Arguing about reproductive rights January 28, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Morality, bigotry, reproductive rights, wingnuts.trackback
Over at the (soon to be renamed?) United States of Jamerica, Jamelle and beeveedee have been putting forward good-faith arguments about abortion, and while there has been some legitimate discussion, they’ve also had more than their share of trolls arguing in bad faith. In one thread, I made the rookie mistake of feeding the trolls.
I’m bringing this to your attention for two reasons: first, if you’re reading this blog, you should really also be reading Jamerica, and also to highlight this comment (emphasis mine):
Dude, an early first trimester abortion is hardly an unrecognizable blog of cells. This may help you sleep at night, but at 13 weeks, that creature looks very very human. You’re welcome to your beliefs as far as being pro choice, and certainly some even celebrate the barbarism that is abortion, but don’t let yourself believe that an early 2nd trimester abortion is just a blob, it’s a fairly well differentiated developing body of a creature of the species homo sapiens.
It is of course, unintentionally telling that anti-choicers are so concerned about when a fetus appears to be human, and yet can’t be bothered to muster up any concern for the women who they would force to give birth. Their argument goes that any sperm + egg (and this is a generous interpretation on my part) is a human life, and therefore women should be required to remain pregnant against their wills. They will happily suggest that aborted fetuses are murdered women, as one of the commenters does, while showing from their every argument their complete disdain for adolescent and adult women who, in their view, are far less valuable than the developing fetus inside them.
It’s this position, along with so many anti-choicers contempt for family planning, that gives lie to the idea that most anti-choice activists* are interested in protecting human life, not controlling women’s bodies.
*I’m talking about the hard-core blog trolls and “Concerned Women”/”Focus on the Fetus” types, not your average person who hears horror stories about late-term abortions and gets creeped out.
1. Yeah, I totally need to add Jamelle et al to my blog reader.
2. I happened to pop over to that thread at Jamelle’s via the comments thread on your last post. I read the above-quoted comment and thought, hey, wait a second — I do believe I’m infested (or was, briefly) with the same troll. I fed him, too. I was just not in the fucking mood to let that go. Among other things, I’m in too much student loan debt to let people call me “uneducated” with impunity.
3. I think the very language that commenter used is unintentionally telling: calling it “that creature,” and saying it merely “looks” human. I appreciate that the latter verbiage comes from disagreeing with the idea that an embryo at so many weeks is just a blob of cells — so he’s saying, no, no, it totally looks like a baybee which means it IS a baybee so you’re BAYBEE KILLERZ ZOMG — but still, words matter.
Turns out I am the same troll. Though I ran across the Lebowski quote first which led me on this thing. Your characterization of my comment is as unfair as can be, though.
I’m never said that any egg+sperm is a human life.
You seem to insinuate that there is no intellectually honest defense of abortion. To argue that you think a practice is wrong, and shouldn’t be done, does not automatically make someone opposed to women looking for that abortion. I feel for people who are in the unfortunate event of an unplanned pregnancy. I fully support abortion in the case of rape, incest, or preservation of the life of the mother. There are sacrifices we make, and the LIFE of an adult woman is worth more than an unborn fetus. Where less than the mortal life (as in a person is not going to die) from carrying a child to term, I have some serious concerns about elective abortion.
I’ll be frank, my religious background shapes my views, but having kids has really shaped my views. You could look at my views in the same way you look at animal rights supporters who own pets. After loving their own pets, it’s hard to eat animals, even if they are other animals. While I am a hardcore omnivore, I think that their point has merit and shouldn’t be dismissed out of hand.
I think the language I used was very telling. I used “creature” as a neutral term. I didn’t want to say baybee as you so eloquently put it, but I didn’t want to discount the fact that the fetus at that point has a beating heart, a functional brain, and can start to move around. I’m not “disagreeing with the idea that an embryo at so many weeks is just a blob of cells” because it’s not an idea. It’s a fact. How developed a fetus is at 13 weeks isn’t debatable, it’s science.
