Guess what they just voted to do in South Dakota

ts: being aborted vs being born in south dakota

There were 800 abortions performed in South Dakota last year (pop: 770,000) according to Salon.

Let the poisons hatch out.

talk to any social worker, dude.

*shakes head*

don't worry; that ctrl-v is itchy & rarin' to go.

say, how does one rare, anyway?

It just seems to me that as far as legal protections for abortion go, that's kind of a minor issue, as I suspect that most of the abortions us pro-choicers would like to see kept legal do not involve rape, incest, etc.

Don't even joke about it. As I understand it don't they already do something about banning contraceptives in South Dakota?...sorry I'm being vague...let me check on that..,

Sorry got that slightly askew. They wanted to ban distributing contraceptives on school property but the Bill fell after it was pointed out that no-one was distributing contraceptives...you can't make this stuff up.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2006/02/23/legislature/2006/bytopic/education/news898.txt

and after that, MASTURBATION

Seriously, tho, watch out when more people start making noise about "deliberate childlessness"

("choosing to be barren", etc)

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=42385

"Contraception the root cause for the culture of death."

Wow. Heavy.

hey, if you don't have harsh punishment for people sinning(killing somebody or having sex for pleasure), society will be decadent, dog and cats will live together, etc

and yr misreading onan, and abortion is mentioned, at least obliquely, in talk of knowing in yr mothers womb, and protecting children, etc--being opposed to abortion is not outside xian heremuntics

Leviticus puts no worth on children up to a month old.

"from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver"

So, before one month...? Don't go there...

I guess he was one of those dribblers those spam e-mail messages are always warning me about.

I wonder how long before they openly go after contraceptives

Griswold, isn't it?

uae: no abortion unless life of mother is threatened
south dakota: no abortion unless life of mother is threatened

NY Times yesterday:

Several years ago, the political atmosphere in South Dakota became such that no local doctors felt comfortable performing abortions, Ms. Looby said, so doctors are now flown in from Minnesota.

There was some really conservative catholic leader on Fresh Air last year who framed it as something like "if you don't care about the rights of those who are so vulnerable at the very beginning of their life, who can you care about anything else" etc.

but yeah, it's about the fuckin', promiscuity = bad, etc. It's like that's why nothing is ever done to actually stop or lower unplanned pregnancies

For the same reason that kosher jews will not eat milk together with flesh, although Leviticus only proscribes (from memory) 'seething a calf in its mother's milk' - it's creeping piety, or "if I can infer any action is connected to this taboo in any way, that action is also taboo".

It really has to be the really out-there groups that are also anti-contraception that are pushing this. There's one Planned Parenthood office in the whole state! It looks like the rest of their services are also frowned upon according to law:

HB 1217:

FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to provide for the clarification of sexual abstinence instruction.
Section 3. That chapter 13-33 be amended by adding thereto a NEW SECTION to read as follows:
The instruction of sexual abstinence shall teach that abstinence from sexual activity is the responsible and only effective method of eliminating the risk of unplanned or out-of-wedlock pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases or infections. The instruction shall also teach that it is the expected standard for students to abstain from sexual activity until they are married.
The instruction of sexual abstinence may not include models of instruction based on risk reduction encouraging, promoting, and providing instruction in the use of contraceptive drugs, devices, or methods.

The problem with that is that in many areas Planned Parenthood provides services at a low price to the disadvantaged -- especially women. Now any woman who needs a gynecological exam has an option eliminated as well. Great work, South Dakota legislature.

it will affect, just like it used to, working class and lower income women, who cannot afford to travel..and ironiclly it will make later termantions more likely, b/c taking 3 days off work, getting the money together, finding someone to drive you, etc etc TAKES WORK.

abortion has been defacto inaccessabile in the states for years, this is just the next logical step

if you relate the "sanctity of life" to the workings of sin and innocence, then it makes a fair amount of sense.

i do agree with ethan, however, that following the logic of most anti-abortion activists, having a clause allowing for abortion in the case of rape victims does not make much sense.

anthony, which states? abortions are not difficult to get in say, illinois, california, or new york. it really depends on the state, even the municipality to some degree.

but i agree with you wholeheartedly that there are a lot of semi-buried class issues here, and with the abortion debate in general.

part of it is them deliberately wrapping it in talk of "all life is sacred", "culture of life", etc. Note that the same folks tend to be pro-war, etc.

No mention of when conception occurs, I think, since it can take, what, up to 3 days for implantation?

Exodus 21:22

Hosea 9:15 Because of all their wickedness in Gilgal,
I hated them there.
Because of their sinful deeds,
I will drive them out of my house.
I will no longer love them;
all their leaders are rebellious.

