The real question here is why the anti-choice movement is taken seriously at all as a political movement by the media.
Because there’s a fuck of a lot of people who vote in the issue so it is a political movement.
The real question here is why the anti-choice movement is taken seriously at all as a political movement by the media.
Because there’s a fuck of a lot of people who vote in the issue so it is a political movement.
The irony being that abortion is the only area in life where the Left are ‘pro-Choice’
Because, Dearest Amanda, some people believe sincerely that abortion is killing babies and that killing babies is wrong.
Imagine that (if you can try to empathise outside your bubble for a nanosecond!
“The Wisdom Of Amanda Marcotte” is now available on Amazon (softcover, 1 page, blank).
On the subject of abortion and those who have misgivings, Amanda and her groupies have made competitive callousness a kind of art form.
Why has the UK msm kept quiet on the sale of baby parts by abortion clinics? Especially as some of those aborted foetuses were viable term babies? Also strangely quiet on Gosnell, the abortionist who snipped the spinal cords of viable babies post delivery?
I also take offence that I get lumped in with Christians when I think the maximum term should be reduced to 12 weeks or lower, except when it poses a serious threat to a woman’s life. OK, you shagged some bloke on a night out, condom split. You don’t want Gazzer’s kid. How quickly can you find this out? 4 weeks? 8 weeks maybe? If you’re that committed to not having Gazzer’s kid, what do you need more than 4 weeks for?
Well said, Rob.
I look upon legal abortion as the lesser of two evils, but I do think the censorship that Ljh mentions is pretty odious. And it seems to me that some pro-abortionists positively glory in the killing of theses foetuses/babies; vile bastards.
It seems this sort of thing is becoming increasingly common:
“I cannot understand why the Right – always a monolithic bloc – has opinion X at odds with mine. Therefore they should be dismissed and ignored”
(Sits back, strokes chin, triumphantly fires off article to the Guardian.)
But it’s not an argument, is it? It’s a simple failure of imagination.
I agree with The Stigler. I don’t like the idea of abortion as such, but we need to accept that permitting it to a limited extent is the lesser of two evils. We should reduce the time limit and also tighten the medical criteria. “It will make me depressed because it interferes with my lifestyle” isn’t good enough.
I agree with The Stigler. I don’t like the idea of abortion as such, but we need to accept that permitting it to a limited extent is the lesser of two evils. We should reduce the time limit and also tighten the medical criteria. “It will make me depressed because it interferes with my lifestyle” isn’t good enough.
I broadly agree with this, but not the last line mainly because it is startling easy to have a child when both parties are still absolute blithering idiots who haven’t thought things through. Most sixteen year olds don’t know shit from clay, and I think their ought to be a method of undoing an idiotic pregnancy on the grounds that it was idiotic and clearly unwanted. This argument is probably a bit harder to make when either or both parties are 25, but I think legal abortion exists precisely because a lot of people understand that teenagers do damned stupid things which ought not to completely ruin their lives.
(As an experiment in the ability of a teenager to make an informed decision, I wonder how many hit 30 regretting the tattoo they got on holiday over a decade ago.)
I just don’t agree with medical criteria at all. Well, obviously if there is some genuine medical reason, that should be considered. But if you are going to have abortion, it should be on demand, not require women to try to invent a medical reason.
I am in the “reluctant legal” camp on this; I disagree with every single pro-abortion lobby argument (having been dissuaded from a pro- position by the repellence of those very arguments) but am left- somewhat messily, in moral terms- with the “but women will want abortions anyway, so let it be legal early in the pregnancy”, position.
In which case, it should just be legal. On demand.
While taking the position that it is a decision that, far and away, is best never required at all.
Ian, that pretty much encapsulates my thinking on the subject. Of course, a statement along the lines of, “I dislike X and wish it did not occur, but I do not want to see it banned” is so completely at odds with the mindset of people like Marcotte that in uttering it I might as well be speaking Martian.
