So, apparently my friend has become some kind of idiotic pro-lifer overnight.

And granted...there are other excuses as well...excuses that are possibly acceptable."

anyone this full of themselves, especially as regards something you feel this strongly about and that, when it boils down to it, is *none of his business*, is to be given very serious second thoughts about.

idiot

(xpost - I know, right? As if the anti-choice stuff wasn't enough.)

No! Anyone who refers to women as bitches and whores has a bunch of issues to begin with, never mind the wrongheadedness of his self-righteous abortion rant.

x-post

"You've said a lot of things that I found insulting or hurtful, above and beyond whatever your thoughts on this issue are. Just because you feel strongly about this matter doesn't excuse the way you are talking to me about it and about other women, at all. I don't want to continue this friendship if this is how you're acting, because I think it's demeaning. I hope you take the time to read over what you sent to me and think about it, because I want you to understand how I would feel reading it, and I really don't think I have to go into detail why that is. But if you're not willing to apologize for how you brought this up, and to talk this over without anger and hate, please don't contact me again."

Perhaps too harsh, perhaps too naive, I don't know. But I think it lays it on the line.

i should say, they just want to tell people to stop having sex, preferably in some authorized fashion

"You fucking idiot. When did you become retarded? I can't believe I ever wasted time speaking to you. Here's hoping you suffer severe genital trauma and therefore are rendered incapable of passing your obviously defective genes on to some poor unsuspecting child. XOXO."

Just kidding.

I don't think I'll be saying anything, as it was just posted in his LJ for anyone to see. If he had posted it directly in response to me, things might be different. If he brings it up, I'll tell him what's up, but I'm not gonna. I'm just going to ignore him like the persistent snore in the adjacent bedroom that he is.

racking my brain trying to figure out who, exactly, NEEDS to make this their album title

early front-runners: Terry Riley, S Club, James Brown

Whoa, wait, he's the other guy who lives with you and your boyfriend in the apartment? JEEZ. You're being awfully, um, patient.

xpost - boyz II men.

It was a SIMILE.

*phew!* For a second there...

ha! multiple xpost

SO INAPPROPRIATE.... SO FUNNY... help

this i think is the telling line from the whole post. i forget who it was (arendt? havel? fromm?) who writes abt authoritarianism as the easy solution to fear & the inability to deal with a multiplicity of things going on out there in the big bad world. ppl like this describe problems as being some kind of needless crazy over-activity and then take refuge in politics that ask for everything to be shut down & brought to a halt. this is a classic example.

I could very well be wrong, and do not mean to suggest that people do not hold these opinions out of serious religious beliefs, but I was suggesting that she might be taking a rhetorical position for political purposes that does not contradict her policy position. Perhaps that would be out of character for her. Then again, she may be acting out of character during a campaign season.

xpost - eh, he had his weirdo moments, but nothing like this, really. He's always been kind of new agey and "gonna change the world" but never quite so, I don't know, right wing/frattish.

(wow I am a marketing genius)

Because I don't think anyone should ever get all uppity about a cause unless it directly affects them personally.

So, he never gets into how it affects him before he gets all uppity. What gives?

I meant that she may have been trying to suggest that she believes not only that abortion should be rare, but further that many people who have abortions may merely be promiscuous (the belief underlying a policy position that she does not take). If that implication was intentional, I was questioning whether that was in fact her belief.

That would be kind of cool though! I wish more men did this.

Like Damon? Are you sure?

I resent the implication that moustache cuppers are insensitve to reproduction rights.

whoa, maybe I missed this element earlier, well, then, this post (if he knows you know about his site) seems more than a bit passive-aggressive. I wouldn't deal with someone who publicly aired such negative opinions of women.

guy [5:39 PM]: you act like i'm so one way or another
guy [5:39 PM]: the individual decides
Roxymuzac [5:39 PM]: it IS one way or another
guy [5:39 PM]: when the time comes to decide
Roxymuzac [5:40 PM]: I agree. If it's illegal, though, thats obviously a BARRIER to the individual deciding, get me?
guy [5:40 PM]: it's NOT one way or another...i went to high school with a girl who had THREE abortions and she's a stripper
Roxymuzac [5:40 PM]: AND?!?!?!
Roxymuzac [5:40 PM]: what in god's name does that have to do with anything?

Roxymuzac [5:42 PM]: ...But there are thousands of kids waiting to be adopted.
guy [5:42 PM]: yeah....and they get the experience of growing up with a lotta other kids in an orphanage...i IMAGINE it would be rather camp-like.

guy[5:44 PM]: here...i'll make a new post
Roxymuzac [5:44 PM]: i can see it now.
Roxymuzac [5:45 PM]: 'emily is a whiney bitch, so WOO! Look at me, IM LIBERAL! Cause thats whats COOL."
guy [5:45 PM]: you think i'm a liberal?
Roxymuzac [5:45 PM]: no, i was being you pretending to be liberal.
Roxymuzac [5:46 PM]: as a way to assuage my concerns.
Roxymuzac [5:46 PM]: oh, forget it.

guy [5:47 PM]: i don't believe in law
Roxymuzac [5:47 PM]: hm.
guy [5:47 PM]: except for the laws of nature
Roxymuzac [5:47 PM]: Alrighty then.

I understand that Jay-Z is hiring a bunch of these fun-time camp kids to sing back-up on his new record, "Abortion Time"

"I don't believe in law except for the laws of nature."

"Plus, my folks just don't understand me and System of a Down rocks!"

i heard that, masturbators or not, most people who grew up in Catholic school become rapists. can't vouch for that either though!

but yeah this was my favourite line of that livejournal...
I wonder how many of those women actually have even had children or abortions. Because I don't think anyone should ever get all uppity about a cause unless it directly affects them personally.

well exactly.

Taking a dump on things is still hands down my favorite way to handle people who are being asshats.

xpost

But he feels like shit now, so as far as I'm concerned my work here is done. *cleans up shop*

I kid (sort of).

Oh, man, but just think of how much more like shit he will feel if you take a dump on his porch. Don't clean up shop just yet...

And if I placed an arsenal of bloody tampons on his porch and placed little pipecleaner arms on them holding pro-choice signs?

Too obvious, yes?

No, that's pretty funny.

If you want to be subversive about it though, wait until the next time you spend any time at his place and Upper Deck his bathroom.

xpost - Upper Deck?

And just my style.

For example, leaving a large amount of overripe bananas in the toilet's tank.

Though I do still think that the livejournal guy deserves something juvenile.

The U.K. movement known as "grime" made its first signifigant forays into the average American music listener's consciousness this week as Michael Bivins emerged from from obscurity with his first record in ages, an icy but irresistably danceable number called Abortion Time. His backing band, a Streatham crew known as the Upper Deck, provide rock-hard beats against which Bivins butts his unparseable yet charming attempt at an English accent. When is Abortion Time, exactly? You don't need to ask: it's now!
—CMJ, 8/4/04

Prude: Consider him ditched. I'm going to be icily distant, but not mean.

This comment seems especially mysterious.

J0hn Darn1elle and Momus recently proved that yes, two certified superstars can turn up on the same message board, the same stage, and even the same song without shorting out each other's star power.

Momus and Darn1elle rejoined forces recently to record the video for the song "Abortion Time!", in the same studio where the pair recorded their uptempo electronic pop hit.

"[Momus and I] hooked up one year at the trucker hat thread and argued," Darn1elle said of first meeting his collaborator. "I had the idea for the song, and he came to the Midwest, and we sat down together and bounced ideas off of each other. We wrote and recorded the song in a day and had fun hanging out for the next two days."

The jaunty "Abortion Time!" finds Momus and Darn1elle trading verses about the kooky hijinks that ensue when an abortion is scheduled.

The single is scheduled to arrive in stores on May 6th.

x-post

"there are v. few issues that I would stop being close to someone over. "

Anthony's is OTM here.

"I don't BELIEEEEVE it!"

That doesn't make me a bad friend, does it?

This really depends. I have friends with very different political beliefs but I don't think any of them would write screeds like the one at the top of the thread. One of my best friends is a closet fascist (not Nazi, fascist) but I'm actually able to have really long conversations with him about it that don't get overly violent (hell, I'M the one who tells him that I'd kill him if he got into a position of power).

I really don't like to get into these long drawn-out debates on ILX, esp. when the situation clearly calls for a personal decision. There's not an obvious reaction, esp. when you're not the one defining "close."

So what if they did? What if a friend you liked and trusted suddenly declared all christians to be horrible bastards, or said your mother was a slut? I mean thats the level of this, to my mind.

My friends declare this all the time though?!?!

Most certainly yes.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_God_Hates_You.jpg

IT'S COMING. . .

