disagrees with your opinion on abortion automatically qualify as a mysogynist? You say only a few women think like me? In a 2003 Gallup poll, 84% of Americans were against third trimester abortions. Even if you assume that all men were against it (very unlikely), that still leaves 34% of US women against third trimester abortion. This is not a men hating women thing. Nor is it a some women hating women thing. Get over it already, you’re fooling yourself. This is an issue where many people truly think that a third term fetus is a living human being with legal rights. You’re part of the 10% of Americans who think that third term abortions are fine. To you it’s obvious to any intelligent, humanitarian person. So congratulations Nifty, using that logic you’re more intelligent and more humanitarian than 90% of Americans, those dumbass fuckers!
Maybe the zeitgeist will go your way and prove you right. I’m just one of those dumbass fuckers that think it mightn’t.
I see the fucking rookie is still whining.
I asked you a stupid fucking question. If PZ did not like how we operated, would he have stopped it years ago.
I do not care that all of the questions have nothing to do with actual women getting actual abortions, I am just asking questions.
Fucking self centered tone troll.
How fucking shocking seeing that most abortions occur in the first trimester.
Here is a fucking question for youMr I Am Just Asking Questions, what of all the laws and threats of violence that makes getting an abortion in the first trimester more difficult.
Try to understand why some women see you as a fellow traveler of anti-choice goons.
And, also, fuck you.
And while we’re on the topic of abortions – has anyone seen this abomination? http://fb.trove.com/fbwapolabs/mobile/me/channels/80603/content/2XkKo?ref=feed_open_graph&fb_action_ids=396473340376654&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline&refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2Fauth.php
So much stupidity. I’m having a hard time even forming a rational thought right now because the only thought going through my brain right now is ARGHHHHWTFSTUPID!!!!!
I guffawed so hard my back was literally arching up off the couch. Now my ab muscles hurt.
Alright, I give up.
rookieatheist, I have a question for you. Just what has to happen in this debate before you decide that it is more important to talk about the real plight of women than it is to talk about the hypothetical plight of healthy third trimester fetuses? Just has to start happening before you would think that the big argument should shift from being about the fetus to being about how to help women? Because apparently it isn’t abortions being out of women’s price ranges, it isn’t there not being abortion clinics in a woman’s area, it isn’t about pharmacies being able to deny women access to Plan B, it isn’t laws being put in place allowing doctors to lie to women to prevent abortion (even if the abortion is necessary to save the woman’s life), it isn’t that some of our elective representatives believe that women shouldn’t even be able to have abortions when the fetus is already dead, it isn’t that people (from the people who run our government to the people who run our hospitals) are insisting that there doesn’t need to be a life exception to abortion bans because they say women never die from pregnancy (including ectopic ones), or anything else that’s actually happening today. So what has to happen before real people become the priority?
Eris
QFT (and here’s a ((hug)) if you would like to accept one).
Women are gathering strength to fight this looming atrocity.
Caine, thanks for the link to the RR effort to help women with costs/travel etc. I donated.
Jesus Christ, Rook.
We think you’re a flaming shitbag because you do not respect women’s bodily autonomy. Seriously, once you realize that my bosy is none of your fucking business, the better off we all will be.
(For the record, I am 100% pro-choice. I am pro- assisted suicide, I am anti- war of drugs. I am against the death penalty and war. So, fuck you, I respect individual people a shit load more than you do.)
Because anyone who believes that I ought to be legally forced to cede control of my uterus either fucking overtly hates me or thinks it’s okay to deny my legal rights without knowing what the fuck they’re talking about. Either way, your views betray nothing but contempt for women.
I just had a third trimester aborti-dump. The doorbell went.
I think we should debate this.
Louis
Awwwww! Looks like all of the people with ladybrains are being mean to the man who is here just to ask questions.
FTFY, slime.
Psst, Eris. For women to become the priority, we have to all grow penises. That is apparently the only way to be guarenteed bodily autonomy.
(Oh, how I wish I was joking.)
Oh and all the “Hey, I’m just asking questions” fellows (looks at Rookie and Joey):
Precisely how and when does the average woman lose sufficient control of her own mind during pregnancy that the state should step in, take away her legal right to self autonomy to an extent denied all but sectioned mental patients?
The state already does deny people their legal right to self autonomy under very specific circumstances. How do those circumstances apply to pregnant women and when do they apply?
Why do I as this? Because this is precisely what you are proposing. State sanctioned declarations of mental incompetence for pregnant women at some point in their pregnancy.
Louis
Well, to be fair, there are situations where an abortion in labor is performed. I might have had one myself if I’d lived in, say, Somalia rather than the US. The reason for these extremely late abortions is that the fetus is stuck in an undeliverable position and the facilities for a c-section don’t exist so the only way to save the mother is a D & X. In labor. Possibly with the baby crowning. Because it’s never going to get the rest of the way out and the alternative is sitting there watching the mother die in pain. Have I mentioned here before that the pain of obstructed labor compares unfavorably to the pain of having your nails ripped out? It does. Nails, pain level about 6. Obstructed labor, a 9. I can imagine worse, but really don’t enjoy doing so.
I am extremely grateful to my abortion performing OB that he was able to do a “5 minute from decision to incision” c-section instead of a 41 week D & X, but I don’t presume to judge women who don’t have that option available for their decision to survive.
Rookieatheist:
Cuddlecakes, given not only your performance here to date but the arrant nonsense that Maureen quoted from your blog — are you even aware that there exist other countries which do things differently from the U.S.? — you have absolutely no standing from which to call anyone else “dumb.”
The profanity and epithets I use stand on a base of argumentative substance, which is more than I can say for your pseudo-polite maunderings that rest on the notion of women as moral idiots.
We’ve already covered this, dipshit.
You are? You’re doin’ it wrong.
How many fucking times does it have to be explained to you? Why should any of us waste more electrons on the topic when you’re unable to benefit from the ones already expended?
Never heard of “internalized misogyny,” have you? Are you one of those facile tools who thinks that feminism is just “men vs. women,” “the battle of the sexes,” rather than a comprehensive system of oppression with which some women collude, and which some men resist?
It hasn’t been “going our way” for the last 30 years, and milquetoast strategies of “conceding ground” to woman-haters hasn’t worked. You know what might work? Uncompromising resistance, as in the recent cases involving the Komen Foundation and Rush Limbaugh.
But thanks for your concern, fuckwit.
Josh:
Consider yourself paid back for last night’s inhalation of my dinner.
