Sigh. I was so thrilled to get rid of Rick Santorum. I should have known that this asshole would stant up to take his place. He's pretty damn scary, and has potential to be dangerous.

Fucking religion. "A beautiful child of a loving god" what a load of fucking horse shit. Ever heard of a miscarriage? Or the myriad of other fucking ways people, whatever age, die for no reason? And I mean people who are actually self-aware. Oh of course, that’s gods will isnt it? So I guess gods will is also all this rape and incest too huh?

This is what happens when people get the idea that we are so fucking special, that we are the centre of the universe.

My complete and utter contempt of all religions aside, I dont believe abortion is killing an unborn "child". Besides, Im not the one fucking having children, so I don’t think I have any right to decide for women.

Ugh, this has really pissed me off now. Self-righteous fucking arrogance always does.

If anyone is interested in learning more about this psychopath, Rolling Stone did a great profile on him last year.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/9178374/gods_senator

Just be warned, it will probably make you sick.

I was under the impression that women who had been raped were not necessarily expected to carry and bear the child. That's archaic. And HOW DARE Brownback motion to his stomach, as if he can sympathize with a woman, as if he could even imagine being in that situation.

Egads. Just when I was starting to get over my automatic reaction of "freaked out" when faced with conservatives.

I think it's interesting that Brownback seems to emphasize the importance of the child over the woman--as if the woman were just an auxilliary to a worthwhile human being. All this talk about the horrors of sexual assault are inevitably followed with a BUT--as in, but the woman's feelings and state of mind are simply not as important as the potential heir in her belly.

Just seems to hearken back to the whole "women as breeders" patriarchal property thing. Idunno, maybe?

I think its because he believes that an unborn child is still gods property, and no matter the circumstances, only he can fuck with it.

I don't think that rape or incest should have an affect on abortion policy, though obviously for different reasons than this asshole. While being raped or a victim of incest would most likely affect how a woman feels about pregnancy I would never presume to know how she feels and decide for her what is best, whether it be abortion or carrying it to term (or however far it gets). The decision should be left to the one pregnant, and her doctors and those close to her, not to generic policy.

I really don't understand the logic of only allowing women who were raped (among other rare exceptions) to get an abortion. Do they expect women to get a rape conviction before getting an abortion, or do they just want an "excuse" to then bitch about "sluts" who lie about rape and get abortions?

The corrosive effects of the movie Junior continue unabated into the 21st century.

"So I guess gods will is also all this rape and incest too huh?"

The way they think about it, "God" DOES cause around 30,000 pregnancies a year because of rape, which women are supposed to see as an act of love by a loving "God." Yeah, right.
On the pope/excommunication thread, a similar discussion was going on, about how the Catholic Church 1)excommunicated doctors who aborted an eleven year old girls' fetus, but NOT her step-father who admitted to raping her and causing the unwanted pregnancy, and 2) they excommunicate priests who ordinate women, same sex marriages or make break away churches to better serve African Americans, but NOT their child molestor priests.
They don't think women (or children) should have any control over their body whatsoever and only see women as sperm incubators.

"This is what happens when people get the idea that we are so fucking special, that we are the centre of the universe."

Yes, this is what happens when MEN get the idea that they (and their sperm) are the center of the universe, and that women have no right to bodily integrity and exist to serve them.

Then they argue that a rapist or child molestor is "God's" raping tool to impregnant women.

Until he can prove there is a loving god, his argument is complete bullshit.
It pisses me off to see people so vehemently opposed to abortion. This may be a little sexist on my part, but in some ways it seems worse to hear it from a male. Why? Because it's highly unlikely that he has ever been raped, and it's even more unlikely that he has been faced with an unwanted pregnancy (unless he does have the uterus that his gesticulations imply).

A little off topic, but relating to "sacred sperm."

From the article Cara posted:

(in regards to Brownback's chief of staff, Robert Wasinger)
"he is still remembered in Cambridge twelve years after graduation for a fight he led to get gay faculty booted. He was particularly concerned about the welfare of gay men; or rather, as he wrote in a campus magazine funded by the Heritage Foundation, that of their innocent sperm, forced to "swim into feces."

You know, I've never posted here before but this so aggrivates me that I feel I should voice my opinion. I was raised Catholic and spent 13 years in Catholic schools learning all about our loving God, and His will. Yet as I grew (and grow) older I cannot help but be torn farther and farther away from it all.

How can we, as women, relate to any of it when all the femininity (in various Christian Bibles) is removed or viewed in lines of women being conspirators, harlots, and temptresses?

Yet we are instructed (and expected!) to obey, with blind conviction, that these men know best what is right with us, what is acceptable to do with our own bodies, and how we should act/behave/live towards and with men. WTF?!

Look, the only time it seems God even ENTERS the picture and is acceptable to TALK about publically is when it involves women, our decisions (esp. regarding reproduction), and what we want to do with our bodies.

Isn't the human body a 'temple of God'? So 'defacing' it with implants in which we can better arouse men, or any of the other numerous cosmetic enhancements used to increase our appeal to the male, is acceptable? What sort of double standard is that?

The Church, Vatican, and Politicians need to stop guilt tripping women into having babies that they can A.) not afford, B.) do not want, or C.)cannot carry to term for whatever complications there might be. Until these MEN can give birth themselves- CAN IT!!!!

According to the same article, Brownback’s
“biggest financial backer is Koch Industries, an oil company that ranks among America's largest privately held companies. "The Koch folks," as they're known around the senator's office, are among the nation's worst polluters. In 2000, the company was slapped with the largest environmental civil penalty in U.S. history for illegally discharging 3 million gallons of crude oil in six states. That same year Koch was indicted for lying about its emissions of benzene, a chemical linked to leukemia, and dodged criminal charges in return for a $20 million settlement.�

I looked up benzene and fetal development and found this study:
http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/129/6/1201
from the American Journal of Epidemiology, which measured the effects of parental occupational exposures on fetal development and stillbirths. It found that:

“Several toxic agents were associated with risk elevation of 1.3 or greater for fathers, most notably benzene...�

Obviously, Brownback doesn’t care about the fetuses that are stillborn because of Koch’s benzene emissions, only aborted fetuses. Why aren’t the fetuses dying of Koch’s environmental toxins worthy of saving/ seen as “children of god?�

Oh, right, THE MONEY!

and as YouDontOwnMe said:
"the only time it seems God even ENTERS the picture and is acceptable to TALK about publically is when it involves women, our decisions (esp. regarding reproduction), and what we want to do with our bodies."

I almost prefer this to the "abortion is only okay if it was rape" people. At least these people are committed to believing that the fetus involved is a living thing that didn't do anything wrong; the people who are willing to allow abortion in the case of rape but for no other reason are clearly just interested in punishing sexually active women for being sexually active, and are using the fetus as a means to that end.

That's even more disgusting. At least this is somewhat consistent.

(Even if I find it abhorrent, I can recognize internal consistency.)

Well, as someone who was raped this year and went through a pregnancy scare because of it, I can tell Brownback right now that if I would've been pregnant and unable to receive an abortion I would've thrown myself on the subway tracks and taken the blasted fetus to die along with me.

when brownback voted against funding stem cell research, he got on the floor of the united states senate to present a drawing by a 5-year-old girl of a talking fertilized egg saying "please don't kill me."

i'd link the video, but he appears to have had the incredibly damning video taken off youtube.

But it nonetheless remains that this is a child that we’re talking about doing this to, of ending the life of this child.

I especially love this when the rape or incest victim is a child herself (see Angry Black Bitch for an infuriating example). My initial reaction was anger that Brownback and his ilk equate a week-old cluster of cells to an established, breathing woman. Then I realized I was wrong--the embryo isn't equated to the woman or child it's implanted in; the embryo is elevated to a position superior to that of the woman. Or child. Brownback would gleefully destroy the life of the 14-year-old rape victim in favor of forcing her to carry the product of her rape to term and deliver it. Emotional and psychological destruction aside, she's expected to welcome this baby and care for it for the next 18 years, raising it up to be a productive citizen despite living in poverty herself and, oh yeah, being fourteen fucking years old.

He'd do that to a child because of the twinges he gets in his pretend uterus when he thinks about a precious pink perfectly-formed baby being aborted just because daddy is also grandpa and mommy is still a child.

My favorite memory from high school is when we had a classroom debate on choice--one of those classroom debates where everyone on one side of the argument stands on one side of the classroom, and everyone with the opposing position stands on the other side of the classroom. In this case, it was 2o kids on the "pro-life" wall and me on the the "pro-choice wall." As if that wasn't bad enough, one of my classmates argued that "jesus chooses who gets raped," and the rest of the class agreed. I lost the debate when I panicked, barracaded myself behind some desks and started chanting "my body, my choice!"

Knicole, I applaud you for your restraint. If anyone ever had the nerve to say to me that "Jesus chooses who gets raped," I wouuld probably end up spending the night in jail. Generally, I'm a pacifist. But some things are just unforgivable.

emily, i agree - i was actually just talking about this general gap in logic when it comes to many pro-lifers. i'm decidely pro-choice in any and all situations, but i don't understand how someone who genuinely believes that "abortion is murder" could condone exclusions for rape and incest. it's contradictory.

of course, we know these "exceptions" are really just yardsticks for women who are really worthy of abortions (read: not you dirty sluts who asked for it).

Isn't the human body a 'temple of God'? So 'defacing' it with implants in which we can better arouse men, or any of the other numerous cosmetic enhancements used to increase our appeal to the male, is acceptable? What sort of double standard is that?

I've never met a conservative who approves of cosmetic surgery for its own sake. It's not a double standard if different people approve of it.

Two: I vividly recall a lot of posters getting up in arms about "rape exceptions," because, after all, if it's a baby, why does it matter how it was created?

So now we have a politician who says that and everyone gets all upset. Hum....

ugh FUCK HIM. This kind of stuff makes me SO ANGRY. Furthermore has anyone seen the video of the 17 year old Iraqi girl getting STONED in an honor killing. It made my stomach turn and my eyes well up. What I would have given to have been there with a semi automatic. all those men would have been dead. so off topic but still I didnt see it posted here so i figured I would mention it.

Oenophile, I think that many of us do appreciate that is comments are consistent, but that doesn't mean that he's still not the scum of the earth. And I don't think that anyone said having a consistent argument would absolve anyone of anything.

And Katie, Samhita did do a post about that, but she refused to post the video itself, because . . . well, I refuse to watch it, but it sure as hell sounds vile.

Please, please, please tell me that they did not really say "Jesus chooses who gets raped." I cannot face this level of sickness and go on. I'm with Cara; I probably would have physically attacked any slime who had such nerve. What is WRONG with humans?

this kind of BS wouldn't be QUITE as disgusting if people like him believed in (and fought for) providing ec in emergency rooms, over the counter to all, etc. but no, they don't want you to prevent the possibility of a pregnancy after something this traumatizing and then they want you to carry it to term should it happen. that's so damn compassionate! (and as a woman raised catholic, i'm pretty sure compassion is a huge part of jesus' message)

and to add to what YouDontKnowMe said -- god is also brought up when it comes to homosexuals and gay marriage. anything involving what people do in the PRIVACY of their bedrooms, pretty much. but things like the death penalty, war, the environment, health care, etc... hell no! why, that would just be absurd...