Okay here it is. . .

CHURCH GOSSIPS!!!!

and if us dems were smart, there'd be a SHITLOAD of "god hates you!" sign-bearers outside of the GOP convention this summer.

Until women ESPECIALLY just face people like this off and say YES, I am MUCH more important than a zygote and UNAPOLOGETICALLY my life takes precedence, instead of moderating spoken opinions so as not to alienate fence-sitters, there will always be a danger that RvW will be attacked.

(when I was 16 we used to take anti-abortionists leaflets and spitball their creators with them. It was fun)

First, if someone is standing between me and equal rights, the gloves are off. Whether you are being paid more than me to do my job purely because you're a man or you want remote control of my reproductive organs because equality as more than a concept makes you go 'whoa!', you WILL be subjected to an ad hominem attack.

Other effective arguments include: 'by your logic, Godbotherer, masturbation is also problematic due to what the Bible had to say about Onan and his seed but YOU'RE STILL A WANKER.'

Women have to own this argument by refusing to put up with those who would strip us all of a right won over 30 years ago, simply because others would make their body a battlefield in the war on their right to equality, a war which people who are opposed to RvW don't actually want them to win. EVER. That is the bottom line. Women in states where the hoop-jumping to receive a termination would challenge PT Barnum PAY for those who impede their progress through taxation and that's just unacceptable, and as dodgy an application of 'state's rights' as has been actioned since the Confederacy.

To those anti-abortionists who protest that they don't like their money being spent on abortions, I'd say it was a small price to pay for equal rights for your children, and that document you have to produce to get a passport is not a Conception Certificate for a reason. Anti-abortion males must be told it's all very well and good saying you'd support wives/girlfriends etc. if you got them pregnant, but they're the biggest whiners when it comes to how women should think and behave so why would anyone want to give them children in the first place? It might hurt and feel like rejection, but if a woman does not want or indeed need a child, the 'success' of one of the billion sperm you've just shot into her is just going to feel like an enemy virus to her, not the gift of life.

Let's have none of these namby-pamby 'I just want the right to choose' statements, lest your name be Hobson, let's desensitise the public to the A-word. 'Choice' is one of those words like 'flexibility' that leaves you ruled rather than ruling yourself.

Men and women who oppose a woman's right to carry out an abortion are either overt or latent misogynists and often it's women whose misogyny is more toxic. We do toxic female misogyny REALLY WELL - and I was guilty of this in school when all the girls who bullied me fell pregnant over a matter of months, decided to keep the babies at 14/15, and my attitude was 'fabulous, you're OUT OF THE GAME, I'll check you in the welfare line when I coast by in my chauffeur-driven Merc, you stupid, pathetic assholes'. Which I admit is very easy to say to those who have spent their entire junior high tenure menacing others and telling them nobody will ever have sex with them for any reason.

Later on, when my friends started having sex (I didn't then, at the time I believed that if I fucked some stupid HS boy I would be spot-welded to the town forevermore, like those stupid bully girls) one freshly impregnated girl had to make representations as a 'mature minor' in 9th grade so her parents could not be told she sought abortion, as she believed they would try to make her stay the course for religious/moral reasons. Others sweated out the days after broken condoms, date rapes, whatever. But none was more sad than my sister's friend, a cheerleader who went into complete denial about her pregnancy, told NOBODY and gave birth in the family's spare bathroom, sitting on the toilet, so that the baby would drown (it did). Her parents were devout Catholics, she couldn't disappoint them, she couldn't transgress their values in a clinic 200 yards from her house, so she went silent, and then crazy.

Of course there are loads of guilt-trips anti-abortionists like to play out on women and others who support RvW, such as 'well, I was an accident, what if my mom aborted me?' which are mere rhetoric but one area in which anti-abortionists (I hereby decree that all RvW supporters call these people anti-abortionists because all research shows you pro-life is indeed an oxymoron) are slowly chipping away on fence-sitters is over late-term abortions. I swear, my pro-choice mom, who sees tons of upset mother-daughter teams come to her store to get cash to pay for abortions at the clinic down the road, where she accompanied my sis to on two occasions, is starting to waver on whether she thinks late-term abortions are OK or not. FFS, no woman who finds herself four months gone makes the decision to terminate lightly, and in addition some people might be scared shitless of the situation like my sis' friend was.

however to put everything in perspective let's remember Li'l Markie: http://www.showandtellmusic.com/mp3s/gallery_l/MarkieDiary.mp3

there must be a sense of loss, of mourning, of desire for the possibilties that did not exist.

abortions need to be legal, abortions need to be performed on demand, abortions need to be paid for by taxes, abortions need to be added as an option to every sex ed class in existance.

but there is loss.

i believe in a woman's right to abortion but this doesn't strike me as remotely true in many cases.

one of the hardest things for me is acknowledging that, on terms which are neither mysogynist nor reprehensible nor "antiquated" in some easily dismissable fashion, the anti-abortion activists have a certain element of truth on their side. i still oppose them.

is this where i rant about how we are denying communion to pro choice politicans but not pro death penalty ones, or to politicans who make it impossible b/c of money, etc to raise those children.

xpost

its not theoritcal for my best friend bryan, who got a girl preganat at 16 and had to decide what to do, but the potential to have a child was his as much as hers, sperm and ova.

(Sorry to Suzy if I'm misrepresenting yr argument.)

Anthony, one person's 'loss' (of what? control? a fantasy? a fantasy future?) is another's 'OMG I had nightmares where I saw myself going over to Ida Mae's trailer for a beer with a brat hanging off my ankle a la JT Leroy frightscene'. I think the circumstance of each individual determines feelings of loss, it's not universal by any means. The emotional and physical changes of which you speak mostly have to do with hormones which have been activated by the pregnancy and remain after a termination for a few months. Anything else is a product of your own personal review of your own moral codes.

i dont think that abortion is joyus for anyone.

i think you've phrased it in a way that makes it difficult to respond in the negative.

"mysogyny" suggests a hatred of women. the belief that the sanctity of life renders the decision to abort immoral is not, in my opinion, the same thing as the hatred of women.

we should not confuse the slogans of certain anti-abortionists with the mindset of all those who oppose the right to abortion.

Meaning no disrespect to my dear friend Anthony nor meaning to diminish the depth of your response, A, yet must I point out that when you write:

i dont think that abortion is joyous for anyone

it would seem that you haven't watched Abortion Time!, the zany Australian game show that's making quite a stir in the Land Down Under

again, i believe you are phrasing it such that it becomes difficult to argue.

"their moral stance" is of course, not how they would phrase it. nor would anyone phrase it that way, if it was a deep-seated moral belief. my "moral stance" vis a vis the death penalty is perceived by some as coming in the way of those people who argue that they receive a benefit from it. but to me it's not a stance, it's a belief.

it is indeed mostly the woman who has to face the consequences of delivering a child (but not exclusively, i should add). i don't think this inevitably translated to mysogyny, which again, is the hatred of women. you haven't proved, to me, that this hatred is an essential component of a "pro-life" argument, although there are certainly examples of pro-lifers who are mysogynst. (there are probably examples of pro-choicers who are the same.)

xpost.

I'd be of the view that if you're claiming that anyone with a contrary view to your own is motivated by the desire to keep their bootheel on the neck of Women, you've forfeited the argument.

well you can understand that this would be frustrating for me.

if you're aware of the problem--which i think is a very fundamental rhetorical question --then please deal with it. i don't mean this in a threatening or insulting way, it's just that i don't enjoy arguing when the other person is consciously throwing up obstacles to communicating.

Abortion is something I'd have to do if the condoms and the birth control pills didn't work, and I believe that the use of those contraceptives shows my partner I don't want to be knocked up any time soon! If I wanted kids, I wouldn't take pills or reach for rubbers, would I? Honestly, some people feel that if your uterus is tapped with the magic wand of man *it changes everything* when what needs to happen is a more healthy psychology where guilt/peer pressure etc. are out of the equation on this matter.

Am: 'The sanctity of life' is a red-rag phrase to me, I have a problem with 'sanctity' in my secular atheist worldview. Also, difficult as it may be to draw this line, or accept it, our rights begin at birth, not before. Show me your conception certificate and I might bend on this a little.

I said upthread that the rights of a zygote should have no precedence over the rights of any living person, although in practice women are the ones who have the most to lose. Misogyny totally fuels the reluctance by men and some women to accept that women have first call over things that are happening to them inside their own bodies. How dare those uppity bitches!

i'm not exactly sure what you mean by this, but i'll venture a reiteration of one of my points as a response. if i misunderstood you please let me know.

so: because mysogynsts are often opposed to abortion does not mean that at the heart of the anti-abortion argument (or a possible one) is mysogyny.

i agree with your arguments suzy, after all i am "pro-choice" as they say; i'm just suggesting (probably to the point of tedium) that it's not so easy for me to dismiss the anti-abortionists and it does everyone a disservice to chalk them up as a bunch of mysogynists. is nat hentoff a mysogynyst?

am i spelling that right?

x-post Chris that was beautiful

It's probably not wise to allow the actions of the state to define an issue for you, especially if you're pro-choice!