I’m glad to see that either A) others are continuing my shit metaphor for Joey’s argument or B) someone independently came to the same conclusion as me.
Joey if multiple people hear your ideas and their first thought is “shit” that’s not a good sign.
Sigh.
I plead too much blood (and melatonin) in my caffeine stream.
It amuses me that people object to the word “fuck” used in a topic about pregnancy.
Because it is patently clear that is exactly what it is.
Get over yourself, rookie. You are clearly someone who has a huge problem with women.
Again, since no matter how often you are told the truth, you are determined to hear that pro-choicers are in favor of and welcome the hypothetical third trimester straw abortion: you – you fuckheadedfella – are anti-woman and anti-choice. You most definitely are part of the group that hates women –
You haven’t produced a “gotcha” by holding up the fact that some women participate in the push to enslave their own gender. That happens in every patriarchal culture – look it up – it is a survival mechanism.
It’s called experience, Rookie
Yes, pregnancy and birth are dangerous. So dangerous in fact that the only question health care providers should ask themselves is “How can we best treat and serve the needs of the truly *viable* patient–the pregnant woman?”
I’ve a FOAF story, and I know it to be true.
Recently(probably won’t make the news but it might) a couple who wanted another child was pregnant and the woman was in labor. In the delivery room, a nurse assisted in breaking the woman’s water, a standard procedure I’m told.
Within five minutes the mother had died from systemic emboli caused by amniotic fluid entering the bloodstream from a placental tear, and the infant may not have brain function. Father is single with one healthy child and a very, very difficult decision to make.
This is an uncommon occurrence, but not rare, I’m also told.
This is what can happen when everything goes *well* up to delivery. I am ashamed that our politicians are forcing these risks on people.
Apparently, denying the right of self-determination to 50% of humanity is fine, but saying ‘fuck’ is nasty. Go figure…
Daz,
Well saying fuck is rude. Denying self determination to >50% of humanity is traditional.
Louis
Well, yeah, Daz! I mean, sure, the needless deaths and suffering of women, whatever, bodies used as incubators against their will, blah blah blah, but “fuck” hurts Important Man Fee-Fees!
(Apologies to Louis for stealing his Fee-Fees.)
Daz: It’s utterly typical of conservatives. “The social order” >>>>>>>>> the health, prosperity, safety, and happiness of the vast majority of humanity.
Cassandra Caligaria,
IMPORTANT!!!!!!!
{Faints from exposure to rudeness}
Louis
Daz #347, I’ve noticed this often, too. I’ve heard men (it is usually men, but not always) say they prefer the company of a person proven to be a thief and a liar over the company of an honest person because the honest person occasionally used swear words. Some of these men are in my family. :(
Cassandra and Ms. Daisy (349-350) yes! It’s yet another way that women (and men who swear when supporting women – though at other times, men swearing is,you know, just guys blowing off steam- understandable) are dehumanized and marginalized. They don’t need to care about the rights and humanity of those RUDE foul-mouthed women!
Okay, I give up. WT (ahem) F is a fee-fee when it’s at home?
Ah, but Louis, our own beloved PM says we’re ‘traditionally’ Christian. Damnit, I can’t argue with logic like that. I’m off to get baptised…
Daz,
Well, we wouldn’t want to be rude, would we? It’s un-lady like.
If you find “fuck” offensive, please go here and think about the message. Try hard.
@niftyatheist
((hugs))
@everyone else:
Here is yet another of those laws that people put into effect so as to stop those ebil women from aborting viable fetuses at whim:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/20-week-abortion-ban-nebraska-oklahoma-fetus-feel/story?id=13116214#.T38U2dm8-Sq
Shock shock when it doesn’t turn out as people say it will. I don’t know how people who want to legislate abortion plan to avoid this shit. I mean, do you think that if a reporter had asked the legislators if their bill would result in this tragic situation, that the legislators would have said yes? No, of course not; they would have insisted that the reporter was asking a stupid question, and how the law was designed to stop cruel women from fecklessly waiting until after the 20th week to choose to have an abortion at whim. But that’s not what happened.
The Deavers wanted another baby. When nature said that wasn’t possible, they wanted to end the doomed pregnancy as quickly and painlessly as possible, the law said that wasn’t possible either.
And if I may dare to add to the video of PZ, here is another one.
Louis
But, PZ, the rookie was trying to appeal to you because you answered his question without all of the nastiness.
Now nice it must but to not have to worry about the nastiness of bombing Planned Parenthood offices and abortion clinics and the nastiness of murdering people involved in providing abortions.
Nifty, swear words are considered “adult” language. To the extent that such people consider women human, they certainly don’t consider us adults with the full complement of rights. Also, swearing being a man’s prerogative, women who swear are considered to be “acting like men,” which is hazardous to heterosexual stiffies. That’s why you’re more apt to see the term “foul-mouthed” or, even more tellingly, “potty-mouthed” used to describe a woman than a man.
@eris: That story is truly awful! FWIW, the spinothalamic tract which carries pain signals to the brain doesn’t even develop until the 23-30th week of pregnancy. The Nebraska legislature is absolutely FOS.
*giggles*
Oh, the number of times trolls have called be this. Also, please to not forget vile.
“Do”, not “to”.
To add to PZ’s and Louis’s links, here’s a symphony for Rookieatheist!
Also, Louis, I forgot to ask about your comment at #335: Were you able to flush it all at once, minimizing the pain of the procedure, or did you have to cruelly collapse its poor little skull with the loo brush?
Janine, yeah, I’ve been called “vile,” though I forget the rest of the context. I think I had it in my nym for a while too.
For the record, I don’t find “fuck” offensive. I use it all the time (my word!). It’s just that from experience, comments which rely heavily on the word fuck to get their point across are almost always lazy, dumbass comments. You could say that I’m fucking prejudiced on the subject. Maybe.
Giliell:
Oh, I wish. A.R is always desperate to be seen as a major participant in these threads, but can’t manage an original thought, only parrot others and toss out moronic one liners. No help at all.
“RookieAthiest” (my ass) and “joey“: both of you rancid asspimples can just fuck right off. Here’s a white hot sun of fuckitude, stuffed with decaying, maggot-riddled porcupines for you both to fuck yourselves and be sure to pound it fucking hard, Cupcakes. Oh, and because I’m sure you two fuckwits missed the message: women are human beings, you chucklefuckers and they have a right to bodily autonomy.
