Human rights and the case for reproductive freedom September 10, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, reproductive rights, wingnuts.1 comment so far
Few things anger me more than those who would strip rights from their fellow humans while having the audacity to claim to be defending human rights. So my morning isn’t off to a good start since I discovered, via Canadian Cynic, I learned of Mark Peters (tagline: “Canadian. Christian. Conservative.”) who’s on board with the “forced-childbirth-upholds-human-rights” meme. He begins by quoting that bastion of the Hitler youth morality, Pope Ratzi:
“The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself… This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right – it is the very opposite.”
For these people, it’s worth noting, the “right” to be alive preempts all other rights, most especially the right to our own bodies. Notice the twisted framing Ratzi uses: people have the “right” to be forced to live out their entire lives, and therefore have no “right” to choose when their time comes. To uphold individual liberty, Ratzi says, we must force people to give up the right to make choices about their own bodies.
(As an aside, I’ve lost more than one friend to suicide, and I can say with confidence that the hurt hasn’t diminished much with the years. I wish my friends had sought professional help, for they might be hear yet, but I don’t begrudge them their choice: in the end, they had every right and responsibility to make that decision for themselves.)
So it’s not just abortion Ratzi is on about. But oh yes, that cluster of undifferentiated cells is a human life and must be made to live–even if on a feeding tube against its wishes–and must, if it is female, be forced to give birth against its wishes. And all this, Ratzi says, is in defense of its “human rights.”
No word yet on why the all-powerful, loving God Ratzi professes to believe in would choose to terminate one in five fetuses before they are born.
Peter’s is all over Ratzi like–damn, good taste prevents me from making this particular Catholic joke. Anyway, he’s all over Ratzi:
This is exactly why I contend we must always describe the unborn in distinctly human terms. Describing the unborn in medical terms, such as “fetus”, I believe, subtly dehumanizes the unborn and therefore automatically diminishes their individual human rights. Discussions regarding human rights and abortion then focus strictly on the rights of the prospective mother.
Yeah, nothing hurts ones arguments like using correct terminology. That two-week old growth in the room isn’t self-sustaining and while it is alive (it has living cells) that doesn’t prove it is human any more than individual discarded skin cells are human. But no matter, for it doesn’t make any difference to my stand on abortion when “human life” begins: the fact is that no human has the right to demand of another to shelter it within one’s body, to be forced to provide it nourishment and to sustain its life, no matter the risk and personal cost to the host.
It’s not a question of whether women’s rights are not important, for surely they are. Rather it’s a question of whether the life in the womb is equally human, and therefore of equal value.
Women’s rights are important to Peters in the same way that human rights are upheld by forcing people not to end their own lives. Peters values women’s rights so much that he is going to force them to give birth.
And the question is not about a fetus being “equally human,” for he is in fact trying to extend to the fetus special rights, rights none of us, including the fetus’ host, have: the right to live parasitically off another human being against her will. I doubt very much that Peters would agree that by his own logic we should allow abortion to save the life of the mother–no doubt he’d argue the fetus and mother should have the “right” to go through labor and die “naturally.” But if the woman’s life is equally important, then she must have the right to terminate the pregnancy, for if she is denied that right, then she is dehumanized: she is merely the body from which a fetus must be harvested, not a conscious being with the most basic of human rights: the right to control one’s own body.
If I could get one message out about anti-choice framing (or fascism of any kind), it would be to beware those who would take away one’s rights through a rhetoric of personal freedom, for such a frame lays claim to the very values it disingenuously seeks to destroy.
A story of a war September 8, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in wingnuts.1 comment so far
One time, not so long ago, some evil people attacked innocent people, killing thousands. People around the world rallied in support of these innocents, and behind the man who led their country. He swore to catch those who did it. That’s when the people found out about the Big Bad, the man who had organized and arranged the attacks. Right-thinking people around the world realized this bad man needed to be stopped.
But he never was. Instead, the Fearless Leader attacked people who were never involved with the crime, and who were no threat to us. He was not worried about the Big Bad. ““I truly am not that concerned about him,” he said. Very few people were remarkable.
Years later, with the Leader’s war in ashes and thousands more of his people dead, his cronies vied to replace him. They didn’t care about the Big Bad, either. “[the Big Bad] is more symbolism than anything else,” one said. Another was even more explicit: he “said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” he said.