Your flippant ZOMG BAYBEE at the end deserves some serious introspection on your part. I mean exactly what you say. I am saying this. “It looks a lot like a baby. It has most of the function parts a baby does. There are little fingers and toes beginning to differentiate themselves.” While legally and scientifically we don’t identify a 13 week old as a viable baby that can live outside, I think it’s intellectually dishonest not to at least consider that a human fetus is pretty well developed at that point. I’m not calling anyone a baby killer, but I challenge you to find out how large a baby is at that stage. Learn the science. Avoid the anti-abortion sites in your search, and decide for yourself. You don’t have to agree, but don’t try to make me look like a stupid Kool-Aid drinker for disagreeing with a controversial practice.
I have a kid and so I have to be honest in saying that shapes my views. But after seeing an ultrasound for a 13 week old fetus, my aversion to abortion at that point (in the development of the fetus) or later grew stronger.
I apologize for anything I said that was offensive.
You seem to insinuate that there is no intellectually honest defense of abortion.
We don’t seem to be reading the same words. And you certainly don’t seem to be following what anyone here is actually saying.
See, it doesn’t matter to me, not even a little bit, at what point a fetus is differentiated, or whether it looks like a human, or even “where human life begins.” What matters to me is that forcing women carry pregnancies to term is to dehumanize you, and is wrong, wrong, wrong, no matter when you think that fetus becomes a human life.
And just to be clear, I don’t have any beef with a woman who sees her 13-week old fetus as human and so chooses to carry it to term. In fact, she has my complete, unquestioning support: that’s her decision to make, and I fully support whichever decision she makes.
I just wish anti-choicers would be equally supportive of the idea that a woman, not the government, should decide whether she gives birth.
I just want to say that I am so happy to see you, Evil Bender, using ‘anti-choice.” I HATE the alternate descriptor, and I’m constantly telling people to stop using it. So, Thanks!
T’Ville: thanks! I too don’t like the other side clouding the issue about who is for individual liberty and who for forced childbirth.
Inspiration: anti-life is the new nomenclature!
This kind of adolescent polemics won’t get you anywhere, but it may make you feel better. I guess from that perspective it does satisfy the Leftist agenda.
Dear rightdialogue:
Thank you for that thoughtful contribution. It might shock you, but the way we use words is important, and I refuse to use language that buys into the frame that only anti-choicers care about “life.”
Do you get all your talking points from Rush Limbaugh, or just this one?
Evil Bender, I appreciate the plug!
I’m not even necessarily thinking we overturn Roe v. Wade, but I would love to see a sea change in American thought where we decide independent of any religious belief that elective abortion should be almost never practiced.
We could keep it legal, but I’d like to see people’s views about it changed to the point that they decide it’s like the atom bomb. We hope to never drop another one, but you don’t see us disarming any time soon.
As far as semantics, I think that on the abortion side, there are pro-choice, and pro-abortion folks. I don’t necessarily have a problem with pro-choice ideals, but I have less respect for pro-abortion people.
Some on the left (and I’m not necessarily including you) feel that if they can dehumanize a fetus to the point that it’s just a blob, then they can feel better about abortion of that fetus. What I said in my original comment, and in my reply was that a fetus at that stage is more than a blob. Your argument ignores this point entirely, which is at least more intellectually honest.
It seems that some of the debate on abortion is a see-saw of both sides trying to de-humanize/re-humanize an embryo/fetus. I echoed the conservative idea. While this does not encompass the whole debate, some pro-abortion people try to use the “blob” argument to counter the “it’s a baby” argument.
I’m pretty open-minded to reasonable and rational debate on the topic. I think I can agree that the state should not dictate whether or not you can have an abortion–the libertarian in me believes in that. On the other hand, I believe that abortion is a wrong (in the same way some animal rights folks feel that killing animals for meat is wrong) I don’t think it should happen through legal channels, I think it should happen through moral suasion.