Emotional and psychological destruction aside, she's expected to welcome this baby and care for it for the next 18 years, raising it up to be a productive citizen despite living in poverty herself and, oh yeah, being fourteen fucking years old.

Did Brownback say that he is against adoption?

--

Well, there are a LOT of pro-lifers who are attacked for having the audacity to sympathise with rape victims, who don't even have the chance to use birth control, to abstain, to use more methods of birth control, or to choose the potential father. So it really gets me when you attack people who take a consistent position.

In short: you get one or the other, not both. Attack pro-lifers like Brownback for not having enough sympathy for rape victims, or attack inconsistent pro-lifers, but not both.

You know- that "Jesus chooses who gets raped" statement is infuriating! Especially when it rides along the coattails of a loving God. You want to teach me a lesson? Send a burning bush, not a rapist. The point is missing from the message otherwise.

You handled it better than I would have! Kudos!

Two: I vividly recall a lot of posters getting up in arms about "rape exceptions," because, after all, if it's a baby, why does it matter how it was created?

I think that was mostly me. I think he's completely wrong, but I totally give him intellectual consistency. This is a guy that I can believe really thinks it's about saving lives, and that really believes that abortion is murder. So, yeah, on that level, I have more respect for him than for someone who claims to be pro-life but is willing to make exceptions. That he mentions wanting to help children in poverty further supports that he's being intellectually honest.

Being intellectually honest doesn't mean that you're right though.

I just noticed emily's comment: I almost prefer this to the "abortion is only okay if it was rape" people. At least these people are committed to believing that the fetus involved is a living thing that didn't do anything wrong; the people who are willing to allow abortion in the case of rape but for no other reason are clearly just interested in punishing sexually active women for being sexually active, and are using the fetus as a means to that end.

That's even more disgusting. At least this is somewhat consistent.

(Even if I find it abhorrent, I can recognize internal consistency.)

Absolutely.

So now we have a politician who says that and everyone gets all upset. Hum....

Come on, now.
1. A lot of people on here are very pro-choice, so it shouldn't really be a surprise that a lot of people react negatively to the idea that rape and incest victims should be forced to give birth.
2. Emily pointed out that she finds this guy less offensive than the rape-exception pro-lifers, and I agree with her.

What, did you think that someone like me, who is pretty strongly pro-choice, is suddenly going to go "Oh, wow, that guy is logically consistent in his pro-life attitude, I guess I can stop being pro-choice now"?

Well, there are a LOT of pro-lifers who are attacked for having the audacity to sympathise with rape victims, who don't even have the chance to use birth control, to abstain, to use more methods of birth control, or to choose the potential father.

THAT is completely bullshit. Nobody on here is attacking pro-lifers for having the "audacity to sympathise with rape victims." People get upset because a lot of "pro-lifers" make it crystal clear that what they really are, is anti-woman. It's not the sympathy for rape victims that gets people, it's the lack of sympathy for other women that riles us up.

So it really gets me when you attack people who take a consistent position.

Consistent != right

In short: you get one or the other, not both. Attack pro-lifers like Brownback for not having enough sympathy for rape victims, or attack inconsistent pro-lifers, but not both.

You'll pardon me if I form my own opinions about what I will and will not criticize. Brownback is logically consistent, and like Emily said, I find that less offensive than people who claim it's all about the innocent babies but then make exceptions for women who aren't "sluts," but that doesn't mean that his position is the right one, and I'm absolutely going to criticize him for it.

"In short: you get one or the other, not both. Attack pro-lifers like Brownback for not having enough sympathy for rape victims, or attack inconsistent pro-lifers, but not both."

Why is it either/or? Why is there no both/and option?
I think that all people who are anti-abortion can be criticized for not respecting a woman's right to bodily autonomy and for not respecting her, her family and her doctor's right to make the right decision for her life and her health.

So-called "consistent" anti-abortion advocates can be cricized for not having compassion for rape and child molestation victims (or saying Jesus/God causes rapes/molestations to occur), like you say.

But so-called "inconsistent" anti-abortion advocates can equally be criticized for obviously wanting to stigmatize, control and punish sexually active women (because they do not value the conceptions that are a result of rape equally with those that were conceived through consensual sex, so they can't make a claim that "all human life is sacred" like the "consistent" position).

The criticisms of the positions are different, but they in no way contradict each other.

Brownback is logically consistent, and like Emily said, I find that less offensive than people who claim it's all about the innocent babies but then make exceptions for women who aren't "sluts," but that doesn't mean that his position is the right one, and I'm absolutely going to criticize him for it.

Oh heck yes. I find it LESS offensive, mostly because it shows that he doesn't want to punish all those slutty little girls who open their legs, but that doesn't mean that I think he's right or that I don't secretly wish I could shut him up with the nearest blunt instrument.

Wanting to force a woman to go through a painful and often dangerous medical condition because you believe something that science doesn't agree with about what's inside her is horrifying, disgusting, and makes me sick.

But I get made more sick when the rationale behind it is because the woman in question had sex, and you think That's Wrong.

ahhh i missed it Cara thanks. and yes, samhita was right for not posting it, it made me sick.

I agree that intellectual consistency is a good thing. But is he for comprehensive sex ed? Is he for EC? I dont know the answers to these questions but if the answer is yes THEN he is intellectually consistent in my book. If not hes just another pro life douche who thinks he can speak for a woman.

To be fair, almost every h-core prolifer would love to not have a rape/incest provision, it's just politically unfeasible.

I at least give Brownback points for:

1) Telling his true position (a child is a life, because God says so).

2) Including the "whole life" thing.

Not that I agree with him, but I think it would be more constructive to have an honest debate with the pro-life side, rather than have them sneak around and restrict Roe v. Wade to death.

Remember, if we get pro-lifers who actually say their position loud and proud, the public is on our side.

I agree with roymac!!! and emily about the fact the position in general in more consistent.
But Brownback himself is not consistently concerned about fetal life, as Kwan Yin said (after posting that Koch --a major polluter--funded Brownback:

"Obviously, Brownback doesn’t care about the fetuses that are stillborn because of Koch’s benzene emissions, only aborted fetuses. Why aren’t the fetuses dying of Koch’s environmental toxins worthy of saving/ seen as “children of god?�

So, no I would not say his is a "consistent" position because he doesn't care about WANTED fetuses that are miscarried or stillborn because of environmental pollution.
It is just about money/power for him.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

IMO, his position IS right.

You attack one group on the grounds of being logically inconsistent, but you don't like the people who ARE logically consistent. Not my issue that y'all are just silly people.

1. A lot of people on here are very pro-choice, so it shouldn't really be a surprise that a lot of people react negatively to the idea that rape and incest victims should be forced to give birth.

See the inconsistency there? You hate pro-lifers who want to "force" rape victims to give birth, but you hate pro-lifers who don't want to force rape victims to give birth. What argument are you using? "I don't like A, but if you do B, you're being mean."

It's just foolish, that's all.

It's not the sympathy for rape victims that gets people, it's the lack of sympathy for other women that riles us up.

Um, so I'm supposed to have more sympathy for the person who could have prevented the situation than the one she's trying to kill? It's not about lack of sympathy, it's just about thinking that her proposed solution sucks.

It's not at all inconsistent to dislike all people who want to make ANY woman give birth. I can dislike the nuances of their opinions for different reasons. But in the end, it comes down to me having an incredibly strong dislike for people who want to force women to carry pregnancies to term and give birth to babies that THEY DON'T WANT. No matter what the circumstances.

Wow, is it safe to say pro-lifers are simply all about "We do things MY way, or Im going to throw a tantrum".

I would have though people would run out of steam trying to get everyone to do everything in accordance with their wishes.

And there I was thinking we had "god given free will". *smacks head*

From the Rolling Stone Article to this clip this guy is a total tool.

What I'd like to have brought up is whether or not this guy thinks rape and incest are legitimate ways of creating life. As someone over at Pandagon pointed out, he'd *probably* be singing a different tune if it was his wife who was raped and he would be forced to care for another man's offspring (I'm saying this because the word "adoption" never came out of his mouth).

This just reminds me of the times when Pro-Lifers bring out the kids/adults who were the result of rape to speak about how merciful their mothers were in choosing to have them, as if they would say anything else.

I'm all for choice but I hate it when they have the, "well my mother had me and I turned out great! so you should too!" speeches.

Let's just hope he doesn't make it through the primaries.

"IMO, his position IS right."

oenophile, you have posted before that you supported early abortions in cases of molestation of young girls, so that would make you one who takes the more "logically inconsistent" position, at least in terms of law.

And I don't think it is "silly" or "foolish" to think that the fact that "women should be forced to give birth to every pregnancy because all sexual acts (including rape) are the will of god" is a questionable idea.

The very fact there is rape and sexual coercion show that all conceptions are not "conceived God's love." It is equally logically consistent to conclude that if abortion in the case of rape is acceptable that other abortions in other contexts could be acceptable to (be pro-choice).

"You hate pro-lifers who want to "force" rape victims to give birth, but you hate pro-lifers who don't want to force rape victims to give birth."

1-I don't hate anyone (not even Brownback) and never said I did.
2-sure the "inconsistent" anti-abortion advocates don't want to force rape victims to give birth, but they do want to force OTHER WOMEN, too.

I am against "forced birth" in other cases (health or life in danger, etc.) as well.

"What argument are you using? "I don't like A, but if you do B, you're being mean."

As I said, I think women have a right to bodily autonomy and I don't that the government is in a position to judge who was raped or who "deserves" to get an abortion, so I say let's trust women and leave it up to them.

While the emotional arguments for abortion in the cases of rape or incest might seem compelling at first, the fact of the matter remains that abortion doesn't bring the father to justice. It seimply takes the life of one innocent victim (the baby) and further burdens the life of the other innocent victim (the mother). It is a strange logic that would have us kill an innocent unborn baby for the crime of his father.
I've heard several people speak who were born to mothers who had been raped. I believe that God can use ANYTHING to bring about good. As Feminists For Life says, "Women who experience unplanned pregnancies deserve to experience unplanned joy." I think this is the case for rape victimes and victimes of incest.

IMO, his position IS right.

That blatantly contradicts things you've said on here before. You have made it very explicit that you oppose abortion, but you make exceptions for rape victims.

You attack one group on the grounds of being logically inconsistent, but you don't like the people who ARE logically consistent. Not my issue that y'all are just silly people.

If you think that the only thing I dislike about pro-life-with-exception people is that they're inconsistent, you're a lot worse than silly. The inconsistency makes it clear to me that they're liars when they say it's about the innocent baby, and that what they really mean is that it's about punishing women. I find that position absolutely horrific. Just because Brownback is consistent doesn't mean that I agree with his position. Otherwise I'd be anti-choice, like he is. I'm pro-choice. My position is also consistent.