Hosea 9:16 Ephraim is blighted,
their root is withered,
they yield no fruit.
Even if they bear children,
I will slay their cherished offspring.

http://partners.guidestar.org/controller/searchResults.gs?action_donateReport=1&partner=networkforgood&ein=04-3236982

i misremembered the law, but the fact is that god clearly doesnt see unborn children as little people with souls

interesting question, i have no idea what the answer is.

Heh - Exodus 21 is often used especially by Catholic anti-abortion activists as part of the collection of scriptures that prove fetuses do have souls

Very few people really believe #3 but that's really the end point of the whole thing.

Nancy Keenan, president of the group, noted that the bill does not even make exceptions for circumstances like rape and incest and, while allowing abortion to protect a woman's life, does not do so to protect her health.

also, this curious AFP photo is attached to the article:

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/afp/20060223/capt.sge.oih42.230206133227.photo00.photo.default-257x384.jpg?x=230&y=345&sig=1VJ6QQWfrWSZXvOKn9Ikpw--

This sounds awfully specific.

The failure of the Democratic Party to challenge the cultural takeover of the United States won't be obvious to Democrats until it's been too late for a while.

jesus christ.

The South Dakota law concludes that life begins at conception based on medical advances over the past three decades.

what the fuck?

there is a grassroots movement to teach women how to do their own home d&c's, right? that seems like the best stopgap measure for poor women in South Dakota in this fucking fallen world. thanks for the link, killy.

what the fuck?

Yeah, I heard about that. This is what i'm looking for:

"Given the technological leaps and bounds since 1973, we can conclude with 100 percent certainty that upon fertilization a completely new, genetically unique life, with its own DNA fingerprint, is created," Greenfield said during debate. "And at approximately 21 days after fertilization, the unborn child's heart begins beating."

[...]

The South Dakota bill directly confronts that decision, making it a felony for anyone to perform an abortion. The mother would not be charged with a crime. The language of the bill –- named the Women's Health and Human Life Protection Act -- says that "life begins at the time of conception" and that scientific advances since 1973 have proven that the unborn child is indeed life. The bill says the goal is to "fully protect the rights, interests, and health of the pregnant mother, the rights, interest, and life of her unborn child, and the mother's fundamental natural intrinsic right to a relationship with her child." The bill is based on the findings of a task force that studied abortion.

it's more adaptable to being done in non-ideal conditions than better abortion procedures (it is, of course, riskier than other procedures). it also has to be done in the first trimester, I think.

I love how just invoking science is enough for this "argument," and there's no need to cite data (or acknowledge that no data would ever really get at this). the Ron Burgundy scientific method.

or in-vitro fertilization, for that matter, with all them frozen embryos getting dumped down the drain. look out for the Snowflake Babies!

(which is an awesome bit of framing, btw)

Dilution and curettage (scraping the uterus).

that's the entire thing. like so many other rightwinger crusades, so much of this is based on truthiness and bullshit narrative and unquestioned authority that any actual evidence or rational argument -- say, like when is the exact moment of conception: when the fertilized egg is implanted? when the sperm meets egg like a Queens of a Stone Age video? when the guy climaxes and Woody Allen is launched by Tony Randall & Burt Reynolds? -- is immediately rejected as immaterial or biased or whatever.

haha "truthiness"

Snowflakes Enter Stem-Cell Debate

Frozen Embryo Adoption on the Rise

babies? okay, I get the gallows humor thing.

This kind beats those other, "BURN IN HELL BABY-KILLING SLUTS" ones.

similar bills being readied for passage in tennessee, ohio, indiana, and (uh-oh) georgia btw yall

Oh, great.

Meanwhile, alongside the political work, women be forming reproductive health self-help groups and learning how to do safe menstrual extractions ourselves, like some did in the 70s. Insane that it's come to this AGAIN, but fuck a inaccessible clinic, fuck a ban, and octuple-fuck a forced pregnancy and motherhood.

it's true though. i mean, if a rapist is already raping somebody, would they really bother to then not break the law that bans condoms by not using one?

While proponents are achieving some success in the more Democratic blue states, their efforts have not been as well received in Republican-leaning red states -- and Barr's lobbyist said the company spends little time pushing legislation in those more conservative states. The director of the Kentucky Right to Life Association said that a Plan B pharmacy access bill introduced this year is not expected to succeed.

"We're confident that our legislature will not approve the bill because we are strongly pro-life here," said Margie Montgomery. "Doctors tell us that Plan B can cause a very early abortion, and we oppose that."

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, has testified against Plan B before the FDA and in numerous states because, she said, easier access jeopardizes women's health and welfare. Women need a prescription to buy birth control pills, she said, and it makes no sense for them to buy Plan B, a stronger version of the pill, without one.

