If President Obama were my personal “change agent”, he’d have announced that the National Guard would now recruit gynecologists to serve as abortion providers in those parts of America — which would be most parts of America — where domestic terrorism and religious extremists keep American women from accessing medical services which are not only legal but supported by the majority of Americans. And he’d add that the National Guard would also be protecting the facilities where those gynecologists worked, with the intention of prosecuting all lawbreakers to the full extent of the anti-terrorism statutes.
If President Obama were my own Magical Unity Pony, he’d give some version of the Healthy Babies Initiative speech I posted last night, while I was still teetering on the edge of full berserker mode.
Because yesterday, I wanted to visit Terry RandallRandall Terry’s* house and break his lying jaw with an axe. I wanted to take the current spokesmonster of Operation Rescue and abandon him naked in the middle of Death Valley, where he could petition his god for a miracle to save his worthless hide. And I wanted to air-drop every single “choose life” protestor waggling fetus-pr0n and screaming abuse in front of reproductive clinics to the Afghan-Pakistani intertribal regions, where they could enjoy all the benefits of living under the Taliban authority they crave.
If I were granted one superpower, I’d have the ability to take all the “snowflake babies” and “pre-born” embryos and “womb babies” and implant them in the abdomens of every single anti-choice leader — men first. Sure, ectopic pregnancies are very rarely viable and almost inevitable damage the human carrier’s health, but hey! Most women (excuse me, baby-pods) survive the experience, and there are cases in the medical texts where abdominally-implanted fetuses actually lived long enough to require expensive neonatal services. Live your beliefs the hard way, Reverend Phelps! Who knows — maybe your Special Snowflake will turn out to be a healthy little blue-eyed blond angel! But of course, if it’s damaged or “ethnic” or just requires months of expensive medical intervention… well, don’t come whining to us taxpayers, looking for a handout. You should have known what you were getting into before you opened your legs yap, you disgusting worthless parasite on the body public! (This is why my god has not granted me superpowers. For which I am duly grateful.)
Most of us, most of the time, manage to ignore the self-styled Pro-Life anti-abortion protestors, those draggled sadsacks yowling on streetcorners, waving rosaries and shoving their exploited offspring in front of the local news cameras. We have a vague idea that they’re well-meaning people expressing their civic opinions, like good citizens should, and besides, religious tolerance is a virtue even when those hiding behind the First Amendment are intolerant loons and borderline psychotics. And there probably are well-meaning decent Christian individuals at those anti-choice rallies — in my life, including the 12 years I spent in parochial schools, I’ve met at least a handful of people the Jesus Christ described in the New Testament would recognize as Christians, so I know the breed may be rare but it’s not mythical. But let’s be honest: Sturgeon’s Law posits that “90% of everything is crap“, and that law holds just as true for human motivations as it does for bad skiffy novels. I’ll be posting a Field Guide to Your Neighborhood Womb Bigots later, because the weasel-wording and mealy-mouthing about this is driving me fvcking mad.
*I plead lysdexia
Mac from Oregon
You should try to let your emotions out slowly, on an even keel. So, What do you really think?
Nicole
Anne Laurie, I think I love you.
Laura W
OH LOOKIT THE ROCKIN’ NEW TAG!!
Old Gringo
Because yesterday, I wanted to visit Terry Randall’s house and break his lying jaw with an axe.
This is the problem with The Drug War. Sometimes they go to the wrong house. And as per the other thread, the problem with capital punishment. You want to go to Randall Terry’s house.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
BruceFromOhio
Bless me, I think Steve Gilliard is up in heaven smiling.
AL, souls like yours don’t get superpowers because first they throw you in the river to see if you sink, then they burn you at the stake.
BerkeleyMom
What Anne Laurie said. And it needs saying.
Rachel Maddow did a great opening segment today on the domestic terrorists that plague this country.
I’d maybe have a shred of respect for the (non-violent) pro-life movement if they had the smallest amount of compassion for children after they are born. Here is CA we are facing a huge budget crisis and the first on the chopping block are programs for handicapped kids for pete’s sake. Thirty seven million people (all born) have no health insurance and many die each day. But still this unending fetish with the un-born.
geg6
Anne Laurie, I prostrate myself at your feet. I’ve been beside myself with fury, too. And you put that fury into words. Exactly.
