They’re considering a new law to keep women ignorant and ashamed.
The governor of Oklahoma is considering tough new abortion bills that would allow doctors to withhold test results showing foetal defects and require women to answer intrusive questions.
The results of the questionnaires would be posted online.
Women would also be required to have a vaginal ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the embryo or foetus in a third bill passed by the legislature on Monday.
So let me get this straight. If a woman in Oklahoma thinks she is pregnant, she can go in for “testing”…but she won’t get to know all the results. And she has to fill out a form so her sexual history can be posted on the web. And she’s going to get a pointless ultrasound and a lecture scripted by the likes of Prolife across America.
Why would anyone do that?
Well, it’s cheaper than paying $1,946 to visit the Voyeur club in West Hollywood.
Let the law require the same for every governor and state legislature that votes for it if they need any prostate treatment…
Oklahoma residency doesn’t cover that?
So how much longer until we get a proposed law that would require women who get abortions to be raped until they conceive again? This attempt sure doesn’t fall far short of that.
So they’re going to force women to go through a vaginal examination if they go in for a pregnancy test? Kind of like being raped by the legislature and the medical system.
That isn’t either legal or ethical. It is also practicing medicine without a licence.
If a doc did that in any other state, they would lose their license and have lawyers fighting to crawl up their assholes.
The courts will just throw them out again.
Cthulhu, I feel sorry for anyone who lives in Oklahoma.
Wow… that’s disgusting…
What can you even say about that?
There is no way antiabortion assholes can even try to say it’s about babies anymore after this…
@#5, jackal.eyes, that’s a great way to frame this (and these types of laws).
@#8
Maybe we should try to get the Oklahoma state legislators to vote on a law to provide additional funding for prenatal care… it’d be great to watch them dance around the issue that they care about the unborn.
Times like this I wish Lincoln would have just let the South leave. We don’t need their stupid tainting our reputation and bringing down our average IQ.
Nebraska and Oklahoma are taking the football rivalry further into “Who can make life worse for women” territory.
Here’s the actual text of the bill that awaits Gov. Henry’s signature:
“prior to the administration of any anesthesia or medication in preparation for the abortion on the woman, the physician who is to perform or induce the abortion, or the certified technician working in conjunction with the physician, shall:
1. Perform an obstetric ultrasound on the pregnant woman, using either a vaginal transducer or an abdominal transducer, whichever would display the embryo or fetus more clearly;”
WTF? How does this have *anything* to do with abortion?
Humiliating women, sure, but I don’t see how it has anything to do with abortion.
As a doc and a woman, IMHO any doctor who goes along with this should lose their license. It’s not exactly utopian where I am, but I’m fucking thrilled I don’t live in Oklahoma, because I hate moving house but I would have to.
Fundie kids have higher abortion rates than the general population. Jesus on a pogo stick, these clowns are such incredible hypocrits.
@redrabbit, even though some of the hospitals in states run by religious nuts are decent, I am not even considering applying to those places for residency so I could avoid crap like this.
Skatje, does this meet your approval?
I think Oklahoma is trying to say they don’t actually want women of childbearing age to live there.
Or at least that they don’t want their women of childbearing age to seek medical treatment. If you think you’re pregnant, don’t go to the doctor! The doc’ll just shit all over confidentiality and show the whole Web who’s been in your bed! Take a drugstore pregnancy test and if it’s positive, into the bathtub with a coat-hanger you go!
Jesus Fuckin’ Christ. This is unconscionable. Disgusting, loathsome and despicable to say the very least. As if it isn’t hard enough already for women in most states to obtain an abortion; it’s damn near impossible in many states already.
Great, just great. So, more women will be dying. What a pity these self-righteous assclowns never care about that at all. Damn, I’m furious.
It doesn’t. From the west coast, I can see a cloud of misogyny heading towards the ionosphere. I assume that must be Oklahoma.
I can’t believe the women of Oklahoma vote for these clowns.
Janine, Mistress Of Foul Mouth Abuse, OM @ 15:
How could it not? It’s the ideals she expressed, they fit right into her philosophical tower. Real world effects, real world women, those don’t matter.
@MXH,(#8), great suggestion. I love to call people on their inconsistencies! I am forever asking my anti-abortion acquaintances why they haven’t adopted.
Incredible.
Angry as this makes me, I can’t agree with suggestions that this has nothing to do with abortion. Hell YES this is about slut-shaming women…but for many of these people that’s just icing. The cake is still using any means necessary (or possible) to discourage abortion.
If you’re the sort of person who likes the chubby baby billboards PZ ranted about recently, then to you abortion is straight-up infanticide, and there’s little you won’t do to stop it. But I admit I don’t know which group–the misogynists or the anti-abortionists–has the upper hand in this travesty. Awful lot of overlap there.
Notice that they only shame women with this law. Men get off scott-free.
I would imagine Republicans are behind this vote. It’s therefore relevant that it would be very difficult to square “the government is too big and dictatorial” with “the government should post people’s medical information on the web”. If you should come across a slut-shaming misogynist online, they won’t care about abortion rights, but they’ll stop short and blink twice when you point out the big government thing.
While I disagree with Skatje on most everything she said on The Other Thread, I don’t think she’d approve of this. Nothing she’s said implied to me at all that she approved of lying to people, withholding vital information from them, or putting their sexual histories on the Web.
I do agree, however, that she hasn’t managed to separate Theory from Reality yet. (hell, my 17yo thinks clearer than that.)
Jaranath:
There always is.
Is there a provision in the bill for women who refuse the questionnaire and the ultrasound? Like, by not answering any questions and being civilly disobedient?
From a medical standpoint, this part alone is completely unethical. Any physician who refuses to give a patient test results is, as far as I’m concerned, committing malpractice and is not worthy of a medical license, particularly if he or she does it for religious reasons.
Well, as Voltaire said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
If you believe that what makes us human is some nonmaterial, invisible, undetectable and imortal soul rather than 100 million years of shared evolution and common DNA, this is bound to lead to idiocy. It somehow becomes easier to posit that some group of people doesn’t have a soul or has a lesser soul–than it does to see them as inferior when they share more than 99% of the same DNA as you.
The whole debate is about when human life begins. They contend that it begins when you are conceived. I contend that it begins when you stop believing the comforting lies of your childhood and the scales fall away from your eyes.
Orac:
I agree. In states which allow for “religious conscience” among medical practitioners, that sort of stuff happens. It’s a nightmare out there for women of reproductive age anymore.
I think at least the “posting on the internet” part won’t fly – the idiotic attorney general of Kansas tried to do just that a few years ago and got knocked down, hard. As for the keeping test results from the patient, I would think the AMA would have a huge piece to say about this??????
Jennifer, Jennifer, got herself pregnant,
The poor, irresponsible slut.
See, boys will be boys, so it’s up to the girls
To be moral, and keep their legs shut.
But Jennifer, Jennifer, couldn’t be bothered;
She led her young Billy astray.
They met, after classes, at Jennifer’s house,
And now there’s a kid on the way.
Jennifer, Jennifer, wants an abortion—
She says she’s too young for a baby—
But the law of the land says abortion is murder;
The answer is no, and not maybe.
See, murder is murder; we cannot condone
The destruction of innocent life.
And Billy, of course, is an innocent, too,
And he’s much, much too young for a wife.
So Jennifer, Jennifer, finds herself caught
In the view of a watchful Big Brother,
And Country and Church have a task on their hands—
How to keep the babe safe from its mother.
If murder is murder, for fetus or child,
Then surely assault is assault;
A fetus is damaged by drinking or smoking,
And all of it, Jennifer’s fault.
.
.
.
(the rest here, if you are interested:
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/09/modest-proposal-jennifer-jennifer.html )
What I’d like to know is, is there something in there penalizing a woman who’d give false answers? My best guess is “of course!”
Shit like this is why I’d happily get myself spayed.
From the article, there’s also this:
What is there for the governor to consider? The whole thing is depraved. It should be immediately jettisoned into the toxic waste bin of history.
I suddenly feel the urge to abort something.
So… instead of killing babies through abortion, they’d rather kill babies and mothers by having the doctors withhold test results that might tell the mother that the child she is carrying has a foetal disease that, if left, is likely to take her life as well? Or is that a test result they’d be “allowed” to share?
Absolutely disgusting.
There are people out there who would have me in a burka if they could get away with it. This is an example of how it would begin.
Disgusting. Vile.
I am no longer an atheist. I am now reborn, as an anti-theist. I am now in opposition to any one who believes, weather they create such despicable laws, support them, or sit idly by and allow them.
Jeez, what’s the problem? It’s not like our babyfactories are people or anything.
Why would anyone do that? To punish women for having sex.
Duh.
“A fourth bill would prohibit any state health insurance provider from covering abortions and the last bill would require abortion clinics to post certain signs in their facilities”
http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=12361
Yep, sounds like small government conservatism to me.
There is no way in hell that this is Constitutional. The courts will slap this down so hard that it’ll make their heads spin.
Next up will be special license plates for Oklahoma so they can proudly announce ‘We shame sluts who don’t want God’s babies’.
Well to be fair this should apply to ALL medical information from everyone. Yes lets publicly post everything from haemorrhoids to herpes,. Prostate exams to Paraphilia. I’m sure the GOP and friends would feature highly in the later.
And here I was thinking that Oklahoma was only famous for being
Obliviously the wind is emanating from the foetid arseholes that infest legislature.
http://www.theonion.com/video/new-law-requires-women-to-name-baby-paint-nursery,14393/ Reminded me of this video from The Onion, but actually real and so sad :(
Anyone else remember a thread from December: WTF? Dumbest poll ever (Should information about women who get abortions be posted online?) This involved Oklahoma.
Didn’t we hear about this some time ago? Probably back when it was still percolating through the legislature. I’m pretty sure I remember it because the information posted online would include the age, race, education, marital status and a few other data about the woman and her county of residence. The big concern is that in a small town (you know, the kind Oklahoma is full of) this would be plenty to identify a woman who had an abortion. This is seriously fucked up. I am so very happy I do not live in Oklahoma.