Your attempts to reduce this to an absurd level and to intentionally misrepresent the actually disagreement is rather... well... silly.

See the inconsistency there? You hate pro-lifers who want to "force" rape victims to give birth, but you hate pro-lifers who don't want to force rape victims to give birth. What argument are you using? "I don't like A, but if you do B, you're being mean."

No, actually, I don't see any inconsitency. What I see is "I don't think it's right to force women to give birth." Pretty fucking consistent, if you ask me.

I suppose it might be rather clearly stated that I hate the pro-life position, regardless of how consistent it is, but I even more strongly hate logically inconsistent pro-lifers, because I tend to think that they're liars and slut-shamers.

Um, so I'm supposed to have more sympathy for the person who could have prevented the situation than the one she's trying to kill? It's not about lack of sympathy, it's just about thinking that her proposed solution sucks.

You can have as or as little sympathy as you want, but when you try to force women to give birth, I think that makes your position wrong.

See, very simple.

"I've never met a conservative who approves of cosmetic surgery for its own sake. It's not a double standard if different people approve of it."

I guess you've never noticed that strip clubs are the most popular businesses in military-base areas? Have you ever been to Orange County? I can't even tell you how many anti-choice, Jesus-loving, fake breasted, botoxed trophy wives you'll see. (No offense to the many, many awesome people who live there, though.)

Pro-Life And Proud is obviously not very familiar with the Bible to say that:

"It is a strange logic that would have us kill an innocent unborn baby for the crime of his father."

What about the Garden of Eden/original sin? What about :

"Make ready to slaughter his sons for the guilt of their fathers; Lest they rise and posses the earth, and fill the breadth of the world with tyrants." (Isaiah 14:21 NAB)

"The glory of Israel will fly away like a bird, for your children will die at birth or perish in the womb or never even be conceived. Even if your children do survive to grow up, I will take them from you. It will be a terrible day when I turn away and leave you alone. I have watched Israel become as beautiful and pleasant as Tyre. But now Israel will bring out her children to be slaughtered." O LORD, what should I request for your people? I will ask for wombs that don't give birth and breasts that give no milk. The LORD says, "All their wickedness began at Gilgal; there I began to hate them. I will drive them from my land because of their evil actions. I will love them no more because all their leaders are rebels. The people of Israel are stricken. Their roots are dried up; they will bear no more fruit. And if they give birth, I will slaughter their beloved children." (Hosea 9:11-16 NLT)

"If even then you remain hostile toward me and refuse to obey, I will inflict you with seven more disasters for your sins. I will release wild animals that will kill your children and destroy your cattle, so your numbers will dwindle and your roads will be deserted." (Leviticus 26:21-22 NLT)

"Anyone who is captured will be run through with a sword. Their little children will be dashed to death right before their eyes. Their homes will be sacked and their wives raped by the attacking hordes. For I will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and no amount of silver or gold will buy them off. The attacking armies will shoot down the young people with arrows. They will have no mercy on helpless babies and will show no compassion for the children." (Isaiah 13:15-18 NLT)

Etc? Sheesh.

UltraMagnus wrote:
he'd *probably* be singing a different tune if...he would be forced to care for another man's offspring (I'm saying this because the word "adoption" never came out of his mouth).

Actually, Senator Brownback has five children, two of whom are adopted, one from Guatamala and one from China.

caiis, you win the Cara's Favorite Person of the Day Award.
[a very prestigious honor, as I'm sure you're aware :)]

Thanks! That means a lot. :)

Pro-Life and Proud, if you can't see the difference between making a conscious choice of your own free will to raise a stranger's child and being forced to make the "choice" to care for the child of the man who raped your wife, you are even more delusional than you originally appear.

The inconsistency makes it clear to me that they're liars when they say it's about the innocent baby, and that what they really mean is that it's about punishing women.

Nicely said. As a woman, I find it much more insulting when pro-life activists start talking about who is "deserving" (to use caiis's phrase) of an abortion, than when they are talking about the issue of fetal rights.

If the issue is "when does life begin?" I can disagree with those who believe that full human life begins at conception, but respect that they believe otherwise. I understand that this is a knotty moral issue. I also think it has huge implications for women's human rights that I am not sure how we address (and I don't trust most pro-lifers to adequately address them). But still, I would be willing to sit down and talk about the beginning-of-life issue and its implications for policy.

If, on the other hand, people start saying, "well, but if someone is raped," then it stops being about the life of the fetus and returns to the character of the pregnant woman and what she did or didn't do to become pregnant.

I don't think how women get pregnant is really relevant to their access to abortion or other health services (such as prenatal care!). Women should be able to trust that, no matter what shit happens in their lives, they will not have their right to make basic reproductive decisions taken out of their hands.

"I believe that God can use ANYTHING to bring about good."

Even an abortion?

"Women who experience unplanned pregnancies deserve to experience unplanned joy."

I agree. They need the freedom to experience the unplanned joy of not being forced to birth something they don't want.

It unburdens them, not burdens them further.

Repeat what Cara said. There's a big difference.

trying to force women to give birth.

I LOVE IT!!!!!!

It's the typical pro-choice propaganda, all dressed up to play. It's analogy time!

Sexual expression is a great thing, right? I mean, you would throw a fit and a half if I were to suggest that well over 90% of women who are pregnant and don't want to be could have abstained. So sexuality is part of human life that is pretty fundamental, right?

So why not let men date rape women? I mean, if a guy can't have any other options for sex, why can't he get a girl a little drunk and make her do something she'll regret? After all, he has a right to experience life as a sexual being. Are anti-rapists "forcing abstinence" on unwilling men?

:) :) :)

Don't ya just hate when people take your stance to its logical conclusion and it looks awfully dreary? Pro-choice, pro-violence! :)

Or, as a society, do we say that we simply don't care why he would want to pressure her for sex, that we don't care why he can't get it from other routes, or whether or not we "trust him with the choice" to express his sexuality at his own will (because, after all, he's an adult!)- because we just don't do that to other humans. The solution isn't "rape" or "killing your child" to "I'm horny and no girl will have me" or "I'm pregnant and I don't want to be." No other options? Sounds like a personal problem - and it doesn't mean that you get to engage in the worst of crimes to remedy your situation.

Babe, it has nothing to do with "force." It has everything to do with not allowing someone to change the status quo because their suggestions for doing so really suck. We don't allow robbery of grocery stores because we are against "forced starvation," we don't allow embezzlement because we are against "forced poverty," we don't allow rape because we are against "forced celibacy," and we shouldn't allow abortion because we are against "forced birth."

Until the government runs around impregnating women, I don't want to hear it.

Just to let ya know, why not insert "killing babies" for any time you have "forced birth" and you'll start to see where we come from. :)

Oenophile: “Um, so I'm supposed to have more sympathy for the person who could have prevented the situation than the one she's trying to kill?�

Not necessarily more, just some. Maybe she was abused as a child and then gets in a consensual sexual relationship at age 12 without proper sex education or knowledge of birth control. Or maybe she is a victim of domestic violence and her partner refuses to use condoms and her birth control fails? What if she is so poor she can’t afford anything but condoms and one breaks?
Possibilities are endless. You could wait to pass judgment until you know more about the woman’s individual situation instead of assuming she is irresponsible and, well GUILTY just the having sex that got her pregnant.

This is sick and offensive on a feminist blog on a post about not allowing abortions for victims of rape, as well as the term "Babe":

"So why not let men date rape women? I mean, if a guy can't have any other options for sex, why can't he get a girl a little drunk and make her do something she'll regret?"

We don't let men do that for the same reason most of us are pro-choice, BECAUSE WE RESPECT A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO BODILY AUTONOMY, which is obviously something that you do not understand, oenophile. It is hard for me to understand how you consider yourself a feminist sometimes (other times it isn't).

And your "forced celibacy" argument is poor because men could 1-masturbate, 2-go to prostitutes, there is NO EXCUSE to rape and rape is not about "sexual frustration" or "forced celibacy" like you are claiming it is about a desire for power-over, domination, control. I don't see how as a woman (and reading some of your other posts) you could write some of the things you write.

Unless he is actually advocating charging women who have abortions with murder, I don't buy that he really thinks it's about saving the lives of innocent children.

This is how you can tell what it's really about. They want to punish the doctors who perform the abortions, not the women who pay for them. Do you think for one minute that if I hired a hitman to kill a child that the hitman would be prosecuted and I would be free to go on my merry way? Of course not. If they really thought it was murder they would prosecute both the doctor and the woman. So either A) they don't really think it's murder, they just want women to be the slut/sex/breeder class or B) they think women are too fucking stupid to be able to make an actual decision so we can't possibly be held responsible for our own actions.

Either way, assholes. All of them.

This puts Brownback in the very awkward position of believing that the reproductive rights of rapists are superior to those of their victims. 100% of the time, completely, totally, and without exception.

I'll give him a nod for consistency, but combined with his rejection of evolution, I can't see him winning a presidential election.

"Jesus chooses who gets raped"

That would be the single best reason I have ever heard to not only not worship Jesus, as he clearly doesn't deserve it, but to campaign actively and violently for the erasure of his religion from the earth.

Oenophile, you may not like the phrase "forced birth," but it is considerably more accurate than "killing babies." Pregnancy may be a natural consequence of sex, but so what? Having an astigmatism is natural as well, but I'm opposed to forcing people to endure lousy vision by not letting them have glasses. And yes, I have no problem with a starving person shoplifting some food from a grocery store.

So why not let men date rape women? I mean, if a guy can't have any other options for sex, why can't he get a girl a little drunk and make her do something she'll regret? After all, he has a right to experience life as a sexual being. Are anti-rapists "forcing abstinence" on unwilling men?

:) :) :)

Don't ya just hate when people take your stance to its logical conclusion and it looks awfully dreary? Pro-choice, pro-violence! :)

Honey, you and logic seem to have divorced each other a long fucking time ago.

The reason that a fetus does not have the rights of a person is because a fetus is not a person. Not until said fetus is born and becomes a baby.

Personal autonomy is a right given (yes, given) to people, not gonna-be-people, otherwise we'd all be in trouble for Onanism. Those naughty men, spilling their seed on the ground. How wasteful of them.

You quite clearly hate women. I'm so sorry for you. I'm so sorry.

(off subject)I would allow starving people to steal from grocery stores AND people in poverty to embezzle. The distribution of wealth in this country is disgusting.

Also, I don't see poverty as "personal problem," more like a societal problem -- just like an unwanted pregnancies (because why is the pregnancy unwanted: 1 she was raped? 2 she is poor? 3 the public realm career world continues to discriminate against women, especially mothers? 4 she lacked accurate knowledge of her body and birth control, etc.)

"Personal autonomy is a right given (yes, given) to people, not gonna-be-people, otherwise we'd all be in trouble for Onanism. Those naughty men, spilling their seed on the ground. How wasteful of them."

Yeah exactly! How many potential children have I murdered by my own base instincts and sin?!?!

Explain that to me pro-lifers. Or would you have to make a distinction between that and a fetus? Pretty similar to the one pro-choicers make between a fetus and a person?