I read that sort of stuff from Amanduh and start wondering if she’s actually Richard Murphy’s lovechild. If so, it would explain a lot.
Robert Stacy McCain argues that modern feminism is little more than a totalitarian death cult, and when you read women like Amanda Marcotte and Sally Kohn on the subject of abortion, it’s hard to argue against McCain’s thesis.
At best abortion should be considered a deeply regrettable necessity. Women like Marcotte and Kohn positively revel in it. There are times when reading Sally Kohn that you get the impression that she finds the idea of abortion to be sexually stimulating. Marcotte is not quite to that level (yet), but that she is every bit as callous as David Thompson suggests is beyond doubt.
“but I think legal abortion exists precisely because a lot of people understand that teenagers do damned stupid things which ought not to completely ruin their lives.”
I do have a lot of sympathy with that sentiment. However, I do not see that 9 months pregnancy needs to lead to the ‘ruination’ of anybody’s life, let alone the life of a women in her twenties or thirties.. Sure pregnancy will be difficult for a 16 year old girl – assuming of course that this is indeed an unwanted pregnancy. After the pregnancy, however, adoption to one of the thousands of desperate childless couples in this and other countries takes the ‘problem’ away. The young man meanwhile can simply walk away without a backwards glance.
How is the destruction of the unborn child, the denial of any right to life, preferable to adoption?
How is the destruction of the unborn child, the denial of any right to life, preferable
Paraphrasing a woman in just such a position: it is a lot less of an emotional ordeal to destroy what is viewed as a few cells than to carry a child to term and give it to somebody else.
Umm, yes, but that’s petitio principii. Assuming to be true what needs to be proven to be true.
Agreed, if the society , the woman, thinks it’s a few cells then so what?
But then that’s precisely the change that has happened in the society over the years in the first place…..
So, this child is going to ‘ruin’ the mother’s life. But if she carries this thing, which will ruin her life, to birth then she will grow to love this thing that will ‘ruin’ her life and will not be able to bear the pain of parting from the source of her ruination. So better to destroy the child now before she gets to have any feelings for it. I guess because her feelings trump all other moral considerations.
Is that about right?
So better to destroy the child now before she gets to have any feelings for it.
Right, except she didn’t view it as a child at that point. So her position was better to destroy this fertilized egg before it becomes a child.
Which answers Tim’s point as well: provided people don’t view a fertilized egg as a child at a certain point, then they’ll have little problem with aborting it. If enough people view it this way, abortion will remain legal.
Agreed, if the society , the woman, thinks it’s a few cells then so what?
The problem you face is that most people do not equate a fertilized egg with a child. Until such time that they do, early-stage abortion is going to be carried out with a shrug.
And that to me is indeed a problem…and will be until I hear a very good distinction drawn between a fertilised human egg and a child. Something that goes beyond “it doesn’t feel like a child to me, therefore it isn’t”.
And that to me is indeed a problem…and will be until I hear a very good distinction drawn between a fertilised human egg and a child.
I am fairly certain that you draw a distinction between a fertilized chicken egg (if you eat eggs, you will certainly have eaten a bloodspot) and a chick (which I’m guessing you haven’t eaten). And I’m fairly certain if you were to video each being boiled and posted them on YouTube, people would only go apeshit about one.
Then again, some people think meat is murder.
Not an argument, I know, but my little mistake got his PhD this year.
@ Tim Newman
All the eggs that I have ever eaten were dead before I boiled or fried or poached or omeletted them. That some had been fertilised before they were delivered to the grocer/butcher/supermarket is irrelevant.
Your argument looks impressive but farm animals only exist to feed humans (at hich point I drop out of the argument).
Tim Newman
For the avoidance of doubt, are you comparing fertilised chicken eggs with human embryos? Or, to out ot another way, are you saying that, in your opinion a human embryo at, say, 6 weeks is not ‘a person’ as I believe?