I really don’t see how they can require doctors to keep information from patients. I guess it’s not illegal, but how could any doctor not tell their patient the result of a test? How could a doctor who chose to go along with this outrage sleep at night knowing he or she was condemning patients and their fetuses to pain and suffering that could be alleviated? The anti-woman, slut-shaming mind is so alien.
Pygmy Loris, see my link @ #47. Yes, we did discuss it before. And Skatje was in on that discussion too.
This is bad on so many levels.
I mean… as atheists, we should be incensed.
Where are we going to get our snack food?
Alright, jokes in poor taste.
i just can’t grasp how someone could hate women this much.
Caine,
I’m glad you found the link :) Looks like we were posting at the exact same moment!
btw, I would note that IIRC, there is nothing new in the 5 bills the legislature is trying to get passed.
In fact, the language and scope is very similar to what they passed last year as a single bill.
that bill was indeed signed into law, and was recently struck down as unconstitutional.
why?
not because of any issues with regards to rights, no sir, but because…
“The court ruled that bill 1595 addressed too many topics, and therefore violated the Oklahoma constitution’s “single-subject” rule. ”
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/oklahoma-abortion-law-declared-unconstitutional-single-subject-rule/story?id=9891050
so that explains why there are now 5 bills covering the same material that last year’s single bill did. each “point” is now isolated as a “single subject”.
will any of those be struck down as unconstitutional?
Sadly, I’m not so sure.
I mean… as
atheistsrational, caring people, we should be incensed.it’s hardly just atheists that should be incensed by this.
Ichthyic:
I’m not so sure either. I read about the reason the single bill was struck down, and it’s not exactly heartening.
@Carlie #30
The AMA wouldn’t say crap, they don’t care. They’re only about money.
I know. It was a bad baby eating joke.
No, anyone who calls themselves human should be angry over this.
Okay, who else has spotted the big fat contradiction in these bills?
On the one hand, they want to withhold test results showing foetal abnormalities — yet on the other, they want to force the mother to listen to a “detailed description” of the foetus?
I would like to apologize on behalf of all rationalists who are marooned on this strange island of insanity known as Oklahoma. We are surrounded by morons, and the morons vote other morons into office. Small surprise – this is the same state in which EVERY COUNTY went red in the 2008 election. Even Cleveland county, which in case you don’t know, is the home of Norman, the single most liberal town in the state.
I hearby rename Oklahoma “Fubarnia”. And that song, “Oklahoma: you’re OK”? From now on, it’s “Fubarnia, you’re FUBAR.”
She continued. “[Ultrasound probes] are like little beepers. Just imagine, if you will, having a beeper in your rectum or genital area, the most sensitive area of your body. And your beeper numbers displayed on billboards throughout the city. All done without your permission,” she said.
Let this be a lesson to us all. When that poor woman from Georgia tried to warn us we all laughed at her. Little did we know that, when it comes to reproductive care, the line between reality and the depraved fantasy of assorted politicians gets blurrier by the minute.
And just for the record, the original bill (Oklahoma state law 1878), in addition to exempting physicians who lie to patients about test results from malpractice, also:
1) declared pregnancy termination to be homicide, with a few exceptions (unfortunately, miscarriages and ectopics were excluded)
2) banned abortions in cases of rape/incest unless the patient a) filed a police reports, and b) the physicians verified a report was made
3) banned abortions outside hospital settings
Perhaps we should root for an alien invasion, after all. Chances are ET would treat pregnant women a tad better than Oklahoma legislators.
@phoenixwoman #57
I’m sure this is an idealized, made up description of a generic baby (with a bunch of emotional words thrown in to make sure the woman cries).
It’s stuff like this that makes me think that selling Oklahoma to pay off the national debt would be a good idea. All people in Oklahoma that can pass the citizenship test can rejoin the rest of the US before the new owners take possession.
Then I meet wonderful, smart, sane people from Oklahoma and I have to take down the Craig’s list ads.
phoenixwoman @57–
The “detailed description” they give will probably be postcards of probirth billboards….
What’s next? Sewing a scarlet A to their clothes? Perhaps an armband with a picture of a foetus on it so everyone “knows” who these “women” are.
Sometimes our concerns about the imposition of a theocratic state seem over the top. But then stories like this make me shudder: imagine if these people really did gain all the levers of power?
What would havoc would they wreck in their attempt to impose their beliefs on us?
Women of Oklahoma unite! Take a page from Lysistrata. No man gets laid util these draconian and mysoginistic laws are off the books!
It’s stuff like this that makes me think that selling Oklahoma to pay off the national debt would be a good idea.
I don’t think that would make much of a dent, frankly, at least in the overall debt (isn’t it like 10 trillion now?).
OTOH, I suppose we could artificially mark up the value like a CDO, then trade it to China at the inflated price to knock off a chunk of the debt they hold over us.
last i checked, China holds well over a trillion of our national debt.
…imagine if they ever decided to pull that string…
Chances are ET would treat pregnant women a tad better than Oklahoma legislators.
OTOH…
Oklahoma, you are not OK.
We are all VERY disappointed in you.
Where would we find a willing buyer? Damaged goods. . . .
I am… just SHOCKED and stunned.
Pro-life is one thing, but this just goes too far. This is completely anti-choice, anti-woman, and… disgusting. No human being should be allowed to think this is an acceptable law!
Wow they managed to make a law that would require doctors to violate at least three of the core tenants of medical ethics and the hypocratic oath.
1) Withholding results: violates the Principle of Autonomy
2) Posting the info online: violates privacy.
3) being dicks and collecting information to shame them: Do no harm
let me know if i missed any. I actually think this can’t fly as any doctor doing this is in CLEAR ethical violation. Revealing info about their patients info ALONE is enough to get a doctor tar and feathered
I think if OK wants to get tough on abortion, they’ll start monitoring the fertility status of every female over 12.
If pregnant, she’ll be required to carry to term.
If subsequent tests show a fetus is no longer present, an inquest will determine why, and who’s at fault.
Punishments for behaviors endangering the life or welfare of the fetus will be severe.
I mean, do these people want to outlaw abortion, or don’t they?
Let’s see some _laws_ with some _teeth_, goddamit.
Where would we find a willing buyer? Damaged goods. . . .
if there is one thing Americans are good at, it’s value-adding to bullshit and selling it as gold.
http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2010/04/shocking_fraud_from_financial.php
Becca,
As a long time obsessive lurker on pharyngula I have a pretty good memory. Here’s PZ’s first post on the Oklahoma affair back in December.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/12/wtf_dumbest_poll_ever
Skate @#71
Oh dear…
I don’t take abortion lightly. I counsel my patients carefully, making sure they know their options and that nobody anywhere has any legal right to tell them what to do. I tell them that if they feel pressure in any direction from anyone at any time, they can come back to me and I’ll help.
I tell them what the timeframes are locally, what prenatal testing is available, and what it can and cannot tell them.
The fact that physicians would use their position to push a political/religious agenda… it sickens me. These ladies are sometimes as frightened and vulerable as I have seen anyone, and to take advantage of someone so dependent on you, well, it’s despicable in a very particular way.
oh, dear is right, dark&twisty. I had forgotten that.
I wonder how long it’ll be before they try to make selling contraceptives illegal, too.
… and yet, skatje is technically correct about one thing:
there is not supposed to be individual identifiers, even by the county they live in.
not the point however. the point is, once this legal precedent HAS been established, there is nothing stopping them from indeed publishing private information.
think about the precedent set by the “sexual offender” databases.
many seemed just fine with the idea of posting complete information about convicted sexual offenders online, including current addresses, etc.
once the idea that they can start compiling a database of information on people who get abortions becomes legally established, it’s historical precedent that it likely will indeed become a tool to use to manipulate people.
McCarthyism is NOT dead in the US, that’s for sure.
many in the US apparently read 1984 as an instruction manual instead of a warning.
skatje is too young to remember, she’ll have to discover this on her own.
right now, I’d say she is too hung up on simplifying her moral picture, which is something we likely all were hung up on around that age, especially just starting college.
fuck me, but I actually voted for Ronald Reagan when I was her age.
*shudders to remember*
I’d like to submit a bill for having complete asshats like these legislators taken out and shot.
Note to self: NEVER EVER move to OK.
I honestly don’t know what to say, it violates in so many ways. I may have been though some fucked up shit, but damn living there makes probably would have lead me to off myself. Women stuck there have my sympathies and support. Is there something we can do to try and stop this and help these women? Of course, I’m aware women will support this too and it may do no good, but still! It’s about protecting human rights whether they want it or not. Or like it or not.
Honestly, not surprised at Skatje’s approval of the other bill nor would I be surprised if she supported this one. However, since she hasn’t expressed her opinion on this one I will leave it at that.
This is the buckle of the Bible Belt. I personally know a lot of freethinkers and atheists here in OKC… but you can’t drive for 2 minutes out here without getting behind someone who has an “Abortion = murder” or “Obama = socialist” sticker. And when the hell are they going to remove their ridiculous McCain/Palin ’08 stickers? Election’s over, bitches.
Oh god, I just realized.
If i was a lawyer I would be wringing my hands in anticipation right now. All we’d have to do is wait for a death from such a pregnancy and then we have a whooper of a wrongful death suit. Correct me if I’m wrong, but couldn’t a good lawyer take the state to the cleaners with such a poorly conceived law.
Ichthyic, I posted the earlier discussion at #47; I was involved in that discussion and while you are right in that Skatje focused solely on stats gathering, she was wrong in every other respect.
She’s too young to remember when abortion was illegal too. However, a lot of regulars here are too young to remember that as well, and they aren’t sanctimonious snots who buy into slut shaming and scorn real life stories as sob stories.
You could be right about that; in the Sunday thread, she said her stance was all philosophical anyway, which is a problem, given that she said she wouldn’t stand in the way of legislation to illegalize abortion. I guess things are seriously different, before I even started college at 17, my moral picture was getting more complex, as I began to understand more of life and the people around me. I had a very…complex upbringing, though, which I think made me a bit more thoughtful altogether.