John Cole
I’m gonna get blamed for this post.
Plus, you swore.
gex
@BerkeleyMom:
Or if they weren’t almost the exact same set who are against contraception and sex ed. But until they try to actually *prevent* the need for abortions they can STFU.
I mean seriously. Who looks at the issue of how we can reduce/prevent abortion and decides that contraception is not acceptable, but murder is. If you are saying that a sin is justified to prevent the killing of a fetus, then let that sin be contraception, not murder for F’s sake.
Incertus
I’m getting a hell of a giggle out of the idea of Fred Phelps being pregnant. I needed that–thank you.
And John, if you need more entries in the “mock as needed” list, may I suggest MacsMind. I did some mocking of my own earlier. Did you know that the left celebrates Castro, Mao, Tookie Williams and some dude named Hilter?
Indylib
Brava! Best rant I’ve seen on this. Excellent job, Anne Laurie.
BettyPageisaBlonde
Matt Taibbi, watch out! There’s a new sheriff in town.
:D
me
It is “John Cole’s Balloon Juice” after all.
John Cole
@Incertus: Macsmind, Bitsblog, and all of them are a waste of time. They are honestly so stupid they don’t even understand when you are mocking them. At least K-Lo and those guys know they are being made fun of.
Old Gringo
Bring back bundling.
Cat G
Can we hear a huge, shout to the heavens, AMEN !!!
Anne Laurie, YOU ROCK !!!
Laura W
Yikes. Frank Schaeffer just blew it out of the big park on Rachel. Even went to the “some crazy is gonna kill Obama if this shit continues” place. Gulp.
Linkmeister
Randall Terry should be impregnated, I agree, but I shudder at the resulting child’s upbringing.
Mildly O/T: Has Little Green Footballs suddenly seen the light? I was at the Brad Blog and saw a hat tip to LGF, clicked the link, and was astonished to see that its front page posters were universally celebrating the capture of the suspect in the Tiller killing, and were unanimously appalled at the murder.
None of those folks called themselves Charles, though. Was there a coup d’état over there?
freelancer
HAHAHA,
Love the new tag, can anything referencing the Taliban be tagged “Tiny-Dick Madness”?
vg
o.0
SarahLoving
Amen, sister.
Incertus
@John Cole: Ah. Obviously I am unaware of all right-wing internet traditions.
Delia
@Old Gringo:
Those strict laws may have been more honored in the breech than the observance. A number of years ago I read some article in the NY Review of Books about mores in rural Puritan New England. There was a custom called bundling. When a young couple was courting, and the young man was visiting his girlfriend at her home, her parents (if they liked him) would tend to invite him to stay overnight on a cold winter’s night. And they would both spend the night in the girl’s bed. Supposedly they would promise to both keep their clothes on all night, but nobody really believed that one.
Oh yeah, and sometimes a couple of, um, confirmed bachelors would set up housekeeping together and run a farm together, and the district preachers would get kind of hot and bothered, but the local people never cared and pretty much told the preachers to mind their own business.
I wish I could remember the name of the book. But it seem that a lot of Puritans were a lot more sensible about sex than their current reputation has them.
celticdragon
I’d blame you more if you refused to post it, John.
Righteous kudos to Anne Laurie. I nominate you for V-Day International Vagina Warrior.
*sigh*
Don’t get me started on my anthropology professor trying to tell us that female genital mutilation in Kenya is really okay…
celticdragon
LGF has been declared persona non grata by much of the far right for actually saying that racism, is, uh, bad…
mistermix
I hope the “Field Guide” has a glossary because I can’t make heads or tails of half of the bullshit that comes out of the hard-core RTL’ers pieholes.
J
Absolutely brilliant! What Swift meant by Saeva indignatio.
gizmo
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/69212.html
Dr. Tiller’s assistant is going to keep the clinic open, and the same services will be available to pregnant women. So the killer accomplished nothing, other than giving the “pro-life” movement another black eye.
Linkmeister
celticdragon, Oh. Thanks. It’s not gonna go on my link list, but it’s an interesting twist, after 8 years of venom.