You see: doctors tell them so! It's Science!

sure, we don't know when a clump of cells actually becomes something with thoughts let alone a soul or what a soul would even be, etc... but wouldn't you rather be safe than sorry?

like, if you had a cardboard box with something moving inside of it... wouldn't you want to open it up and see what's inside before tossing it in the giant trash compactor at the dump?

to me, that's the strongest anti-abortion argument there is. forget the bible and all it's confounding quotations. when does life start? as a scientist, can you be sure that the living matter you're destroying is or is not living, sentient, or whatever constitutes life worth preserving?

m.

xpost

i don't have a good answer for that. the various branches of the abortion debate spin off in weird corners. even plenty of religious conservatives would defiantly spooge in the eye of "every sperm is sacred".

i'm just saying... "what if?"

i'm pro-choice because it's that the question seems to require a religious perspective to answer. (even if your theology is agnostic or atheistic.)

but it still nags at me.

i wonder what would happen if just a percentage of the resources wasted to fight this legal battle were used instead to provide birth control, adoption assistance, etc if the question would be pointless anyway? as has been said, who wants to have an abortion anyway?

m.

Birth control is a lot more appealing than adoption assistance because your body makes so many hormones/attachments designed to make you want to keep the baby after you birth it. That makes sense, but giving it up after that after months of having to explain the preggo belly doesn't mean you're raising a child now, that would hurt. Psychologically. I totally understand NOT wanting to carry a baby to term, no matter how much you love life or have the same unanswerable suspicions as msp. Birth is terrifying even if you know it'll mean a happy baby in a happy family.

I am really terrified at fights over contraceptives, way moreso than abortion.

I wasn't being facetious about the "what is life" question either - this is a fundamental, metaphysical question which science has no real answer for. (see also "what is consciousness"). Fundie Christianity DOES have answers, but they seem pretty stupid and ill-concieved to me.

haha - I have no idea. in-jokes by someone I can't identify (I guess in his case ethan?) = me no care.

it's kind of hard to argue with that at times.

i became a dad before i wanted to. i was lucky tho. we could just roll with it. people definitely have my sympathy and with my nagging feeling, i'm not trying to judge anybody.

hell, i kinda just posted cause this thread seemed like it needed something real to argue against.

and, i would love to have a counter-argument to, "better safe than sorry."

m.

Baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me
No more

Well, that's what we keep saying. None of the fight has anything to do with solving the actual problem(i.e. unwanted pregnancies). It's like it all comes down to the fact that somebody's been fucking, which is bad, and now wants to get out the punishment that's due to them for being bad(having the kid). The sex = procreation only is too entrenched in certain minds.

The term is still used.

Hows "I do not want children" /"I cannot have a child at this time"? Its pretty simple really. Wether that be for reasons of health, financial circumstances, a rape, a failed contraceptive. I'm sure most abortions are done within 5-6 weeks which is not killing anything but a clump of cells that aren't anything, frankly. This notion that actual babies are being murdered is baffling. Very few abortions are even mid term let alone late term.

i would say a vast majority of protestants disagree with that.

"sex only in marriage", would be more accurate.
m.

dude, i know(trust me; i was born & raised protestant). but i think that enough folks who still have that underlying mental framework(be they conscious of it or not) are still calling the shots in certain places.

"I'm sure most abortions are done within 5-6 weeks which is not killing anything but a clump of cells that aren't anything, frankly."

but is that conclusive enough? can we really be sure?

the reasons that sound like convenience dressed up a bit ring pretty weakly next to what may be someone's life in the balance.

again, i just find the counterarguments insufficient.

your life vs. theoretically another life which you are responsible for.

where is justice? where IS responsibility for actions?
m.

you're probably right. either that, or they're people who wish they were getting laid a lot more than they can.
m.

That's why I think the folks who scream the loudest about this tend not to give anywhere near the same level of interest towards things like supporting funding for pre-/post-natal health programs which plenty of other folks have said would do wonders for actually lowering the child mortality rate. The U.S. is like, what, 37th in terms of infant health or something?

Similarly, doing anything to actually address the root problem, which going about preventing unplanned pregnancies or unwanted children.

I think the whole thing functions more on the "the naughty children must be PUNISHED" way than, say, actually supporting life & health. The punishment focus is why teenage kids who get pregnant have to give birth and why criminals must be given death. The "pro-life" bit is just their really convenient framing of it.

i guess that's the responsibility i might point to it.

i fucked without protection and took a chance and now i'm a dad.

you take a loan out, you gotta pay it back.

you drive a car, you don't crash into things or people on purpose.

etc.

etc.

etc.

there should be responsibility. people should have to deal.

don't shrug that off solely in the name of getting laid and having a convenient, fun-filled life.

if people don't fuck up, don't have to deal with consequences, they never learn. they turn into spoiled, entitled assholes who run countries.