WTF? Why would anyone even PASS this? These jagov right-wing losers are always bitching about “freedom” and “don’t invade my privacy”, especially now that they were ousted by someone who represents the three things they hate most:
1) Non-Whites
2) Progressives (compared to what Tea-Baggers offer, especially)
3) Educated people
This just shows their true hypocrisy. All this gibberish is nothing but farce – they only expect those things to be applied to themselves. But to “others” – people who do not share their skin colour, religion, hatred, sex, sexual orientation, stupidity, etc – they don’t give a rats ass.
But, as we all know, hypocrisy is the lifeblood of these tools. They talk about peace and forgiveness – but only if you accept Jesus (if you do, you get away with rape; if you don’t, even sneaking a cookie out of the jar is worthy of the death penalty); they talk about freedom and liberty – and yet they’re against C. sativa, gay marriage, right to privacy, haebeus corpus, freedom from having a religion, etc; they currently bitch about being anti-government – but a few years ago they were onboard with “We have to trust our president, criticizing the president is unpatriotic, Vietnam was a good idea”; they talk about loving babies – but treat their kids like property (and conveniently ignore the parts of their fairy tale collection that says “One is happy when they dash their infants onto rocks” and when God makes it clear that fetuses aren’t people)
That’s been the one thing that NEVER makes sense! They talk about the family and whatnot, and claim the book is inerrant, but conveniently ignore the whole “Stone your son for being disobedient”, “Lot giving his daughters to be raped instead of strangers”, “go on, stab those pregnant whores in the belly!”, and “it’s OK to have sex outside of marriage, just so long as it’s a she, she’s a non-believer, she can’t be much older than menstruating-age, AND she also has to be your slave” and other such drek.
But this… this makes no sense whatsoever. I mean… seriously. What is your country, a smooth blend of Europe and Saudi Arabia? Where you can get the latest gadget, not have to use your hand as toilet paper, BUT you get a whole face-full of religious hokum WHEREVER YOU GO?
Oh for the love of Missouri, that video is awful! I lasted only through the lectern coming up on screen, plus however many seconds it took to dislike it and end the travesty. Even so, I fear I may have glimpsed the
condescendingloving-kindness ray-of-damnation in the preacher’s eyes.Forsooth, tomorrow I shall be logging on anew. What fun’s afoot!
Sorry; cross-posted by accident.
These unconstiutional laws only apply to young, poor, or trapped women.
The law only applies to Oklahoma. Anyone can take a car, bus, train, or plane to another state and not have to deal with Oklahoma’s christofascist insanity.
All it requires is transportation and some money. Any middle class or better woman could easily afford it. A lot of young or poor women cannot.
Whatever happened to Libertarian Tea Bagger small government get the state out of our lives GOP? I guess they make an exception when it involves imposing their cult religion on everyone else. Bunch of fascist hypocrits.
I guess things are seriously different, before I even started college at 17, my moral picture was getting more complex, as I began to understand more of life and the people around me.
i recall taking an excellent course on biomedical ethics as a sophomore, and thinking to myself at the time: “can’t this stuff just be simple?”
it took me a couple more years to realize that no, it cannot.
I wonder if Skatje has ever actually read Roe V Wade?
that left a big impression on me, mainly because of the great deal of careful thought that went into what essentially must amount to an arbitrary decision.
If Skatje can come out of reading that with such black and white thinking about the issue, if I were PZ, I’d be a little worried.
Raven:
It requires transportation, money and time. With most states now requiring a 3 day wait a/o mandatory counseling, etc., if a woman has to go out of state, she needs what amounts to a lot of time, between travel and wait time. Extra money is required for a place to stay as well. Draconian laws can be pretty much the norm for several states next to one another; these days, a woman can have to go a long way for an abortion. This hits the ‘middle class’ woman pretty hard too.
Whatever happened to Libertarian Tea Bagger small government get the state out of our lives GOP?
it never existed?
it was always vapor?
it existed as little more than the same double-standard that has always been the undercurrent of “teabaggers” since there were irrational anti-communists?
IMO, teabaggers are the predicted result of placating the insane as a political grassroots support network, encouraged by the neocon transformation of the republican party back in the late 70’s/early 80’s.
In support, I give you McCain’s own presidential platform in 2000, where he was shouted down by his own party for daring to talk about the dangers of utilizing the religious right as a power base for the republican party.
a warning klaxon he either deliberately chose to ignore, or even perhaps made choices to highlight the problem even more in his last presidential bid?
I still wonder about that. His choice of Palin as a running mate…
idiocy, or intended to show just how bad it’s gotten?
Are you freaking kidding me? I am horrified! My sister just gave birth to a child with Spina Bifida. We knew of the defect at 17 weeks, and there was plenty of time to adjust to reality, research the prognosis, contact a university conducting stem cell trials for admission into their study and to locate, interview and select a skilled pediatric neurosurgeon. Knowing about the defect meant having a team on hand to handle my niece during a planned C-section and ensuring that she has the best possible result from the surgery.
But not every parent is willing or able to take on the extraordinary expense and challenge of handling a child with this type of defect, and that’s okay.
By contrast, a client at my office gave birth 2 weeks before my sister. They opted not to have the prenatal screening that identified the myelomeningocele early in my sister’s case. They declined because they said that the results wouldn’t matter because as Catholics, abortion is not an option for them. I was floored! Not only is abortion not the only reason to test, but how can they choose to remain willfully ignorant about something so important? Obviously the “faith” isn’t that strong in these two – they don’t trust themselves to stick to their beliefs in the face of a negative result. Or maybe its that blind belief that god is looking out for them and couldn’t possibly give them…
a child with Spina Bifida. Their baby was born in a small rural hospital that was not equipped to handle the defect. He was air lifted to a distant hospital for surgery while the mother remained in recovery from the birth. The initial shock was compounded by complete ignorance about the condition and his prognosis. Months later, his mother remains inconsolable and refuses to leave her home. There is still no parental bond, so her family cares for her son and she has completely withdrawn from outside activities. Isn’t ignorance bliss?
And now Oklahoma wants to ensure that every child with a defect will be born this way, to uninformed and unprepared parents? How horrible. Though my niece’s case is sad, at least she has had the best possible start. And at least my sister had a choice. Had she been single, struggling financially or simply unwilling to take on such a challenge, she didn’t have to. And even more importantly – she wasn’t manipulated into it by being kept deliberately ignorant about her own pregnancy.
Caine,
I had a simaliar experience with starting college just before my 17th birthday. It certainly did open my eyes and I throughly enjoyed the challenge of it all. Logic, Philosophy, Biomedical ethics, all very helpful to gain knowledge and since I already had a childhood where shelter from certain realities weren’t present it just made sense. I could now put into words and defend what I had always felt to right. I understand others do not have the same experiences and won’t have the same understanding or beliefs. People often change their outlook on such things as they experience the world and grow but I think that gives all the more reason to argue with her now. Maybe speed up the process or at least later she can come back and fully understand what was being explained to her. I certainly won’t hold it against her or anyone else for changing their views later on. I just hope it happens before something bad happens, like her being in a difficult situation.
Sure. Just think what it does to 18 year old kids or poor women. Somewhere between difficult and impossible.
The rich of course, have enough money, time, and information to not have to worry about it too much.
Thank Cthulhu I didn’t have to grow up or live in Oklahoma.
Ichthyic:
I think the “must be an arbitrary decision” is what a lot of people simply don’t understand. They assume their personal ick factor is a good determination of the issue, when it isn’t. Any woman’s reason for having an abortion isn’t something which can be distilled down to ‘aha!, that’s why!’.
The desire to impose draconian laws like the ones in Oklahoma always come down to the subjugation of women. It’s not because people care about fetuses, it’s not because people love the babies, it’s not about protecting the “preborn” or any of that nonsense. If it were about any of those things, the bills being pushed would be for better, comprehensive education at all levels, not just sex ed, more help for the poor and wider, easier, affordable access to birth control.
Ugh! Sorry that was so long and rambling. Reading this just hit a little close to home and set me off on a tirade. My apologies – didn’t mean to clutter the thread, even though banging that out on the keyboard felt good when I did it!
Raven:
Yes, I know. I’ve been helping women in obtaining abortions for decades.
Bebette #94
Neither rambling nor cluttering the thread – a well aimed ‘tirade’ in a deserving direction.
JustALurker:
Yep, I had a great time with those classes too. Sometimes, having certain childhood experiences kickstarts your thoughts about morality, especially in certain situations.
Bebette, don’t apologize. It was a good post.
Bebette,
Maybe.
I found it powerful and moving.
Don’t be sorry!
Bebette, I too found your post useful knowledge and not at all rambling.
PZ, looks like the copypasta spammer is back (#98).
Random Quote from the sidebar:
Wait a minute. PZ’s daughter is pro-life??
@101
Yes. Her comments are on the last Sunday Sacrilege thread if you would like to see for yourself titled An Embryo is not a person. It’s pretty much dead now and I don’t know if everyone wants to get into all of that again here. It was really frustrating. I suggest researching it yourself of course, not good just to go on the word of someone else. ;)
And, it is Republicans always decrying gov’t intrusion.
@102 Thanks for letting me know. I’ll head over there and try to catch up. It does feel a bit strange learning this, but hey, I do know pro-life freethinkers exist. I think Skatje probably formed her own opinions than follow her father step for step, which is how it should ideally be.
@104
Yes, she does buck the stereotype that atheist/ liberal children are “indoctrinated” and just follow their parents. I’m all for forming your own opinions, no matter how stupid but towards the end it was all slut slamming and “sob stories”. You’ll see for yourself. I think that’s when everyone just got tired/depressed/frustrated, etc and left the thread. Plus it was almost 1000 comments long and all. =) But like I said that is not this thread so no more on the subject from me.
Oklahoma: Illinois really isn’t that far away! Go check out the tires, lights, fill up the tank, drive off and have a look at this thing we call “civilization”!
Time to rewrtie those musicals: Oklahoma: Not OK!
