Contributed by Jess Wakeman.
In his op-ed titled "Getting a Grip on Abortion Hysteria: Left Abandons Reason and Fact for Emotional Outbursts," editor of the Dakota Voice - a nutty Christian-tinged publication - and professional fuckwit Bob Ellis examines South Dakota's recent introduction of a bill to ban abortions.
First, he takes cheap potshots at the left - accusing us, among other things, of writing ranting, illegible letters to the editor. Then Ellis delivers a hard truth to women who become pregnant by rape or incest and have no choice but to carry the pregnancy to term: suck it up because life isn't fair.
"...God gave us a mind to think with, in addition to our powerful emotions. No one could ever say it was 'fair' to carry the child of a rape to term, but unfortunately (and I don't say this flippantly, just truthfully) life just isn't fair sometimes...The rape is a terrible crime, but we cannot undo that terrible crime by committing another one."
He's criminalizing abortion before it's even criminalized legally! If we're talking about things that aren't technically illegal but it might be someone's opinion that it's really, really wrong, chew on this, Bob Ellis: what about the 'crime' of bringing unwanted children into this world, then ignoring them, resenting them, and abusing them? What about the crime of taking a woman's ability to make decisions about her own body away from her?
Then Ellis continues, in logic that I would certainly say "abandons reason," to rationalize giving birth to children conceived of rape, because it's not like they have an "abnormal genetic deformity" or anything.
"Examine the ultrasound of a child conceived of rape, and the ultrasound of a child conceived from love or lust, then point out the difference. Or look at a child born of rape, then a child born of love or lust, and identify the difference there--so far, no one has demonstrated that children born of rape have extra limbs, missing limbs, or any other abnormal genetic deformity...And as heart-wrenching as a pregnancy from a rape is, we must acknowledge rationally and intellectually that the life of the child is the same."
So, South Dakota: even if your father rapes you, it's too fucking bad.
I'd write this twit a letter to the editor, but I'm sure he'd just find it incoherent.
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It's such a backwards way of interpreting the facts. If your belief system requires that you make women carry the children to term that resulted from rape, there could be something something wrong with your belief system, and not abortion.
Would it be "fair" of me to assume that Bob Ellis has already placed himself on an adoption waiting list for the unwanted children of rape or incest in South Dakota?
Oh, I am getting slammed with this crap on my blog.
One dude...
Women were not so STUPID to stick wire in their uteruses.
That's what he said.
Brilliant twit.
Because it won't have any kind of negative effect for a child to learn they were conceived as the result of a horrific attack on their mother?
It's a crime in itself to make someone go through that.
Well maybe the thing to do is just put rape/incest victims who wind up pregnant out of their misery. I mean, it's such a life-changing trauma and all that. They're just going to be hopelessly damage emotionally, so perhaps a lethal injection would be the kindest thing we could do for them.
"what about the 'crime' of bringing unwanted children into this world, then ignoring them, resenting them, and abusing them? "
The arrogant assumption that you KNOW they'd have rather not existed at all makes me sick.
"Examine the ultrasound of a child conceived of rape, and the ultrasound of a child conceived from love or lust, then point out the difference."
Continuing this logic, rape is no worse than regular sex because they both use a similar dick.
Loving the double standard about life not being fair---it's just fine if life's not fair to women, but if it's not fair to fetuses, it's a crime. And no shit about the "you can't undo one crime by committing another;" raping the woman a second time, this time with a fetus, tends to, surprisingly, not undo the rape.
"And as heart-wrenching as a pregnancy from a rape is, we must acknowledge rationally and intellectually that the life of the child is the same."
Yeah. It's *still* not entitled to someone else's body (although apparently the legislators of South Dakota want to help it run in the family).
"The arrogant assumption that you KNOW they'd have rather not existed at all makes me sick."
The arrogant assumption that whether they want to exist or not, they're *entitled* to be brought into existance by forcing others to create them, likewise.
"...so far, no one has demonstrated that children born of rape have extra limbs, missing limbs, or any other abnormal genetic deformity.
Put aside how stress during pregnancy and damaged maternal bonds after can have a major effect on the child, what about inbreeding, Bob?
I guess Bob thinks it enough to mention incest before avoiding it. Also interesting that he uses the phrase "genetic deformity" as he clearly doesn't believe in such things, being a member of The Black Hills Creation Science Association. http://bhcsa.org/Ellis.asp
Extra creepy bonus: He has a daughter.