sorry. trying to chill and remember than i'm just playing the other side a bit.

you can call the fundies killjoys all day, but at some point, adulthood rears is bloated, slow-metabolizin' head. the rest of the world isn't here for you. get a condom. get on birth control. and deal with the cards.

youth culture needs more oral sex.
m.

dude, no shit, not a one of us is questioning you or that. the thing is, is carrying the kid to term and then raising it the sole possible outcome of having the humping w/o protection? you fucked up; should the results of your mistake always be that you have the kid, get married, etc.? What if doing so consigns you to a life of poverty & misery? what if you're barely subsisting and another mouth to feed sends your family into starvation?

xpost:

yup, Blount otm. part of the mindset of the "'responsibility'/'punishment' is everything" crowd seems to be that authority figures are NEVER to be questioned. It's just like daddy & mommy; they know best and only hurt us for our own good, right?

But somehow I don't think Focus on the Family will agree to that.

haha. You ever see that Technical Virgin ad (or two) that were circulation around a few years ago?

xpost - re: oral sex see conservative outcry/clinton blamefest over figures last fall showing SHOCKAH pretty much all teens are having oral sex (and a remarkable number are having anal thx to bush's abstinence only sexed and the timetested crafty craven salemanship of adolescent males)('every cloud has a silver lining', etc.)

Dude, I'd say that FotF would never support any sex ed being taught that actually mentioned how to hump without resulting in pregrancy, whether you're married or not. remember, the mindset is that sex is a bad, avoidable thing that you choose to do(or suffer thru to procreate), so you must take responsiblity and be punished for doing it.

Also, the mentioning of any subject to these folks is the implicit approval of it. That's why any mention of gay people on TV is "furthering the radical homosexual agenda and supporting the gay lifestyle."

It's like these folks have such a stake in compliancy to authority and non-critical thinking that teaching is just nothing but the barest presentation of what to do. That's why they're always on about college professors "indoctinatrinating" our innocent children with these evil humanist ideas. They have a problem with the ideas being taught, not the manner of instruction, like they only consider "teaching" to be nothing but "indoctrination".

I mean, yeah I'm probably repeating myself, but this shit always seems to come down to the mindsets and the narratives that folks operate under.

yeah, that's the other thing. I spend my life ignoring my teeth and they go black. am i then shirking responsibility by going to the dentist to get root canals? I ride my bike w/o a helmet and hit my head. I should then pay for my ignoring my daddy's advice with head trauma?

Yeah the comparision between dental work and pregnancy is forced, but when you're dealing with, say, a fertilized egg not 8 hours old, both things are but biological processes not involving life yet, are they not?

I think she lives on long island, now.

Anal: no. Handjobs (aka "heavy petting"): oui! But the magazine Oui: non.

BYU campus is big for the NoCoMakO (non-committal making out).

"where is the injustice? where IS the irresponsibility?"

fair enough on some level to turn it back over, to check the unchecked box... but if it is a life, it would be quite a gross oversight i think. i think it makes sense that if it has no brain/brainstem, it has no thoughts, it's not there yet. that's the usual me talking, not the doubting, budding pro-lifer talking.

"and - the key point - who should have the power to decide? the woman carrying the fetus or rick santorum?"

well, if it's a life taken, and a murder, and a crime, then it's the mother's decision, but it would be her responsibility to bear the punishment fitting the injustice.

unfortunately, i don't think i answered these well. distracted. children dancing on my head...
m.

not sure. Haven't talked to her in about six years.

And it isnt, not at 4-6 weeks, no more than cutting off a cancerous growth or taking worming pills to flush tapeworm is killing that really.

I do wanna say that, while, no, having an abortion is hardly on the same level of responsibility as actually having a child, I think it's disingenuous for anyone to claim that it is not a responsible, difficult decision for most women, with various mental and emotional repercussions. It's not exactly "La di dah, time to remove the fetus, oh all done? I'm off to Barney's now!" is it?

http://www.dawgnetnews.com/archive/020328/pictures/abortion.jpg

I mean, man. Makes you wonder just what exactly are in those Gerber jars!

Anyway, yeah, Trayce OTM, they'll generally do it at 5 weeks but they prefer to wait til 6 weeks because it's barely more than just an egg at that point (4 weeks and earlier, I mean). Which means that occasionally they suck out most of the blood lining but leave the egg (because it's barely viewable on ultrasound and the lining is still "regular developed", for lack of a better term, intead of "pregnancy developed), which results in horrible problems, infections and stuff like that. And very rarely an actual baby, just a very difficult later miscarriage or additional D&C, despite the seemingly thousands of websites with "I was a failed abortion..." stories.