Don’t understand? Go to “the Google” (GWB), type ‘oklahoma’, and go to the Wikipedia link to find: “Part of the Bible Belt, widespread belief in evangelical Christianity makes it one of the most politically conservative states, though Oklahoma has more voters registered with the Democratic Party than with any other party.” (Last bit doesn’t compute but the EXian part explains it all)
What the hell are they smoking in Oklahoma!
Each and every medical practitioner (including the ENTs) who does not go up in arms against that bill is not a “doctor”, but as asshole with tertiary education.
How about we withhold the STI test results from men and post questionnaires about how many times they wank and to what on the web?
Please know that not everyone in Oklahoma is a crazy religious nutbag.
It’s just that those of us who aren’t are severely outnumbered by the ones who are, which is why Senators Coburn and Inhofe are easily re-elected, and why despicable state bills such as these are passed with little opposition.
I am 17 weeks pregnant, and I guarantee you that, if at my 18 week full scan appointment next week, my husband and I discover our fetus has Downs or any other defect, I will exercise my reproductive freedom as I see fit. (My mother always complained that I was Oppositional Defiant….)
We all know why they want women to do that.
As an Oklahoman I am speechless on many things that the wingnuts do in this state.
Sorry if this might be considered tasteless, but I just couldn’t resist.
I think the reason they want to pass this law is to allow more babies with birth defects and mental handicaps to be born.
That is, they want more potential voters.
Again, we see how religion drives people to harm themselves and their fellow citizens. There will be blood on the hands of those who supported this bill.
#65 I like the idea. But since women aren’t at fault and shouldn’t be further distanced from the joy of sex we need a fundraising for female sextoys to Oklahoma. Can anyone orginize, preferably someone inside the US?
Someone needs to start writing protest shouts to the occasion.
*What do we want?
Sane laws!
When do we want it?
Now!* *repeat*
There is also the problem of the rape victims. Maybe we can help them escape to some better state? And that the target group of “men” doesn’t get enough sex normally to notice the change.
The previous law may have been shut down in the cheapest way possible, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t fall on any of the more reasonable objections. Judges simply are a bit practical sometimes. In this case, the shorter ruling would’ve been unquestionable and thus very quick while trying to nail every objection would lead to a carousel of court cases costing much more time and money (in this case, the taxpayers money, in either case). I think it was a good decision.
Wow… As with PZ, this has left me speechless. Is there a competition to see which state can be the dumbest and most socially regressive? If so, OK looks like it has a fighting chance of winning.
There are forces at work in the US today that I find really quite disturbing.
I feel literally sick right now and Bebettes story left me almost crying. Not for her niece, as she’s obviously loved and well cared for, but for the other womans son and the problems he is going to face as soon as he gets old enough to get a grasp of his family structures.
Does not compute. Like, seriously. If I met anybody face to face who told me this is anything less than the most vile, disgusting attempt at slut abusing ever, I’m gonna puke all over him. Slut shaming doesn’t even start to describe this.
I’ll postpone breakfast until after I soothed my wrenched guts with fuckloads of cute kitty pictures. Off to Cute Overload now, damned.
It is a repulsive attempt at a law by a repulsive group of people. Yes, they are trying to continue the subjugation of women, but I do not see them as misogynist as such. I do not even see them as misanthropes. They are small men and women with small minds who live in constant fear: fear of the nigra; fear of the commie; fear of the brown and the yellow; fear of the different. They do have some knowledge: they know they are wrong so they dress their hatred in laws; they know they are small minded and evil people so they dress up their power hunger and bigotry in “doing the right thing” in the “name of the people”; they know if they do not keep a right rein then power will run from their hands and they will be nothing; they know that their country has elected an “uppity colored boy” to the office of the President which tells them they are under a very real threat of losing their world; they know they are wrong and that makes them more eager to lock the world down into what will keep them safe and in power.
They have no ideology, no platform, no true beliefs. If legal, cheap and easily available abortion would help them maintain control of women, poor, brown/black/yellow people, LGBT folks, immigrants, and the different then they would be all for it. They see no contradiction in saying they hate government interference and then trying to interfere on an unprecedented scale. It is not about law, about the public good, about religion. It is about fear and about power.
There are apparently three separate bills affecting abortion rights being considered by the governor of Oklahoma (two others have been approved by the Senate and sent back to the House, so it’s not clear what they will say when and if they reach the governor).
HB 3284 is one of those which has not yet been sent to the governor; it compels abortion providers to collect and report the answers to 38 questions (it apparently does not require a written questionnaire to be filled out by the woman seeking the abortion, though presumably the physician will have to ask her many of the questions — others concerning the procedure itself he would know better than she would). This data would be aggregated and state totals provided on a state website; the bill prohibits posting data on individual patients or data which is likely to lead to identifying individual patients. There are no provisions for cases in which the patient lies, or refuses to answer questions when the physician asks them.
HB 3290 is another bill that must be approved by the House before going to the governor; it imposes additional restrictions on the dispensing of RU-486 (mifepristone) and requires that women seeking the drug be informed at length of its risks. Oddly, this bill is described in some sources as prohibiting state health plans from covering abortions, but so far as I can tell, it does not.
HB 2780 requires an ultrasound be administered and the results described to a patient before an abortion can be performed: this ultrasound will be administered vaginally where this will yield a clearer picture. The bill provides that the woman cannot be forced to look at the ultrasound, though apparently she still has to listen to the description.
None of the above bills, so far as I can tell, contain anything that would compel or allow a physician to withhold test results from a patient.
HB 2656 prohibits “wrongful life” lawsuits. It provides that “In a wrongful life action or a wrongful birth action, no damages may be recovered for any condition that existed at the time of a child’s birth if the claim is that the defendant’s act or omission contributed to the mother’s not having obtained an abortion,” which apparently limits the right to sue a physician for withholding test results, although it goes on to allow suits for maternal death or injury due to actions or omissions by the physician.
HB 3075 requires that all facilities providing or arranging for abortions shall post a notice stating that abortions can be provided only with the patient’s freely given and voluntary consent and that no one can be compelled to have an abortion. It says nothing about medical tests or reporting their results.
“wrongful life” is an incredibly weird concept to begin with. You’re being sued… for making someone exist?
Perhaps it is the logical extent of Milton’s lament: Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay / To mould me Man, did I solicit thee / From darkness to promote me?
[quote]
If legal, cheap and easily available abortion would help them maintain control of women, poor, brown/black/yellow people, LGBT folks, immigrants, and the different then they would be all for it.
[/quote]
Actually, that description clearly fits Margaret Sanger, perhaps the pro-choice movement’s most distasteful forebear.
It seems clearly wrongheaded to presume that people you disagree with have no actual ideological commitments besides their own selfishness.
It’s conceivable that this is so—in fact I think that the “populism” of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity is precisely this, given their enormous wealth and power—but to presume it from the start? To simply declare that everyone who seeks to ban abortion does so because they think it will benefit White males at the expense of everyone else? Really? Why then are so many Black women pro-life? ( http://www.theroot.com/views/some-black-pro-lifers-say-abortion-genocide )
“It seems clearly wrongheaded to presume that people you disagree with have no actual ideological commitments besides their own selfishness.”
You are clearly entitled to your opinion. I do not think it is all about abortion, but that is the subject of this thread. I do think it is about fear and control. I do not know that many black women who are anti-abortion (I refuse to use the term pro-life, doublespeak.) I think people can be anti-abortion for what they think are clear moral grounds, and will disagree with them on those grounds. However, when I see abortion being linked to genocide then I just see abortion being tied to another agenda that has little to do with the question of whether it should be legal. Obfuscation is common.
I hold the people pushing these types of laws in contempt. The question of ideology or lack of it is erased by their hatred of their fellow humans. I no longer bend over backwards to give morons equal time. The have the right to speak, I have the right to point out that they are contemptible excuses for people. They can say the same about me, I can live with it.
pnrjulius,
regarding the concept of “wrongful life”, I know a lady who was deprived of oxygen during a difficult birth, and the hospital spent a long time trying to resuscitate her. The result was extremely severe cerebral palsy, and meant most of her childhood was spent institutionalised, and totally miserable. Her take on life is that she wishes she were never forced to live, very much the concept of wrongful life, except that now she is here, she also does not want to end her life, either.
It’s no surprise that some of the targets of anti-women legislation have internalized the movement’s propaganda. The right-wing in America has gotten quite good at convincing the people most harmed by their policies to vote for them by saturating the media with emotionally manipulative material.
Why then are so many Black women pro-life?
The evil of christianity?
I’m pretty sure there’s room in the special hell for these assholes.
Just one more reason why I can’t stand living in this state. The one thing that anyone NOT living here should know, though, is that Tulsa is unlike most of the other places in Oklahoma. We’re a much more liberal, accepting place. While the majority are still republican, christian, and a little bit racist, you’re less likely to be alienated for being different.
This bill is utterly repugnant. It flies in the face of medical ethics to with hold test results, not to mention the assault on the principle of medical confidentiality. How exactly are ‘innocent foetuses’ protected by brodcasting a woman’s sexual history on the internet? On the face of it, this seems altogether more about fomenting pseudo-moral outrage and instituting a harmful and irresponsible ‘slut-shaming’ policy, than it is about arguments over the relative value of foetal life.
That fundies hate women is hardly news, but the idea that this abominable attack on the rights of women might be passed into law should cause great concern among all people of conscience.
Of course, the morons promoting this legislation do not stop to think for two seconds about the women who will die, most likely in unimaginable agony, because of it if it is passed into law.
Women really do not register as human beings for these people. To them, to be female is to be a baby-factory (and a dehumanised sex object, at least when they think that no one is about to call them on their hypocritical ‘family values’ public stance).
We can only hope that this bill is struck down. If not, then it would seem that in Oklahoma the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.
Hey it’s not a nice thing but it prevents murder which is worse
@KingUber:
You have released the hounds.
Nothing is murdered. A fetus is aborted. What a loser for not seeing that distinction.
Is “slut-shaming” some new S&M practice from the Reagan Revolutionaries?
@KingUber: Wrong on multiple levels.
and off we go
Fucking,… wow. This is the sort of thing that starts revolutions. Here’s hoping.