The notion that a human with full civil rights exists from the moment of conception is contrary to centuries of English law. So someone of a conservative disposition might reasonably ask why anyone thinks it makes sense to replace this wisdom of our forefathers with a new superstition.
So when does life begin, dearieme?
It really is that simple.
Or, to out ot another way, are you saying that, in your opinion a human embryo at, say, 6 weeks is not ‘a person’ as I believe?
Correct. And given death certificates are not required when a woman miscarries and murder investigations not launched, it appears I am not alone.
That some had been fertilised before they were delivered to the grocer/butcher/supermarket is irrelevant.
Indeed: a fertilized egg is little different from an unfertilised egg, be it from a chicken or a human.
Tim Newman: ‘…given death certificates are not required when a woman miscarries …’
No, they aren’t. But apparently, the patriarchy has it in for womyn here too:
“Miscarriage culture is, from a feminist perspective, an amplification of the shame involved in being female in the first place.”
Tim Newman
OK, understood and thank you for being clear. I struggle, however, equating this view with that which you offered at 3.35pm yesterday. If you don’t equate the fertilised human embryo with the human baby then surely you personally only regard abortion as a medical proceedure and not “the lesser of two evils”. And surely abortion is simply – pure and simple – a matter of choice; not existing only to rectify theistakes of 16-year-old blithering idiots.
If you don’t equate the fertilised human embryo with the human baby then surely you personally only regard abortion as a medical proceedure and not “the lesser of two evils”.
Pretty much, yes. But as the gestation period progresses it would shift increasingly to “the lesser of two evils”.
And surely abortion is simply – pure and simple – a matter of choice; not existing only to rectify theistakes of 16-year-old blithering idiots.
Yes, quite. But its support among the general population is derived to quite some degree by the latter.
“Yes, quite. But its support among the general population is derived to quite some degree by the latter.” I understand but am though completely confused by your comment at 3.35pm yesterday. Are you now telling us that you are using a Richard Murphy false argument, an argument that you don’t actually believe, because you want to win people around first before you start telling us what you truly believe?
I understand but am though completely confused by your comment at 3.35pm yesterday.
It is available as a matter of choice precisely because people want it available for blithering idiot 16 year olds. As blithering idiot decisions are rather hard to quantify or describe in legal terms, the result of making it available for blithering idiots has meant it is available as a matter of choice.
Why stop at the moment of conception? Surely every unfertilised egg is also a potential human being denied the gift of life.
Selfish men are killing babies by withholding their sperm and forcing women to have periods.
“So when does life begin, dearieme?
It really is that simple.”
What idiocy. What is “life”? What exactly does “begin” mean? It’s not the equivalent of asking “When does the cricket game begin?”
Dearieme
I think you have just given us a working definition of being obtuse. Unless, of course, you’re actually Bill Clinton in disguise.
And, yes, it really is that simple.
“So when does life begin, dearieme? It really is that simple.”
When is someone tall? When is someone old?
“…until I hear a very good distinction drawn between a fertilised human egg and a child.”
Imagine yourself in an IVF clinic that is on fire. In one room is a baby child, In another room 20 embryos ready for implantation. You have enough time to rescue either the child, or the embryos, but not both. Presumably you will rescue the 20 embyros right?
Calling Dearieme obtuse, and/or Bill Clinton is a bit harsh. Writing “cricket game” rather than “cricket match” is wrong, badly wrong, but not criminally so.
He was sent to Ampleforth, so the blame lies elsewhere.
“He was sent to Ampleforth, so the blame lies elsewhere.”
So was I and are you sure he was?
“Imagine yourself in an IVF clinic that is on fire. In one room is a baby child, In another room 20 embryos ready for implantation. You have enough time to rescue either the child, or the embryos, but not both.”
Yes, that is exactly the sort of real – world scenario on which moral decisions affecting millions of people should be based.
I’m out.
Fuck me, I’ve had some insults, but “sent to Ampleforth” takes the biscuit.