I really, really wish that oenophile would get banned from this board. I can't even remember the last time we had a meaningful, FEMINIST discussion about abortion, thanks to her.

EG - no one sees anything morally wrong with getting a pair of glasses. That's where your analogies break down.

Emily, watch your language.

Cara - by "feminist," you mean "rabidly pro-choice," right? Because last time I checked, a LOT of feminists are pro-life. 88% of women call themselves feminists and 51% of women would restrict abortion to rape, incest, health, life, or even more severe restrictions than that.

If you can't deal with feminist pro-lifers, you (and Emily and whomever) have a problem.

BIOLOGICALLY the progeny of two humans is human. I want to know WHERE you get the idea, as fact, that you're not a person until birth. Lucky preemies - they get to be people earlier? Yeah, sorry, you can't just assert "you're not a person" like it's true.

Either that, or you're too naive to remember that once, married women weren't persons, either!

Yep, feminist and pro-life. Very little used to condone abortion that wasn't used to condone sexism. De-humanising the victim is the first step.

Explain that to me pro-lifers. Or would you have to make a distinction between that and a fetus? Pretty similar to the one pro-choicers make between a fetus and a person?

Since you flunked high school biology, a FETUS is a human - i.e the progeny of two humans. Sperm and egg are gametes and are NOT the progeny of humans.

I wish women's studies majors included a science requirement.....

oenophile, Im no biologist, but I was always under the impression that a fetus was an incomplete human. And my point was about the idea of "killing children", when Id say potential children. And I also wondered how far do you take that "potential"?

Still, I asked and you answered, in your usual imperious fucking tone. Really, I would have thought since you THINK youre so smart, you would tune it down a little. Still, in my eyes no matter how much sanctimonious shit you spout off, your still just some arrogant fuck trying to enforce your ideals on others.

oneophile, a feminist discussion of abortion would include discussion of WOMEN, where as you seem to only care about the ittsy bittsy cute little cluster of cells that we actually call an EMBRYO when most abortions are performed.

Where the hell did you get the figure that 88% of women would call themselves feminists? Because most women I know would call themselves feminists, and far fewer are what could be considered active feminists (i.e. read feminist writing, keep up to date with feminist news, fight for feminist goals through volunteer work, speak out against misogyny on a regular basis). Saying that one is a feminist does not make it so. I could call myself an "anarchist" because I don't like the fact the fact that I could go jail for breaking the law, or a "communist" because I think that corporations run off of an unfair system, but neither of those would be true.

And I sure as hell don't seem to be the only one who feels that way about your "contribution" to the discussions here. In either case, I'm going back to avoiding you.

1- I'd like to know where oenophile is getting her public opinion statistics.

2-"BIOLOGICALLY the progeny of two humans is human. I want to know WHERE you get the idea, as fact, that you're not a person until birth.

Well, being "human" is different than being a "person" philosophically. The whole concept of "rights" was designed for propertied, white men, excluding women, non-white men, children, fetuses, animals, etc. So yes, you are right that at one point women were not considered persons either.

But that being said I personally am a vegetarian and think factory farming/animal testing is an atrocity and am more concerned with the way animals are treated by humans than early abortions.

Heartless? No, it is the fact that animals are capable of taking care of themselves, feeling pain, love, fear and suffering and having relationships with other animals and humans whereas zygotes and embryos and fetuses (to a point) are not and do not.

Animals are not considered "persons" by traditional philosophy because they don't have a "complex" enough conciousness/aren't rational, etc.

It is on this same basis that fetuses would be philosophically denied personhood.

I personally would want the moral community we recognize to first include living animals (like Koko the gorilla who could speak in sign language) than a fertilized egg (potential person) that has been implanted for only few weeks and can't feel pain, isn't concious, etc.
That embryo is a potential person because it has the capacity to develop "complex" conciousness, but it doesn't have it yet.
I think of a fetus as an acorn and a person as an oak.
There is surely less of a moral implication to step on an acorn than to cut down an oak, because the acorn is just a potential oak.

BTW, I was a philosophy major and I think roymac was too.

*I apologize, that should say "most women I know would NOT call themselves feminists . . ."

"You quite clearly hate women. I'm so sorry for you. I'm so sorry."

Emily, you nailed it.

Cara, you're not the first person to express such a wish. No matter what is pointed out re: oenophile's decidedly anti-feminist (and frankly misogynist) language on a wide range of threads and topics ("bitch," "whore," "Babe," etc), he/she will always claim he/she is being picked on simply for being "pro-life." Never mind that just today, in the grafitti thread, he/she (whether deliberately or unwittingly) mocked the very core of feminism with his/her "big bad patriarchy" and *women who can't effect change have a "personal problem"* comments.

Yet, for reasons I can't quite fathom, possibly because once in a while he/she will chime in to agree with something being "sexist," or rape being *terrible* (duh), or perhaps merely for shock value, he/she has not yet been banned. Twisty did something interesting the other day, putting it to a vote among the readership whether a certain chronically smug, disingenuous, thread-derailing, 'I-won't-read- what-you've-written-and- just-incessantly-repeat-my-same-old-schtick', commentor should be banned. Wonder if that idea would ever catch on here.

When someone tries to ban abortions, what exactly are they trying to do?

Hrm. Oh!
Right!
They're trying to force women to give birth!

You can call it whatever you want, but that doesn't change the reality that this is exactly what pro-lifers want to do. They want to force women, against their will, to carry a pregnancy to term. Force. Birth. Two very important aspects of the pro-life position.

As far as your rape analogy... Jesus. You love to trot out the craziest and offensive ideas you can, don't you?

We've gone over this before, as I recall, but, fine. Whatever. Rape is one person forcing him or her self on another person.
Abortion is the ending of a fetus' life during the termination of a pregnancy. Note that the fetus is attached to the woman prior to her seeking an abortion. She's reacting to the fetus attaching itself to a part of her body. I've listed off the medical consequences that can be associated with pregnancy. You know the medical consequences of not raping someone?
Nothing.
Nadda.
Zip.

Don't ya just hate when people take your stance to its logical conclusion and it looks awfully dreary?

Nope. If you had actually taken my stance to the logical conclusion and it was something I couldn't accept, I'd be forced to reconsider my position. That's called intellectual honesty. If my position leads to consequences that I think are bad, I should reconsider my position.
Excepting, of course, that you took the pro-choice position to an idiotic and insane end that is neither logically consistent nor endorsed by any pro-choicer I've ever seen. No pro-choicer thinks that we have the right to force ourselves on other people. In fact, as I've pointed out dozens of times, I think, one of the very reasons that I support the right to abortion is because the fetus doesn't have a right to force itself upon the woman's body. No matter how unintentionally.
Every pro-lifer, on the other hand, thinks that women should be forced to give birth.

Babe, it has nothing to do with "force."

I'm not your "babe" and I'll kindly thank you not to call me such. We're not friends and we're not dating, so you don't get to call me pet names. Especially not in an effort to dismiss and demean me.

And, incidentally, yes. It has everything to do with force.

BIOLOGICALLY the progeny of two humans is human. I want to know WHERE you get the idea, as fact, that you're not a person until birth.

I know for a fact we've discussed this before. Person is not a biological status. A fetus is human. That doesn't make it a person. It's not that hard to understand.

Very little used to condone abortion that wasn't used to condone sexism.

Really? Because, it's weird, from my perspective: "Recognizing the rights of all people to control their own bodies, and not allowing other people to force themselves on you" doesn't really seem to be a justification for sexist behavior.

De-humanising the victim is the first step.

I'm not dehumanizing the fetus. The fetus is human. I don't care that it's human. It doesn't matter, because the fetus doesn't have rights to another person's body any more than you do. You can't force someone to let you use an organ or their blood, so the neither can the fetus.

I've got to say that, while I disagree with her ENTIRELY, I'm actually glad that Oenophile is part of the discussion. I'm pretty new to a lot of the arguments presented here, and I'm personally really glad to have it all hashed out. Most of the previous abortion rights talks I've been privy to have been various versions of "but it's a woman's right to choose" vs. "but it's baby killing" or "it's against god's will", and didn't really go into much detail beyond that. I appreciate her point of view, even if my personal ideology is entirely opposite -- and a great deal of my personal conviction on the subject has come from seeing informed discussions like this play out.

I'm also kind of glad she's here to spout such nonsense, just because then I get to read more of roymacIII's kickass responses.

"Consistent != right"

Exactly.

There are plenty of jerks out there who are consistently wrong about some non-sexual issue too, and I don't have to like them either.

"This just reminds me of the times when Pro-Lifers bring out the kids/adults who were the result of rape to speak about how merciful their mothers were in choosing to have them, as if they would say anything else."

Do any of them also go to rape trials on behalf of the defense, to speak about how merciful their fathers were in choosing to do what it took to conceive them...?

"Well, being 'human' is different than being a 'person' philosophically."

It's also different biologically. My liver is human and it's not a person. A tabby's claws are feline and they're not cats.

"Abortion is the ending of a fetus' life during the termination of a pregnancy. Note that the fetus is attached to the woman prior to her seeking an abortion."

It's a kind of amputation, not a kind of homicide.

"I've got to say that, while I disagree with her ENTIRELY, I'm actually glad that Oenophile is part of the discussion."

It's also kinda surreal to see all that tiny-fetuses-are-superior-to-people rhetoric coming from someone with a username that means "winelover." What about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? What about alcohol triggering miscarriage more often in the early stages (for example, when someone whose favorite birth control is premarital abstinence shares a bottle with her husband before she knows she's pregnant)?

Interesting point, Mina. Some states have taken away women's babies who used drugs, etc, and I think at least some anti-abortion/anti-women advocates would be anti-wine-drinking for fertile women who were sexually active.....

"Do any of them [people who were a product of rape] also go to rape trials on behalf of the defense, to speak about how merciful their fathers were in choosing to do what it took to conceive them...?"

Also a great point.

I'm really refreshed to see a feminist pro-lifer out there. Otherwise, the discussion would be somewhat like "preaching to the choir" and I can't see how that would really interest anybody.

Oenophile has been mostly rational thus far, using a plausible logic just like everyone else. So if you can't debate based on one system of rationality over the other, it would be really small to ban her for that. I don't understand why you wouldn't want to try--you have a common thread, interests of women, that you don't have with non feminist pro lifers. That should make it easier, and good practice for representing yourself to non feminists later. I don't see the thread derailed at all. On the contrary, she's spoken directly to it.

That said, being newer to the board, I haven't seen her connect the pro life position with one that empowers women. The rhetoric of "your choice sucks" doesn't really explain how limiting that choice would help women in general. So Oenophile, getting away from the rape situation for a moment back into what I would imagine to be more firm footing for a pro lifer, what is a woman, say, who get accidentally pregnant, maybe for the most banal reason...irresponsibly drunk one night, bad decision to not use protection with an inappropriate partner, and no lifestyle to support a pregnancy, let alone a baby (say she's a waitress or something else physical.) What, according to your feminist pro life logic, should that woman do that doesn't amount to punishing her and/or wrecking her life, at least in the short term? In this case, no one, including the woman, would say she didn't make a mistake. However, what does she do now that she's made it?