Failed abortions and full size aborted babies are rampant in America apparently! Haha you know I don't understand the obsession with claiming all these real-size babies are aborted anyway, I mean that seems to go against the vanity argument used, that women be abortin' their offspring to keep their taut tummies. Why would you abort a baby after you've already got fat and dripping with milk and carried it for so long unless there was something seriously, seriously wrong? I really don't understand what any of these people are thinking. I understand the "how do you know?" argument msp is making but the other arguments just are nonsensical.

!!??! WHY?

I should say that I'm pro-choice for pragmatic reasons, because when abortion is illegal, women die, and there can be no doubt (one hopes) that women are persons. However, I would answer someone who is pro-life for the "better safe than sorry" reason with the above paragraph.

i was just talking to a friend that worked in rumanian orphanages ("inability to thrive clinics") and she was saying that if they had proper birth-control/abortion means in rumania some of her friends would not be alive. which is a good thing, because if you cannot fufill a function in society or contribute to the happiness of your parent, or fail to diminish your parent's happiness, you shouldn't be here -- we should have the just means to eliminate you. that's what my friend said, and i think i am tempted to agree with her.

(Much less having incest spawnlings running around the countryside, providing supporting characters to Preacher story-arcs. )

Not what I said at all. I was using the bodily material (brain matter) available for the capacity for consciousness as a (really rough) standard. (so, to spell it out, a five-year-old, even if they were somehow completely lacking in awareness, as you curiously put it, would obviously be a person.) To be honest, that's my best-faith effort to engage with the right-to-life perspective; people's confidence in asserting that matter existing within a woman's body is the same thing as a person who exists on her own boggles my mind.

It's like there's no shortage of folks so convinced of their truthiness that they'll readily ignore the evidence of their senses. It doesn't matter that kids have been screwin' since time began and will do so until time ends, having the sex is a bad thing and repression is a good thing(the latter part here echoing what Nairn said on a thread two months ago), it will never change their minds.

Freud, the very easy way to refute your article to chew on is whether or not someone believes a fetus is a person. That is what his argument hinges on, so what in god's name made you think that article would be anything but "Eh? Whatevs" to half of this thread?

I wonder if there is any correlation between teenage/college age female suicide rates and stricter abortion laws.

"Terri Schiavo! Terri Schiavo! Elian!"

If I became a human at conception, then can I get a refund from the City of Columbia, Missouri over that Minor In Possession ticket I got when I was twenty-and-a-half years old? Let the record show that I was legal in February even though my driver's license said November.

Speaking to The New York Times’s Gina Kolata last December, Hager said Plan B would encourage promiscuity among young people, who "could just buy the drug on their own." He did not mention the complaint he’d brought before the FDA panel of "inadequate" sampling of teenagers, but rather spoke of the "'individuals who did not want to take responsibility for their actions and wanted a medication to relieve those consequences.'"

And how it ties in with some of the pharmacies going out of their way to create special rules for this(i.e. you can refuse to fulfill prescriptions).

again, the responsibility/consequences/punishment thing. Using modern medicine would "coddle" those wrongdoers, and thus make them morally weak and more likely to do evil, i guess.

ok, i'm not even going near this

are you not reading anyone else's posts?

actually i come from a really wierd place in that the pro-lifers are muslims and buddhists and the pro-choicers are christians. so as much as would like to gather the townfolk and burn those wicked, fallen harlots, i am afraid there wouldn't be much support. only heretics round these parts.

that number can be reduced by education, economic opportunity and access to contraception, which ought to be the primary -- fuck, the exclusive -- priorities of people seriously concerned about reducing the number of abortions (since the whole of human history says abortions will happen whether they're legal or not). but it will never be reduced to zero. you can pass every law you want, and there will still be abortions. you can choose to accept the biological reality or not, the biological reality doesn't much care about your level of acceptance.

that being the case, you can choose a couple of paths: make abortion as safe and nondisruptive a procedure as possible, or make it difficult to obtain and fraught with psychological trauma. making it not happen is not an option.

"if" should be blown up and enboldened.

I keep hearing how tackling Roe vs. Wade is one of the last things the Supreme Court wants to deal with these days.

But then again, these wacky activist judges!

I would really LOVE it if my ancient Mpls neighbour who invented medical ultrasound would send a letter about his opinions of God-botherers who interfere in OTHER PEOPLE'S MEDICAL SHIT using photies his invention makes possible. It would be (joyously) the printable side of unprintable.

This is actually completely medically untrue but whatevs.

m.

!

Time and again in my travels I am asked, "What happened to derail Plan B?" I have to answer honestly that I don't know. The manufacturer agreed to take the "controversial" issue of young teens' access to emergency contraception off the table in 2004; now we are talking only about adult access to safe and effective contraception. Over 98 percent of adult women have used some form of contraception. So what is the objection?