Andrew, that's just a total cop-out and you're intelligent enough to know it.

However it's a better counterpoint than when an anti-abortionist tells me I'm going to Hell for what I believe when Hell doesn't exist, but a careful read would tell you that's not how I feel about all things, just this specific thing where I'm afraid it is true and it does not reflect well on men in general that we are having this argument in C21.

John, my arguments on this matter have ben happening since I was 15 and have probably convinced more people than will ever be convinced to purchase a delightful Mountain Goats record (sorry, but you deserved that).

But that would mean admitting that the start of life is an arbitrarily drawn line, which neither side wants!

xpost, of course.

xpost

While I see where you are coming from and agree with most of it I find the way you talk about such an emotive subject unnerving to say the least.

I had a termination, sorry for posting anon but it’s still a very difficult thing for me to talk about.

As far as I am concerned, I killed my baby (there is no doubt in my mind that it was a child, perhaps not fully formed but still my child)I made the choice and it was my choice and I’m glad I had it however it doesn’t stop the guilt or feelings of loss.

“Anthony, one person's 'loss' (of what? control? a fantasy? a fantasy future?) is another's 'OMG I had nightmares where I saw myself going over to Ida Mae's trailer for a beer with a brat hanging off my ankle a la JT Leroy frightscene'. I think the circumstance of each individual determines feelings of loss, it's not universal by any means. The emotional and physical changes of which you speak mostly have to do with hormones which have been activated by the pregnancy and remain after a termination for a few months. Anything else is a product of your own personal review of your own moral codes”

I may be misinterpreting here but this leaves me very uneasy. I don’t think abortion should ever be for reasons like this and I know that the feelings you have, which stay with you, are not simply down to hormones. I’m speaking from personal experience and from speaking to other people who have had terminations and have a very different moral standpoint on it.

But that was your personal experience, anon. You can't generalise and say that it is that way for everyone.

Also, it's fine to cite other people who have had terminations but you provide zero context for what made them feel that way, which is just bad exposition, but may be necessary due to posting anonymously in the first place.

I personally do agree with that statement, but as far as law is concerned, for the protection of women and their unborn wanted children, etc., I think there have to be lines. This leaves me kind of uneasy, the issue of "feticide", etc., and I still have a lot of thinking to do about it, so forgive me if I contradict myself or make little sense on the issue.

http://www.filmposters.com/images/posters/6906.jpg

I'm pro-choice and a man, and I absolutely accept that women should have first call over what happens inside their bodies. But I nonetheless find it problematic. In my case, a woman who was pregnant by me wanted an abortion. I wanted her to have the child. Admittedly, we were not getting on well at the time and were sort of exes, but I offered to raise the child myself at my own expense. She said no, and had the abortion. Years later, I'm still upset by that decision.

I agree that women should have the final word in such situations. But where does that leave men's rights? In such a situation men have no say as to whether they will be a father or not - and if they do turn out to be a father, they have legal and financial obligations for the next 18 years.

And before anyone says "it's your fault for having sex", the sex was perfectly consensual and therefore it was both of our faults, and yet the consequences are very different for each person. I don't know what the solution is.

I had no opinion on that until I saw Hentoff on an panel about abortion, and he was extremely patronizing toward the women on the panel who argued for abortion rights.

The anti-abortion crowd compares abortion to murder. They compare it to the Holocaust. Hence, doctors who perform abortions are murderers, women who have them are murderers, and those who support abortion rights are murder-enablers. Extend the logic, and the misogyny is pretty clear to me.

I don't want to talk about my familiarity with the anti-abortion movement, it's too personal. I think some of the people in it don't see themselves as sexist, but those are people who are easily duped by the rhetoric of their churches, in my experience. You can call that condescending and elitist all you want, but it comes from personal experience. The sentimentality in this movement is astonishing. The leaders talk to their followers as if they are children.

x-post : good to see our old friend, mr. anon 'men's rights'.

I posted anonymously because I don't like posting very personal things under my name. I also made it clear that I am pro-choice. I thought it was legitimate to point out that the man involved has no say on whether he is to be a father or not. I didn't say that this was a reason to call the pro-choice position into question, only that it was problematic.

a well measured explore both sides of the argument documentary?

The argument that it's not misogynistic is disingenuous in light of the fact that abortion is actually pretty common, and that "baby killer" is the most common taunt of those who support abortion rights. Gee...looks like mass murder is defended and / or chosen by LARGE numbers of women - women must be really awful. Sounds like misogyny to me, but I dunno, maybe I'm just naive about these things.

Or perhaps women are just really more vulnerable to psychological manipulation, i.e., they're DUMB. The more self-styled "humanist" anti-abortion types try to get around this by treating women who consider abortion as manipulated by the evil abortion lobby and by those who work at "abortion mills" (cf. crematoria). It's either murder or it's not, and they dodge the question when PR makes it necessary.

However: many foetuses are viable from 24 weeks or so with appropriate medical care.

These are all true, but you're 0 for 3 as regards having any relevance to my analogy.

Gee...looks like mass murder is defended and / or chosen by LARGE numbers of women - women must be really awful.

It's the and/or that's muddying things here: it's chosen exclusively by women for an obvious reason. If it's consistently defended by women, that's one thing, but there are male anti-abortionists as well (though maybe not as vocal).

Dan, as usual, OTM. Preferably most leading male anti-abortionists will immediately become impregnated as well.

The crux of the issue for me is that I trust women to know what is best for their lives, their families and their pregnancies as they/we are the ultimate source of child-bearing decision-making regarding the blessing/curse of cradling the future in their/our respective wombs.

This is why it's inherently misogynist... The assumption most commonly made by the anti-abortion side is that women aren't smart enough or worthy enough to make these decisions about their own lives.

wolf blitzer: 'how big of an issue do you think the abortion debate will be in the election?'

karen hughes: 'i think that, after 9/11, americans are valuing life more... our enemies, the terrorists, don't value any life, not even their own.'

NYTimes.com > Opinion

April 27, 2004
The Deaths of Foster Children

The latest shocking numbers from the states' hard-pressed child welfare programs confirm the ongoing national tragedy in which 1,400 children died from abuse and neglect in 2002. This intolerable toll looms darkly in a federal study that counted 896,000 abused and neglected foster children in the same year. Even the state officials now threatened with penalties candidly admit to widespread shortcomings in tracking and protecting society's most vulnerable members.

The recent horror stories of child welfare abuses in New Jersey and Florida do not seem that aberrational in the sorry national context. Federal investigators concluded that while protections varied widely, not one state was in full compliance with the basic standard of providing permanency and stability to the children routinely bounced about in the catch-basin netherworld of foster care. Documented abuse — the annual rate continues at more than 12 cases per 1,000 foster children — includes starvation and inflicting sexual, physical and emotional pain, and even outright torture. ...

i think you've phrased it in a way that makes it difficult to respond in the negative.

if i read this right, you're suggesting that there's something wrong with the phrasing, but you don't explain what it is. i'm not interested in the "mysogynist" part, but rather the "zygote" characterization, and the weighing of "rights".

there must be a sense of loss, of mourning, of desire for the possibilties that did not exist.

I don't quite understand. "there must be"? Is this an expression of a religious belief? A sense of humanity? Who must experience this sense of loss? Are you saying that an institution is necessary to impose this sense? The state? How? If so, why would that be appropriate?

Of course, the problem with that stance is that if a fetus is a life, women who have abortions deserve the same penalty as actual murderers. In America the penalty for murder is the chair, so a rhetorically consistent anti-abortionist believes that women who have had an abortion should die.

Which is where the pro-life political position is revealed as rhetorical. Pro-lifers are willing to hold doctors responsible for abortions, but ask them what criminal penalties they propose to apply to a woman who has an abortion, and they start hemming and hawing in every possible direction.

I KNEW IT! Columbia grads ARE all robots!!!!

Gabbneb: What would happen if you ran the following BASIC program?

10 PRINT "Hello."
20 GOTO 10

well, "feel bad" isn't the same as 'experience loss', necessarily. And in any event, I'm not sure that you alone are ever in sole control of how you feel, especially when you're engaged in an activity that is the subject of public debate. (for instance, anti-abortion rhetoric may lead people who have abortions to "feel bad" as opposed to 'experience loss') and I'm not saying that there's necessarily something wrong with institutions, especially religious ones, taking rhetorical positions on how individuals should approach their lives, in particular where the individual exercises power, perhaps ultimate power, over something that may be living, but I can't off the top of my head think of an instance where the State by law takes even a rhetorical position regarding how an individual should think or feel.