Obviously she'd have to have access to EC. But maybe she's in denial. Maybe she made a wrong choice to wait until she missed her period. Is there anything we can offer her that doesn't amount to a severe and enduring life problem when she finds out?

I can almost see where a feminist could be pro life. But almost means I still can't see it. I need to hear that feminist tell me what we do for that woman, and all those like her. So, please...take it away, Oenophile...and then maybe I can get back, intellectually, to the exceptions in this thread.

PS--The "babe" thing and rhetoric like it is pretty transparent and likely will get the reaction she intends it to. But here we have one person against many, so I can almost understand why she'd come out swinging. Swinging at people is not nice, though, and tends to reflect poorly on the swinger. Not speaking for her, but I bet she feels she doesn't have much to lose in alienating people who already don't like her around, so there's really no motive to stop swinging. In which case there's every motive for people who are swung at to not play into it.

Just wanted to say that Brownback being logically consistent in his views does not rule out the fact that his views are grounded in misognyistic feelings towards women. He may very well honestly believe that abortion is equivalent to murder, but anyone who truly believes in a fundamentalist christian worldview has to also feel that men are superior to women. It's almost always this way because of their strict interpretation of the Bible. (However, the one fact that they are so good at overlooking is that even what they call a strict interpretation of the Bible is in fact just that, an interpretation.)

Because of their biblical views, they hold the belief that men are the head of the household and are superior to women in a number of ways and so on and so forth. And from this will necessarily come a feeling of superiority towards women. Women become the "other" for these type of men and not someone that they can completely relate to. When this happens there's absolutely no reason why these type of men would support women's rights issues. They don't believe in equality between men and women, so they have no reason to support such things.

Now, I do think one can be a christian and be pro-choice, but I don't see how one can be a fundamentalist christian and be such because of what I stated above.

Therefore, my point is that Brownback's logically consistent statements do nothing to disprove that he is not interested in punishing or teaching women a lesson. Looking at him as a fundamentalist christian, I would say that this is indeed one of his goals.

The problem that I have with oenophile, sage, is the fact that this is a feminist board, where I feel that other feminists should feel safe to talk about their experiences-- particularly the often difficult experience of abortion. In this thread, oenophile has compared women who have abortions to rapists. In this thread she said that abortion is the "moral equivalent" of rape. In another thread which I don't remember the original topic of anymore (and to issue a full disclosure, I had a direct confrontation with her in this thread) she referred to abortion as the "height of all evil." I think that all of those things have derailed posts.

That is my problem. We live in a world that makes women look like monsters if they have an abortion. The feminist community is meant to be a mostly safe refuge for those women. Many of them are here. And comments such as these are not at all conducive to that kind of community.

I'm wondering where the "loving god" who created this "beautiful child" was when the mother was being terrorized and raped?

Sorry if someone else has already asked that.

Having caught up on the reading, I want to give props to EG and roymacIII for massively awesome posts.

That makes sense to me, Cara, for boards that are clearly stated to be support boards. This one seems more provocative than that, though.

If she does think abortion is like rape, how can she say it nicely? Her argument falls apart if someone else can shoot it full of holes, and people here have offered compelling counter points. This would seem to be the right strategy if one really wants an open discussion.

"Sorry if someone else has already asked that."

Erin, no apology needed - I'm sure the question has been asked many times before, but sadly I've never seen an answer.

I wonder... is it possible for a hypothetical future technology to serve as a substitute for abortion that would be acceptable given most "honest" pro-choice and pro-life positions?

Suppose that, some time in the future, someone invents a practical, safe, and inexpensive method of removing a live fetus, putting it into suspended animation for an indefinite period of time, and then implanting it into the uterus of another woman, where it then proceeds to gestate normally. If this technology actually existed, would it be acceptable to require that fetuses that a woman does not wish to carry to term be preserved instead of destroyed?

For the record, Doug (and everyone else)-- the vast majority of abortions take place before the fetus stage. Up until the 8th week of pregnancy, it is an embryo.

So Doug, your scenario presents many problems. Firstly, how would you preserve an embryo? Would the woman be required to wait until past the 8th week of pregnancy to remove the fetus [a completely unacceptable option]? and what exactly would we do with all of these babies once their born? Almost 25% of pregnancies in the US end in abortion. Where would you find all of these women to act as surrogate mothers? Not only is the technology at least decades and more likely over a century away, it would still not alleviate any of the social problems that make abortion necessary, and it would not make the adoption of all those children that would have resulted from the aborted embryo/fetus even close to possible.

Oh, and Sage-- I really don't have anything else to add to my position, so I think that we are going to have to respectfully agree to disagree.

Sorry, my terminology wasn't as accurate as it should have been. For the record, I intended for the hypothetical technology to work for any stage of pregnancy. Also, by hypothesis, the embryo/fetus could be preserved indefinitely - for decades, if necessary - at a very low cost.

I'm not saying that this is any kind of a realistic scenario outside of a science fiction story, just wondering if there is a conceivable technological fix to the perceived ethical problems of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, in the same way that vat-grown meat would be a technological solution to the perceived ethical problems of raising animals for food.

(Also, I didn't make a point of this before, but the person who gestates the embryo/fetus could be the same one that it was removed from, only years later. A person who does not want to become pregnant at 18 might be willing to have that baby at 30.)

But Doug S,

I think you would run into massive problems of too many babies without adequate resources to take care of them. Don't forget that overpopulation is becoming a problem in this country, and is already a huge problem worldwide.

Doug, I think we'll have basically eliminated unplanned pregnancy altogether by the time that day comes. When most men can get an easily reversible vasectomy under local anaesthesia with a $20 copay, when women can pick up emergency contraception for $5 at the local pharmacy, the demand for abortion will be so low that nobody will much care about the issue anymore.

That's why I tend to think that the big battle in reproductive rights right now may very well be EC, not abortion. If we can educate Americans about what it actually does, then increase its availability, then it will serve the goals of honest abortion opponents just as much as it serves ours. But finding an honest abortion opponent who knows what EC does and who is willing to stand up and promote it is very challenging.

Cheers,

TH

I notice how Pro-Life and Proud has not only a) dropped off into East Trollville, but b) refused to acknowledge the various bible quotes that advocate god killing fetuses and women, etc, for their fathers' perceived transgressions. It's my experience, when debating far too many religious people, that they either a) pretend that I am making up the quotes and demand proof; or b)refuse to acknowledge them at all and avoid the topic; or c) say, essentially, "Well, Jesus came and abolished all that, now we live under Grace." You know, God *used* to advocate serial killing and revenge killing, and rape as spoils of war, and all that stuff, but he doesn't now. That's all so 2000 years ago! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain ...

So, Pro-Life and Proud (I dunno why, your position is morally reprehensible), if you're still around, care to comment on that stuff?

Re abortion and vegetarianism (I just now came back to read this thread): I will say that my pro-choice activism last summer directly contributed to my decision to give up vegetarianism.

From a bioethical perspective, mammals have neocortices and fetuses, up until 23 weeks or so, do not. So from the cold perspective of neurology, having a 20-week abortion might be slightly less morally problematic than eating a cheeseburger.

There are, of course, other elements to abortion that prevent us from being so glib, such as the presence of new human DNA. But if pro-lifers were doing their job as pro-lifers by making it easier for women to "choose life," and not just making themselves pawns for slick professional politicians who, I promise you, don't really give a crap about fetuses, abortion would be extremely rare.

Cheers,

TH

I appreciate her point of view, even if my personal ideology is entirely opposite -- and a great deal of my personal conviction on the subject has come from seeing informed discussions like this play out.

I just want to second (or third) the position that--while many of us strongly disagree with her--it's not fair to call for oenophile to be banned from this site. Her arguments can sometimes come across as rude, dismissive, or angry--but other participants on feministing use similar language and tone when writing here. It's upsetting because she doesn't agree with the majority, but I don't think it's out of line. I see her engaging on a wide variety of topics; she clearly reads the content of the posts and comments, and takes the time to respond. She's not simply posting offensive insults or pictures of aborted fetuses as a form of harassment (as some posters have obviously done in recent days).

If you think she has been inappropriately rude or condescending, call her on it (as people usually do) or choose to ignore it.

We live in a world that makes women look like monsters if they have an abortion. The feminist community is meant to be a mostly safe refuge for those women

I understand this perspective Cara . . . but I don't see that oenophile is irreparably compromising that community. Clearly, the majority of posters on this site are pro-choice and articulate a nuanced understanding of the lives of women facing unplanned pregnancies--often because we have been those women ourselves. I don't see what oenophile has to say changing that. In fact, it seems to me that she often pushes us to be more firmly articulate about of pro-choice position.

I stand fully behind what I said, but I really don't see a point in arguing about it.

I would just like to say, though, that I think we're operating under a double-standard. If someone went around on this board constantly calling black people "lazy" (or your pick of any other common, highly offensive stereotype) there would be an uproar, and I would hope that person would be banned. However, when someone repeatedly calls women who have abortions "selfish" and "irresponsible" (which oenophile has done on many ocassions, though I'm not sure it happened on this thread), nothing. Why? Of course all of us have the legal right to voice any of those views, but on any board I think the moderators have a right and responsibility to decide what they do and do not think is acceptable for their private forum. Can we agree that my first example would not be acceptable here? And if so, why do we accept the latter?

Also, Doug: I'm sorry if my embryo vs. fetus distinction came off as rude or testy. This thread had put me in a bad mood last night, and I was feeling defensive. I apologize if I took that out on you at all.

Cara,

I don't mean to be combative with you about this. I'm fairly new to the blogosphere and the issue of how to moderate on-line discussions. So I am trying to sort out what is "out of line" versus what's just upsetting personally because I disagree with it. Your points are all important ones and you're pushing me to think about this issue.

Got to run, but thanks for the thoughts.

No hard feelings, Anna. I'm relatively new to the blogosphere, as well :)

There was a recent case in England, I believe, involving a woman who had eggs removed and fertilized by her partner before she underwent chemotherapy that rendered her infertile. Afterwards she and her boyfriend or husband broke up. She, having a fervent desire to bear a child, was ready to use her stored fertilized eggs, when her ex insisted that they be destroyed. the court case and appeals found for the ex because he could not be forced to be a father, So this woman will never be able to give birth to a child.

So, for those who treasure consistency above all else, what do we conclude from this? These were FERTILIZED eggs with a mother willing to give birth, but the man's right NOT to become a father trumped her desire to be a mother of these little potential humans.

Are the politics of gender really not apparent? ugh.

Personally, I love it when we have disagreements on the abortion topics. It helps me to fine tune my arguments, hear new ones and it solidifies my pro choice position because it reminds me of what is at stake if we stop fighting for our right to choose. So, Oenophile is actually helping me to be stronger in my pro choice convictions.

Wow, Grace, I'm definitely going to google that news item...that could be a powerful case to cite in all manner of reproductive rights arguments.