Wait wait. I understand KingUber
He’s talking about this draconian law slowing abortions and there for there being less abortion doctors for the insane murdering anti-abortion crowd to kill
SO in that light it might stop murders.
You know another way to stop those murders?
For the asshole anti-abortion nutcases to stop committing them.
therefor …
And with the entrance of the ubertroll, another thread ceases to hold any interest for me. I was just about willing to accept and engage pnrjulius, even though I smell tone complaints in the wind from that direction, but one line troll drool is a show stopper.
No, of course not. Slut shaming is very old. Read The Scarlet Letter by Nathanial Hawthorne. I suppose that will be next, Scarlet A’s on all single mothers clothes and their pictures on Facebook with some derogatory comments.
Oklahoma, resolutely and proudly marching back to the Dark Ages.
Why then are so many Black women pro-life?
Gee, I don’t know. Maybe black women are individuals with a variety of opinions on many issues, including abortion and no more inclined to a hive mind than white women, black men, or even white men. And what do you mean by “so many” anyway? The majority, some that you’ve met, at least one…Citation needed, as the wiki protester says.
When does a fetus become a human being?
Well, let’s see . . .
A law needs to be passed forcing every male in Oklahoma to supply their DNA to a database, so they would be able to do a paternity match on the fetus, to prove who the father was. This would then also be put on the Internet, along with forcing them to provide financially for any child that was subsequently born.
If the father is a dead-beat, or underage, then the financial responsibility would fan out to the father’s immediate family, etc.
If the father was the woman’s father, then obviously criminal incest has occurred and should be prosecuted.
Without the involvement of the male who is co-responsible for the fetus existing, this is discriminatory towards women. (Before I get flamed, I already believe it is discriminatory towards women.)
Obviously this isn’t a perfect solution, but it would help level the playing field.
A simpler solution would be to stop all the anti-abortion activities.
@129: Perhaps Koenig Uber means that the “pro-lifers” will be so busy masturbating to thoughts of humiliating women that they won’t have time to go out and murder doctors, nurses, and other personnel who they think might be involved in providing abortions? I suppose he has a point, but wouldn’t it be simpler, more efficient, and cause less collateral damage to put violent anti-abortionists in prison or mental institutes (if they have a formal mental illness)?
According to the Magic Book of Fairy Tales aka the bible, one month after birth.
This troll is too stupid to be anything more than a warmup toy for the troll kicking squad.
I also think murdering abortion doctors is wrong
I don’t give a shit about the Bible. Why do you assume I’m a Christian?
Being right on the doctors doesn’t make up for you being wrong on the fetus. No reason to listen to this idjit.
KU: When does a human life end?
An idiot is a person who says someone is wrong without giving an explanation for why
When does a human life end? I would guess when the information patterns in the brain degrade to an unrecoverable state
#112,
I couldn’t laugh at that. Didn’t you watch Andrea Fay Friedman’s response to Palin?
Birth defects and mental handicaps do not make people with them stupid, misogynistic voters.
KingUber, a fetus becomes a baby, a human being, after being born. Until then, it is a fetus, not a baby, not a human being.
KingUber, lungs are some of the last organs to mature, and we say a pre-term baby has “a” chance of survival at 24 weeks of age. They have a much higher chance of developmental and mental problems and spent many, many weeks in NICUs where there are subjected to so many invasive procedures that it becomes, for some of them, an ethical concern. Plus, invasive=higher chances of infection=much higher mortality.
I am happy with drawing the line at viability. And keep in mind that any woman who has suffered all the side-effects of pregnancy for 24 weeks (26 if you start counting from the last period) does not terminate the pregnancy unless something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
You want less abortions? Start lobbying for proper sex ed/health care reform that protects children with pre-existing conditions/pay equality for women/more kindergartens/any social service that helps mothers/easy access to birth control. Because these are measures that will actually help. Inane questions do not.
So gr8hands, it’s okay to kill a fetus 1 second before being born, but not one second after?
Also I do support health care reform and sex education.
Until it comes out of the mother, and the umbilical cord is severed, it is not a baby. Words matter.
@ Raven #18
I thought almost the exact same thing. If I were a woman and a republican, this type of reasoning would change my affilitation.
So if I put you in a room with a mother than has just given birth, but before the umbilical cord is severed, you would have no problem with stabbing the baby to death?
I would guess when the information patterns in the brain degrade to an unrecoverable state
Strange way of saying brain death, but essentially correct. So why should an entity which has no information pattern in its brain because…it has no brain: no stationary neurons, no dendrites, no axons, no neurotransmitters, be considered a living human?
Because it will develop a brain if its development is uninterrupted. A dead person won’t come back to life if you leave them alone.
What an inane and stoopid question. Once separate from the woman, the baby (it is now now outside of the womb so that is the correct terminology) is on its own. But nobody would take a knife to it and not expect a murder charge. Unless, of course, you are a babble literalist. Then it is OK, since it is less than a month old.
Look, there is no definitive line between foetus and baby. Looking for one is not only an amateur mistake, but the sign of a person for whom there is only black and white on all issues. Such people can, and should, be ignored.
gr8hands said it’s not a baby until the umbilical cord is severed. Seems you have a disagreement in your ranks.
Then how do you determine if abortion is okay?
KingUber, Read my post again.
A woman who has been carrying a fetus all the way past the viability stage does not terminate the pregnancy unless something has gone horribly, horribly wrong.
And what’s with the dumbass question “one second before birth?” Have you ever been near a maternity hospital? Because you clearly have no idea what childbirth is like.
YOu know what? You are too resistant to actual facts about pregnancy and childbirth, let alone how things can go wrong. Go work in an NICU for a couple of weeks. After seeing a couple of pre-term or seriously ill babies turned into pincushions, you will realise just how much kinder it is to terminate a pregnancy.
Because it will develop a brain if its development is uninterrupted
Well…maybe. Actually, there’s an 80% chance that a newly conceived blastulocyte won’t develop into a baby. Most will fail to implant. Some will fail after implantation. So if you really believed that embryos were babies you wouldn’t be worried about abortion, you’d be lobbying the government for more funding for research into prevention of failure of implantation and other forms of miscarriage.
Then, too, a sperm or oocyte may develop a brain if its development is uninterrupted: if the sperm makes it to the egg, it’ll be the embryo you find so special. And fertilization is one of the easier steps in the development of a baby: we can even do it in a petri dish it’s so easy. Are you also anti-contraception?
Then there’s the problem of cloning: A somatic cell, if treated correctly may develop into a baby with (if all goes well) a brain. Yet you make no effort to avoid digesting the intestinal endothelial cells which slough off of your intestine daily. Murderer.
Finally, (well, not really, but one has to stop somewhere), there’s chimerism: sometimes two embryos merge during development. Where does that put your claim that a fertilized egg WILL develop a brain if uninterrupted? Or is the baby which is born a murderer because s/he absorbed hir twin? And which baby is the murderer, which the victim?
These are real life scenarios (ok, except for the cloning one and that’s only because we have laws against it). Unlike your “one minute before birth abortion” scenario which is both highly emotionally unlikely and essentially physically impossible.
Er… what next? Arresting women for having periods? It means that they have wasted an egg! A potential baby! They’ll be trying to stop sperm being wasted by contraception methods next. Oh… wait…
Somewhereingreece has it. The Human Fertilization and Embryology Act 1990 ammended the 1967 Abortion Act and lowered the limit to 24 weeks. Better qualified people than I have put the limit there.
The stupid, crazy, evil, and trollish is a dead giveaway.
Thread over except for the troll kicking.
Again, you’re looking for an absolute time limit. That is just not happening. What I can tell you is that the decision is between the woman in question (for every instance is different)and a competent doctor, not between you and I.
A sperm or egg is not complete, that’s a dumb argument. Leave a sperm or egg alone and it won’t develop into anything. And sure you can have birth defects but that’s a dumb excuse, it’s like saying that killing people is fine because there’s a chance they would die from injury or disease anyway
So they can just decide whether it’s a person or not and whether they can kill it? It’s all arbitrary? That’s bullshit
Hmm, well if one’s gender orientation were a matter of choice – and I’m NOT saying it is, mind – but if it were, there’d be plenty of cause here to make sure no male ever touched *me* with his lousy, infect-you-with-babies sperm gun, ever. At least in Oklahoma.
Blegh, glad I don’t live there. Sorry for the folks that do.
An abortion is okay if the mother agrees to it you foolish, foolish person.
Are you under the impression that doctors stalk pregnant women and then jump on them and stick Hegar dilators up their vaginas? Or that women get bored with all the same-old same-old and decide to have an undesirable pregnancy just to pass the time?
Screw the question whether you have been near a maternity hospital. Have you ever met a pregnant woman in living memory?
Er… what next? Arresting women for having periods? It means that they have wasted an egg! A potential baby!
No, obviously the next step is arresting men for doing anything other than having sex with potentially fertile women: a woman not having sex may or may not be wasting ONE (maybe two) oocytes*, but a man not having sex is definitely wasting a huge number of sperm. Sniff. Poor little half babies. Maybe KU should get off the internet and go to a bar already.
*They don’t technically become eggs until, IIRC, after fertilization.
So a mother can kill their child in the womb but not after it leaves? Pretty arbitrary distinction if you ask me.
Yep, that describes your inane arguments. Nothing cogent being said. Just repeating already refuted idiocies.
You guys haven’t refuted anything. I’m anti abortion but you deem me a troll just because I disagree with you on this one point.
I just saw the 169 comment.
You have no idea just how sick a fetus can be.
You have no idea what’s it like to be a mother who has outlived her child.
You have no idea what’s it like to be a mother who wants her child to outlive her, just so that the suffering end.
And have no intention of trying to put themselves in their shoes.
You fail as a human being.
A sperm or egg is not complete, that’s a dumb argument. Leave a sperm or egg alone and it won’t develop into anything.
Neither will a fertilized egg. It will only develop into anything at all (like, say, a two celled organism) if it is in the right envirnoment, if all its programming goes correctly, and if no outside factors-like, say, merger with another embryo-interfere. Thus, I must agree: your argument that a fertilized egg will develop into a baby “by itself” is dumb.