10 PRINT "Hello."
20 GOTO 10

"Dave Has a Problem... Seriously"

The Smith Act came pretty close.

Damn. I guess you aren't a robot after all. (At least, not one that understands BASIC.)

the gabbneb unit expects users to get its references

THANK YOU. the ppl accusing anti-abortionists of being misogynists are doing exactly what someone already pointed out upthread: assuming that, OBVIOUSLY the pro-lifers know life starts at birth, and they're insistence otherwise is just a nice way for them to distract from the REAL reason for their stance, which is WOMAN HATING clearly. - that's devious and unfair and it certainly shouldn't win you any converts. (and maybe in your experience it really is true, in which case i understand, but in mine that's just not the case at all, so i have a great deal of trouble with people taking it almost as a foregone conclusion)

thing of thing is OTM - being pro-life DOES work to women's disadvantage, undeniably, but i do believe that's secondary, and i think it's disingenuous to turn that around as ppl in this thread have been doing. (to clarify i don't mean secondary in a "two birds with one stone" way but a "an unfortunate consequence of my beliefs, and one that should probably cause me re-examine them" way - and yeah i understand the misogyny accusations were probably just a rhetorical technique to bring that mindset out, but i've still got a problem with it)

it's good that "logged out" tried to open the other can of worms in this debate - that both parties responsible should share responsibility for the pregnancy. i was certainly glad to hear that the father must support the child for 18 years if the mother chooses to keep it (something i've always wondered about), but the real-life scenario he brought up is one i'd like to see dealt with here.

the thing is of course, it IS the woman's body, so the woman SHOULD have the final call...so do we just have to live with the current state of things and the problems that go with it, hoping that it works more often than not? is dan right, that there's just no practical solution to this? i feel terribly for "logged out", having a decision of such significance (more significant to him than the woman involved, isn't it? [will i have a child or not vs. will i have to bear a child or not]) completely beyond his control, and i think it's really fucking awful that he immediately gets tossed aside as a closet misogynist of some sort by people apparently afraid to confront the issues he raised.

i've never liked (further) euphemising the pro-choice argument as "women's rights" because it just seems to enforce the belief that pregnancy and it's fruits are the woman's fault and sole responsibility, which isn't and shouldn't be, surely? (maybe i'm living inthe past and this isnt a problem anymore, but it sure seems like there are a lot more single mothers than single fathers - are they all receiving child support?) apologies for the rambling and naivety

[cue dan/j0hn/roxy saying something whimsical!]

(Gabbneb I am devastatingly tired today so I am now pretending that I got your reference. You da 'bot.)

(Alex I agree that that is a gigantic game-losing misstep in an otherwise good post.)

Reference noted. The De La Soul unit is proud.

ok, fine. so why "should" they? Anthony, to my mind, appears to be expressing a religious belief. Even if it is one universal to all religions, he is in essence arguing that unbelievers should be religious. Why is this more true in the arena of abortion?

Suzy in fairness Anthony's position is the rational one for a theist to hold, I think - unless I misread you, you don't swing that way.

likewise, perhaps Suzy's position may be the 'rational' one for an atheist or at least one who has a different form of theism.

i think anthony is suggesting, whether or not intentionally, that believers (or at least certain Catholics or others whose religion teaches them to feel a sense of loss at the end of a life) experience a sense of loss when someone else has an abortion, perhaps moreso when abortion occurs under state sanction. should their interests be taken into account in public policy or discourse? how so? i think that this relates to amst's mention upthread of capital punishment - he recognizes that a state that prohibits it may thereby further injure a victim's family. if the state is unwilling to allow it, how should the family's interests be addressed by the state or the polity, if at all?

John as someone who has never been pregnant, but has observed the effects (emotional and physical) of being pregnant on a few women in my time, I think that this statement is complete bullshit.

And if logged out JUST wanted someone to have his kid then he should hire a surrogate and be done with it not been like "Baby can't I just use your uterus? You won't have to do anything after that. Just squeeze the little sucker out and I'll deal with it." (Jesus talk about fuckin' grotesque verging if not already on misogyny.)

Upset? Ok, I understand. Upset that you didn't get your way, that your heart's opening to the possbility of being a father went nowhere. Let's just say that i have been heard to grumble, though good-naturedly, when asked to take my girlfriend's dry-cleaning in, not to mention something like picking up her friends at the airport. If you asked to borrow my uterus for 9 months and make me go through all the attendant physical, hormonal, and emotional turmoil when we were essentially exes I might be inclined to look at you as a lunatic if not worse.

Because we have the highest rates of church attendance and traditional religious belief in the Western World. More of a byproduct of the success of the Sep. of church and state. It has largely been so successful here that many people don't really feel its significance.

you're right though, it's a lot more complex than i made it out to be. i guess it's difficult to argue that she should've had the child without implying that the female-half of a relationship should subject themselves to the male-half, but logged out was in an extraordinary (yet probably disturbingly common) situation. i feel quite strongly that, IDEALLY, she should've endured and given him the child. but yeah, it's not terribly grounded in reality, i haven't seen pregnancies effects (not since i was four, anyway), and i probably shouldn't speak for her.

Anthony said, "there must be a sense of loss, of mourning, of desire for the possibilties that did not exist." When I read this, I didn't read "there must be" as a commandmant; I read it as analogous to "I can't believe there isn't", ie "this is how I imagine the mother would feel". Anthony is trying to empathize and you are painting him as trying to impose religious dogma.

Foetus is well beyond not only the zygote stage but birth stage at well. I'm afraid, thing of thing, that killing Foetus would be considered murder at this point. (as well as killing a well respected musician in some dirty circles)

Ooooo, yes - I'm so "afraid". Sorry, I don't know what else to think when people say "what about the man's rights?" when it comes to abortion. "The man" should have no 'rights' (if I'm interpreting loggedout correctly), period. That's not 'callous' or heartless - there are no real 'abortion rights' if the man is allowed to veto the decision.

If it bothers 'the man' so much, he should seek counseling, but "abortion rights" essentially means that he has no veto power over her decision. I have never seen this argument made except by whiny sexists - sorry.

i've never liked (further) euphemising the pro-choice argument as "women's rights" because it just seems to enforce the belief that pregnancy and it's fruits are the woman's fault and sole responsibility, which isn't and shouldn't be, surely?

I don't see how this follows. "Rights" is not a euphemism. It's a legal term.

Right, n. : A legal, equitable, or moral title or claim to the possession of property or authority, the enjoyment of privileges or immunities, etc.

i feel quite strongly that, IDEALLY, she should've endured and given him the child.

Oh well, why did I even bother in the first place.

Like hell it wasn't. I think that is the situation in a nutshell (but I will admit that I don't read these "WHY DOESN'T ANYONE CONSIDER THE RIGHTS OF FATHERS?!?!" posts to closely so if someone wants to explain some gist that I missed, feel free.)

It takes two people to create a child but only one person to end the pregnancy.

I think the sooner people accept this, the sooner people will stop complaining about men's rights. (Alternately, if there was a way to decant the foetus into a backpack that the man could then carry around during gestation, we could get past this rhetorical dead-end with a solution that pleased everybody.)

(*feels slightly guilty but still in hysterics!*)

http://www.deboekenplank.nl/naslag/aut/s/shobin_d/shobin_d_foetus_1982.jpg

I think the sooner people accept this, the sooner people will stop complaining about men's rights."

ok, but can kerry and alex agree that this is problematic? i'm a bit offended by their utter lack of empathy for logged out here.

can you guys honestly not see that "the man" is equally responsible for that thing in the woman's womb and understand that he might have an interest in it?

The man is certainly responsible for the thing getting there, John, but that doesn't automatically mean that the man gets to tell the woman that she has to be pregnant. Men do not get to de facto decide when they are going to have children without the aid of technology.

i guess i find it more difficult to accept than some, and i think the crap being levelled at logged out is really sickening.

HOWEVER, from a rhetorical standpoint, saying "Ideally, she should have given him the child" is right on up there with "Ideally, no one would have noticed those gigantic ovens" or "Ideally, slave-owners would have cared for their slaves like they were precious"; there's pretty much no way to defend that statement from complete and utter character assassination.

Giving your baby away to an ex to raise would be a walk in the park, no psychological suffering there.

anyway, it seems i've gotten myself into quite a fix but the bottom line is this: out of apparent necessity, things ARE unfair and let's not just laugh off people who are victims of this please thanks.

