Monday, March 06, 2006

My condolences to the Women of South Dakota

I am profoundly sorry to hear that your Republican state legislature and governor don't feel you deserve rights over your own bodies. To these bozos and all anti-abortionists out there, it's refresher time:

1. Abortion is a medical procedure. By criminalizing abortion, the government of South Dakota presumes to know more than the American Medical Association about how doctors should treat their patients.

2. A foetus is not a viable living entity. It has no rights if it resides in the womb. It is a part of the woman who is its host. If it is living outside the womb, its umbilical cord severed, then it is a human baby.

3. It's a pretty strong indication that you're not ready for motherhood - which is an incredibly huge undertaking, let's not forget - if you're seeking an abortion. A lot of mothers get uncerimoniously ditched by Daddy and then are left on their own with the children. Where's the law forcing men to take the responsibiliy of sticking with fatherhood for the long haul? We don't need any more unwanted children in this world.

4. You can't legislate against abortion. You only drive it underground and create more pain and misery in the world by doing so. And some of your daughters will be victims of this policy who will die bleeding out from using a coathanger in a state of panic because they're ashamed to even talk about it to their doctor or their friend or you because they know society has deemed it immoral.

5. Something to think about: Lot's more women die in child-birth - or of complications from pregnancy - than men. I'd say, ballpark, 100% or so.

6. Read this at firedoglake to understand how bizarre anti-abortionists become defending their illogic:
I brought up one of my favorite forced birth conundrums the other day, guaranteed to make wingnut "life begins at conception" heads explode. If a fire breaks out in a fertility clinic and you can only save a petri dish with five blastulae or a two-year old child, which do you save?

We just love Mike Stark, who takes this stuff to the streets. He called Andrew Wilkow's radio talk show and put the question to him, and Wilkow's head did, in fact, explode. He was reduced to a sputtering rage, screaming that he would not, in fact, save the two year-old child.

7. I'm getting sick of this. Just read the Cider House Rules and A Handmaid's Tale. Then rent the DVDs. Then almost die in childbirth carrying a rapist's last sick laugh. Then raise some rapist's child as a single-parent. Then you can come back here and tell me why abortion should not be a woman's choice.

- 30 -

1 comment:

Mark Richard Francis said...

The petri dish vs. a live baby is a good one. I'll remember that. It exactly details the difference.

I start getting upset with abortion when I think that the fetus is capable of some consciousness... but I'm not trying to start a debate on that. I'm not even sure I'd want a law in place saying that.

Some religious people maintain that the soul shows up at fertilization. I like to mess with them and suggest that for all they know every egg ready for fertilization already has a soul and if a woman does't try to get pregnant every cycle, she's doing the mioral equivalent of an abortion. I mean, why not? It's no less or more logical than their position.