Since I chimed in with Cara earlier, I don't want to leave her to be the lone voice re: Oenophile's conduct. I've been reading feministing for about a year now, and many folks (myself absolutely included) can get snarky, defensive, and rude at times - so O is not by any means the only offender there. (Also, full disclosure, he/she and I have had it out on a number of occasions before.) However I've never seen anyone else angrily address other commentors as "bitch" or use phrases like "black whore", as O did in the Duke thread, or consistently use disparaging terms like "honey," "baby,"
"darling," and the like when challenged intellectually (and sure, sage, I can UNDERSTAND it, but that doesn't mean I would permit it if it were my choice). Maybe if I was in the right mood, the latter would just strike me as comical (or desperate and thus empathy-inspiring), but sometimes when in a different mood it simply feels offensive and all too reminiscent of my other everyday experiences.

Further, while it would ABSOLUTELY be valuable to engage and dialogue with a pro-life *feminist*, I'll speak for myself only in saying I'm not super convinced that's what's happening here. Not that only feminists should be allowed to join the discussion, but posing as one sometimes and then erratically revealing contradictory, anti-feminist sentiments at other times makes things feel unsure.

I definitely agree that dissenting viewpoints facilitate honing one's own arguments and can spark something very lively and valuable (and do result in fabulous roymac posts!). I guess I've just seen enough threads of this nature to be able to recognize and even predict verbatim how some of Oenophile's arguments will proceed. On matters of abortion, for example, said arguments seem to always come back to the person/human/non-human distinction(sometimes with frog or puppy references thrown in for good measure!) and a consistent (deliberate?) misreading of, and perseverating on, others' choice of terms. And over in the graffitti thread I had a chuckle to see some variation of the old, *you're illogical* , and then some derivative of the classic *You lost, I won!*. (Literally saying to another commentor...*you lost, and you lost hard.*) Just to name a couple of examples from the last 48 hours.

So, I'm no angel myself, and props to whatever people feel enriches the board, but for my part Oenophile's role in doing so gets a shrug at best, and some of his/her language really has crossed a line for me.

I'm sorry, Grace, but I'm not really sure what you're getting at?

1. I don't see that anyone on here has claimed to treasure consistency above all else. I think that consistency is important, and I think that lack of consistency often shows intellectual dishonesty, but the fact that Brownback is consistent doesn't mean I agree with him.
2. I'm not sure how you're tying that particular case in with the consistency argument. I'm sick, so maybe I'm just missing it, but could you clarify what you mean, please?

Charity--Here is a link to the case of Natallie Evans and the European Court of Human Rights decision.

http://www.irwinmitchell.com/PressOffice/PressReleases/European-Court-of-Human-Rights-Refuses-Natallie-Evans-the-Right-to-Use-Her-Frozen-Embryos.htm

Tom: "my pro-choice activism last summer directly contributed to my decision to give up vegetarianism."

(off topic) I am confused as to why being pro-choice would influence you to NOT be a vegetarian, considering that you go on to say:

"From a bioethical perspective, mammals have neocortices and fetuses, up until 23 weeks or so, do not. So from the cold perspective of neurology, having a 20-week abortion might be slightly less morally problematic than eating a cheeseburger.

That was the same point I was making and I think we agree. I said:

"I personally am a vegetarian and think factory farming/animal testing is an atrocity and am more concerned with the way animals are treated by humans than early abortions.

Heartless? No, it is the fact that animals are capable of taking care of themselves, feeling pain, love, fear and suffering and having relationships with other animals and humans whereas zygotes and embryos and fetuses (to a point) are not and do not."

Animals in factory farms exist in horrible, sickening conditions (as do animals which are tested on)and the existence of factory farms/slaughterhouse is also dehumanizing for the workers (who are mainly women, immigrants, non-white people, etc who have the highest worker turnover rate and highest injury rate of any job).
Factory farming/eating meat also ruins the environment, is bad for people's health, etc. . .the reasons to stop eating it (at least factory farmed meat) are infinite.

"..other elements to abortion that prevent us from being so glib, such as the presence of new human DNA."

So I looked up glib, and were you trying to be insulting?

Glib: "marked by lack of intellectual depth"

So I have a "marked lack of intellectual depth" for caring about fully alive animals (that I can interact with and can look me in the eye) versus fertilized eggs that don't implant half the time and zygotes that are miscarried one third of the time?

I don't really care if ther is "new human DNA," especially if half belongs to a rapist. I care way more about living humans and animals that can feel pain.

roymacIII-- My remark on consistency is probably irrelevant.

My point is that pro life proponents insist that not to allow an embryo to be born is "killing the unborn" and that women do not have a choice in the matter. But In the case of Natallie Evans, she is not being allowed to give birth to her embryo, because her ex has chosen not to be a father.

I would think that pro-lifers would be out in droves to make a case to force the ex to be a father so that this potential life could be born, but I have heard of no such outcry.

My point is that the politics of abortion is not about the preciousness of each human life, potential or otherwise, but about the control of women and women's bodies. No new news, I realize.

Abortion was not outlawed in the states until the end of the 19th century. It had been a private matter between a woman and her midwife. Only with the pathologizing of the female body and the rise of the male medical establishment, which saw midwives as major competitors, did the newly formed AMA begin a concerted effort to marginalize midwifery and ban abortion. Churches came on board rather late in the game and weren't much interested in the issue initially. The history of abortion is a history of a battle over women's bodies in a commercial medical context; it was not about the preciousness of human life. And it was a battle waged when the first wave suffrage movement was at its strongest, so there was additional need for reasserting control over 'unruly' females.

gender switches always catch inconsistencies in articulated rationales (as opposed to the real ones). In the Natallie Evans case, embryos will be destroyed because a man can't be forced to be a father. We 2nd wavers had a 'joke:' If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

Related to Grace's comment, Ricki Solinger's book Pregnancy and Power: A Short History of Reproductive Politics in America is a GREAT book about . . . well, the history of reproductive politics in America!

"My point is that the politics of abortion is not about the preciousness of each human life, potential or otherwise, but about the control of women and women's bodies."

Grace, I read the article you posted and I am in complete agreement with your point. It is funny how when the tables are turned the truth becomes clear (rulings in the US, for example, found that a man did not have to give a kidney to his child, even if the child would die, because it violated the father's "right to bodily integrity"). Funny how the embryo/fetus's "right to life" overrules a pregnant woman's "right to bodily integity," but a living child's "right to life" can't overrule a father's.

Thanks for the link Grace. And to add to the reading list, if you can stomach it:

http://anthro.rutgers.edu/faculty/tiger/publications/declineofmales.html

In case there's any doubt that women's control over their own bodies really IS considered threatening by a certain subset of men (and women)...here they come out and say so!

Thanks for the clarification, Grace!

I absolutely agree with you here: gender switches always catch inconsistencies in articulated rationales (as opposed to the real ones).

"...I'm not saying that this is any kind of a realistic scenario outside of a science fiction story, just wondering if there is a conceivable technological fix to the perceived ethical problems of dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, in the same way that vat-grown meat would be a technological solution to the perceived ethical problems of raising animals for food...

Speaking of vat-grown food, you might like these links:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4148164.stm
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2005/09/68888

"...(Also, I didn't make a point of this before, but the person who gestates the embryo/fetus could be the same one that it was removed from, only years later. A person who does not want to become pregnant at 18 might be willing to have that baby at 30.)"

Now what about a person who does not want to become pregnant at 45, dropped her birth control because she didn't realize she wasn't quite menopausal yet, and was willing to have a baby at 30?

Since you mentioned science fiction, time machines could make the fetal transfers even more useful.

"Maybe if I was in the right mood, the latter would just strike me as comical (or desperate and thus empathy-inspiring), but sometimes when in a different mood it simply feels offensive and all too reminiscent of my other everyday experiences."

Sometimes I wonder if she's posting under the influence.

That's an interesting thought, Mina. (I'm hoping you meant O and not me...)

In closing, just wanted to say the phrase "vat-grown meat" is one that will be burned into my brain for quite some time.

OK, can I go off on a tangent that I think is kind of interesting? Renaissance woodcuts of the garden of Eden often showed meat trees, with legs of lamb, sides of beef, etc. growing on trees, because the idea was that before the fall, every good thing was provided for us without the horror of death and suffering. Plus ca change...

"That's an interesting thought, Mina. (I'm hoping you meant O and not me...)"

Aw, I didn't mean you! :)

"In closing, just wanted to say the phrase 'vat-grown meat' is one that will be burned into my brain for quite some time."

"We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."

- Winston Churchill, in the article "Fifty Years Hence" in _Popular Mechanics_, 1932.

Oenophile, if you hit me with your car and as a result my kidney is destroyed, can I have your kidney?

I mean, if you think the only consideration is that the fetus is human or not, and not that it is FEEDING ON ANOTHER HUMAN LIFE, deforming her organs, taking her food, and colonizing her body with its hormones in order to improve its own health outcomes, then I can have your kidney if you hit my car and destroy mine. Even if I suddenly pulled out in front of you and it's not your fault, because hey, you took the risk of hurting someone else the moment you got in the car, and if you end up in a situation where you need to sacrifice your biological sovereignty to keep another human alive because of your actions, well, I think the law should compel you to do it. It doesn't matter if you have six kids to support and losing your kidney would be a financial hardship that could destroy your life (say, because you have a job like police officer that you can only hold with two healthy kidneys...) You still need to give me your kidney, because by your actions I will die without a kidney.

Or, you could acknowledge that just because a being is human does not give them the right to take over another person's organs for their own survival, even if they are in that situation because of that person's actions. If my three-year-old needed to be surgically grafted to my body and hooked to my circulatory system because his heart failed, or he would die, I have the legal right to say no. Even though he's my baby. I do not legally have to give him my blood, my kidney, or any other part of my body, even if he will die without it. So why must I give the use of my body over to a baby just because I had sex?

It's irrelevant that the fetus is human. What is relevant is that the fetus is living parasitically inside another human, and no one has the right to be a parasite. You cannot feed on another human being or use their organs without their permission. And having sex does not grant said permission any more than getting into a car and driving it grants permission to have your kidney taken if someone you hit needs a kidney.

Having babies destroyed my body. It is a sacrifice I willingly made because I wanted babies. The idea that I or any other woman could be forced to make that sacrifice just because we had sex cheapens motherhood and makes a mockery of mothers' sacrifices.

BTW, Doug, regarding the artificial wombs or stasis -- YES, absolutely, if we had the technology to safely remove an embryo from a woman's body and put it in stasis until she or another woman could gestate it, and this was as safe as or safer than abortion, I would totally agree that abortion should be illegal. The whole point to abortion is that it prevents a woman from having to have an unwanted living being inside her body. If we could justify abortion by saying "It would overpopulate the Earth", then we could justify infanticide; the *only* justification for abortion is that no one can be compelled to bear a child against their will, and if there were a way to accomplish that without killing the fetus, then great. I'd also support outlawing the killing of animals for meat if we could grow meat in vats. Unfortunately we aren't there yet in either case, but I do have confidence that someday we will have this technology.