One of my many monikers that I used here was Vile Bitch. That came from a very pleasant godbot. This was before I decided to stop using Bitch in my monikers and adding more fuel to the fire started by the misogynists whining about our use of gendered insults.
Caine:
♥
rookieatheist:
Fortunately, most people here don’t rely on the word “fuck” to get their point across. Most times, it could be excised quite easily, and the point still stands.
If the word “fuck” interferes with your reading comprehension due to your own biases, the trouble is not with the author.
rookiecupcake:
Oh? Your experience isn’t worth a bad fuck, Cupcake. In thread after thread where you and your idiocy have shown up, people have spent time crafting long, clear, well thought out comments which you seem to have an immense amount of difficulty understanding. Hence your stream of moronic postings. So, who is the lazy, non-cognitive dumbass, Cupcake? Certainly looks like it’s you.
So, either you’re genuinely stupid or you’re just another lying, scumbag troll.
@rookie.
So you use a swear word as an indicator of lazy thought because you’re too fucking lazy to actually read what people say and think about it first?
So, this is your fucking excuse to not answer questions about real women having real abortions as opposed to your hypothetical shit?
You are not making yourself look any better, you ridiculous fucking assclam.
Fuckity fuck fuck.
I have found that most lazy, dumbass posts contain “the.” Therefore, if a post disagrees with me and contains “the,” I shall disregard it.
*nods sagely*
Ms Daisy Cutter, #365,
Sadly it required chopping with a knife and two flushes post brushing to rid the world of it.* This healthy kick I’m on involves lots of beans and…
…hey…where are you all going…
Wait! I have photos! I have photos!
Louis
* Some of this is not true! Amazingly enough, I’m not going to tell people about my poopoo habits. Shocking, I know.
P.S. Fuuuuuck fuckety fuckety fuck fuck fuck. Fuck? Fuck!
RookieBloviator
Unlike yours which are fuck-free yet not dumbass? Well, if that’s what you think, you’re half right.
Have you considered commenting on the point of the OP yet; the dishonest and misleading use of the picture in question?
Two plus fucking two is fucking four.
Please fucking refute this fucking claim.
Fucking thank you.
Fuck.
Louis
niftyatheist:
Woohoo, thank you! :showers you with hugs & chocolate:
rookieatheist,
You are a fucking idiot. You are not funny, you are not witty. Your entire “just asking questions” hypothetical is dismissive of real women with actual concerns. When you jump on your critics for saying “fuck”, you are dismissive of them too. You are the worst kind of tone troll; you don’t even mind the language but you dismiss the arguments of people who say “fuck” nonetheless. Go fuck yourself you blogwhoring misogynist* piece of shit.
This comment is so disgusting, I am tempted to use dirty words for emphasis while I berate you for it. There is a simple fucking dividing line for when women should have autonomy to make their own rational choices. If you agree that, like all persons, women should never be disallowed from making their own choices about their own body and health, then you are on the right side of that line. You were asked a question earlier by Alethia, (she didn’t even use dirty words, so can’t dismiss it out of hand),
In conclusion, you, rookie atheist, are a dingleberry clinging to Rush Limbaugh’s ass.
*I don’t give a fuck if you don’t consider yourself as one who hates women. If you advocate positions that are harmful to women, and dismiss actual issues that effect women so that you can mentally masturbate over your uninteresting hypotheticals that have already been thoroughly addressed, I am going to continue to think of you as a misogynist. Because you are one. Wan’t to change that perception/reality? Stop dismissing women and real womens’ issues.
Ms. Daisy #361, of course! why I hadn’t made the connection between that infantilizing of women and the weird preoccupation with language? Now that I think of it, it is usually those who think of themselves as people who value women and treat them as equal who have this issue with “bad” language. My relatives think they are semi-progressive on recognition of the equal humanity of women (and rights etc) but they are always cautioning me about being too “pushy” , always critical of the language used by pro-choice advocates. It’s all the same thing, really – just more of the same considering women less than human, but wrapped up in a veneer of being modern, progressive people. Yeah, fuck that shit.
Eris #375 BA! Hahahahaha!!!
Yes, it is. It’s the denial of full autonomy and rights to women. The fact that people would ask and answer such a question in the abstract is further indicative of the problem, as is the obsession with this supposed issue (particularly obscene in the current context in the US) and the way women are presented in these absurd hypothetical late-term scenarios. And the fact that people like you are aware that the current restrictive context is causing great harm to women and their families and that your bullshit hypotheticals distract from and help continue that harmful and fatal regime and you go on the same way. That is misogynistic, it’s immoral, and you need to stop.
Misogynistic is not the same as stupid. (You happen to be both, but that doesn’t make them synonymous.)
Nifty:
It’s usually the “I respect women” or “I love women” types, whose “respect” and “love” for women is conditional upon us fulfilling very narrow roles and strict expectations. Usually they’re conservatives, but not a few are fauxgressives.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster,
I like the current moniker. Also glad to see Caine proudly displaying her monster-hood. Let Pharyngula be overrun with monstrosities!
Ms. Daisy Cutter,
Maybe the context was you giving a vivid explication of the process by which one physically deforms the chunks of fecal matter that they have excreted. Something like this,
Oh wait, you were saying that you were called “vile” for passionately supporting women’s rights? I have no idea why that would ever happen. Women NEVER get dismissed in these conversations for being hysterical or emotional, so I really have no clue…
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
Ugh Ugh Ugh. I loathe those creeps. Especially the “I love women/I love all women” creeps. Slimy, nasty, disgusting critters that give scum a bad name. There’s little else which is such a blatant lie.
$50 in the pot for the RR fund, Caine. I love how candid they are – “help a woman change her life; fund an abortion.”
FUCK YEAH.
Adding to mine @386:
The “I love women/I love all women” morons – it’s the same as this:
“I love dogs! Except, ya know, those yappy ones.” “I love all dogs!”
Utterly dismissive of the notion that women are individual human beings.
They’re all of a type:
1. They want pussy on demand.
2. They want a woman to be a lady in the living room, a domestic worker in the kitchen, and a whore in the bedroom.
As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I find this next statement to be difficult to make, but I’ll make it anyway:
Rephrased from Rookie’s post: For those of you who are replying thinking that the answer is so simple (sex with a woman without her consent = rape) then ask yourselves this one question: would you be prepared to change your mind under any scenario? If not, then you’re stuck in dogmatic woo-woo land and incapable of carrying out a rational discussion.