What are you talking about with respect to birth defects?
If the mother is going to die then she should get to choose to end the pregnancy or die but if she isn’t going to die then it shouldn’t be allowed
KingUber, the reason I used both conditions (ask an OB/GYN physician for further clarification, as it appears you are greatly confused), is that there are rare cases when a fetus, inside the womb, has the umbilical cord detached. It is not considered a baby, but a fetus with a detached umbilical cord.
There are other cases, also rare, when the fetus is removed from the womb for surgery, with the umbilical cord still attached, and after surgery it is replaced back into the womb. It is also not considered a baby. If it were outside the womb and the umbilical cord were detached, it would be considered a baby.
Your rather bizarre and extreme question about when it would be okay to destroy a fetus outside the womb (although you inaccurately termed it killing a baby) is something you should probably share with a competent professional counselor, with training/expertise in abnormal psychology.
Obviously I mean in the womb, you’re saying it won’t develop if it’s aborted or if something goes wrong, well we can’t do anything about natural problems but we can about abortion so saying that abortion is okay because something might go wrong naturally is, like I said, saying it’s okay to kill people because they might die naturally from something else.
Oh for crying out loud, KingUber. No, ‘they’ are not deciding whether or not they can ‘kill’ it. Way to move the goalposts dickhead. The point I’m trying to make is; firstly, there is NO single point at which a blastocyst becomes a human child. It is a continuous process
The second point is, no matter how strongly you may feel about the issue, it is none of your fucking business. Only the person providing for the aforementioned entity is entitled to decide it’s future.
Seriously, get some perspective.
So if I see someone shoot someone else in the street I should just accept it because it’s none of my business, not call the police or anything. Got it.
well we can’t do anything about natural problems
Bullshit! We can and do do many things about all sorts of natural problems ranging from vaccination to prevent infectious diseases (see mumps, measles, rubella, polio, H influenza, rabies, or, the ultimate success, small pox), to screening to prevent/detect early a number of diseases ranging from hypertension to some cancers, to state of the art high tech treatments for diseases that would have inevitably killed even a decade ago. Go into an ICU some time and tell me we can’t do anything about natural problems.
But you know this. You’re just making weak excuses to hide the fact that you don’t believe that you don’t believe an embryo is a baby either. Dying babies! Eighty percent of babies DYING in the first weeks of life and you don’t want to even TRY? You don’t want to fund research into why it’s happening or to try to prevent this horrific loss of life? Either your lying about considering fertilized eggs human or you’re an inhumane monster. There’s just no other way around it.
Everyone, KingUber has no idea that there is such a thing as a fate worse than death. I don’t know if he is young and priviledged, but he is certainly sheltered.
Oh, to be that naive again. Like, in elementary school.
Jesus tap-dancing Christ, you really have no idea do you? If you cannot see the difference between a conscious, fully-developed, adult and a blastocyst then there is no hope for you. Go back to your cave and stay there, for the good of all humanity.
I had a discussion with a friend of mine in my biology program about abortion, and his reaction to the KingUbers of the world (they’re mostly men– I’ve met “pro-life” women who say they’d never abort a baby, but very few anti-choice women. That’s an important distinction that gets lost sometimes…) was:
‘Well, you can’t fault them for their intelligence, but you have to admit, their evolutionary wiles are impressive.
Anti-choice men are just a bunch of scared, possessive freaks who are terrified about the possibility of confused paternity. They have to control female sexuality, because if they didn’t, their selfish genes might not get passed on.’
I don’t know if I completely buy that line of thinking, it seems a bit evo-psych to me, but it was a provocative discussion.
Thanks for distorting my words, what I meant was that those problems are not caused by humans so we can’t simply end them by not causing them.
KingUber, don’t forget that rape victims do get pregnant. Forcing them to carry a fetus to term and give birth to a baby is cruel and a punishment for being a victim.
If there are any exceptions to a ‘no abortions ever under any circumstances’ rule, then you have to do away with the rule.
If a woman is using contraceptions and still gets pregnant (which happens all the time), it is clear she didn’t want to get pregnant. Again, forcing her to carry a fetus to term and give birth to a baby is cruel and a punishment.
Since you’re a guy, this is academic, as you can’t get pregnant. And as it can’t happen to you personally, why should you be condemning or criticizing? Your opinion has no validity (I don’t believe men have the right to be making these kinds of choices for women).
@naddyfive: I wonder what would those anti-choicers think about the fact that approximately 1 in 11 men push a pram with someone else’s baby in it.
What about the punishment for the baby? I’d say it’s fair to let one person suffer for a while in order to prevent another person from dying.
Let’s say that you have a debilitating disease and the only way to cure it is to murder an innocent person in cold blood. Is that a fair price to pay?
Heh. I got treated like a troll for trying to clarify a metaphor-laced statement I agreed with. That’s why you just don’t ask questions on these threads.
Thanks for distorting my words
Distorting your words by directly quoting them. Whatever you say, George*. But if I did distort them then I still want to know what you’re doing to prevent miscarriage. Despite your attempts to evade blame it very much is our fault if we’re not doing anything about it. The NIH has a substantial budget and very little of it goes to research into miscarriage and I’d guess none or virtually none into failure to implant. This, if you’re correct, is a huge misuse of resources: we should be ignoring cancer, heart disease, stroke, and even SIDS and birth defects in order to work on prevention or cure of the condition that causes 80% of deaths-and at the beginning of life as well.
Come to think of it, where are the “pro-life” foundations looking into miscarriage? They seem to have plenty of money for stalking doctors and harassing women, surely some of it could go towards saving sick “babies”. Yet, it doesn’t. That’s because they don’t believe their own propoganda either.
Maybe I have an unduely optimistic view of humanity but I can’t believe that anyone willing to look themselves in the mirror in the morning would NOT care about and want to stop the death of 80% of babies. I certainly would if I believed that they were babies. So, the choice remains: inhuman or liars?
*Reference to Orwell, not Bush.
Uber – we already had this conversation a couple of days ago. Do everyone a favor and go read it all before you come back here and comment again. Yeah, it’s long. Life’s tough.
So because you assume I’m not trying to stop miscarriage too that means my complaints about abortion are pointless? That’s stupid. I’d like to see a murderer try that in court: “Yes, I did kill him, your honor, but many more people die from car accidents! You should forget about me and deal with that problem instead!”
@somewhereingreece:
Exactly. It’s hilarious, I’ve talked to ob/gyns who’ve told me that they see all kinds of married women give birth, and by simply doing a quick Mendelian calculation of the blood type of the mother and presumed father against the baby’s, they can tell instantly that quite a shocking proportion of the babies are not the husbands’. But these fascist anti-choice freaks seem to think that forcing women into chastity and marriage is somehow going to force them into being loyal libidinal subjects of their husbands? Think again!
I suppose they think it’s worth a shot, anyway…?
KingUber seems to fall under the “cell clusters are people too!” umbrella. I can understand his point, and used to think that way myself, but in order to do that, you have to treat the women as objects or slaves…they have no rights because they got pregnant.
Until KingUber admits and understands this, no amount of logic/debate/talk will change their mind.
Ignorant troll is ignorant.
If the debilitating disease is caused by the innocent person leeching off your bloodstream, then: yes. “In cold blood” is an emotion, not a decision, so I won’t dignify that part of your rhetoric.
Would you like to use a few more ridiculous non-sequiturs to demonstrate that you don’t understand the pro-choice position?
(Yes, I’m aware that you don’t need me to ask.)
My argument has nothing to do with marriage or infidelity. Stop trying to put words in my mouth
@KingUber:
That’s just sick and wrong. Would you accept someone being hooked to you, tubes and everything, who you have to carry, who causes you pain and emotional trauma, for nine months because you’re the only person who can keep them from dying?
I would say not. You’re probably like me. Raised either in a Christian or a Republican household and you’ve heard all the arguments about cute little babies and how those sluts are using abortion as birth control.
News flash! Women who get abortions after a certain point RARELY do so because they don’t want the child. Mid-to-late-term abortions are usually for medical problems to the child or the mother.
Back in… December I think it was, I was like you almost exactly except for the fact I wanted to listen. Someone posted a fantastic rebuttal to my concerns and it’s changed my mind. I am pro-choice now because I think it’s completely and utterly unfair for anyone to tell someone else they can’t do something with their body, and yes, carrying a fetus for nine months is something that a woman can choose to do or not do.
I’ll argue about viability, but even then I don’t think it’s fair to force a woman to do what she doesn’t want to do (and the majority of women who carry to viability want to keep the baby, anyway, so that point is largely moot.)
KingUber,
I notice you keep refering to a zygote as a “child”. How many cells must the fetus have before it is a child? A million? A thousand? One? So, is a woman who menstruates rather than getting pregnant at every opportunity a murderer?
How about you? Ever spill your seed? MURDERER!
KingUber #191 “What about the punishment for the baby?”
Sorry. You seemed determined to remain ignorant and confused. It isn’t a baby yet if it’s being aborted. All your rhetoric about it doesn’t change the simple linguistic facts.
There is no baby to be punished if it hasn’t been born. Talking about punishment of a fetus is nonsense.
I am a liberal democrat atheist, in case you must know.
It is okay to tell people what to do with their body if that involves not harming someone. I guess I can go snap someone’s neck since that’s “doing something with my body” and no one can say I can’t then.
“Let’s say that you have a debilitating disease and the only way to cure it is to murder an innocent person in cold blood. Is that a fair price to pay?”
Again, you are equating an undeveloped foetus with a fully-formed and cognitive human. You really need to see the difference.
In fact, I have a question. How exactly do YOU determine if an entity is ‘human’ or not.
This could be enlightening.
…aaaaand you just had to be oblivious again in #188
Here’s a little story for you.
A baby was born with severe brain dysplasia and a lot of other dysplasias of the face characteristic of a genetic disease. The parents go to get genetic counceling and they are told that while they cannot peg this down as a named syndrome, the chances are the second child is like that is 10%
The mother gets pregnant again. Prenatal screening shows that the second boy will be just like his brother. They decided no to terminate the pregnancy. The second son is born, has silent cry, and was transferred to my hospital for ENT assessment. My clinic got involved because the baby had talipes equinovarus and since the ENTs were going to do a laryngoscopy under general anaesthesia , it was a chance to remove the splints applied in the other hospital and take a look as well.