Cat G
About 25 years ago I was sitting in the gallery of a state legislature. The bill under discussion was to create a child sexual abuse register. A Representative was speaking in favor of the registry as a way to track and protect children. I knew him. He was a very conservative man speaking movingly about the long term trauma to the youths that he counseled in his ministry. Two women sitting behind me began yammering about how they thought that girls just used being abused as an excuse for promiscuity. After what seemed like an eternity of really obnoxious comments I finally turned around to see who they were. They were 2 of the most vocal anti-abortion lobbyists. You might call it an epiphany. They were also trying to make amnioscentesis illegal in any hospital that received any state money…for anything, because there wasn’t any reason for doing amnio except abortion. troglodytes..hateful, vicious and lacking in any compassion…or…may I say….empathy.
Martin
Even easier – mail them the embryos and then charge them with murder when they fail to bring them to term.
I have no problem applying the more rigid of either the state’s definition of a crime or the individual’s definition. If they insist it’s murder, then charge them with murder.
stickler
Linkmeister:
One of the less-depressing (if not entertaining) aspects of this particular case is going to be watching the nominally Libertarian wing of Wingnutville go at it with the Authoritarian/Christianist wing. They all love to laugh at “libtards” and such, but they’re diametrically opposed on Gummint In Yer Bedroom. Many Libertarians (LGF-style) are also, how shall we put it, not only not opposed to abortion, they believe that it should be easier to get, especially among certain types of people with certain levels of melatonin, if you know what I mean and I think that you do. Plus, ganja.
Talibangelicals, on the other hand, are fond of thinking of the State as the Sword Arm Of God, and are convinced that Leviticus (or certain parts thereof) supercedes the Bill of Rights.
It’s Dungeons & Dragons vs. Left Behind over there in Wingnutville. Good times! (Except for the terrorism and killing of fellow-citizens, of course.)
demkat620
Amen Anne Laurie! A-fucking-men!
gex
OT: When will the Ezra Klein link be updated?
jrg
This little segment makes you just as bad as Bill O’reilly. You’re in deep shit if Ayers or, um, whoever, reads Balloon Juice and starts bombing bird baths, or becomes a violent anti-anti-abortion activist. The blood will be on your hands.
Cain
LGF seems same they were mocking pam gellar earlier as a single site. Crazy!
Cain
Linkmeister
stickler:
Ah. I hadn’t thought of that aspect of it, since I rarely venture over to that part of the blogosphere and thus don’t necessarily recognize the different species it contains. What the hell, I’ve only been doing this blogging thing for 8 years myself; maybe one day I’ll get smarter about the players. ;)
xj - not the auto
@john cole – yep, you’re getting blamed for this post.
while I agree with almost everything expressed in Ms. Laurie’s post, I am not happy with the tone. This is what the nut-job wingers do – think and speak in anger. Sure, it feels good, but it drags the poster down to the level of the nuts. If I want vitriol and hatred, I can visit a winger site. I visit this site because of it’s thoughtful, considered tone, and because I find the posts insightful and well written. Please, don’t turn yourselves into the other. You’re smart and talented, you don’t need to do that.
kommrade reproductive vigor
I nearly laughed my ass off at that one, then I saw the tag. And now I’ve completely lost my shit.
South of I-10
Great post, love the new tag. Anne Laurie, I missed your inaugural post, congrats on your new gig.
Montysano
You’re more charitable than I, AL. In my eye, they’re cowards who avoid the difficult prescriptions of this Christ fellow, choosing instead to piss away their energies on hopeless crusades against hot-button, high entertainment value issues like choice and gay marriage.
oh really
One question: Did JC know you were a pacifist when he brought you aboard?
Laura W
@xj – not the auto: I’m pretty sure if you look through the archives you’ll find plenty of angry-toned posts from John, at least. Doug and Tim don’t run as hot. (As often. Normally.)
This is Anne Laurie’s third post, for Christ’s sake, and it’s not a fucking book review. (By that I mean the topic is heavy and heated.) There will be plenty of cat photos and wine reviews tomorrow. We promise.
biff3000
<troi> I sense… hostility….</troi>
Linkmeister
xj, I’d call the original post righteous rage rather than vitriol and hatred. If you can’t be angry when a good kind man is murdered for his actions by a man emblematic of a kind of lunacy which says it knows better for women than women do, when can you be angry?