Yeah, you have to reckon that dumping him implied a critique of his child-rearing skills.

(I'm tempted to say "Her baby? It's their baby!", but that would be more out of boredom than an active desire to defend the position.)

(again, just coz the pink thing was funny, not to make light of the march per se or anything)

I do sympathize with logged out, but that doesn't mean that his ex having their child would have been the right thing to do in this situation. There are no easy answers, which is why the "she should have just had the baby!" argument is not as clear cut as you are trying to present it.

See I'm not responding cuz I think you are insane.

ned, i don't follow. for the nth time, i was just shocked at the reaction to logged outs experience, which was a veiled "quit whining you misogynistic fuck" or something quite similar. for being disturbed at this and sympathizing with him, i get termed "melodramatic". it all seems overly defensive to me.

(btw, i do not consider these "my" interests)

Also, Kerry OTM.

Well, most don't.

Kerry,

No one owes this guy a child - sorry.

Ain't that the truth.

My assertions that efforts to repeal RvW smacked of either latent ot blatant misogyny were NOT 'rhetoric'. Repealing this is an activist priority of conservative and religious groups who may believe utterly that women are great etc. but unfortunately that's not what is communicated by this campaign. Getting hate or pity from people who are anti-abortion when you say you're in favour of abortions feels insulting and patronising. Also, you're not a woman, you haven't been on the wrong side of a misogynist in a directly threatening way, so you're going to have to accept the eyewitness accounts of me or Kerry or Roxy. If you can understand the 'institutional racism' concept surely you can understand the 'institutional sexism' concept, and that latent misogyny is behind a lot of policy, and as with IR a lot of people - like church folks - don't realise how complicit they are in this, because they're not sexist, but...

Anyway, distilled to its essence this is all about control, and when it comes to wombs that control rests with one careful lady owner regardless of how much men WHINE about not having a say. And logged out guy is NUTS.

Andrew, you're misunderstanding a lot more than the two lines you just parsed, and I'm wondering how wilful that is on your part. Understanding the insidiousness of misogyny is not exactly rocket science, is it? That's the thing: like racism, some sexisms come from the mouths of people you'd never expect to spout garbage like that, otherwise good, honest, hardworking people who just never questioned that one little thing.

The DA question is kind of dumb on the surface, Suzy, I'll grant you that, but it gets at something I've thought about before: that abortion, rather than being thought of as a right, is perhaps better thought of as a sort of luxury. Not that this is how it *should* be thought of, mind you, but that this gets at something of the reality of the situation. If a woman simply does not want to have her child, but for some reason -- financial (can't afford it), situational (evil, scary boyfriend or parents), societal (lives in a society where abortion is unknown or severly life-threatening) -- cannot have an abortion, what are her options? If she kills the baby even after a minute of its life, she's a murderer; but the same reasons she has for killing her baby -- reasons we condemn her for -- are the same reasons we allow to justify having an abortion in some cases. I hope I'm not coming across as insensitive or clueless; I'm just trying to work through these issues myself, and probably asking some pretty naive questions. Thanks for taking me seriously.

What a fucking joke.

Andrew, I don't see misogyny everywhere, that's just a stupid assertion on your part. But I do see it in the anti-RvW/abortion lobby. Judging them solely by their words and actions, I'd say they really don't see access to the procedure as a civil right at all, whereas supporters of RvW do. I find RvW opponents pernicious worldwide: just check Bush policy on medical aid from America - you cannot even mention the words 'abortion' or 'birth control' if you want to keep it, despite it being legal and safe in the country where aid originates.

I should have mentioned this in my post, but I wasn't thinking so much of that kind of smothering scenario as I was of Suzy's very sad and depressing story earlier of her acquaintance who gave birth into a toilet and let her newborn drown. Obviously there's circumstantial evidence that separate the two -- duh! -- but my point was more that *if* your reason for choosing not to become a mother is that a baby will screw up your life badly (i.e. I'm by no means assuming that this is the only reason women have abortions) *but* you cannot visit that clinic for some reason, are you just fucked?

-----

x-post with Suzy -- she *should* have been treated compassionately; that's my point!

http://www.mtv.com/shared/media/news/images/h/Hilton_Paris/sq-paris-hilton-teen-choice.jpg

i guess what differentiated me from suzy et al is that i've seen pregnancy-fetus-child as points along the same continuum, with responsibility shared for each part of it. i've always had a problem with people saying that the fetus is entirely the responsibility of the woman, but not at all for the reasons debated earlier: my fear was that, if we say the middle point in that continuum is all on the woman, what's to keep sexists from deciding the other two are as well? (apparently, they're all busy fighting abortion so this isn't an issue.) i'm just worried that sends the wrong message to men.

i don't think i'd ever heard of or considered a situation like logged out's (or maybe i was going to bring it up as a hypothetical, i can't remember anymore), but i really do think the point he raised was innocent, and i really do think his situation was unfortunate. i just wish "the other side" could stoop so much as to admit this, because we aren't all that far apart here. [are you guys of the opinion that he was a troll or something and i've been taken in? suzy seemed to suggest as much] i'm sure that sounds patronizing, but i still think it's incredibly insensitive to insinuate that males should, after impregnation, just become unfeeling cyborgs completely divorced from what they helped create until the woman decides what's going to happen to it. it ain't natural and, in my opinion, it ain't healthy either.

(btw, i'm shocked that suzy didn't rip me to shreds up there)
(this is not a complaint)

(xpost - to John)

(I hate the word "abortion")

It's too much of a have your cake and eat it too situation for me, pandering to socially acceptable norms (no one wants to be labelled pro-abortion) without giving up being pro-choice. So it's okay to continue to stigmatize women, we just won't lock them up.

I'm very pro-choice (for very direct reasons if you catch my drift) and so far I think Suzy is pretty OTM with much of her arguments.

Not me.

I don't think people enjoy having abortions, and whenever necessary will try to avoid it, especially if having a kid is something that can be managed, even if unforeseen, and the managing becomes difficult.

My main problem with the issue of abortion being made illegal is not as much cheering on the practice of abortions as much as trying to prevent the eventual black market of abortions that will materialize if (dear god) abortion is indeed made illegal. People will have abortions, whether it is illegal or not. It's far better to have facilities to make sure it is merciful to the woman and child in question, rather than have a woman go to the black market and become infected and die -- along with the child, who -- to quote the Slayer song -- will more likely share a "silent scream" than through current means -- granted, this is just conjecture. I've never had a conversation with an aborted fetus before.)

Trayce, that's a horrible analogy. I'm sorry.

I'm starting to actually get a bit confused as to who has what stance on this, at the moment :/

(Ive never done debating)

I think I'm happy Dan's asleep right now.

I think abortion really should be an absolute last resort if the circumstances argue for its merits, case by case, and if the pregnancy is detected early on. I know too many "accidents" as friends, personally. Although my family won't tell me, I believe I was an "accident" myself, and we all turned out fine.

And I'm horrified by the thought of two privileged teens having unprotected sex with the attitude of "Aaaaaah, if you get preggers, i'll just ask my folks for some money so you can have an abortion." I don't think anyone who is pro-choice/abortion is advocating that attitude.

I could say a lot more, but Im not sure I should in public and I fear I may come across as rather cold hearted. So I best keep my counsel.

If one doesnt see that stage (say, first trimester) as "life", then is it wrong to keep doing it?

(I'm NOT saying I think this, I'm throwing nuts around to play with)

(Argh maybe nuts was a bad choice of word argh)

I'll just shut up now. Will that make everyone happy? (also, Alex, it's best to save the "are you on fucking crack" comments for when one follows up on an asinine comments without bothering to confront the refuters the first time around)

I try not to think about the issue too much as it is really upsetting to me (moreso the concept of illegal abortions rather than the pro-life angle), so the few times I do remember moments where I was forced to think about the issue, I happen to remember the worst cases.

Generally, I want the best for everybody, with as little pain as possible. My ideas on the subject may not exactly tow the pro-choice nor pro-life line but it somewhere in the middle. If that makes me a "complete idiot" or "fucking crackhead", then so be it. Like I said, I'm not an expert researcher on the abortion subject. Alex, maybe you are.

Alex, if you like me, generally I would expect you to say something like "I disagree strongly with your line of thinking" not "you're sounding like a complete idiot" whenever I saw something you think is idiotic. It's what "friends" do, as far as I see it. You may disagree. And I can't stop you from using whatever language you want, but your use of rather combative language caught me by surprise and was, in my opinion, rather extreme, so I'm just hoping you remember next time, because right this second, I think you're a fucking asshole.

This is clearly a touchy sensitive topic, but I'm sure we can all debate it without getting upset at one another.