Turns out the second boy had laryngeal membrane under the vocal chords and almost died on the table. He had to have an emergency tracheostomy and the only reason the boy survived was the kick-ass anaesthetist.
That boy will need to have a tracheostomy for the rest of his life, with regular suction of his airways, get in and out of hospitals with respiratory tract infections (until he gets one that kills him) and no chance whatsoever of an independent life.
But that’s not his greatest misery. His greatest misery is having parents who and worried about when he will be able to have surgery for the talipes equinovarus and the crypsorchia. Who, after being told by the lab that has trained every geneticist in the country that the chances the third child is in the same condition is more than 25% want a second opinion
Oh, misery can definitely be man-made. Believe you me.
Let me guess, KingUber:
If my birthcontrol fails, and I accidentally get pregnant (this has happened to me before, btw, so I know firsthand how fucking terrible it is), through no fault of my own, I should be compelled by law to bring the resulting pregnancy to term. But once the baby’s here, if the father skips town, or can’t help provide for the child, then it’s all me– foodstamps are an abomination, too, right? No handouts! Once that fetus is viable and breathing on its own, the compassion from types like you suddenly comes to a screeching halt.
This isn’t, and never was, about babies, and you know it isn’t.
It’s about sexuality and controlling women.
You are the ones who can’t agree if it counts as human. It has the potential to become human.
@KingUber:
Your SKIN FLAKES have the potential to become human!
OMG MURDERER! I saw you itch your nose there!
King Uber,
You are way overmatched in this forum. You have not put forth a cohesive rational argument as to why the anti abortion stance is a better platform to stand on for society. You areguments have not been lateral, but have been extreme and emotionaly loaded. You are arguing against women, Doctors, Biochemists, Scientific Academics etc. who have put forth logical and well developed support for this topic.
My advice would be to go and learn how to put together a cohesive argument, and until then you should lurk and learn like the rest of us lurkers.
Now STFU so I can go back to reading intelligent peoples writing.
If you can’t support your family then welfare should be an option. I am not against that.
Which has absolutely nothing to do with what it is at the moment. That is our point which keeps sailing over your idjit head.
You have been refuted since before your first post. It’s not like other fools haven’t tried and miserably failed with the same idiocy you are presenting prior to your arrival. You are just the latest idjit spewing your illogical ideas.
#208 The traditional greek rebuttal can be translated as “and if my grandmother had wheels she’d be a trolley”
Man, you’re thick
Ah yes, the “liberal democrat athiest” who believes a cluster of cells is a human.
Go back to whichever fundie cesspool you crawled out of…
Don’t avoid the question. You are the one who goes on about ‘killing babies’. You should at least state clearly exactly what you regard as ‘human’. Or are we to take your last comment as your answer? ‘The potential to become human’. If so, every single person past the age of puberty is guilty of murder, including yourself.
You need to clarify your position or shut the fuck up. The choice is yours (irony intended).
So a skin flake can naturally grow into a human? We’re not plants, you can’t cut off a part and have it grow into a full human. I suppose you could take cells from skin and make a clone but that’s not a natural result.
Sperm and eggs don’t count as they require a process driven by conscious decision (sex) before they can have that potential
@naddyfive: and chances are the ones that weren’t born first are not of the “socially accepted” father.
It really makes me giggle when I see big families.
I have the potential to become a senior citizen, but I’m still not eligible for Medicare.
At no other stage of life are we classified according to our potential. Only when we’re in the womb does anyone try to protect us in terms of what we will later be. There is no natural reason why fetuses should get that kind of special treatment. Except to control their mothers.
@KingUber:
Lrn2sarcasm. It was obviously not a perfect argument (although it was true.) The point of it was, it doesn’t matter if it’s a potential human until it is a human. Heartless as it may sound, a baby isn’t a baby if it’s a clump of cells. No one should be forced to carry for nine months against their will.
Laws that limit abortion only have one result – women DIE! Back-alley abortions, birthing difficulties, etc. No one cares about the woman, it’s all about the baby, who then no one cares about when it’s out of the woman’s body. It’s misogyny in its darkest form. It’s bringing a woman to the level of cattle.
I’d like to see a murderer try that in court: “Yes, I did kill him, your honor, but many more people die from car accidents! You should forget about me and deal with that problem instead!”
So you and the “pro-life” movement are so poor and foolish that you can only pursue one problem at a time? I’ll keep that in mind. If so, then you nonetheless really should concentrate on the miscarriages. About 22% of clinical pregnancies end in abortion. But only about 20% of all pregnancies are clinically evident. So, according to your definition, about 80% of people are dying of an unknown illness, and about 4-5% are being murdered. Which is the bigger public health problem? Which one should a government desiring good public health and long life for its citizens spend more money on?
Why would anyone in their right mind think that only one problem can be dealt with at one time? I care about-and do things to counteract-global warming, death from cancer and other diseases, and forced repatriation of asylum seekers-all at the same time! Virtually every person in the world deals with multiple issues at once. Obama is simultateously dealing with nuclear arms, health care, and the economy. Yet you’re telling me that you don’t have the energy, resources, or brains to consider both miscarriage and abortion? You underestimate yourself I’m sure.
Let me guess: “If you don’t want a baby, then don’t have sex”? Did I get that about right?
Additionally, I take it that fertilization is the Great Dividing Line separating the non-life from the life, whereas 40 weeks of gestation is no big deal?
Can we call Oklahoma a theocracy yet?
Dunno, are women ululating there?
re KingOblivious@208:
irrelevant. If it isn’t human the argument is moot, if it is human, it still does not have the right to the mother’s body it demands. No fully adult human being has the kind of right that anti-abortionists grant to a fetus. And try to get it through your head that the right to an abortion is not a right to murder. It is a right to terminate a pregnancy. This “so its okay to kill it one second before birth and not one second after birth” attempt to paint pro-choice as advocates of murdering babies is likewise a red herring. Not only is the scenario absurd but at that point the woman’s right is to induce a birth, not to kill it outright.
And why the hell would something “that has the potential to become human” have the right to override the rights of an actual living fully developed human (the woman)?
I’m still waiting for KingUber to define humanity. He talks a lot about killing babies and drags in almost equitable homicides, as if this makes his argument stronger…and yet he still fails to understand the difference.
Sperm and eggs don’t count as they require a process driven by conscious decision (sex) before they can have that potential
Now I think we’re getting closer to the truth of KU’s argument: it’s not about the babies, it’s all about sex. So, Uber, have you heard of one infamous case in which (IIRC, during the Civil War), a man’s testical was shot off and both it and the bullet entered a woman’s uterus, impregnating her. If that happened again, would you be ok with killing the fetus one minute prior to delivery because its presence wasn’t the result of a conscious decision?
Carlie @ 195:
Repeated for emphasis and QFT. King Uber is a pointless troll, now happy it is actually getting attention. Also, many of its “arguments” are word for word as those in the Sunday thread.
Maybe he did read the thread.
But did not comprehend it
Dang, Dianne. You beat me to it.
You know what, I’m tired of waiting, KU has clearly buggered off. I’m off to bed. If anybody encounters that tool, tear him a new one for me will you?
Thanks.
KingUber asked:
This may sound like a stupid response, but until you define the term ‘human being’, I cannot attempt to answer your question.
Please define your term and I’ll give it a shot.
Thanks.
This is absolutely fucking disgusting. Makes me want to drive to OK and deliver some brutal street justice.
…not that I ever would.
I hope all of them get aggressive pancreatic cancer and their doctors don’t tell them about it.
Godfuckingdamnit, this pisses me off to no end. Fuck all of them.
How the hell is that supposed to square with patient-doctor-confidentiality and the Hippocratic oath?
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
You know, Margaret Atwood described how our nation became transformed into a Christian totalitarian nation in her prescient novel ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’.
This is just the beginning.
The justification for the ‘abortion information questionnaire’, as I understand it, is to collect information which can be used to identify the reasons women get abortions with a goal of reducing abortions.
Now, I’m not a scientist at all, but my understanding of a valid study is that it gathers information from all of the parts of the population involved as well as controls. Wouldn’t a scientifically useful study require a questionnaire to be filled out by not just the women who get abortions, but also by the women who consider abortion and decide NOT to get one as well as the women who never considered abortion at all? In other words, every pregnant woman in Oklahoma?
Actually, wouldn’t a goal of ‘lessening the number of abortions’ require a questionnaire to be completed by every woman of reproductive age in Oklahoma so that they can figure out how some of them avoid the unwanted pregnancies which underlie the abortion demand?
Assuming that I am right to be skeptical of a ‘scientific study’ constructed by a bunch of politicians, would the actual scientists here care to speculate on the proper construction of a study of ‘why women abort’ which could be expected to actually result in a scientifically valid result?
@crowepps:
You would think that, but it just reeks of slut-shaming.
And, equally to the point, we already know how to reduce abortion: comprehensive sex ed and inexpensive, freely available birth control. That’s short term.
Long term, empowering women and reducing poverty in general.
Of course, these goals are incompatible with conservative values, so they’re kinda cought between a rock and a hard place there…
Showing up on the Intersection conveniently stripped of the elliptical phrase in 3…2…
And, equally to the point, we already know how to reduce abortion
That’s what makes the whole forced-birth movement so obviously a bunch of disingenuous liars.
Planned Parenthood has prevented more abortions than all other institutions and organizations combined. If these authoritarian apologists for patriarchy had any real concerns for “life” and “babies” they’d be the biggest contributors. But they’re not, and that says volumes.
Carlie:
Or YNH.
CJO:
Of course PP makes a huge difference to women. That doesn’t stop pro-lifers from considering all of PP one huge abortuary. (Yes, I know that’s not a word, but it’s been a favourite of the more rabid anti-women persons for many a year now.)
It is okay to tell people what to do with their body if that involves not harming someone. I guess I can go snap someone’s neck since that’s “doing something with my body” and no one can say I can’t then.”