Fulcanelli
Good for you, Anne Laurie, let ‘er rip. Keeping that kind of rage pent up is unhealthy. Damn, you must’ve been shaking after that one.
And here I was thinking how your posts were so dignified, sensible, and even handed… What’s Cole doing? Trying to polish up his image? Whew, he had me going there…
Carry on Anne Laurie, fire at will. We’ve got your back on this one.
Old Gringo
@Delia
See 15 above.
Bad Horse's Filly
Love the tag.
Laura W
@Old Gringo: I think bundling sounds kinda sexy. Being forced to lie in bed all night and talk, all wrapped up in soft blankies. Like bondage but without the gag?
Xanthippas
I would do well to start at the beginning of the comments, and not just skip to the end.
tc125231
linda
that was a real pleasure to read.
there’s been nothing like watching middle-aged men dominate the friggin cable commentary — with all its uninformed yammering about late-term abortion — and it drives me friggin nuts.
Farley
The Vagina Rage Monologue.
I love it Anne. That was great!
Fulcanelli
@Laura W: Tipping our hand a little here, no… Careful, you’re liable to get asiangrrlMN talkin’ all hawt and stuff and wind up way OT.
P.S. Don’t go to Terry Randall’s house with the axe, he’s probably innocent. Try Randall Terry. We don’t want John to have to raise money here on BJ for your defence fund just yet.
Old Gringo
@Laura
I’m sure I have no idea what you are talking about – but if I did, mind you, for the sake of argument and illumination, it speaks volumes about how much more pragmatic they were back then than we give them credit for being. They never deluded themselves about practicing abstinence being a viable policy when young and in lust.
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
On the contrary, John. I came here to post this just to state that although I felt Anne Laurie came out of nowhere to claim front pager status, I think the timing was most excellent, looking back 20/20 and all that. Little did we know what an important decision that was.
Anne Laurie, you go girl! I got your back!
Denise Velez
Thank you Anne Laurie,
Your words were just what I needed to hear this evening.
I’ve grown angrier each day that I have to listen to people dictate to me, my goddaughters, their girl children about what I can, or they can or cannot do with our bodies, and then the terrorists murder one of the last doctors in America who can save a woman’s life, or sanity in the latter stages of pregnancy.
I was even crankier this evening watching first Chris M and his all male guests discuss abortion and Chris brought up “partial birth” b.s., and then KO with Andrew Sullivan (who though he denounced terrorism, went on to wax poetic on his distaste for abortion), and then Turley on Rachel’s show (who makes my skin crawl after his dismissive, arrogant remarks re: Sonia Sotomayor) refusing to call it “terrorism” …wondering when is a woman going to speak this evening?.
Finally, Rachel had a female guest, a Doctor, but by that time I was too pissed off to care.
Sorry to come here to rant. That done,
Hello folks. I was sent here by a poster on another blog, told that this was a great place to read.
Martin
No. It might seem trivial, but there’s a difference between “I felt like doing X to Y” and “X deserves to have Y done to them.”
The former is pretty normal. Everyone has felt like doing something inappropriate at one time or another. But they don’t do it.
The latter is what the wingers do – take that same emotion and declare that the target *deserves* that action. Anne Laurie didn’t say that what she felt was deserved, or that anyone should do it, just that she felt that way. The entire post is centered around Anne Laurie, not around Terry or anyone else.
Little Dreamer
@Linkmeister:
Randall Terry should have to be impregnated with ALIEN, and then be forced to raise it to adulthood (thereby insuring he gets his head eaten in the end).
geg6
Martin FTW.
chopper
aw, shnap.
Laura W
@Fulcanelli:
Yeah, I know. But she covers the late shift. I’ll be fast asleep by then. (Or tossing and turning but not online.)
I’m really not into bondage. The part about talking without sex is what excited me.
;-)
FormerSwingVoter
I think that this Daily Kos diary from a few years ago spells out exactly what is at stake regarding a woman’s right to choose.
I have sometimes been a little squeamish about abortion, but I think it’s important for all men to realize how vital of a right this is for women, instead of going the “horrible but sometimes necessary” route that so many “liberals” choose.