Here's some personal experience - of the three people I can think of I know personally right now whove had an abortion, all were under 30 and single. All three were cases of failed contraception for various reasons. If people are actively choosing to prevent pregnancy and yet the medical industry fails us anyway and we fall pregnant, what are we supposed to do?

And on that same note: Ladies! If you are on the pill, be VERY careful taking drugs like speed. It WILL fuck up your contraception.

(NB I'm not talking about myself here, FWIW!)

So, it's interesting to me to hear what people in this thread (Alex, Trayce, Suzy, Kerry, and many others here) have to say.

I was lucky I didnt have to argue with anyone over the decision when it did happen. But I dont feel any loss. I'm sorry if that makes me seem subhuman somehow. I can't explain it.

Admittedly, the case is extreme, although it did actually happen and the man took the woman to court (and lost). But there are many less extreme examples of conception by deception (a couple agree to use the pill as contraceptive, the woman stops using it without telling the man). What should the rights of the man be in such cases?

http://archive.salon.com/mwt/feature/1998/09/cov_23feature.html

Two things that jump out at me from this thread are that most people are talking hypothetically (and that’s what ILX is all about) but I always say you NEVER know how you will react in a situation until you’ve been there.

I was one of those “I wouldn’t do it myself but I wouldn’t condemn anyone else for it” types but you never know what will happen in life eh?

Like I said before, I do feel a sense of loss, and inability to grieve because of the guilt I feel and whole load of other fucked up shit that is totally to do with my morals and upbringing.

I have 4 friends who have been through terminations and we all have very different standpoints on it. The only thing we all agree on is that we’d never do it again (i.e. a second time, put in the situation again I’m sure we’d all make the same choice) and that we all feel some sense of loss (to hugely varying degrees).

The second thing is that, as far as I can see, we are all (apart for the trolls and complete nuts!) basically arguing for choice.

Your likes and dislikes aren't a huge concern of mine, Suzy. I didn't realise I had to be noticed by you before posting something here. Attacking the poster on a spurious point of order is not a convincing way of addressing a post.

I didn't even offer any contentious opinion, I just wondered out loud what other people thought of a certain subset of circumstances.

Anon, it's perfectly rational to say that you wouldn't have a termination if you became pregnant but have no conflict with others' wishes to proceed differently if they didn't. As you yourself say, it's pretty different when you actually find yourself in a situation you never anticipated.

I agree that women should have absolute control over their bodies and therefore should be the ultimate and sole decision-maker when it comes to having an abortion or not, and that abortion on demand should be available. But even when you take this as your fundamental position, from which all other positions are to be worked out, there is still the problem of how the man should be treated under law when he does not want a child that was conceived accidently or unintentionally. Should he be treated any differently to a willing father (vis-à-vis legal responsibilities, financial burden etc.)?

Fair enough, Sym, I'll shut up now.

Just goes to show: if having casual sex yr attitude to contraception should be anything but casual.

xpost.

If you think it's uncalled for me to point this out to you, I'm sorry you feel that way, but I will determine what it is appropriate for me to write at any given time. It's just that people have given you answers and you just keep asking the same largely irrelevant question over and over again like a small child with ADD.

Because that's my stance. I'm 100% pro-choice, and believe in unlimited abortion rights for all women. But I also think that (in cases of consensual conception) if a woman decides to keep a pregnancy, the male party should be able to walk if he wants to, without any legal obligation, with the possible exception of medical bills up to conception.

(That may be a horrible, callous thing to actually do, but that's not the issue.)

If someone disagrees, I'd be interested in seeing a calm, non-ad-hominem explanation as to why. As far as I know, there's no other location in law where a person can be afforded an obligation with zero rights, but heavy responsibilities. In legal terms, there's no "consideration" there.

I appreciate the fact that certain posters upthread are willing to say they "believe men should have no say whatsoever in pregnancy decisions", because it really is at the heart of the pro-choice position. But in public discourse almost no one ever dares to say so, because people realize how alienating a statement it is (there are a lot of "swing voters" who'd get really, really pissed off by that statement).

KIDDING KIDDING AGAIN for the most part OW STOP HITTING ME

However I think both parties should sign the waiver to make it legal.

John, watch out for those 'pomegranate seeds' in the next lassi you get at Abortion Time Samosa House!

(That doesn't mean that there isn't one, just that this is too emotional a topic for me to discuss calmly or rationally.)

Men skive out of paying for children they *did* choose to father often enough, that I don't want to give them another excuse.

Kate's concerns about deadbeat dads echo mine. Funny, that ;).

Yet that's exactly how I was conceived. My father and she were raising my older half-brother (from a prev. marriage) and he didn't think they had the time/money/resources for another so she stopped taking the pill without telling him. She was pretty crazy for a long time.

Men skive out of paying for children they *did* choose to father often enough, that I don't want to give them another excuse.

So crazy, in fact that my father was eventually given custody of me, and he never managed to get much money out her. In fact, she and her next husband kept suing my dad for custody leaving him with legal bills. She sued for custody about 4 times I think and lost every time.

If I underline a thousand times my support for abortion rights as a necessary civil right for women, will someone on this thread talk about the interest a society might have in legislating, protecting, and ameliorating child bearing and rearing? And how come we only talk about this issue in its American context?

I just want to thank everyone posting well thought-out responses on this thread. It's led me to think about these matters a lot over the last couple of days. I'm sort of alarmed at how little thought I've given them before -- I guess I haven't been in many situations where it's come up -- but I'm just now getting a sense at how complex and deeply enmeshed with other issues the whole topic is. Thanks everyone; keep it up.

roxy - short answer: ideal on a grand moral level (i know what you're getting at). i thought i hashed out my reasoning enough upthread and i hate to go back to that because it never really got anywhere and it'll probably just get me called a misogynist or something if i haven't been already.

trayce - that's an interesting and difficult question. to be consistent i would say argue that she should (ideally) have it, but relinquish any right to child support. i don't know if i really believe that, though. if she was staunchly pro-life, i'd say that the guy should've known what he was getting in to. i definitely defintitely don't think she has any obligation to get an abortion if they're breaking up. it's a lot easier for me to feel yucky about this scenario than the other one; i think it's something about positive vs. negative responsibility. i'll think about it some more.

yeah but "Termination Time" doesn't have the same ring to it!

:-)

(super x-post, obv.)

"Girl, we supposed to go to Cancun next week; GET RID OF THAT BABY!"

A group of cells that hasnt even so much as formed anything yet isnt a child, isnt even a fetus, and feels/knows nothing. Its like saying removing a wart is child abuse (as a wart is an excess growth of cells also). For me, religion doesnt even begin to come into this. The concept of what a life is and what a persons rights to their own body is the way I see it.

And your last post .. umm, doesnt make much sense.

Well done, you staunch example of humanity. Now move along or get a mind-broadening tool from your local hardware shop, because this is a bloody DISCUSSION, not a forum for reactionary posing.

That said, I'd really like to know what a 'pro-life family' actually is. Also 'abortion bandwagon' - I've never seen one of those, either.

The reason abortion as an issue is so loaded is because otherwise rational people put social class and sentiment and theism in the way of, you know, more objective reasoning over the most logical way to ensure those who want or truly need access to this right are not infringed upon by extremists whose arguments are generally fuelled by a religious creed, who cannot accept that America was founded on secular principles (which is easy to forget in these times of Crusader-tinged foreign policy). The 'but what abouts' set by most conservative Americans in relation to abortion policy are problematic in terms of the way they expose the deep-seated classism/paternalism/racism/sexism of the conservative posting the argument. These conservatives are not always Christians, but...

In America, I believe utterly that a satisfactory moral position was reached in 1972 with RvW, where although as individuals some people may have a problem with ever having a termination themselves, it was counterproductive for *society as a whole* to disallow abortion, because of the spectre of the back-alley abortionist and the detrimental effect of criminalising otherwise law-abiding citizens. It is a very similar argument as that which is used by those who would decriminalise certain drugs, as legality is proven to improve the safety of a thing when that 'tipping point' has been reached. If you know your history and do your research (which I've done as have written quite a few articles about abortion issues as they affect people in US, UK and Eire) you'll see that most of the legal abortion legislation came into effect within 15 years of the introduction of the contraceptive pill. If you accept that contraception is permitted, then you also accept that sex is not just for procreation purposes only, and you accept that women have a choice as to whether or not they want a child as a result of sexual intercourse.

This is the stupidest analogy on this thread and I'm actually slightly alarmed no one else called Andrew on this.

A) are you saying rape and abortion are equatable behaviors?
B) men can be raped and are raped and/or sexually abused on an alarmingly high enough percentage. I have yet to hear of a man having an abortion though.