Ok, as one liberal atheist to another, I’m going to have to insist you revoke both labels. You sir are a moron and we don’t want you representing us.
Did you miss the “not harming someone” on why your arguement is bs.
Let me pose you a question. You have 5 people in a hospital suffering failure of different organs, all are the rare ABVVV blood type (yes I made that up). You have a ABVVV man come into the emergency room with a broken arm, but perfectly fine organs. Can we kill him to save the others?
We are not morally obligated to force that man to volunteer his own body even at the cost of death of others. Forcing a woman to yield her body to the machinery that builds a person is effectively slavery.
I also think murdering abortion doctors is wrong”
I can’t see how this can follow. If you know a person is a serial killer, and that he has gotten legal sanction to kill hundreds of people a year. You see him lead the next victim in to his chamber (For the sake of the allegory imagine him to be the Salad Man from Hostel). No chance to get the police to respond. What sort of cowardly jackass are you, that you would sit back and let him kill people without acting yourself or forming an angry mob?
“Why would anyone do that?”
Because Oklahoma is such an interesting place?
Self-abuse??
Ah, too poor to move out of the state…
(do I win a prize?)
/sarcasm
“Godfuckingdamnit, this pisses me off to no end. Fuck all of them.”
With Oderus Urungus’s Cuttlefish of Cthulhu.
Uber, as has been stated this discussion has already been had and answered completely by Cerberus.
I am not as good at articulating these things as Cerberus and Carlie are, but you have drawn my ire.
You are granting special rights to a fetus that no human is allowed to have.
If mandatory donations become the norm, it would not a special right.
Of course, that will never happen, since post mortem donations are not acceptable to the religiots.
By the way, I want to hear numbers from you. How many women should die just because they cannot get a late term abortion.
Are you in favor of imprisonment for an abortion? For how long?
Are you in favor of taking the child away?
Since you seem to feel it is acceptable for a woman to be forced to carry a the pregnancy to term (your “liberal, democrat, prochoice” is unconvincing), you have reduced women to being an incubator with no rights at all.
Then, after she’s given birth the filthy slut can be buried alive or stoned to death. Maybe the guy who impregnated her can throw the first stone.
I want you to say what rights everybody should lose.
Maybe, if she was on birth control but the guy didn’t use a condom, he should be sterilized…sorry, I meant castrated.
Oh and the people with the ABXXV blood type…
It should be all of them need transfusions: Einstein, Dawkins, and you. A man with a broken arm comes in who happens to have the same blood type.
Taking that much blood from a person is somewhat dangerous, even with plasma and nutrient supplementation.
Should he be forced to take that risk?
Neither is a C-section. Should we ban those?
A C Section is different because it’s to allow a process to continue to save a life. Besides I never said cloning should be banned, just that a skin cell will not naturally develop into a human without complicated intervention. I obviously can’t respond to all of you at once, just like if you go on a fundamentalist website and 100 people try to tell you why evolution is wrong, you can’t answer all of them even though they’re wrong because it’s just too much to deal with.
Here’s an idea. How about all the women solemny promise not to have any sort of sexual activity with KingUber, so as to avoid getting pregnant to him?
I’m one.
I suppose you could take cells from skin and make a clone but that’s not a natural result.
So what? Would your clone not be a person worthy of rights and protection just because his conception was “unnatural”?
I know a lot of people on this website hate it when atheists exhibit the amoral attitutdes that christians so often accuse us of having, but this news seals the deal for me.
The authors and supporters of this bill do not deserve to live any more than mass murderers deserve to live. These people and their rancid, poisonous beliefs are so dangerous that they are a real risk to any society that values freedom and individual liberty, or more to the point, the lives, welfare, and autonomy of women. They are traitors of the worst kind. Given the choice, I would prefer to live in a world without them, and while I will not inflict any harm myself, I no longer care how much pain they suffer or whether they as individuals live or die. Morally, they simply no longer deserve the consideration or empathy that I would give to any other human. I can’t force myself to muster up the empathy that would be necessary for me to grant them any dignity whatsoever. I would go further out of my way to spare a sewer rat or a snake than I would to save them from harm. I have roughly the same level of sympathy and empathy for them as I have for the 9/11 terrorists, Jim Jones, or Jeffrey Dahmer.
Why? Because their ideals are every bit as dangerous to people, every bit as selfish, disgusting, and heartless. Given enough time, laws that restrict abortion, censor medical information, or publicize those who get abortions in a society that is hostile to women will eventually have a greater body count and a greater legacy of unnecessary pain and suffering than all of my other examples’ body counts combined.
Some might think I am overstating the case, but I think we are all honest enough to realize thatall it takes is enough time.
Does 3000 victims become acceptable if it happens over a few decades instead of a few years, or in the moment it takes to crash an airplane into a building? No. Would we hate the 9/11 terrorists any less if they had simply held 3000 hostages and shot one every month or so? No. Would we hate Dahmer any less if he had only preyed on “slutty” women, and only killed them through medical neglect and dishonesty? No.
These legislators and their supporters, are the moral equivalents of slave owners, torturers, and accomplices to murder. If justice ever finds them, I will not try to stop it, and I will not wish them the slightest mercy.
Disclaimer, before I get ripped to shreds for being just as bad as them: Unlike most of them, I do not believe that the govenment should have the power of the death penalty, and I do not think that citizens should be allowed kill each other without consequences in any situation except self-defence or the defence of others. I am not calling for witch hunts or executions, I’m not willing to go kill them myself or even aid it, but I really do believe that they are just about as close as a person can get to “deserving” it, as far as we humans are able to judge such things, and that the world would be a better place for the rest of us if they(and their counterparts in many other cultures) could be exterminated.
I will not do anyone harm, nor will I aid or encourage anyone else to do so. But if an angry mob of voters ransacked the OK legislature and carted them all to a dungeon to be tortured and killed, I would not lift a finger to stop it.
If that makes me as bad as them, so be it. I can’t force myself to like them, care about them, or want to treat them any better than what their actions warrant.
“a skin cell will not naturally develop into a human without complicated intervention. ”
How about you try growing a fertilised ovum into a human without using massive resources from another human’s body?
Am I wrong to think Slanted Science and King Uber are the same troll? They sound remarkably similar…
I’m going to make a suggestion, based on nothing other than my gut feeling, so feel free to tell me to shut the hell up and eff off:
King Uber’s “voice” and writing style (not to mention line of argument) do seem remarkably similar to a certain person in the “Sunday sacrilege” thread, and I’m not thinkng of Slanted Science.
Phasic, I agree. I noted upthread somewhere that at least one of the arguments was word for word the same as one in the Sunday thread.
What? A troll morphing? Yawn, boring…*would have swooned, but the Pullet Patrol™ had a “lean and hungry” look…*
*Patricia..*
@Darreth:
These kind of statements always amaze me.
The US has always been this way! Abortion only became legal across the country, in what, ’72? That’s not a century ago — that’s not even a lifetime ago.
There was, a few decades back, a period of expanding freedom due to a combination of increasing wealth and the propaganda demands of the Cold War.
That’s over. Now we’re returning to our traditional culture. The fundies are right — America has been mostly a “Christian” country, in the foulest terms of the word. The FF’s may not have been — but they were a tiny elite. But most of the folks running the country, at least at a local level, for most of our history have been exactly these kinds of control freak racist, misogynist SOBs.
That’s America. Change it dammit, but don’t pretend that this is new (at least if you’re over 16 and have learned to read). It’s the same old crap over and over and over again.
And for you European folks — don’t think you’re scot-free either. It’s boiling in your cultures as well — it’s just that WWII was that much more traumatic, allowing a deeper reform than in the US. But if you let your eyes off the ball for a second, you’ll be back in the shit-hole as well.
Whereas a zygote, if you just “leave it alone,” will inevitably grow into a bouncing newborn. Right? Those 40 weeks of using its mother’s body for shelter, warmth, and a steady stream of nutrients, oxygen, hormones and other bio-goodies are just…no big deal. All those months the mother spends eating and sleeping for two, puking for no good reason, peeing every 12 minutes, suffering headaches, lower back pain and swollen ankles, and generally making sure not to have too much fun because anything she puts in her body could affect the fetus? Oh, that’s just a natural process, you just twiddle your thumbs for nine months and then it’s over and you’re fine. Is that really so much to ask?
These kind of statements always amaze me.
The US has always been this way! Abortion only became legal across the country, in what, ’72? That’s not a century ago — that’s not even a lifetime ago.
There was, a few decades back, a period of expanding freedom due to a combination of increasing wealth and the propaganda demands of the Cold War.
That’s over. Now we’re returning to our traditional culture. The fundies are right — America has been mostly a “Christian” country, in the foulest terms of the word.
True dat!
The United States has been a pretty regressive place for much of our history. While we love to uphold ourselves as a beacon of freedom and democracy, we’ve only really been attempting it for about 40 years. Prior to that, we were a brutal racial and sexual dictatorship…and plenty of folks want us to return to that, and have been fairly successful in their attempts at retrenchment of the social welfare state (just as people of color finally gained access) and rollbacks on reproductive freedom, particularly of poor women.
We have historically been a pretty nasty country.
Illiberal democracy would be the proper term, but yes.
Or maybe not illiberal democracy. I don’t know.
All countries were pretty brutal until about 40 years ago. The US isn’t special in that regard.
Is it just me, or is there an appeal to nature underneath all this nonsense? I mean, that childbirth thing is “natural”, therefore good and easy, whereas cloning those skin cells is “artificial”, therefore bad and difficult.
A little experience with preeclampsia, even if it never develops into full eclampsia, will disabuse anyone of the notion that childbirth is this easy and simple thing.
Fortunately, we now learn that the governor of Oklahoma is not completely insane – he vetoed the bills: http://reproductiverights.org/en/press-room/oklahoma-governor-vetoes-two-abortion-bills
Woo Hoo! For ONCE, the right outcome!
Unfortunately, the reasoning behind his decision is questionable:
Apparently nobody’s conscience should be alarmed by victimizing women who have had sex willingly.