Little Dreamer
Saying you want to do something heinous and not following through with it is getting things off your chest; hinting you might like to do something heinous (or perhaps just egging others on to do it and act like you would never do so yourself) and then following through on the threat is genuine violence.
How often has your mother said “I’ll kill you” or “I brought you into this world, I can take you out too!” – I’m sure she didn’t mean it… maybe. ;)
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@xj – not the auto: You sure we’re readin’ the same blog?
But really — I remember doing Pro-Choice work in college, 20 years ago. I remember forcing myself to read sicking pamphlet after pamphlet, magazine after magazine, trying, desperately, to understand “Pro-Lifers”, esp. the ones who did all the clinic protests and yelling and screaming, and “begging for the lives of the baby.”
And my conclusion was like unto Frank Schaeffer’s, who I also caught on Rachel today. It was OBVIOUS, and I mean blindingly obvious, to anyone who actually paid attention to their rhetoric — and keep in mind, this was in the late 80’s, when they had managed to roll back a bunch of Abortion Rights — that the leadership was so whacked out, they felt they could say, or ask for, anything, just to move their flock, to get their sheep to rise up and protest.
They said they were following the precepts of MLK. But they acted, behind the scenes, more like the Black Panthers. No direct violence, no. Their hands are “clean”. But they knew full well that what they were saying would influence people to do “things”. Ask yourself — why else would they say ’em? What purpose does calling someone a “baby killer” do, in terms of actually changing minds, save to inflame passions? And that’s the nice stuff; there are plenty of places where hardcore Pro-Lifers detail ideas that damned few Liberals would ever contemplate. Indeed, that realization is part of why I remain in the Democratic Party, despite it’s many failures.
And this, this is the trick the GOP as a whole is picking up. This is why Coulter and Limbaugh and O’Reilly and the rest of that sad lot are screamers, pushing your buttons and driving people to believe believe believe without thinking. They know it affects people. And they know it affects too many people. And it doesn’t matter the violence it does to the discourse in America, the sense of a civic discourse, so long as they get their ratings and votes and sense of power.
…sorry to use this space to vent. But I’ve been between rage and tears all damned day — not just at the death, but at the reactions, and lack thereof. And I wanted to say thanks to Anne Laurie for posting this, ’cause despite what some people think, it’s a healing post. You mourn, you rage, you weep.
And then the next day, you get up, and you FIX THE GODDAMN PROBLEM.
rikyrah
this post rocked.
thank you.
Little Dreamer
@Old Gringo:
Hey, lust is not exclusive to the young, trust me. ;)
gex
@Laura W: Your post reminded me of one of the conflicting memes about women’s sexuality. We are simultaneously promiscuous whores who celebrate abortions as a form of birth control AND frigid asexual beings who never want to do it as much as men want to do it. Some dudes seriously need to get over the Madonna/whore complex and just deal with the fact that their mommies did the nasty too.
Anne Laurie
You knew this job was dangerous when you took it. Besides, they know you don’t swear, being ex-Army an’ all. {grin}
asiangrrlMN
Good post, Anne Laurie, you said what I said in my blog post today, and much more concisely.
@Martin: Yes, Martin, you get it. Thank you for expressing it so well. Anger sometimes is the appropriate response to a situation, and this is that situation. Anne Laurie is not saying she’s going to do these things–just that she feels like it.
Great. Frank Schaeffer is on Rachel. The other guy I told to fuck off today (along with Sully) in my blog post because of his moral smarminess over late-term abortions. I may not watch either Rachel or Keith tonight.
@Fulcanelli:
@Laura W:
Hey, now! No takin’ my name in vain. I know how to comport my–wait, did someone say bondage?
Laura W
@asiangrrlMN: Schaeffer might surprise you.
gex
@asiangrrlMN: With you on Sully. I was furious today to read him still claim, without exception whatsoever, about the moral problem of late-term abortion. This after how many posts about late-term abortions for dead fetuses, fetuses without faces, fetuses whose brain grows outside of their skulls, and pregnancies that will risk the life of the mother although the child will have a short brutal life due to abnormalities.