None of these people noted that they had endorsed a war which had nothing to do with anyone who attacked their country, nor that they had hunted high and low for a man who was no threat while letting the Big Bad slip away. Not content to start illegal wars, they pushed on to convince everyone that the man behind the original attack, the man who started the conflict, was no threat, but that they must continue the war in order to make the world safe.
But the story may still have a (somewhat) happi(er) ending: people begin to wise up, and contemplate throwing the cowardly ineffectual liars out on their assses, and finding a leader who would actually chase down and stop the Big Bad.
[h/t Crooks and Liars]
I thought ID wasn’t about religion September 6, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, News and politics, Religion, wingnuts.3 comments
So why are they so gleeful about attacking atheists? Maybe it’s because people like Dawkins point out their lies and rank hypocrisy. Naturally Denyse “Buy My Book” O’Leary is happy to spread ad hominem attacks on Dawkins from noted anti-thinker Dinesh “The Virginia Tech Shooting was all about Atheists” D’Souza. So what’s D’Souza’s brilliant observation?
Given Freud’s characterization of narcissism, that all libido is invested in the self and no other objects exist, perhaps Dawkins’s fundamentalism is really narcissism. Since Dawkins is an atheist then only atheism is relevant. Neither the lives of billions of believers, nor the collective works of Augustine, nor Aquinas’ Summa Theologica, nor the countless acts of Christian charity over the last two thousand years seem to matter to Dawkins.
I’ll spell it out for D’Souza and O’Leary: you can’t argue for the existence of God by claiming that Christians have done good things. That’s a game anyone could play. You object to the use of the crusades to argue against Christianity, as though the crusades aren’t relevant but Augustine is, but it doesn’t work that way: if you want to claim the good, you have to take the bad, too. And until people stop bombing buildings and killing nonbelievers, you can’t claim that those actions aren’t real religion.
And guess what, guys? Even if you make a great case that Religion is Teh Good!!!1! that doesn’t make your point. While it isn’t hard to demonstrate that religion has justified some terrible things, even if it was all hugs and puppies it would make no difference: it is not a proof of God’s existence that the idea of God causes some people to do good things.
That’s the entire substance of their arguments against atheism: atheists are icky and religion is good. The first is the sign of a bankrupt mind and the latter does nothing to demonstrate the existence of a deity. If O’Leary wants to make a serious case for God, she should urge her ID fellows to actually do some research, and if D’Souza wants to blame the world’s ills on atheists he needs better arguments than “I don’t like nonbelievers, especially leftist nonbelievers, so it must be their fault that extreme right-wing religious nutcases fly planes into buildings and bomb clinics.”
In short, if D’Souza and O’Leary want to argue with Dawkins, they should find some decent arguments for God’s existence rather than resorting to non sequitur.
Given the intellectual bankruptcy these two have demonstrated so far, I don’t expect to see any credible arguments anytime soon. I urge them to prove me wrong.
YouTubein’: “The Play” September 6, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging.1 comment so far
In honor of football season and life being unscripted, it’s The Play:
John Elway would have to console himself with a few years in the NFL and a bit of success.
Luciano Pavarotti and D. James Kennedy dead September 6, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics, wingnuts.add a comment
You’ve probably heard by now that these men passed away. I can’t help but note the difference they made in the world. Pavarotti had some rather large personal problems by many accounts, including a messy divorce, but he spent his public life singing beautifully, bringing joy to a lot of people. D. James Kennedy promoted hatred and ignorance in the public sphere: his life’s work was to make the world a worse place.
None of us are perfect, of course, but there’s something to be said for choosing beauty and eschewing bigotry when it comes time to choose your career.
And the Douglas Adams award goes to… September 5, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in Blogging, Humor, News and politics.3 comments
The NY Times, for failing to acknowledge it’s sources is okay, even though such blatant plagiarism would earn a failing grade in my undergraduate English class. PZ notes that it’s bloggers who are being unfair here: obviously they should note the Times might use their story in advance, thus saving the the supposed newspaper of record some embarrassment.