Tom-

See this thread for others commenters posting that the "humanness" of an embryo does not make it more morally valuable than living animals (or at least groups of animals).

http://feministing.com/archives/006950.html#comments

"If we could justify abortion by saying "It would overpopulate the Earth", then we could justify infanticide"

I strongly disagree on this point. A baby may be considered a person. A fetus is not a person, especially embryos and early-term fetuses, but personally I would say all fetuses are not yet persons. That being said, without trying to justify infanticide many people die every day because of overpopulation and limited resources or disease. How do you decide what's right?

"I'd also support outlawing the killing of animals for meat if we could grow meat in vats. "

You know, when animal populations become too dense it results in disease and all other kinds of problems for the animals themselves. The deer and elk populations in the western United States are a great example. They used to have predators, but now their only predators are humans.

I loved your car/kidney analogy AlaraJRogers, but I agree with Ninapendamaishi on the point that abortion for whatever reason doesn't justify infanticide, because of the personhood issue.

"The whole point to abortion is that it prevents a woman from having to have an unwanted living being inside her body."

I don't know if I would agree with this either. Sometimes, especially in cases of rape and incest the woman would prefer to not have her genes past on in that "life," combined with her violator's, especially if there is a chance that the child could then find her and ask her why she didn't carry the egg/raise it herself.

"BTW, Doug, regarding the artificial wombs or stasis -- YES, absolutely, if we had the technology to safely remove an embryo from a woman's body and put it in stasis until she or another woman could gestate it, and this was as safe as or safer than abortion, I would totally agree that abortion should be illegal."

Now I wonder how the issue of unwanted pregnancy would be treated if the dominant sapient species on Earth was marsupial instead of placental.

"I loved your car/kidney analogy AlaraJRogers, but I agree with Ninapendamaishi on the point that abortion for whatever reason doesn't justify infanticide, because of the personhood issue."

Me three.

"the *only* justification for abortion is that no one can be compelled to bear a child against their will"

As I said in my last post, could a justification (especially for a rape/incest victim) be that they didn't not want to be forced to procreate, not necessarily "bear a child"?

Judging from that frozen embryo case cited above, it sure could be a justification.

Good point, EG.

"As I said in my last post, could a justification (especially for a rape/incest victim) be that they didn't not want to be forced to procreate, not necessarily "bear a child"?"

Great point, caiis.

And there's also the issue of fetal deformities. A lot of women choose to abort defective fetuses not only because they don't want to carry it to term, but also because they don't want to bring a child into the world who would only suffer.

Also, a lot of women choose abortion over adoption, not only because they don't want to continue the pregnancy, but because they also don't like the idea of having a child out there living in foster care or with a stranger. Personally, I would much rather just not bring a child into the world than know that I brought a child into the world and stuck it in foster care (of course, there are lots of great foster parents out there and many children who grew up in foster care who are wonderful, productive human beings. I'm not saying those people shouldn't have been born, or that they would have been better off that way, only that it should be a choice a woman gets to make).

And then there's the issue I already mentioned: who would care for all of these children?

Yeah, I thought about fetal abnormalities, too, Cara.
Your points were great as well. :)

A baby may be considered a person. A fetus is not a person, especially embryos and early-term fetuses, but personally I would say all fetuses are not yet persons.

Hmm. This is a pretty interesting topic. On what grounds do you think that a baby is a person, but not a late term fetus? Is it the process of being born? Or something else? Honestly, I don't think of babies as being people, either. I'm not exactly sure where the line between person and non-person is, but it seems to me that there's nothing about being born that makes one a person. I don't think that it's a justification for infanticide, though, because once the baby is born, it's no longer existing as a parasite, using the woman's body. Abortion is about ending a pregnancy (regardless of the reasons why). Once the child is born, it's no longer about pregnancy.

I have to say, I tend to agree with the statement that abortion is a right because the woman has a right to control the use of her body- that is, her right is not to be pregnant, not necessarily to kill the fetus. The death of the fetus is an unavoidable consequence of abortion, as it stands.

If the technology to safely and efficiently remove the fetus without killing it is someday created... I'm not sure how I feel about that. I think that's a lot more complicated.

Would the technology simply freeze the embryo, or would it continue to grow in an artificial womb?

Would information about the original mother be available to the child when it got older?

What about, as others have pointed out, fetuses with serious health and development problems?

I find myself very conflicted on this issue.

"I'd also support outlawing the killing of animals for meat if we could grow meat in vats. "

You know, when animal populations become too dense it results in disease and all other kinds of problems for the animals themselves. The deer and elk populations in the western United States are a great example. They used to have predators, but now their only predators are humans.

That wouldn't be killing just for the meat, though- that'd be killing to protect the herds from starvation and disease. Also, it's worth noting that a lot of those problems are a direct result of human beings killing off the natural predators and destroying the natural habitats of those animals.

(off topic) "That wouldn't be killing just for the meat, though"

I agree. Keeping suffering animals in factory farms to kill and eat as meat is slightly different than "thinning out their numbers" (reminds me of Jimbo on South Park) to prevent overpopulation/disease because they no longer have natural predators.

I have to say: why not just reintroduce (and protect) the nature predators, like wolves, etc?

oops. *natural predators*

Maybe this has been mentioned before, or is just common sense to women, but when I try and imagine pregnancies, I always get the idea that no matter the situation its *always* a very scary thing to go through? Even if its a planned thing, and its what is wanted, I would think there is still a large amount of fear involved?

I was just thinking about that idea of a natural sort of fear that comes with all pregnancies, and contemplating that it probably would be the only thing a rape/incest victim experiences during a pregnancy, but many times worse. Let alone the actual trauma of the event that caused the pregnancy in the first place.

And then some people would want to *force* a woman who has go through that to also experience the "unplanned joy" of it?

Take away all other pro's for abortion like financial difficulties it would cause, or being uncomfortable with the child being adopted, and still that fear alone is more than enough to convince me of the need for abortion. That is, if I am right about it of course.

"I'm not exactly sure where the line between person and non-person is, but it seems to me that there's nothing about being born that makes one a person."

Nothing bout being born apart from not being part of someone else anymore. It's easy to confuse a fetus with a baby if one forgets (or just doesn't care about) the rest of the woman or girl attached to the fetus.

Phlegmatic, I think you are completely right. You shouldn't doubt yourself so much. :)

I would agree with Mina on the personhood issue, BTW.

Thanks caiis, but I hate it when I overstep myself, and I try my best avoid doing that, particularly when it comes to issues like these. Issues that I will *never* be able to fully understand. Its one of the reasons why Ill probably never identify myself as a feminist, yet pretty much totally agree with feminism.

I've had 2 pregnancies, Phlegmatic, and yes, there is an element of fear. Especially with the first one, there was an intense fear of the birthing process. BUT I wanted both babies so much, that my desire for them outweighed any apprehension. I cannot imagine being forced to give birth if I didn't want to and/or the pregnancy was caused by rape. Then the pregnancy really would feel like a colonization of my body and I would be just a vessel, just a medium for new growth, the petrie dish of the patriarchy.

Although, roymacIII, if you are saying that you believe that "personhood" includes certain qualities that babies don't have like rationality, the capacity to make a moral decision, etc. I can see where you are coming from, although we may not have the same definition of "personhood."

Yeah Grace, I can see that when its your desire to have a child, and everyone around you supports you in that, its makes things much easier. Anything other than that, and well I could only imagine, but I dont want to because of how hard it must be.

i just want to say that i don't always have time to be part of these conversations when they are at their most intense, but i almost always LOVE to come back to them and read them where they stand. so i don't want to get all squirrelly here, but feministing, and all y'all, have really helped me to feel more cemented in some positions, challenged me in others, and it just helps to know that we're in here but also out there, fighting the good fight. and giving each other room to determine what that fight is, and that it ain't always black and white.
group hug?

and oenophile, you know how i feel from a thread a while back.
but i don't think i agree that banning her is the right move. it would, however, be lovely to not have to have the same conversation, every time, among the new points.

also: grace, when you pointed to the situation in england, i nodded at the point you were making. but when you clarified specifically the relevance to this conversation after roymac's question, boy oh boy did it light off fireworks for this girl. and allowed me to think on it a little further. your voice on this site is one i always look forward to and appreciate.

and roymac, your post from 3:07 yesterday had me literally cheering from here on my couch.

cara, charity, caiis, and so on: thoughtful and thought-provoking posts.
what else is new, right?

i know i am not making any new points, but i guess i just wanted to write a quick love letter to this community.

I second the community love letter and group hug!

If I wanted to be flippant, I could claim that an infant is not a person because it can't pass the Turing test.

I once read a paper online that basically argued that abortion was the killing of a human being, but it could be justified because the mother has a right not to be pregnant (as in the example of an adult being surgically connected to another adult's body and using it as a life support system). If the "evicted" embryo/fetus couldn't survive without the woman's body, that was its problem (and one that technology could potentially solve).

At risk of thread-jacking, I'd like to ask a question on a somewhat related note: Does a person have a right not to act as a parent to a child after the child is born? In ordinary cases, both biological parents are assumed to have moral, legal, and financial responsibility for the care of their offspring, but is that necessarily the case in all circumstances? Let's take some extreme examples. A woman is impregnated while in a coma. The pregnancy is not terminated and the woman gives birth. The day after giving birth, the woman miraculously makes a complete recovery from her coma. Does the woman have an obligation to care for the child as a parent?

I can concoct a similar scenario by reversing the genders. A woman rapes a man, becomes pregnant by him, and carries the child to term. Does the man have an obligation to care for the child as a parent?

I didn't think that anyone had a legal obligation to act as a parent to his or her child . . . isn't that what adoption is for?

Thank you, Stellaelizabeth! I'm new here, but I feel as if I've come home after years in the desert! Hugs all around.

Doug S.-
Obviously in the case of the woman who was raped when she was in a coma, she would have the choice to give the child up for adoption when she recovered.

Your second case is trickier because the man would probably have to prove he was "raped" in order to not pay child support.

One of my male cousins who is married had an affair with a female coworker on a business trip who said that she was on birth control. She wasn't, got pregnant and had a kid. She never tried to get child support from him, but legally she probably could have.
But lying about being on birth control is not the same as "rape." What exactly do you mean when you say "a woman rapes a man?"

"I'm not exactly sure where the line between person and non-person is, but it seems to me that there's nothing about being born that makes one a person."

Nothing bout being born apart from not being part of someone else anymore. It's easy to confuse a fetus with a baby if one forgets (or just doesn't care about) the rest of the woman or girl attached to the fetus.

That's not quite what I mean. I rather hope I haven't given the impression that I think that a fetus is a person. =)

It's more like as caiis says- I think that there must be some attribute that makes one a person beyond being born. Being born seems insufficient for personhood. If one woman gives birth at seven months, but another gives birth at just over nine, am I to understand that the one fetus became a person sooner than the other, simply by virtue of being a premie?