Unlike organ donation (which I thank Alethea H. Claw for bringing up), people really do push that there should be exceptions to “sex with a woman without her consent = rape.” People really do argue that if a woman consents, the man puts his penis in, and then the woman withdraws consent, but the man doesn’t stop, that it isn’t rape. People argue that if the two are married, it isn’t rape. People argue that if she was dressed a certain way, or let him buy her dinner, or let him walk her home, or if she was drunk, or if she didn’t fight back, or any number of other “exceptions.”
And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of people saying that my body is not my own, not all the time. I’m tired of people labeling me as irrational because I don’t want exceptions for when I get to control my body. I’m tired of being told it isn’t that bad to have someone take control of my body away from me, as long as I’m not crippled or dead or something. I’m tired of people calling me selfish for not giving up use of my body when those people will never be called to give up use of their bodies.
The fact that I am not willing to entertain weird hypotheticals like “What if by forcibly raping and impregnating a woman, you could create a child that would cure cancer?!” does not mean I’m irrational. It means I’m tired of acting like these hypotheticals are somehow more important than the reality that a chunk of our society views me as a commodity to be used as the powerful deem fit. I’m a hole for men to have sex with. I’m a uterus to make babies for “good” infertile couples. I’m anything and everything except my own.
Disclaimer: I’m hoping that this post won’t lead to a bunch of people coming up with situations where they think it is okay to rape women, but I admit that I hesitated to make this post precisely out of fear that people would. We’ll see if my fears are realized.
Josh, OSG, Abortia N’ondemande:
YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you! :squeezles, hugses, chocolate & booze}
Caine, all of what you said — plus, as soon as a woman “steps out of line” with a certain subset of those smarmy types, they start letting words like “bitch” and “cunt” and “ball-buster” fly. So respectful and loving. Rather like the assholes in the ’70s who’d let the door deliberately smack you in the face behind them because “I thought you bitches wanted to be liberated! Open your own damn doors!”
I asked you a stupid fucking question. If PZ did not like how we operated, would he have stopped it years ago.
Dearest Janine, let me put you out of your self-centered misery (yes, your stupid question should have been high on my priority list, how silly of me).
Yes, he would have stopped it. If he didn’t like it. Apparently he does like it. His blog, his rules. There now, a nice short answer to your “stupid fucking question”.
I also believe somebody got so annoyed that they called me a troll. I’m writing about abortion in the comments section of an abortion article. Where’d I go wrong? Oh yes, I’m not one of the gang. Silly me. I’m sure we’ll get along fine under different topics.
@Nifty: You’re gone all strange now, claiming that I’m “determined to hear that pro-choicers are in favor of and welcome the hypothetical third trimester straw abortion”. WTF? I was just plodding along through the internet the other day, and then naively thought I’d ask what were people’s opinion here on the dividing line. I honestly had no clue what the responses would be (Naive with a capital N). I read this blog a lot, but apparently not enough, or too much on the evolution side of things.
Maybe some of you think that the third trimester abortion argument is a misogynist distraction. But in my daily life, when I’m up against anti-abortioners, all they need to do to end the conversation is bring up that subject. For them, that ends the debate. To even get them to consider late contraception and first term abortion, I have to say that I’m totally against late abortions. Until I started getting hammered by you folks, that was easy to do cos I was against late abortions, for reasons that I believed to be rational and non-misogynist.
Jeez, I’m finding myself in an analogous position to apologetic religious people. It doesn’t feel too good.
Eris, good job in pointing out why I hate and tend to avoid threads infested with the likes of rookie, joey and LFAAPN. I am sure that I am not alone in saying this; Thank You.
Ms. Daisy Cutter:
Oh yes, that’s a classic move, that. Then the thread gets derailed over douchetart’s insistence on being able to use the word cunt. I’ve lost count of those.
Josh:
Honestly, they have nothing to lose. RR clinic has been fighting tooth and nail to stay open for years and they still have to fight, every fucking day. The Dakotas are *huge* (ND & SD) and there are two legit clinics, one per state. Each clinic is at the ass end of the state, making it damn near impossible for most women in that state to get there. We actually are in the dark ages here and it’s damn scary. People who are holding up a light, they need all the support they can get.
I can’t say thank you enough for those who donated, will donate or will hook up with a local clinic to grow the collective and help women to live and flourish.
There are almost 400 comments on this thread. By now, people have given you substantive point after substantive point after substantive point, almost all of which you have ignored. Why should anyone bother to do anything else at this point but tell you to fuck off at this point? It’s not being lazy, it’s being efficient. No sense in wasting time explaining points that have already been explained to you that you’ve already ignored.
Caine, Cruel Monster,
Creepers who say this often are also sufferers of Nice Guy Syndrome. Did I say they were sufferers? I meant that they are the type who make other suffer by nature of their being Nice Guys.
Well said.
I don’t think there are moral absolutes, but there are actions to which the justifying circumstances involve basically our universe’s genre being changed from Realistic Non-Fiction to Sci-fi/Fantasy.
I will flat out say that Genocide is wrong…because there’s no point in adding “Unless we find something like The Daleks” because it’s an absurdity. I suppose you could present an abortion I’d have to be against even against the mother’s wishes if it’s the bloody second coming or King Arthur’s return or the Messiah or some bullshit like that but please do not think I am dogmatic for insisting that we live in reality.
Aaw, look Janine, it’s being all condescending to you. Aren’t you all grateful for that pat on the head? Good Janine.
If they have the power to end the debate on whim on their terms you had no chance of winning. That this goes on in your daily life is evidence of you not being that good at debate/rhetoric not at any flaw in our tactics.
Are you so fucking blind that you cannot understand all of the people pointing out how fucking fooling your questions are. That you find it so much easier to place the blame that you are a fucking outsider?
Do this. Read what Eris wrote at #390. If you cannot understand what she says, get the fuck away from this blog. The regulars will never have sympathy for you.
And, also, fuck you and your . Cram it up your fucking ass along with the dead porcupines you have collected here.
Eris:
Good post. And know you aren’t alone. A family member started raping me when I was 3 years old and that went on until I was 9 years old.
Later on, I was ambushed in a parking lot by a serial rapist and murderer.
I don’t take rape or rape apologists lightly or well.
Also, in response to Joey’s “Does “birth” happen?” question, I have my own:
When is a woman’s health/life in danger from pregnancy? When there is a 90% chance of something going really wrong? 80%? 50%? 20%? 1%? What if we don’t know the percent? What if it’s between 1% and 80%, but we don’t know where? Just when exactly do we allow women to decide for themselves if the risk is great enough?
