February 24, 2006
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The South Dakota legislature just passed a law that would outlaw all
abortions except to save the mother's life. There is no exception
for rape or incest.
I wonder what percentage of the legislators that passed this bill were
men? It has been said, and I believe it's true, that if men had
the babies, abortion would be a sacrament. I wonder how many of
these legislators, if their daughter were raped would demand that said
daughter carry the baby to term?
There are considerable legal, philosophical and religious
considerations in the topic of abortion. It's much more complex
than most small-minded legislators, religious leaders and pro-choice
activists would have us believe.
But one question I just can't get beyond is why does this nation place
so much emphasis, so much hand-wringing, so much weeping and gnashing
of teeth over a mass of several cells with little to identify it as
human, and yet care so little about the suffering of living and
breathing humans? Thousands being tortured, raped, killed and
starved to death in Africa? Well, that's too bad, in an abstract
way. After all they're just black people in some far off land. We're
killing thousands of innocent civilians with our bombs in Iraq?
Well, you know, life is tough. But abort a fetus, or even
just a few cells that may, but more likely not make it to birth, cells
that have
never breathed, never felt fear, never known the love of it's mother .
.
. in most cases, never even had a neuron synapse with another much less
a single thought . . . well that's just morally repugnant and we need
to pass a law!
Good thing almost no one lives in South Dakota. Shame that
there's not much to do there but have sex. Guess they'll have to
reconsider that pastime.
Comments (11)
Frankly, if there were never another abortion I'd be thrilled but I still think a woman should have reproductive rights over her body - period.
You're right though if it were men who had to have the babies it would be an entirely different story.
The thing that really irritates me, is that it is the same people who say abortion shouldn't be legal, who say kids shouldn't have sex education and shouldn't have any sort of birth control available to them. Don't teach the kids anything about sex and how to protect themselves against disease and pregnancy. Then they get diseased and pregnant and then they stuck with children they don't want. Children who might very likely end up in a cycle of abuse.
There are also these people that want their daughters to wear promise rings given to them by their fathers that they will stay pure until marriage. Now if that isn't creepy I don't know what is.
Stay outraged. With this new Supreme Court composition we're going to need all the rage we can find.
"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
It's odd how people hate Stalin, but then readily adopt one of his more infamous worldviews.
while i'm sure the majority of the legislators were men, don't let women off the hook so easily. i know more than a few women who have had abortions in their youth, felt bad about it, and jumped on the rabid pro-life bandwagon.
as i've said to the boy, outlawing abortion won't make it go away. women had abortions before 1972 and they'll have them in 2072, legal or not.
and the number of abortions under Bush has increased exponentially. Where is the reporting or willingness to address that figure?...
wow.
This post reminds me of something I read on National Review's blog:
"Matthew Yglesias links to feminists talking about human rights in Iran to say that feminists are not all silent on such things and that I don't know what I'm talking about. Of course there are feminists talk about real human rights (and right about now is the big U.N. confab on women, so this is a time for such things). But how often? How loudly? They are listened to and yet what do we usually hear them talking about, and the loudest?
Unfortunately though--and tell me if this is an unfair perception on my part--when you think of NOW and co., do you immediately associate them with fighting realhuman-rights outrages or do you hear OH NO SAM ALITO WILL TAKE AWAY OUR RIGHTS? I know which press releases and sound bites I'm routinely bombarded with. I know which march on Washington (a.k.a. pre-2004 Democratic Convention) I was at.
Yesterday President Bush talked about girls in Afghanistan who are able to go to school for the first time. If I were the head of one of these groups that purports to speak for women I would have given him an award for the liberation of Afghanistan from the Taliban. And for challenging the U.N. and the nations of the world to take on sex slavery. Instead, they tell me he is waging a war on women. "
However, the liberal she links to, Yglesias, has a good point. Women's rights groups can't do much to change things in Iran or Afghanistan, and furthermore, like all people, these women are self-interested, and are therefore interested in pushing change for something at affects them directly. Similarly, the South Dakota legislature may have little affect on genocide in Africa, but they can stop what they percieve to be women murdering their babies on their watch.
Forgive the typos above please. One last thought: Your line of reasoning is especially overbroad. Substiture fetus for rape or murder victim in your reasoning and it could be used just as effectively (or rather speciously) to argue against murder and rape laws. There are people dying in Africa, for God's sake, and you're just sitting around typing on your computer?
Even though, I'm pro-choice, I can kind of understand why pro-lifers get so worked up. They think that they think there are 1.2 million babies being murdered each years, which certainly dwarfs affirmative action and the constitutionality of telecoms regulation in my book. But on the pro-choice side, I am amazed that half the chattering classes really purport to believe that the single most important issue facing our courts is whether or not ten or so low-population states will, or will not, be allowed to outlaw abortion. More important than civil liberties? More important than towns condemning any old house they feel like it to build a strip mall? The highest cause in the land, the only one that really matters, is making sure that nothing interferes one iota with the free and unfettered scraping out of uteruses from sea to shining sea?
Award or not, the women in Afghanistan have never had it better. Admittedly they had it extremely awful previously, and now they just have it quite awful, but it's progress in the right direction.
"Do you really think that murder and rape of a fully conscious, sentient human being is akin to the death of a few cells?"
I think you missed my point. First of all, I'll reiterate that I'm pro-choice. The thing is, next to genocide in the Sudan and babies starving in Somalia, caring about individual murders and rapes here in the wealthiest country in the world can seem just as petty as caring about abortion. Tens of thousands are dying daily in Africa, and we're tuned in to the OJ trial? What's wrong with us?
Nothing's wrong with us, we're just like every other people in the world. We care more about own country and localities than others. And that's true of every activist group you mentioned, including the South Dakota legislature. They're not uniquely blameworthy on this score.
Comparing a fetus that would almost inevitably develop into life and fecal matter is disingenuous at best, is it not? Aren't you a doctor?
As I understand it, you were confused as to why people were so concerned with abortion when people were being mass murdered in Africa. I explained how even crimes like rape and murder seem small in light of that kind of genocide, yet people still (justifiably) care about them, the difference is proximity. How did I miss your point?
I never compared abortion to murder or rape, but surely you understand that there are people, including many in the established medical community, who do consider abortion murder, and work to outlaw it. The reason they care more about abortion murder than Africa genocide murder? Again, proximity.
Since your bring it up yet again, I really don't get the Hitler analogy. Now I'll admit to having some rather large bowel movements in my life, but I seriously doubt any of them involved expunging more "epithelial cells" than Hitler did over the course of his entire life.
::shiver::
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