Lastly–remember I’m not saying the state should outlaw abortion–abortion still doesn’t solve the problem of an unwanted pregnancy in the same way contraceptives (or even plan B) do. There is definitely a loss that some pregnant people will feel whether it is through abortion or adoption or other choices.
P.S. The Rush Limbaugh talking points argument (above) makes it seem like you have a weaker standpoint than you may actually have. You’re a thoughtful and smart person, tossing out crap like that obscures the strength of your position. Don’t bother to reply, I have way too much reading to do today, and I have to leave my short lurking on your blog here behind me so that I can focus. Thanks for the discussion, I am at least starting to get a better view of the huge gap between the two sides on this issue.
Evil, I agree that words are extremely important, hence my mockery of the ‘anti-choice’ propaganda. After all, I’m all for giving the baby the choice to choose life or death.
Are you really saying that you don’t think abortion is a question of life and death? If so, what would you call the status of the fetus before it is terminated versus after?
Lurker: ending a comment with “don’t bother replying” isn’t very helpful.
As regards your overall point: I have never met anyone who is “pro-abortion.” Nor have I seen anyone make such an argument. Pro-choice people support women who choose to give birth, just as we support those who choose to terminate the pregnancy. It’s there decision, and best made by them.
rightdialogue: often, decisions about abortion are made about the life of the pregnant woman. Somehow I don’t think this is what you meant, though.
What you’re really for, and (unlike the question of what makes a human life) there isn’t any question on this point, is forcing women to give birth. That isn’t pro-life, it’s anti-choice and anti-woman. It’s important to remember that it might be your view that the fetus is a human life, but there’s no question that without the woman to carry it to term it will never develop into an autonomous human.
Treating women as nothing more than incubators to be forced to give birth is not “pro-life.” It is anti-choice.
I’ll go so far as to say that reducing women to incubators is beyond anti-choice; it’s dictatorial, and paternalistic.
If a woman who finds herself pregnant believes herself to be incapable, or unwilling to parent the resulting child, no one should be able to force her to gestate and deliver that child.
To elevate any supposed “rights” of the fetus above the actual right of a woman to choose to reproduce essentially strips women of any bodily autonomy and necessarily diminishes them to second class status.
Evil, the question isn’t about the life of the mother (no one is threatening to kill the mother, after all), it’s about the life of the baby. The question about the mother is one of convenience. Is it really your intention to say that in America we should be able to kill someone else out of convenience?
As I mentioned before, I’m not for ‘forcing’ women to give birth. Don’t want a baby? Don’t have sex.
I think the point there is that you want choices, but no responsibilities for those choices. I imagine it might make you feel better to think that I see women as incubators, but clearly that is just a strawman.
I have the right to free speech, but that doesn’t mean I can yell fire in a crowded theater. Our rights exist so long as they don’t infringe upon those of others.
T’ville, I thought it odd that you referred to a ’second class status’; isn’t that what the baby is? The slave owners and the Nazis thought they had special rights too, rights to kill people who weren’t worthy of civil rights. Your argument is essentially the same, right, except that instead of race your prejudice is about age.
Government already restricts what you can do with your body; drug use, euthanasia, prostitution, homicide bombings, all these activities are illegal. Why? Because they’re contrary to the common good.
rightdialogue demonstrates Godwin’s Law. FAIL.
Can I assume from your argument, then, that you are okay with abortions in the case of rape or to protect the life of the mother?
Evil, if my analogy is erroneous, demonstrate it to me.
And no, I don’t believe that two wrongs make a right.
Dear rightdialogue,
You say “I’m not for ‘forcing’ women to give birth. Don’t want a baby? Don’t have sex” and yet you also don’t approve of abortion in cases of rape or to save the life of the mother.
You are not making an intellectually consistent argument. You’ve also admitted to being okay with forcing raped women and women whose lives are in danger being forced to give birth.
And yet you equate those who favor bodily autonomy with Nazis and slaveowners.
If you had any sense of shame, this combination of facts would embarrass you. Since you’ve demonstrate you have so such thing, I’ll be ignoring you from here, and encouraging my other commenters to do the same. I recommend you find somewhere else to peddle your BS.