As far as I can tell, the basic tenent of several of the misogyny arguments here boils down to this: yes, you're right, not every single person who is against abortion is personally a woman-hating pigfucking fiend. OTOH by trying to overturn the RvW decision they are supporting a movement that is ultimately a woman-hating movement.

Quite honestly, I'd rather not return to the days in which my greatgrandmother and other women were performing self-abortions with fucking coat-hangers, but that's just me.

I'm not going to touch the whole men issue right now.

(And no I have no idea why my greatgrandmother chose to share that information with any of us, my family is fucked up)

So many problems will be solved once genetic manipulation gets to the point where we can make men shoot babies out of their asses.

I'm only being honest. If you believe that you do not have any deep-seated
biases of your own, then you are either incredibly enlightened or a self-deciever.
And how open can this discussion really be, when suzy insists that any rational
thinking and objective reasoning can ONLY result in abortionism?
I am not the only one with prejudices. I am sorry if I strike you as sanctimonious,
but some things are evil. Do you believe in evil?

Trayce compared a fetus to a wart or a hunk of meat; it's easier to kill when
you dehumanize first, isn't it? A wart will never grow into a hale, strong human
being with feelings, desires and the potential for to make their own happiness.
You can refer to "a few cells" as much as you like, those few cells are potential
adults and should be considered as such.

SEZ YOU

No, WTF? An analogy is not an equation.

B) men can be raped and are raped and/or sexually abused on an alarmingly high enough percentage. I have yet to hear of a man having an abortion though.

But men are (99%?) the people who commit (non-statutory) rape.
You're comparing the object on one side to the subject on the other.

not every single person who is against abortion is personally a woman-hating pigfucking fiend

This fact (and that this fact is sort of essential to actually having a discussion instead of an argument) is literally my only point here.

(I am still waiting for someone to invent the Brat-Pack so that the men's rights issue completely evaporates.)

If the man doesn't want the baby, he shouldn't have to support it either. If the man really wants a baby, well, there are approximately 8 kajillion parentless kids in the world, go purchase one of them.

TS: "potential adults" vs. real, live actual adults who currently exist (and, er, are kind of overpopulating and destroying the planet anyway cos there's so fucking many of us)

xpost Andrew, women are 100% of the people who commit abortions. Your analogy is shit. If you can find an analogy that only applies to men it wouldn't be shit. I dunno, penile circumcisions or something, there's your target.

and dear god he's morphing into santorum already (doesn't take long with reactionary theocrats).

Yeah, it is. If I believed that the collection of cells wholly dependent on the host for survival was a person (note: person, not 'human' not 'a life' - this comes down to personhood) and had the same rights and privileges as any other person, I would probably be anti-choice.

But I don't, because no society in history has granted the collection of cells those rights and privileges, and thus far I've seen no argument (independent of faith, spirituality, religion, etc.) that convinces me we should.

Should a one-week old fetus enjoy the exact same rights and privileges as the mother, SP?

Also, "religious beliefs" != "you are religious", but I'll mark that up to inability to parse logic.

Milo, a one week old fetus is nine-months away from becoming
a self-sufficient person. Is it worth nine months of freedom
for the mother to sacrifice a possible 72 years of freedom
for the fetus? Who knows, maybe with the next abortion we're
killing the Einstein who will envision a solution to our looming
(but FAR from close) overpopulation problems.

Alex, you're still going on about that? I don't think it's okay
to call groupies "dirty little whores," but if you think
groupie-dom is good, safe cotton-candy fun for all involved
you're sadly mistaken.

Have you ever actually seen a baby?

And maybe with the next abortion we're killing Hitler. Worst argument ever.

Yes, milo, the Einstein argument was lame, I apologize and
retract it.

I love when anti-choicers talk about later-term abortions like they're done for kicks.

I repeat why is anyone attempting to have a reasonable debate with this person?

As someone who works in a facility that performs abortions, I do consider them as such. I consider them lives. The issue, for me, is all about that potential. And as someone who speaks to many, many women every day who are considering/having abortions, most women who choose to terminate pregnancies feel this way too, and grieve, and feel deep sadness and mourning. Things can be sad and difficult and still be the right thing to do (for them, for their children, and for that potential child) sometimes.
This is where Planned Parenthood and a lot of independent abortion providers differ - PP refuses to use the verbiage that a patient chooses for her pregnancy because they feel it compromises their political standpoint, refusing to face up to the fact that a patient is going to consider the pregnancy a baby, a child, a cluster of cells, a soul, an alien, or whatever they feel it is whether PP calls it a fetus or not. I know that a woman comes into the clinic pregnant and leaves not pregnant, and she knows it too. I leave it up to her to decide what that means to her.
Sometimes people know that going through with a pregnancy would have disastrous results for them, their families, and the potential child they are carrying. And there is no such animal as the woman who has an abortion and doesn't care. This is not to say that there are not women for whom it is an easy decision, but there is always at least reflection there.

"when you compared being pro-choice to sanctioning beastiality?"

Damn, you've got reading problems. I made a frickin' JOKE about
the fact that _I_ was being lumped with "pigfuckers."

Cinni, he said:

"I love when anti-choicers talk about later-term abortions like they're done for kicks. "

As if all late-term abortions are done for pressing health reasons.

Only nine months of freedom?

Again I repeat why is anyone bothering discussing anything with this guy?

So, what reasons are ok'ed by you? Just for future reference.

Hahahaha okay this almost getting funny.

xpost pigs can't give consent. no proper vocal chords.

As it is an individual, wholly separate from her and over which she excercises no control, whether it lives or not during and after the process of removal is not her problem.

Sounds good to me.

xpost

!!! THEN IT GOES INTO MY IMAGINARY GIANT PLASTIC WOMB DO YOU ALL SEE????

Never say that.

http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/82/33/11m.jpg

xpost - Alex, we already do.

Dude, that totally sucks for you. I feel bad now. Reverse Roe!

Well, the thing is, it's her choice rather than yours (fetus-polling being an unreliable science at best), and the law agrees, so all you've really got here are jack and shit.

http://www.hollywoodjesus.com/movie/men_in_black_2/14.jpeg

http://i.imdb.com/Photos/Ss/0118583/7113_16_3.jpg

(I haven't actually seen Resurrection, some details may be off)

Easter is a special time in which we celebrate Christ's kickass z ombie powers and remember His threats of coming back to capture our souls. For the religious and religion-curious, a question arises: When the hell is Jesus going to make his comeback? Why should I bother to "look busy", as the bumper stickers demand? It's been a good 2000 years--is God holding out on us?

Perhaps not. A new, radical theory suggests this: Jesus's resurrection is in the works, but he is currently unable to manifest himself in human form. What is causing this delay? What could possibly overpower Christ? Why it is none other than the accursed woman's right to choose.

In this d ay and age, noone but the passionately religious and/or incredibly gullible would believe that a virgin got knocked up by God. Our automatic response to anyone giving this claim would be "You a slut, dirty ho". Condemned by society's expectations, such ill-fated virgins would have no choice but to head to the neighborhood abortion clinic to rid themselves of their object of shame. Once again, GOD'S WILL FOILED BY BABY MURDERERS.

To the Holy One's great frustration, there is a shortage of teenage girls in today's world willing to commit to carrying the Christ child. For today's young ladies, the advantages of having a child destined to be humanitity's savior aren't enough to outweigh the hardships. Leading a life of poverty and emotional suffering in the name of God just isn't what it used to be, plus the whole "Virgin 4 life" thing isn't all that attractive either. Not to mention the responsibilities of single-handedly mothering a kid with special needs, who'd probably get teased at school and end up a hippie panhandler. Meanwhile, all this without a word from the deadbeat God dad.

What with the responsibilities of getting good grades and trying to get a date for the 8th grade formal, today's 14 year old girls are s imply too busy to care for an infant, even if it is HIS baby. It seems that God sould emulate the government's marriage incentives by offering something along the lines of teen pregnancy vouchers. Perhaps some complimentary "Get out of Hell Free" cards? Or offering to put a plague on the bitchy girl in P.E.

Virgin motherhood is going to have to undergo complete overhaul if God wants to accomplish anything. God's going to have to come up with something better than knocking up adolescent girls without any notice and then sending an angel to deliver the bad news. Not to playa hate, but it seems like God should work on his game. Maybe some wining and dining before whipping out the Holy Spirit would entice her into not aborting the Christ resurrection. You gotta play it smooth, G-dog, you feel.

(Also sorry for the really shit analogy. But when have I not ignored the fact that I'm talking to meatbags, and attempted to reach The Robot Inside?)

xpost Andrew for some reason your post sounds incredibly filthy.