To which Chris Mooney points out,

Susan Wood, meet the Religious Right, which has lots of influence over this administration and doesn't care one whit for your impeccable logic. For religious conservatives, emergency contraception equals promiscuity, and promiscuity equals immorality. Period. Coming from this perspective, Christian conservatives are perfectly willing to upend science and the administrative process in order to block access to drugs that they view as contributing to increasing sexual behavior among teens (despite the total lack of data that the drugs actually have this effect). And this administration is perfectly willing to go along.

In the US, for instance, religious groups are gearing up to oppose vaccination, despite a survey showing 80 per cent of parents favour vaccinating their daughters. "Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV," says Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council, a leading Christian lobby group that has made much of the fact that, because it can spread by skin contact, condoms are not as effective against HPV as they are against other viruses such as HIV.

"Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex," Maher claims, though it is arguable how many young women have even heard of the virus.

they're trying to pull this shit in Mississippi, too

JACKSON, Miss. - A state House committee voted to ban most abortions in Mississippi, which already has some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation.

The bill approved by the House Public Health Committee on Tuesday would allow abortion only to save the pregnant woman's life. It would make no exception in cases of rape or incest. The bill now goes to the full House, which could vote next week, and then to the Senate.

The idea of erring on the side of caution re: abortion only works if you take the most simplistic view of determinism. In other words, the lowest common denominator approach to philosophy that most religions use in order to work with the population at large. The "he could have been the next Mozart" approach is inane not necessarily because it presupposes some conditions but because it is *only* based on presupposition. If you have an abortion, you can only assume that the fetus would have been as it was the next day. You can't assume it would have survived the week, gone to term, or anything beyond that. If I say I'm going to go to work tomorrow, it means that I plan it in earnest, not that it's some fate-driven event.

The "an apple is an apple" thing has a similar flaw. An apple is a fruit of a specific tree. Fruit are the reproductive mechanism of that plant. If I pull off an apple early, then it's not going to have seeds that will grow, nor will it taste like what we consider an apple flavor. In other words, for all practical purposes, it's not an apple.

Also, said closet should then be shot into the sun.

http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0465054897.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

In that link given above, Chris Mooney endorses it thusly:

...For me, Page's book was a revealing look at what's really driving the Christian right. Reading it made me realize, really for the first time, that religious conservatives aren't simply driven by their opposition to abortion; they're also driven by opposition to out-of-wedlock sex, and, in some cases, opposition to all sex that is not for the purpose of procreation.

Page starts out the book by discussing a very interesting conundrum: Why can't pro-choicers and pro-lifers get together and find common ground on policies that would at least reduce the total number of abortions, if not ban abortion altogether? That's the question that leads her into the inquiry at the center of the book, and that eventually brings her to the realization that abortion isn't the only factor in the mindset of the Christian right, and that indeed, its importance may have been exaggerated.

Conservative Christians are cultural traditionalists who are trying to impose a larger moral vision upon society. They're also complete absolutists in their thinking. This leads them to oppose contraception out of the fear that it promotes promiscuity even though wider availability of contraception would nevertheless also decrease the number of abortions (Plan B emergency contraception being a perfect example).

and there's some scary-ass shit out there.

Actually, I would be an asshole since I've met people who got married almost specifically so they could have sex and then, unless they stay close with religion and community, they end up bombing out of their relationship. I think people really like the idea of forcing others into responsibility through law, though.

and stupid people don't stop breeding.

ever.

But seriously, i don't think that there's that much thought, self-reflection, or consistent reasoning that goes on with that. That's why in-vitro fertilization(which is far more about fertilized eggs, etc) is handled far differently with these people than the abortion/contraception.

Again, it's all about the fuckin'. The folks see it as immoral, and since opposing immorality is righteous, any means to such a righteous end must also be righteous, right?

You gotta have that baby, it's evil if you don't, and it don't matter if you're so broke that having another mouth to feed will force you to starve. Don't expect the gubmint to reward your laziness with welfare checks so you can then drive them cadillacs. You gotta go get that 2nd job, and don't expect anybody else to pay for your child care.

etc etc etc

As the Terri Schaivo thing reminds us last year, people are kinda funny about when they choose to conflate medical technology with "God's Will" and when not to.

Also, another subject for another day: the history of how the anti-contraception and anti-abortion movements got started in Victorian-era America(since before that, abortion was legal, wasn't it?).

I'd like to think there's reasons people stick together other than children, but I might just be idealistic.

And thanks for all the responses.

"Unintended pregnancy in the United States is twice as high as in most of Western Europe," she said in an interview. "As a direct result, abortion rates are twice or three times as high as European countries. There is no reason why abortion rates need to be as high as they are."

The problem is particularly acute for the nation's estimated 17 million adolescent girls and low-income women, because a lack of education and money are often barriers to practicing abstinence or effective birth control.