[By blog tradition, this dishonest comment has been edited to something more productive: a picture of a cute animal! Carry on. --EB]
[Oi -- where's my cute animal picture? I demand a cute animal picture as promised!]
Responding to Lurker’s response to me in spite of the fact that he said he won’t be back:
I’m not “disagreeing with the idea that an embryo at so many weeks is just a blob of cells” because it’s not an idea. It’s a fact.
Here is what you just said in those two sentences: it is a fact that an embryo at so many weeks is just a blob of cells. I know that what you mean is, in fact, the opposite, but this is a demonstration of how difficult it can be to discuss/debate an issue with someone when he or she is not careful about or even fully aware of the words he or she is using.
Furthermore:
I am saying this. “It looks a lot like a baby. . .” You’re absolutely right. A fetus during the 13th week of pregnancy does indeed look a lot like a baby. However, it is not a baby; it is still a fetus. You see that as me trying to dehumanize the fetus so as to feel more comfortable with the act of abortion; I see it as speaking accurately. Would that those who oppose abortion supported live, born babies as fervently as they do embryos and fetuses.
Arr, forgot to close a tag there. The italics in the last paragraph should end after the text in quotation marks.
Evil, I came across a post I thought would be of interest to you:
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ggraham/2009/01/27/flashpoint-a-womans-right-to-choose/
“And the first time I got a girl pregnant, I would have wrestled you to the ground for saying that. How f*cking dare you? You don’t know what you’re talking about! You piece of crap, you don’t know!
Well I do know. And I stand condemned. I’ve paid for three of them and was responsible for probably several more, I’m not really sure. But it breaks my heart. Because I’ve been convicted in my soul. It took years after the fact, but I was shown the Truth. And not to get mumbo-jumbo, oogly-boogly on you, but it was a spiritual awakening that did it. It happened unexpectedly, and it threw me to my knees in sudden tearful epiphany of what it meant for a man to be with a woman, what sex was really designed for by our Creator and… what abortion is.
And up until that point, I was completely ‘Pro-Choice’. I had bought the whole ‘women’s rights’ thing, completely agreed with ‘the constitutional right of a woman’s freedom to choose’…and I was just fine with that. Sure took the pressure off of me, a guy, interested in sex who had been raised in the era of, “Hey, you get a girl pregnant, you marry her!” But times had changed. Now abortions could be had legally if a doctor determined the life of the mother was in danger. Girls in college told me what a joke that was. They’d go in to see a doctor, tell him they’re pregnant, and the conversation went like this:
Doctor: “You’re feeling suicidal?” (hint hint, wink nudge.)
Girl: “Oh. Yeah… suicidal. I’m feeling suicidal.”
Doctor: “All right, then.”
Abortion as a method of birth control became the norm. I knew a few girls who had had as many as five of them by the time they were twenty-five. And they seemed fine on it…mostly because everyone around them was telling them that they should feel fine about it.
So this abortion thing was pretty damn convenient for a guy. And for a time, I was quite the Lothario. I kept a roster of seven girlfriends. Why seven? I don’t know…maybe Lucky Number 7 (yeah maybe)…or seven days in a week (more likely). But I would meet someone new, and I would simply go through my list…and kick one girl off. I would simply stop calling her. And to my great shame…this was my chosen method to ‘decathect.’ In retrospect, I wish I’d had the balls of utter honesty in my early relationships; but I was a drug-addled, post college idiot and that was the best I could muster. This was my m.o. and I knew I wasn’t alone…not by a long shot. We were proud products of the Love Generation.”
[...] I’ve moved this up to its own post because it is so freaking hilarious. I’ve approved “Thomas’”–who is quite likely rightdialogue under a different name–com… for two reasons: the first is that is references the hilarious font of poorly argued wingnuttery [...]
Because I’ve been convicted in my soul. It took years after the fact, but I was shown the Truth.
What is the Truth?
And is that different than the truth or THE TRUTH?