Or if we’re talking about the fetus, just how sure do we have to be that something is wrong with the fetus, or that the fetus will die? Do we tell women they can’t have an abortion when the fetus has a 50% chance of dying and/or having some kind of serious defect? 90%? 10%? I hope you get the idea.
Where do you want to legally mandate that it isn’t the woman’s decision, but the decision of a legislator who will not be impacted at all by the outcome of the decision?
Because we’re talking about denying people medical care and/or sending them to jail. This is serious stuff.
Oh I love women. I just don’t think they should be allowed to control their own bodies. Because they have lady bits it makes them all funny.
I think the argument runs roughly thus:
1) Women get pregnant.
2) ???????????
3) Women go a bit funny and want to kill babies.
4) Profit.
Sorry, sorry, I just have to satirise these bozos. It’s a coping mechanism. If I don’t laugh I will rage. And you don’t want to see me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. I make funny faces and silly noises and fart the Moonlight Sonata. True story.
Louis
One more thing, fuckfaced rookie, the reason why I asked that question is because you were trying to toady up to the owner of this blog because he did not swear at you. “Oh, PZ, you are so much better than the riff raff vulgarians who hurl “fucks” at me.”
You really are not much for self reflection, are you.
I suppose there is a reason for that.
As a side note, and sorry if this a derail: it actually amazes me that this is an issue that crops up due to being MORE advanced in medicine and science rather than less! For most of human history no one had a problem with abortion (more or less) if only because they had to seriously consider infanticide in some cases or the mortality rate for children was so high that crying over fetuses wasn’t even conceivable. The Bible itself doesn’t consider a child a person until long after they’re born, due to said mortality rate. For the start of the 20th century this was seen as a silly Catholic issue that the protestants tut tuted about how irrational and crazy they were. Some how our collective increase in knowledge of gestation and child development has resulted in a collective increase in our stupidity on the issue.
Yes I know it all comes down to the science and developments threatening the patriarchal paradigm, but it’s still fascinating how this “age old question” is really brand new.
rookieatheist:
Right. Because the way you approached this wasn’t troll-like at all, all assholes, elbows, and condescension.
Nice form, cowboy.
Yes but it would require someone showing me why practically their way is better. I don’t think that can be done with moving the dividing line forward, which means it most likely would be someone moving it backwards which I also see as unlikely.
Somebody said I should comment on the original post topic, which I neglected to do. Apologies. I thought it was obvious that the promotion photo by those atheists against abortion is a dumb fuckwitted attempt at using science to justify their superstitious, magical views.
Those people are atheists because, to paraphrase Dawkins, they simply went one god further, not because of any rational reasons. This is why Sam Harris is probably right about why the word atheist eventually needs to go, so that we’re not all lumped together over a silly little thing as our non belief in a silly deity. Afterall, I’m sure you folks hate the idea of being lumped in with the likes of me.
Actually if they’re the people I’m thinking of, then there’s serious question whether any of them actually are Atheists.
Do you need help off that cross?
If that were the case than the word HUMANITY would have to go.
Harris is a fucking idiot on that topic
Dearest fuckface, I do not give a flying fuck if godbots cannot tell the difference between you and me. That is their problem.
The reality is this, I am not lumped in with you.
And, yet again, fuck you in the dearest way possible.
@Rookie
This story reminded me of your attitude
http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/04/06/fox-news-anchor-wants-your-thoughts-on-crazy-conspiracy-theory/
And if you hear the phrase “I put women on a pedestal,” run.
***
And you now apparently (however dimly) realize that you were wrong. Now go back to your little lair, ponder that realization, and make a donation.
Always. I have no desire to be shackled to that pedestal.
Dearest Rookie, no one can touch you for strangeness.
I am pro-choice and I have defended a woman’s right to choose abortion if she decides it is best for her and from that, you strangely extrapolated that I (and apparently a 10% of the population that you pulled out of thin air) am in favor of your hypothetical third trimester straw abortion. That is what is strange, rookie.
What is even stranger is that an anti-woman, pro-reproductive slaver like yourself appears to believe that he might be regarded as reasonable by any pro-choice, pro-humanity person. Not just here but anywhere.
You are a liar, too. You have no more advocated for reproductive choice than I have picketed for forced birth. You can’t be “up against anti-abortioners” when you are anti-abortion yourself, liar.
Drawing lines about when a woman should and should not have the right to control what happens to their own bodies is still saying “women should not be allowed to decide”. The very fact that you believe that your opinion and the opinions of anti-choicers should count in the decision of a woman you don’t even know shows that you are contemptuous of women and do not believe they have a right to bodily autonomy.
THe fact that this continues to be your argument, even after this lengthy thread, shows that you consider women to be devoid of intelligence, morality and normal human emotions regarding reproduction – so much so that you believe it is incumbent upon you and people like you to TELL women where the “line” should be drawn after which their amoral whims can no longer be indulged.
Oh, and fuck off still.
Is the fukwit still here? Wasn’t xe told to fuck off already? Must be waiting to collect one more porcupine. Maybe xe needs one more to make an even dozen?
Damn, I thought I closed that italics thing. Hope I didn’t bork the whole thread. :(
@nigelTheBold
Right. Because the way you approached this wasn’t troll-like at all, all assholes, elbows, and condescension.
Assholes and elbows? If only it were true. I got hammered by you folks. Your claws and porcupines hurt hard!
I’ll accept the condescension criticism. Damn it. I get that criticism all the time (online and in real life), so I’ve come to accept that I argue in a condescending way, but I can’t seem to do fuck all about it. I’ll probably come back and read my posts in a couple of days/weeks and see where I was a jackass.
If you need help with your flagellation I will gladly assist…however like all playmates you will be required to use a gag.
Dearest fuckface, it should not be too hard. It has been pointed out to you repeatedly.
And I will throw in one huge fucking clue, everyone of your post shows off your assholishness.
Think I am kidding?
SC,
There needs to be a swear-jar equivalent for misogynists like Rookiecupcake. Every time you advocate for a restriction on half the population’s right to make autonomous choices, you must donate $10 to PP.
Nifty, it takes the Grand Poopyhead to create a thread altering bork. If that were not the case, I would have left a lot of threads a huge mess.
Deeply silly person, #419,
Try dying to an ectopic pregnancy, or through untreated pre-eclampsia, or the psychological trauma of bearing the child of your rapist, or…
Yeah, you’re the one in pain here.
Rearranged these words into a common phrase or sentence: off fuck.