Also, how even in other countries, criminalizing abortions doesn't actually do all that much in terms of actually reducing the number of abortions had.

The proposed ban on abortion includes no exception for rape or incest.

Oh yeah, and guess what they're planning to vote on in Missouri:

Missouri legislators in Jefferson City considered a bill that would name Christianity the state's official "majority" religion.

House Concurrent Resolution 13 has is pending in the state legislature.

[...]

The resolution would recognize "a Christian god," and it would not protect minority religions, but "protect the majority's right to express their religious beliefs.

The resolution also recognizes that, "a greater power exists," and only Christianity receives what the resolution calls, "justified recognition."

How can Christians be pro-life when they claim that their saviour died on a cross for their sins? Death is the pinnacle, the symbology of Christian faith. This is vile and detestable.

Give me crack and anal sex before this!

thank you, fj.

MO's House Concurrent Resolution No. 13 doesn't actually seek to name an official religion so much as argue that "that voluntary prayer in public schools and religious displays on public property are not a coalition of church and state, but rather the justified recognition of the positive role that Christianity has played in this great nation of ours, the United States of America." Mealy-mouthed, sure -- for starters, who the heck ever prayed in school to appreciate the grand historical importance of Christianity rather than, y'know, commune with their creator? -- but it's not establishing Christianity as the Official State Religion to stand next to the Official State Motto and the Official State Amphibian. Anyway, as a concurrent resolution, it doesn't have the power to establish that anyway (I don't think): it's more like a "yeppers, we sure do all agree on this here and aren't we all SO nice for saying so" sort of thing.

This is from an ep of Newshour this week on the SoDak thing:

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls "convenience." He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother's life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.

STATE SEN. BILL NAPOLI (R): A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.

The example that state senator gives seems to ring similar to how people feel about giving money to charity; it's all a matter of identification, whether you're worthy or not, and whether you "chose" this to happen so we can immediately deny any empathy to you in the name of you "accepting responsibility".

Hey, if you're some hard-workin', Dubya-votin', God-fearin' taxpayers who are out on the street since some hurricane took out your Biloxi suburb, well then you're one of us and i can easily open my wallet to give you a hand. You're poor right now and you didn't choice this station. You are worthy of empathy.

But if you're some homeless guy, or stuck in some poor-ass inner city, etc, then you're poor b/c you're choosing to be lazy, and money sent to you would just coddle you and reinforce your refusal to pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

Again, tying this back into the Newshour bit, they actually talk to somebody in South Dakota who is going for the procedure, who actually is poor as hell with two kids and a shit job:

"MICHELLE," PATIENT WHO TERMINATED HER PREGNANCY: It was difficult when I found out I was pregnant. I was saddened, because I knew that I'd probably have to make this decision. Like I said, I have two children, so I look into their eyes and I love them. It's been difficult, you know; it's not easy. And I don't think it's, you know, ever easy on a woman, but we need that choice.

BILL NAPOLI: When I was growing up here in the wild west, if a young man got a girl pregnant out of wedlock, they got married, and the whole darned neighborhood was involved in that wedding. I mean, you just didn't allow that sort of thing to happen, you know? I mean, they wanted that child to be brought up in a home with two parents, you know, that whole story. And so I happen to believe that can happen again.

MEMO TO GOVERNOR, S-DAK: if you had a uterus of your own, MAYBE YOU WOULDN'T BE SUCH A FUCKING CUNT.

Also what is this 'baby Moses' shit? Are we moving into Atwood territory here or WHAT?

Hear hear :/

m.

The bit in the article about the parents forcing the kids to go thru with it or threatening violence is kinda scary.

The litigation fund bill went through and was signed at the same time as the anti-abortion bill, according to NPR the other day. The identities of donors to the fund don't have to be revealed. (I don't have time to read back through the thread to see if this was already discussed.)

A "trick question" on abortion?
Call us juvenile, but this amused us.

As the religious right tees up a Supreme Court fight over abortion, some voices on the left are pushing the "life begins at conception" argument to its logical extremes. Last month at firedoglake, Jane Hamsher asked what an antiabortion person would do if he found himself in a burning fertility clinic with a 2-year-old child and a petri dish full blastulas -- and couldn't save both. Mike Stark, who runs a blog that encourages liberals to torment right-wing talk radio hosts, took up the torch by calling into WABC and putting the question to host Andrew Wilkow.

Wilkow wouldn't say what he would do. "You can put anybody in a stupid, 'Catch-22' situation," he sputtered. "What if I can grab all the petri dishes and the kid and make everybody happy? You want to know why this is idiotic? Because you're the type of person that would burn a cop at the stake in a shoot-or-not-shoot situation where they have one Mississippi to make a decision, and you want me to tell you what I'd do in a burning building situation?"