And no, pregnancy is not just a nine month ordeal. The physical changes are permanent and PP depression that can last a couple of years. Women who are pregnant are dismissed from their jobs by the thousands; there are loopholes available for companies to do this easily without getting sued as they can come up with umpteen other reasons to fire someone. And good luck getting a new job when you're 7.5 months pregnant, vomiting several hours each morning, or instructed to spend your last trimester in bed. It's very hard to take the "pro-lifers" seriously (not that I would anyway) when this MASSIVE problem is not addressed by them. It's funny they have so much compassion for the unborn but couldn't give a fuck what happens to it after birth.

My brother's GF just gave birth and I know she gave a big sigh of relief when she made it to her maternity leave without losing her job
and maternity benefits. She works for a company where the HR dept. treats the employees like shit and they regularly assemble data in anyway they chose if they want to fire or punish someone,(ie, put them on probation) even if that data is completely meaningless. She was kept on probation for an xtra month bc she was sick with asthma
for four days, even though the offical policy is that you must miss 5 days of work and she had the highest performance rankings. The kid, btw, was born with a problem that can take 2 yrs to subside, is often fatal, and can require the kind of care that makes working impossible. Anyway this is getting off the issue at hand but I just thought I would cite that example, which is certainly not the most severe.

SP said this also which bothers me:

Like I said, I don't believe in asking a woman to take care
of a child she doesn't need or want. Turn the baby over to
the gov't, at least it will still have a chance.

A CHANCE? What, a chance to be passed from foster home to foster home, to be handed to people who'll abuse the shit out of the kid, rape it maybe. A chance to expose the child to a life of poverty or crime or drugs or worse. A chance - not a cert, of course, I know quite a few adopted people who had good lives.

Ive also known and seen FAR TOO MANY people who knew they werent wanted, who never had family, who were abused, who were fostered out.

I ask you this SP: what would you rather see? A brave decision to not allow a human life to exist at all because a good life cant be provided for it, or would you rather "the baby over to
the gov't" and eh, let someone else worry about it. I dont see how your argument here is morally any better.

Oh and as for late term abortions - if the child in question is displaying serious congenital problems that will mean a (probably short) life of pain, operations and a ton of money and heartache for the parents, I suppose thats fine too. Even if in nature without intervention the kid would probably die, but hey, we can make fundamnetally broken human beings live WAY longer than they should, could or want to because life rules over everything else.

Ever seen lions stick their dying young on a respirator or adopt out their babies? No didnt think so.

(Yes I realise Ive used some spurious logic here, I just felt like ranting. I'll butt out now and just read, methinks)

Yeah, I'm an atheist. But I really don't think my beliefs on the abortion issue were any different when I was agnostic, or when I was checking out my friends' religions a la 'Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret. Truly. I think that when the world is small enough that tensions between religions as well as the tensions between believers and non-believers threaten so much of our civil rights, the best thing is to pursue policy that doesn't favour one religion and to that end I think the religious lobby in America should step back from trying to run things based on their church doctrine, because it's unconstitutional, and this lot seem happy to overturn all but 2nd Amendment anyway. (/hissy fit) Since I'm properly anti-censorship, I don't have any problem with others expressing their religion in public, in dress, etc or writing about their beliefs, even if yucky to me personally, and expect the same to be accorded to me. Religion is interesting to me on a literary and intellectual level, but I came down hard on the side of science in the Creation v. Evolution debate at a precocious age, and I became aware of debates over prayer in public schools and how it caused friction between sects of believers when they're state funded. I always say to the people who tell me their religious beliefs that the most important thing is to take them seriously in their own lives. Besides, we all want answers, right? I had no idea that someone could be so tweaked by me being an atheist until today.

Also, does anyone think that on a really basic level that there are some men who seem angry that the technology and medicine (industries where there are less women) can now be used by legally empwered women to determine who lives or dies, and there are some women whose moral position (or stance, depending) renders them uncomfortable enoght to say that they can't handle coming to that point, and nor should others? As a few have said upthread, a fetus 'counts' when the woman who will make it her child makes that decision, and not before. That moment is different for each woman and there's no legislation which has ever been invented which can satisfactorily take that into account, so it's really up to each pregnant person to make that call themselves.

I don't want kids, and boy does it have nothing to do with pregnancy itself (and hence that renders all of SPs "its only 9 months" comments very silly). Being a parent is a LIFE CHOICE for the parents AND the child. That CHOICE starts when the parents CHOOSE to have a child. Some of us CHOOSE not to, and we are very lucky we have that choice.

I'm starting to regret making the reasons for my postion so clear on this thread but, Ive always gone thru life with the "nothing to hide" attitude, so whahey.

(looks down)
(looks up)
(frowns)
(goes up to get a bowl of rice krispies)

i like the idea of the self-sufficient baby. out of the womb, tips the doctor, heads down the hall to the snack machines.

I'm not willing to contradict your actual life experiences, but my actual life experiences are so completely different it isn't funny. Are the Australian child services completely rubbish or something?

But again, my opinions are only mine, and I'm not dissing anyone who disagrees, as long as they step off when it comes to me personally.

xpost haha yeah, we live in a row of shacks on the coast. You should drop by sometime - Jack lives here! (or something)

He randomly ims me today asking about flights to Europe.

guy [11:39 AM]: can you fly to europe for under a grand?
Roxymuzac [11:39 AM]: oh, yeah. i went for like 400 once
guy [11:39 AM] i'm gonna check on some
guy [11:41 AM]: hm...all flights to japan are, like, $1000+
Roxymuzac [11:41 AM]: well thats not europe is it
guy [11:42 AM]: i don't know...i've never been to either

from his LJ

the sun'll come out...
Tomorrow I will ask for a write in ballot. I will write in "Jesus Christ." I will bring my own stapler and attach to my ballot as self addressed stamped envelope and the following letter:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To whom it may concern:

As you may have already noticed, I have written “Jesus Christ” in on my write in ballot as my choice for the next president of the United States of America.

It is to my understanding that if Jesus Christ actually won the majority vote, the existing powers would not honor His win due to their perception that He is deceased.

If that aforementioned understanding is correct, then please count this vote as one for John Kerry instead.

You may have also noticed that I have attached a self addressed stamped envelope to this vote. Since this vote is important to me and postage has already been supplied by myself, I insist that he or she who finally determines who my vote will go to (Jesus Christ or John Kerry) follow these instructions:

1) After determining whom my vote will go to, please write that name on the slip of paper enclosed within the attached envelope.

2) Sign the slip of paper with your own name, and include contact information for you or your organization.

3) Place the slip of paper back into the self addressed stamped envelope.

4) Place the envelope in the mail.

Thank you for your potential cooperation.

A****** K****

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Follow my lead if you want.

i have some friends that are, um, well to the right of me. we've historically managed to avoid discussing it, cause it would end in tears. but i've found it much more difficult to do so this year.

this still makes me giggle when i read it.

Hello Emily.

I noticed on the Knoxshows board that you "agree with me about something for once."

That made me think about all those opposites of once in which we have disagreed.

You and I were never close...but I definitely think we were a bit more warmly receptive toward one another in the past. Somewhere along the line, I probably said a few things that were offensive to your values. I'm good at that...with everyone.

So I'm sending you this message to let you know in a very straightfoward manner that I'd like to be light and civil friends.

I've been saying things like this to a lot of people lately. This includes people I know very well. So I'm currently on this strange Groundhog Dayesque air clearing kick between myself and anyone I have enough respect for to realize I want definite good terms with.

And you don't have to accept or even aknowledge this. But I figure I would stick it out there all the same because I do remember more jovial interchanges between us. I liked them much better.

You may never see me as anything more than the pompous asshole that so many others do. I may never be able to change that because I am admittedly the most self unaware person you have probably ever met. Always putting my foot in my mouth and never thinking before I speak. That's me...okay.

But I've been seeing a lot of shit around me lately that's been boiling my blood. Things that I see in other people and KNOW I don't want to exist in my sphere. Bigger things going on in our world that make a lot of superficial things seem more superficial.

So I want good blood with people. All people I can have good blood with. I want complete openess and honesty with everyone I encounter all the time. I want all tensions eased.

This message is only a step with you, personally. And perhaps it may be a step into a dead end. I guess we'll see.

And I don't have a clue what would follow this up aside from a return message from you. I think a lunch sometime might be a good thing if you agree. (And that's not a pass...I have a girlfriend type thing right now, in fact.)

Sooooo...yeah...

There's a flow of free thought that is all for you.

It would be nice to hear back from you.

-[(ex?)Idiotic Pro-Lifer]

we haven't talked in awhile. gimme a call. this is a pass, i have no GF.

gear

I love this expression and fully intend to pass it off as my own.