I can’t help but think PZ is understating the problem: the real concern is that the Times will sue bloggers to the punch, ala Douglas Adam’s The Restaurant at the End of the Universe:
One of the major selling points of that wholly remarkable book, The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, apart form its relative cheapness and the fact that it has the words ‘Don’t Panic’ written in large friendly letters on the cover, is its compendious and occasionally accurate glossary. For instance, the statistics relating to the go-social nature of the Universe are deftly set out between pages five hundred and seventy six thousand three hundred and twenty four, and five hundred and seventy six thousand three hundred and twenty six. The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back of a pack of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few footnotes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly tortuous Galactic copyright laws. It is interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time through a temporal warp and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws.
I just hope the Times doesn’t have access to a time machine.
Hump-day poetry: W. H. Auden’s “Epitaph on a Tyrant” September 4, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics, Poetry.1 comment so far
Epitaph on a Tyrant
Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
Kansas Gov. issues executive anti-descrimination order September 3, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics, bigotry.2 comments
Kathleen Sebelius took a stand for LGBT rights on Friday:
Gov. Kathleen Sebelius signed an executive order Friday prohibiting most state employees from being discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation.
The order, effective immediately, requires that agencies under the Democratic governor’s direct control make sure they have programs to prevent on-the-job harassment against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and people who have undergone sexual reassignment surgery. It covers about 25,000 of the state’s 41,000 employees.
“I’m sorry it took us so long,” Sebelius said after signing the order in front of two dozen activists. She also endorsed a bill in the Republican-dominated Legislature that would prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians in housing and private employment.
Good for her! Sebelius’ decision won’t be popular in red-state Kansas, but it was the right thing to do, and though I wish it had happened sooner, it’s great news, and a gutsy choice. Score one for human rights in Kansas!
It’s good to think that Fred Phelps is going to ballistic over this. I hope his shrunken, hate-filled heart skips a couple of beats.
Would Jesus lie to prevent abortions? September 2, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in reproductive rights, wingnuts.3 comments
Interesting how Christianists want to accuse everyone who doesn’t agree with them of moral relativism, when they’re the ones who seem to employ situational ethics in order to get what they want:
Perhaps most controversial, doctors [in Missouri] are also ordered to tell patients there is a link between abortions, infertility and breast cancer.
This has been true in the “Show Me State” for a while, but it’s worth repeating that both points are lies. Abortion doesn’t correlate with breast cancer, and abortion’s don’t cause infertility. As with most such procedures, some abortions carry some risk of post-procedure infection which can potentially lead to infertility. But in sterile conditions, the risk of such an infection is very small. If anything, risk of infection is a great reason to keep abortion legal. It was back-alley abortions that were a threat to women’s fertility.
It’s great that the state requires doctors to lie to women. That’s just one more reason why abortion needs to be legal: women and their doctors are better equipped to make choices about their help then idiots passing laws.
I don’t feel bad about Larry Craig September 1, 2007
Posted by Evil Bender in News and politics, bigotry, wingnuts.2 comments
There’s been some discussion around the blogosphere about whether Larry Craig deserves all the humiliation and scorn he’s received. Where people are willing to defend Craig, it is generally on the grounds that he probably shouldn’t have been arrested at all, and that he certainly didn’t do anything worse than what Vitter did.
I’ll concede those points: all Craig did, if he is indeed guilty, is try to get sex. It’s sad he has to try restrooms, but certainly not much an offense. Some conservatives have latched onto the willingness of the left to let people’s personal lives be, well, personal, and have tried to argue that Craig was somehow mistreated.
I’d like to take a moment to point out that even if you believe–as I do–that Craig should not have been arrested in the first place, it does not follow that he somehow deserves a pass from us on all this. Larry Craig is an enthusiastic purveyor of bigotry and discrimination against gay people, and one of the leading attackers of Bill Clinton’s blow-job. While I feel a certain sympathy for a man who is obviously deeply in the closet, Craig is more perpetrator than victim here. He’s been pushing for a Constitutional Amendment banning gay marriage, and shares responsibility for a culture that makes trying to get sex from a member of the same gender a worse crime than paying for sex from a member of the opposite gender.
It isn’t a misdemeanor guilty plea that got Craig forced out of the Senate, it was his party’s rabid anti-homosexuality that did the trick. Craig is gone because he was accused of illicit gay activity.
And I, for one, thinks that bigot got what he deserved, not because he was guilty of a men’s room crime, but because he was guilty of spreading hatred, and that hatred eventually caught him.