When Stark suggested that Wilkow, like anyone else, would rescue the 2-year-old, Wilkow exploded. "You don't know what I would do. You don't know a clue about what I'd do ... Shut up for a second ... Shut your mouth for a second, OK? This is what's bothering you. You can't storm in and tell me what I'd do and then tell me what you know that I would do and then tell me who I am. You don't know me. You can't tell me how to think ... Because you don't know. Don't tell me what I would do and what I wouldn't do based on your preconceived notions of stereotypical conservatives."

After he hung up on Stark, Wilkow said he'd been victimized by a "preconceived, trick-question scenario." But of course, there is a right answer -- at least if you really believe that those five blastulas are every bit as alive as that 2-year-old child.

i know, right? have y'all read the recent New Yorker article about the Bush administration + abstinence politics? (it's more broadly about the administration's antiscientific politics, but the abstinence movement is a huge part of it.) it will make you want to tear out your hair. (one factoid that stuck in my mind: the CDC removed a fact sheet about condoms from its website for a year under Bush). i don't know how to argue with such people; they seem to lobby/legislate from a position of vengeance.

uhm, what? the criticisms about the blocking of emergency contraception are aimed at the federal level, tho they are tied into this deal(two sides of the same fetus)

Also, apparently there's something afoot in Indiana to try to pull the South Dakota thing...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - An attempt to resume state spending on birth control got shot down Wednesday by House members who argued it would have amounted to an endorsement of promiscuous lifestyles.
Missouri stopped providing money for family planning and certain women's health services when Republicans gained control of both chambers of the Legislature in 2003.

[....]

Missouri Right to Life said it was concerned with the contraception language because it was loosely written and could have included emergency contraception - often referred to as the morning-after pill.

The Missouri Catholic Conference also opposed the birth control funding.

"State taxpayers should not be required to subsidize activities they believe are immoral or unethical, relating to contraceptives or abortions," said Larry Weber, executive director of the state Catholic Conference.

I hope this happens, but this woman is already great just for saying she'll do it.

"hella"

SATAN's petition!

FALWELL CONFIDENTIAL

Insider weekly newsletter to The Moral Majority Coalition and

The Liberty Alliance http://www.moralmajority.com

From: Jerry Falwell

Date: September 14, 2006

South Dakota Pro-Lifers Face Off Against Planned Parenthood

The pro-life movement in South Dakota needs your help. In a moment, I'll tell you how you can help, but first, please allow me to explain the situation in the state.

Abortion-rights advocates have gotten a measure on the November ballot that, if passed, would repeal the state law (HB 1215) forbidding all abortions, except those that would save the life of a mother. The ban, which hasn't yet taken effect, will be activated if it passes the ballot initiative (even though it would likely would be challenged in the courts). The law states that individuals performing abortions would be fined $5,000 and be jailed for five years.

Here's the key problem: Planned Parenthood is now pouring money into the state, in hopes of killing this legislation without having to go to court.

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SUPER CONFERENCE 2006 - OCTOBER 1-4
Speakers: Dr. Jerry Falwell, Dr. Ergun Caner,
Dr. David Jeremiah, Dr. Johnny Hunt and more
Visit www.superconference.us

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Dr. Allen Unruh, of the South Dakota pro-life organization Vote Yes for Life (www.voteyesforlife.com), tells me that Planned Parenthood panicked after HB 1215 was passed in both state houses and Gov. Mike Rounds signed it into law. The state house voted 50 to 18 in favor of the bill, while the state senate passed it 23 to 12.

Dr. Unruh says the organization is mounting an $8 million media blitz over the next two months. He tells me this is a major propaganda campaign to demonize and distort the language on the ban on abortion in South Dakota.

Pro-life leaders in the state are now trying to raise funds to counter Planned Parenthood's campaign to defeat the law. They are now attempting to raise $4 million to offset Planned Parenthood's campaign to radical political agenda.

That's where I hope you will step in. I have told Dr. Unruh and his team that I will do my best to deliver thousands of people who will financially help to win this historic battle. We have to raise $4 million dollars -- very quickly -- in South Dakota to counter the propaganda Planned Parenthood will be putting on the airwaves prior to the November election.

Dr. Unruh and I believe that if there were ever a time when Christians need to invest in a pro-life effort, the time is now and the place is South Dakota. If the state wins this battle, other states could follow South Dakota's lead in the future, also determining to outlaw abortion.

I am urging my friends across the country to give generously to this vital campaign.

What happens in South Dakota will literally affect the future of America.

Make all checks out to: voteyesforlife.com

Donations may be sent to:

Vote Yes for Life

600 N. Western Ave.

Sioux Falls, SD 57104

Readers interested in learning more about this campaign may visit the website www.voteyesforlife.com/