I also think that using birth as the basis for personhood eliminates the possibility of non-human persons. Personhood is a moral quality that means that one is part of the moral community. We give rights and obligations to persons. Hypothetically, aliens or artificial intelligences could be persons, I think.

Ultimately, the personhood or non-personhood of fetuses and babies is pretty much mental masturbation, since I don't see that it matters whether the fetus or a baby is or is not a person. The right to abortion surpasses the alledged personhood of the fetus for exactly the reason why the car-kidney analogy does (love that one, by the way).

Also: As Cara points out, I'm pretty sure that there are completely legal ways to give up your parenting rights and obligations if you don't want to be a parent. There's still debate about how fathers can give up rights and not have to pay child support, but, for the most part, it's possible to not have to be a parent if you don't want to, isn't it?

And, yeah... I love it here at feministing.

=)

I LOVE YOU ALL, TOO!!! GROUP HUG!!!

roymacIII-

That clarifies your position. I was pretty sure that was what you meant.

But I also think that we need to expand the moral community beyond 'persons' to include non-human animals. The concept of a'person' and the language of rights seem to (at least historically) intentionally exclude animals (due to as you say, the corresponding obligations that go along with the "rights" given to persons).

It makes it hard to even talk about animal "rights," even though they like babies (or the mentally ill) have moral standing.

It would bother me if robots with artificial intelligence that could not suffer were seen has having more moral standing than animals (or babies) that could, just because they were "rational," etc.

I think all beings capable of suffering should be seen as part of the moral community whether or not they are rational or can be considered 'persons,' although how morally questionable it is to harm apart of the moral community really depends on the context.

Doug - um, I'LL SAY those are some extreme examples. I'm with Cara and roymac, I'm fairly certain that terminating parental rights (and thus responsibilities) is always an option at the time of birth, or later in the child's life under other circumstances (although I'm not sure what the procedure is since Judging Amy, my main source of such information, is not on TV anymore). Not to be flippant...I learned a lot about family law from that show! But those post-birth scenarios of yours aren't really analogous to pregnancy because caretaking (while demanding in its own right) is not the same as being a biological host for another organism at the expense of your own bodily safety and integrity. Kudos to Alara for the forced-organ-donation analogy.

This is a great discussion. I also want to say how much this site means to me...more hugs.

"That's not quite what I mean. I rather hope I haven't given the impression that I think that a fetus is a person. =)"

The trouble is that many of the folks who do think fetuses are people or superpeople do use that rhetoric.

"If one woman gives birth at seven months, but another gives birth at just over nine, am I to understand that the one fetus became a person sooner than the other, simply by virtue of being a premie?"

Of course - the preemie is an individual and the fetus is still part of the woman.

"It would bother me if robots with artificial intelligence that could not suffer were seen has having more moral standing than animals (or babies) that could, just because they were 'rational,' etc."

Good points. Also, if babies aren't people, then what should society do with those people who rape babies?

I think that's an absolutely valid point, caiis.

I think that the person/nonperson distinction isn't important with regard to rights. I absolutely think that animals have (or, at least, ought to have) rights. I think that the person/nonperson distinction comes in with regard to obligations. I, as a person, have rights and obligations. I have the right not to be killed unjustly, for example. That means, however, that I have an obligation not to kill unjustly, either. I don't hold a lion, which is incapable of making moral distinctions, responsible for killing the ways that I would a person.

Which is all to say that I think it's perfectly fair to grant that non-persons have rights, even if they don't have corresponding obligations.

"I think it's perfectly fair to grant that non-persons have rights, even if they don't have corresponding obligations."

I do too roymacIII, but lots of people would disagree with us and say that giving rights to animals/non-persons is totally incompatible with the concept of rights. I also worry about animal "rights" because I wouldn't want them to be used to argue for fetal "rights."

I personally started talking bout "persons" vs. "non-persons" simply because I found the idea that if we could preserve fertilized embryos abortion should be illegal rather disturbing. Things have to die in this life, it happens all the time. And we /can't/ let every fertilized embryo eventually become a baby. If our earth was supporting 25% more people, that many more people would suffer from starvation and disease.

I also don't think there's anything inherently wrong with killing for meat -now granted, that's different than raising animals in a meat farm where they're poorly treated. I think that's an important distinction to make.

I guess for me, the important things are preserving the earth's environment for future generations, and trying to maximize the life quality of the sentient beings that come to exist on this earth.

"I personally started talking bout "persons" vs. "non-persons" simply because I found the idea that if we could preserve fertilized embryos..."

Nitpick: did you mean "fertilized eggs"? Either "fertilized embryos" is redundant or unfertilized embryos are possible.

"...abortion should be illegal rather disturbing. Things have to die in this life, it happens all the time."

For that matter, what happens once cloning tech is improved and any cell could function as a zygote given the right lab support? Usually amputation requires removal of some healthy cells along with the damaged ones since gangrene, bombs, etc. don't leave a neat scalpel-friendly line between live cells and dead cells. Likewise, if a dentist waits until all the tooth cells are trashed to pull a tooth then the patient risks gum damage too, so often pulling a tooth involves killing some healthy cells too.

Hey, I knew abstinence "education" was bad, but when a grown man thinks he has the capacity to, erm... "grow a living child of a loving God" in his man-uterus... that's just sad. I think I need to draw him a picture of the male reproductive system. And a Ven diagram of male and female body parts. *sigh* This must be what Ms. Rice feels everytime she has to make flash cards for the President.

Personally, I agree with the "a fetus is not a person" argument. I would also argue that an infant is not a person either as it does not have the attributes of a person (for example, it can't pass the Turing test), and is therefore entitled to no rights that a chimpanzee is not also entitled to. This is not a popular position, so I will not try to defend it here.

What exactly do you mean when you say "a woman rapes a man?"

In this case, for the sake of argument, we can imagine a "Give me your sperm or I'll kill you" scenario. More generally, I would suggest that it mean anything that, if done by a man to a woman, ought to result in a rape conviction.

But those post-birth scenarios of yours aren't really analogous to pregnancy because caretaking (while demanding in its own right) is not the same as being a biological host for another organism at the expense of your own bodily safety and integrity.

Agreed; terminating parental obligations is definitely a different issue than terminating a pregnancy. However, as a practical matter, the two are intertwined. A woman can terminate parental obligations by having an abortion; a man cannot. For either gender, it seems that terminating parental obligations after the birth of a child is often extremely difficult, and the relevant laws can be weird. For example, a Kansas court ruled in "State ex rel. Hermesmann v. Seyer" that lack of consent to sex does not affect the responsibility to pay child support. (See http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mspermdonor.htm for more details.)

I think I'm starting to veer into "thread hijacking" territory, so I think I should stop inching toward a discussion of the so-called "male abortion" and just let the topic drop until another time.

Whoops...

But those post-birth scenarios of yours aren't really analogous to pregnancy because caretaking (while demanding in its own right) is not the same as being a biological host for another organism at the expense of your own bodily safety and integrity.

was supposed to be a quote; I left off the italics tags.

I'm starting to think that the reason the Fetus First crowd insists on having incest victims give birth to their own siblings is to have more inbred people to vote for jackasses like Brownback.

I wonder why the pro-life crowd does not consider the effect being "unwanted" would have on a child who was carried full term, despite the mother not wanting to , just because the law forced her to?
Or is that ok, because tey are concerned about quantity not quality of life?

Is it moral to birht a creature you do nto want from the stat and carry like a burden?

Also, a lot of women choose abortion over adoption, not only because they don't want to continue the pregnancy, but because they also don't like the idea of having a child out there living in foster care or with a stranger.

By this logic, a man should have the right to compel an abortion because he doesn't like the idea of having a child out there living with a stranger, presuming that he had sex with the stranger in the first place.

Obviously, if a fetus can only gestate inside a woman, only a woman can say whether she will remain pregnant with it or not. Anything else is a grotesque violation of her bodily autonomy. But if it were biologically possible to safely remove the embryo or fetus so that it could gestate in an artificial womb, thus removing the factor of the woman's biological role in pregnancy, then the man and the woman become equal and have equal rights to the fetus, and if it is possible for the woman to have an abortion anyway, then it's possible for the man to have an abortion whether the woman wants it or not. I'm not sure "I don't want to reproduce *with you*" is a acceptable justification for destroying what could be a human being, although the right to bodily autonomy *is* an acceptable justification and therefore covers all the others.

Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, we're talking science fiction -- right now the woman and the fetus are inseparable and it really doesn't matter what her motive is in ending its existence. But my whole line of thought is that there is no point in trying to decide where "human life" begins, because the bodily autonomy issue would apply if a miniaturized Stephen Hawking was living in my womb just as much as it applies to a fetus. *If* the bodily autonomy issue does *not* apply, though, then we have some issues to think about --

-- what is the difference between a baby and a fetus? Many arguments have been made that a newborn is in fact in its "fourth trimester", that humans should gestate 12 months to be equivalent to other mammal babies and the reason we don't is our small pelvises and big heads. So the dividing line is "dependent on another human's body for survival". If instead of a human body, they're dependent on life support equipment, how would that make them different from newborn babies in the NICU? What logic could justify aborting a fetus or embryo and not a baby, if it's not inside a woman's body, that wouldn't also apply to infanticide? (I have the scary feeling that unfortunately the justification would often be financial -- "we can't afford to use a uterine replicator".)

-- what is the difference between a father and a mother in a world where *both* solely contribute genetic material? Already we're being told that a woman may not implant her own embryos and bear them if they are half the genetic material of a man who no longer wants to be a father. In a world with uterine replicators, could a man compel a woman to end a pregnancy because he doesn't want to be a father, just because she put the child in a uterine replicator and therefore her bodily autonomy is no longer involved?

I am personally a bit of an odd duck for a pro-choicer in that I believe that abortion *is* murder but it is acceptable self-defense. If you cannot or do not want to sacrifice your body to a fetus, you should not be compelled to; I still do think it's a person, but a person doesn't have the right to live in my uterus unless I want them there. So for me, as soon as I remove bodily autonomy from the equation I can't see any justification for abortion.

Of course, I'm also enough of a Darwinist that I actually think women have a moral obligation to abort the children of rapists; I think that while all men are capable of rape (that is, raise a boy in a culture that says that he does not have to and should not care about a woman's consent, and he will be a rapist, no matter how kind and loving he might have been raised in a saner culture), some men have genes that predispose them to rape no matter what culture raises them, and I want those genes out of the gene pool. So, I personally *would* still be in favor of aborting embryos conceived in rape. However, I believe that if a woman's bodily autonomy is not involved and there was no rape, then men and women would end up with equal rights toward the embryo, and either both would have the right to abort or neither would. I personally lean toward "neither", in such a situation. But then, I tend to think that a world with uterine replicators would also have much better birth control options for both sexes than we have now, so the issues of overpopulation and simply having BC fail would be a lot less relevant than they are now.

It's an interesting set of questions. This is one of the reasons I find sf and fantasy useful, because discussions of vampires, uterine replicators, and a miniaturized Stephen Hawking get at the issues in abortion without the complications of "cute baybeez!" and "sluts deserve it for having sex!"