Louis
Cupcake, whether you’re an atheist or not is irrelevant. You’re walking around with a head full of stupid and two fistfuls of ugly*. Try fixing that, will ya?
*Here’s a clue, given your dimness: we run to ferocious, fast-paced, sharp-tongued intelligence here. The stupid get left behind. That’s why you’re having a hard time.
One can only hope.
oops, sorry for the blockquote fail. The blockquote should have included this and only this:
Woo_Monster, that would defund all of the Republican Party. And not a small minority of Democrats.
And Fox News would no longer afford to be on the air.
And good bye to direct marketing.
Brilliant!
It will take you that long to work out where you were a jackass? Hell it took us lot a few seconds. D-. Must try harder. You need remedial lessons in recognising jackassery.
Louis
And we’re the lazy dumbasses? Oh my. That’s quite the little fantasy land you’re livin’ in.
Rookiecupcake’s jackass nature was obscured by our collective “fucks”.
Janine #423 Thanks be to the tentacled one! My own technical stupidity is about my only shot at the top 2% of any human characteristic.
You went wrong when you failed to comprehend the meaning of the word “troll”.
I will change my mind when artificial womb technology is perfected, or when humans are genetically altered to lay eggs.
Anyone who thinks that “fuck” makes a sentence automatically rude needs to read The Importance of Being Earnest or similar works so they can learn that it is VERY possible to be condescending, rude and nasty as all FUCK while talking like a Victorian lady.
Only because we don’t like sharing company with fuckface pigfuckers. And lest you think I’m exaggerating or saying something to you I wouldn’t to your face you’re wrong. I find you so outrageous I’d publicly excoriate you in a bar and tell you to get the fuck up off my table if I found myself sitting next to you. Yeah, I think you’re that bad.
Janine, #432,
Our collective fucks? Oh you exaggerate! Surely none of us have actually given a single fuck about him.
Or did you mean…
;-)
Louis
Janine:
You can have my fucks when you can pry them from my dead, cold hands.
And PP would be so awesomely rich that all the staff would be wearing $30,000 watches while they abort those 8.5 month olds on a whim.
Bwahahaha
Since we did not give a single fuck about him, all fucks remained in the Fuckpository where their combined mass (or Fuckundity) created a disturbance field of over 9000 Fucktons that over shadowed his measly 9.4 Fuckton signature.
Josh,
And now I’m stuck with the line, “In a fucking haaandbaaaag!?” going round and around in my head.
Ing, #440,
OVER 9000? Surely all his fucks belong to us?
Louis
@Louis
I actually have some Pig Porn footage* lying around somewhere left over from class if you have some coin to drop
*I think I actually do…
@Louis
A common mistake, but I think if you’ll check the math with the Carlin/Pryor Equation you’ll see that that is STILL not enough energy for us to take any of his bullshit, must less a fuck.
A case could be made that even that would be wrong. Regrettably necessary, perhaps, but still wrong….
@Amphiox
If something is regrettably necessary I fail to see why we would label it was wrong morally. Uncomfortable and unsavory perhaps, but labeling it ‘wrong’ seems to indicate that the phrase has no meaning.
I mean when faced with a true dilemma of either 5 people die or 5000 die, All else equal IMO it’s not even a real choice, even if I was one of the 5. I might choke at actually doing it, but it wouldn’t change what the right answer is. It wouldn’t be a happy decisions but it can’t be wrong if it is undeniably the best solution.
Which brings us back to late term abortion, in most cases it’s a choice between, even rounding a fetus up, saving one or none. It’s not a real choice. When you add that a fetus is just a potential rather than a being….it becomes a non-issue.
Nerd:
No crap it’s a legal question! You guys want this legislated or not? Legislation requires precise language.
Why do you think dangerous IDX procedures occur? Because it is the common understanding that birth happens once the entire body of the fetus is outside the mother. That’s why mothers and doctors are willing to stick sharp objects inside the woman to terminate the fetus while it’s in the process of being delivered. That is reality folks. Anyone who denies such procedures is being willfully ignorant.
So isn’t it in women’s best interests to move that birth event as late as possible, even after the fetus is outside the mother? Makes sense. So why not move it to the point when the umbilical chord is severed? That way the fetus can be terminated without having to stick sharp objects inside the mother. And as I’ve argued, as long as the fetus is still technically attached to the mom it can be still considered a parasite and part of the mother’s body.
Wrong, fuckface #2. Want to know what would make it easier for woman? Stop the bombing of clinics and the murder of personal. Stop the legislation that makes getting an abortion more difficult, more expensive and more emotionally manipulative. Stop allowing godbotters from making threats to landlords who have abortion providers as clients.
Not your bullshit legal argument.
Yes, just like the precise language that bans abortions of doomed to die fetuses in the name of preventing “fetal pain,” as in the case that I mentioned above.
I’m going to regret this. I know I am. But I just can’t seem to stop myself. So, please explain how it is in the best interests of the woman to give birth and then kill the infant rather than having an abortion at an earlier stage. Please explain how it makes sense.
Idiot:
You know, I think you may have reached the Stupidity Singularity.™. No, that’s not how it works, Cupcake.
No it isn’t. That’s inside your head, an ugly wasteland.
I wouldn’t be talking about being willfully ignorant if I were you. You seem to take inordinate pride in being stupid and ignorant.
The only time such a procedure would take place is in the case of something dire being wrong with the fetus or the woman being in danger of dying. Now, you’ve been told, over and over and over and over and over that this particular tactic is a red herring.
Either you start talking about something other than your fantasy late-term abortions or take this handy dandy decaying porcupine, shove it up your ass and shut the fuck up.
You can always switch over to how you hate women and that they aren’t full human beings, they can’t be trusted, hormones, fuzzy pink lady brains, all that.
If you are a woman, do not bother responding. Joey is only looking for input from the “guys” on this one
Yep, he is definitely talking to teh Menz about what is in womens’ interests. Can’t leave it up to those bitches to make rational decisions about women’s health. They are all irrational and whimsical and all that.
joey 448 – Are you willfully ignoring what has been said – repeatedly – about your straw abortion at birth?
The only reason why any woman or doctor would resort to abortion during labor would be if the woman will likely die a horrible death due to delivery complications.
Your hypothetical straw labor/birth abortion refers to a post-delivery termination of an already born fetus. What you are really doing is talking about infanticide as a straw argument – again. Bringing in the false suggestion that women can and probably would want to terminate a fetus just for the hell of it, even after birth (IOW even if there is no threat to themselves anymore).
You are a forced-birther, dehumanizing woman-fearing, troll. Fuck off.
Don’t cut the cord yet! I want this thing aborted!
Woo_Monster:
I’m currently reading Why Are You Atheists So Angry? by Greta Christina. There are a lot of links in the e-book, one of them to the initial blog post which inspired the book. I clicked the link and revisited that post and thread and found myself rather astonished by the amount of people who addressed Greta as he/him. There was even one gem which expressed the sentiment that “he wouldn’t be a lesbo if…”.
Sometimes, you have to laugh at the stupid. It’s either that or you start shooting them.
Where did you dig up that fallacy? If legistlation and regulations were precise, we in the API industry wouldn’t need ten pages of explanations for each page of legislation/regulation.
You’ve been lied to. Ever hear of reducing head size to relieve the distress on the woman during a late term abortion? But then you don’t give a flying fuck about the woman. Why are you continuing this fuckwittery? Real answer, not your fake one…
Ok, ok, everyone, calm down! I’ve discovered why it is in the women’s best interests to move that birth event as late as possible, even after the fetus is outside the woman. You see, women are Satanist witches, and they need to appease their Dark Lord with the blood of innocent babies. If we only allow abortions before the fetus gets out of the vaginal canal, then they will only be able to sacrifice fetuses, and not infants. How then will women gather their magical powers of evil to wreck havoc on our livestock and crops? I say no! The government has no right to prevent women from exercising their powers as agents of Hell. Freedom of religion, not freedom from religion! We must ensure that Satanic witches are able to inflict their enemies with hexes that cause leprosy, or else we might as well toss out the first amendment.
[Citation. Fucking. Needed.]
Caine, Cruel Monster,
Jealousy, thy name is Woo_Monster.
I’ve never read an e-book before. I hadn’t thought of the possibility of putting links right in the text, that sounds really nifty. God I love that original Why Are Atheists So Angry post. I show it to friends who are interested in why I get lively about the topic of religion as an introduction. Or I show them one of Greta’s youtube clips where she generally re-hashes that post. It is a fucking powerful piece.
“he wouldn’t be a lesbo if…”? Fucking hell. So vile (this is where the term “vile” accurately applies). I’m not sure if I am wrong for thinking like this, but I truly get more pissed at the mealy-mouthed faux-allies who pretend (or are deluding themselves) that they are not contributing to the toxic patriarchal culture, all the while condescendingly shitting on and dismissing women than I get mad at the honest pieces of shit misogynists. Nothing makes my blood boil like a polite, arrogant, sexist hemorrhoid who gets all offended at being called out for their entrenched misogyny.
Josh:
I had totally forgotten that saying. And how much I loathe it.
Eris, yes, rape apologetics come from the same place as anti-choice rhetoric: The idea that women exist for men to make use of.
Woo_Monster, while there are Nice Guys™ who say that shit, too I’m mainly familiar with it coming from the self-styled “Alpha Males” (snort) who dominate every conversation and patronize women compulsively. The furious misogynist bluster not infrequently is cover for a deep well of insecurity: Stand your ground with them, and the bluster fades to whining and passive-aggression.
Ing:
QFT. Also:
Uh huh.
Woo_Monster:
Wanting to read her book is the reason I finally quit waffling over getting an e-reader. I am loving my Nook Tablet, gotta say. Also, Angry Birds. :D
It truly is. It goes to show just how entrenched the notion of women not being human happens to be. It’s fucking appalling.
@Daisy
Year of hands on experience at a pig farm…covered everything from simple medical treatment to farrowing.
Rookie, have you missed the parts of the thread where it is mentioned how tiny concessions (like saying “of course I don’t agree with late-term abortions”) just to get something passed is actually fucking counter productive? I’ll just refer you to comment 240 by Mak, though you should have read it all if you are commenting.
People LOVE to make it seem all reasonable – after all, we all know that the answer never lies on either end of the extremes, it must be somewhere in the middle, right? Right?
Except, in the case of rights, you either have a right or you don’t, and anyone who is willing to throw some women under the bus, even if it is to save other women, is not an ally. If it’s not complete autonomy, it’s not really autonomy at all.
Shorter Joey: I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe!*
*yeah, yeah, I have Futurama on the brain.
Ing, OK, but you kind of walked into that one…
Ing, #444, #445,
1) Re: pig porn. I’m going to go with a very serious “no thanks” and end this jest right there! Furthermore: ew ew ew ew ew ew EW.
It’s all fun and laughter until someone actually watches pig porn. :-)
2) Re: Carlin/Pryor mathematics. I concur. I retract my previous comment in the light of your excellent referral. However, Modified Hicksian Dynamics does suggest that in Soviet Russia Misogyny Fucks Men.
Louis
Oh for love of criminy. Are we once again hijacking womens’ rights to their bodies and quick, safe procedures on such in order to argue about 3.9999th trimester abortions again? Fuck off.
(I haven’t read this thread (yet) but I’ve read (and participated in) the previous and I was wondering) shouldn’t abortion be covered by castle law?
Was that a joke, or not?
If not, then no, they shouldn’t. Women can choose to terminate the parasite whenever they choose and for whatever reason, not just when their lives are in danger. Period.
Woo_Monster, I think SQB meant it in a SYG way – your body, invader, threat, you are allowed to deal with that threat in any manner you choose.
I meant that half in jest, but as I understand the castle doctrine, it implies a person’s absolute right to exclude anyone from their
homebody, using deadly force if necessary.In jest I get it. But Castle laws do not create absolute rights to exclude or use deadly force. Deadly force is only allowable when you are in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm. From the Wikipedia article you linked to,
But yeah, I took your jokey comment earnestly, Sorry. Just saying, a woman has an absolute right to exclude parasites from her body, and Castle Laws do not go that far. As far as pointing out the hypocrisy of people who support the Castle Doctrine but are anti-choice, though, I hear ya.
Joey, dear, do you have any idea why third trimester abortions occur and why certain techniques are preferred? I’ll answer that question for you: no, you do not. As you have demonstrated.
Why do you think dangerous IDX procedures occur?
Problem #1: IDX is not more dangerous than childbirth. It is less dangerous. Numerous people have documented this on this and the last abortion thread. Labor and delivery are dangerous. There’s no way around that. D&C early in pregnancy is even safer, of course, but it’s not appropriate for later abortions.
Because it is the common understanding that birth happens once the entire body of the fetus is outside the mother. That’s why mothers and doctors are willing to stick sharp objects inside the woman to terminate the fetus while it’s in the process of being delivered. That is reality folks.
Why is D&X used. One classic reason is fetal demise of one twin with viable second twin. The D&X procedure avoids having a sharp object in the uterus which might damage the living twin. This indication is so well established that the bill banning D&X actually mentions it as an indication not well covered by other procedures.
A second reason is fetal demise or fatal birth defect in a still living fetus where the syndrome is unclear. The birth of an intact fetus gives a better chance of diagnosis of the problem and thus accurate genetic counseling to the mother or couple.
Finally, some parents find it psychologically comforting to have an intact body to say good-bye to. I realize that the psychological comfort of a woman is the very last thing on an anti-choicer’s mind, but some of us do like to try to minimize the suffering of women-and men-who have lost a wanted fetus.
That’s reality. Not the fantasy of 8.5 month fetuses being aborted on a whim that joey is jerking off to.
Eris:
I already explained how it makes sense. You don’t have to stick sharp in the mother. And the fetus could still be considerate a parasite if it’s still physically attached to the mother via the umbilical chord. Now, how does that not make sense?
And late term abortions do occur whether you want to believe they don’t or not. No, they aren’t purely hypothetical scenarios or the fabrication of “mental masturbation”. Why would anyone think this, unless maybe they think there is something fundamentally wrong with such procedures?
Fuckface #2, no one is denying that late term abortions happens. Just fucking tired of it being portrayed as if it is being done on a whim.
niftyathiest:
Uh, no. It won’t be considered “infanticide” if the fetus is still connected to the mother via the umbilical chord. It would still be regarded a fetus. THAT is the argument. No one still has given me a reason why the exact birth event can’t be the cutting of the umbilical chord (or the expulsion of the placenta, which ever comes first).
Does it matter what their reason is? Is it any of our business?
Janine:
Again, does it matter if it’s done “on a whim” or not? Is it any of our business? In the previous thread, it shows documentation of the various reasons why late term abortions occur. I don’t see a category there that says “on a whim”.
Joey:
Yes, they do, when something is direly wrong with the fetus, the fetus is dead or the woman is in danger of imminent death. That’s it. They don’t happen all that often.
The shit filling your head is not the truth, it’s not reality and everyone has noticed how you are incapable of providing one citation from a legitimate source for your fap fap fap fap fap fantasies.
So, now that your idiocy has once again been dealt with, do you have anything even remotely intelligent to say or just more fapping?*
*I know, it’s fapping. All the time fapping. Fapping Joey. Waste of oxygen, that.
Fapping Idiot:
It’s certainly none of your fucking business. There’s an answer for you. Now fuck off, Dear.
The Idiot Fapster has become repetitive and boring. Bye now.
Comment by joey blocked. [unkill][show comment]
It won’t be considered “infanticide” if the fetus is still connected to the mother via the umbilical chord.
Joey, do you know what the three stages of labor and delivery are? Do you know what happens to the placenta after delivery of the baby? Do you even know what the umbilical cord is attached to?
Joey is full of shit. From a McGraw-Hill concise medical dictionary (first one from Google)
[my emphasis] Notice his use of the umbilical cord as a red herring (lie). We have his number. He is an anti-abortion zealot who will lie and bullshit to make any point.
Caine:
That’s it? You sure? If I may ask, where exactly did you get this information?
Well, this was posted from the other thread…
http://sciencenotes.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/what-causes-third-trimester-abortions/
ooh, ooh, I know, it’s attached to the woman’s navel, right ?
Seriously, from the level of ignorance shown by this particular troll, it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he thought so. Must be one of those insufferable idiot men who view pregnancy as an “inconvenience”. All of those doofuses should be subjected to a course of lupron injections followed with painful surgeries.
Oh, CDC .pdf showing state definitions of live birth. Alabama follows the #483 definition.
Kemist:
:falls over laughing:
You are very evil. *Bats eyelashes*
I think Joey is still afraid he will be aborted…
Retroactive abortion.
The only safe option.
Louis
Would that be PZ applying the banhammer?
dianne:
Sure, the umbilical cord is attached to the placenta. Fifteen or so minutes after the fetus is outside the mother, the placenta gets expelled. That’s why I stated birth could be when the chord is cut or when the placenta gets expelled, whichever occurs first. So what’s your point?
Fifteen or so minutes after the fetus is outside the mother, the placenta gets expelled.
What must happen for the placenta to be expelled?
The point is you don’t seem to actually know anything about the biology of reproduction.
Or how to use Google to find the information you are paranoid about. Your fixation is not healthy.
Nerd:
Congratulations on finding the generally accepted definition of what “live birth” means. So what’s your point? Of course this is the accepted definition, which is the reason IDX procedures are done the way they are. Once the fetus gets “completely expulsed” from the mother, then “birth” occurs and it can’t be terminated anymore. That’s exactly why it’s a must for these procedures that the head of the fetus must remain inside the mother when termination occurs (even though the rest of the body is outside the mother).
I’m arguing to change the definition of birth, pushing it to a later stage. What is so magical about the fact that the fetus is completely outside the mother, considering its still getting nutrition from the mother through the umbilical chord? Is it because it’s breathing or crying? Well, if it’s still getting nutrion from the mom, then it’s still technically a parasite.
What the fuck is the fucking point of fuckface #2 yammering about the definition of a live birth.
dianne:
I admit that I’m no biology major, but my general understanding is that the fetus has to be completely expelled from the mother in order to start the process of expelling the placenta. Like I said, it takes some time (15 or so minutes IIRC) for that to happen. So there is a time window to terminate the fetus before it can’t technically be regarded as a parasite anymore.
So please tell me exactly why you feel the traditional definition of birth (complete expulsion of the fetus only) is any better than the umbilical chord/placenta defining line that I’m proposing here.
We certainly can’t have an intelligent discussion with someone who doesn’t know which end of the foetus most frequently comes out first!
You’re mixing apples and oranges. Live birth is what happens when a woman goes into labor, either by her water breaking or induced by prostaglandins.
Why are you so hung up on IDX? It is a method of removing dead/dying feti, or to save the life of the woman. It isn’t used for other things. Why do you keep pretending it is? Utter stupidity, or just plain ignorance? There is no intelligent reason for your continued blather, unless you just can’t communicate your phobia…
Dianne:
I’ll betcha Joey clicks off to frantically search out the answer to each of your questions, hastily skimming (so it doesn’t appear as though he took any length of time), then cutting and pasting the answer.
Actually, I know that’s what he’s doing.