Sometimes I wonder if he reads his own blog.
geg6
AsiangrrlMN: Listen to Laura W. Scaeffer is worth a listen.
Maude
Holder has announced that Federal Marshals (sp) will be protecting at risk clinics.
The violent anti abortion types are Anarchists, kind of looks like Antichrist.
It’s like Bush et al using torture and all of the other extra constitutional methods to do what they wanted.
Reagan and Iran-Contra.
You can’t reason with this insanity. It’s the laws that matter.
asiangrrlMN
@geg6:
@Laura W:
Oh, I know in general Schaeffer is worth a listen, but I can’t get over his “Abortion debate would be over if we just outlawed late-term abortions” paragraph from his article in HuffPo. I am very, very weary of men telling me that because of their moral squeamishness over late-term abortions, they should be outlawed. Ok. I will give him a listen since outside the topic of late-term abortions, he’s pretty thoughtful.
@gex:
Well, you know, morning-after pill! To me, this part of Sully is why I just don’t want to read him.
And, *gasp* moms don’t have sex!
xj - not the auto
@Martin et.al.
I’ve only been hanging around for a couple months, so can’t speak for the past. When someone says that they want to physically hurt someone it usually means the actor thinks it’s deserved. I understand the nuance here, but don’t view violence fantasies as particularly healing, althought they feel good. If that’s grieving, so be it. I just don’t see anger expressed this way as helping anyone fix the problem -I see it as firing up the base. BTW, I don’t really care for the cat pics either.
Martin
And I want to say that I like the National Guard idea. Actually, I’ll go one more – Obama’s new national health care plan shouldn’t have any general government employed doctors, except for reproductive health (everything that Planned Parenthood would do). The government would be required to have a reproductive clinic sharing a wall with every military recruiting office (and vice/versa).
That would influence their tactics somewhat.
Little Dreamer
@xj – not the auto:
Shame on you! ;)
Tim P.
Why is religious tolerance a virtue? Personally I feel that supernatural thinking, properly understood, is uniquely dangerous to a just society in that, by definition, it cannot be justified by empirical observation or, if you prefer, a shared object of reference (i.e. human’s shared tendency toward purity, harm, fairness, authority beliefs). In fact, reductionist efforts are seen as an insult to their proponents, a misunderstanding of some sort.
(It is my belief that this feature is an armor that is common to most all modern religions as a way to render the systems impossible to refute with ‘certainty’. Those religions that did not feature this, those that made empirical claims, died from lack of proof when tested rigorously.)
This is a problem imo, in that, when one is weighing supernatural claims, not only is it impossible to intersubjectively analyze their truth value with others’ observations (except in terms of comparing a priori intuitions), but it is impossible to properly adjudicate their worth as compared to secular norms. By ‘worth’ I mean what a person ‘should do’ (from the perspective of that person): that, inevitably, in at least one situation (usually more, but one is a minimum for the belief to be properly called supernatural), one is – or would be – forced to choose between acting on the basis of a supernatural belief or purely on observable reality (the two cannot be identical without removing all reference to supernatural claims, obviously).
It could be possible for one ‘reasoning supernaturally’ to act identically to someone who is not 100% of the time, but this would render the supernatural beliefs rather trivial – it would be the supernatural equivalent of old school epiphenomenalism (supernatural commands are identical to secular norms, but the way in which we come to know or experience these norms is god or something – a good case for Occam’s Razor I think). And, at any rate, experience has shown that supernatural beliefs rarely correlate 1 to 1 with liberal norms. This is why robust supernatural religions and Liberalism cannot co-exist without inevitable and ongoing conflict.
I think non-theists and other secularists cede too much ground in granting without argument that supernatural beliefs belong to a protected category above challenge. This was a big point of Dawkins and Harris’.
I was reading the emails on Sullivan’s site by some of Tiller’s patients.. he seemed like a very compassionate and level-headed person.. this whole business is so sad, and I can’t help but feel that as a nation we’re headed in the wrong direction on this.
Michael
Frank was awesome. I knew he wouldn’t hang on to the nuttiness too long after he found himself embracing the Orthodox Church several years ago.
He was there for the start, and was great at revealing how it all worked in the backrooms.
Laura W
@xj – not the auto: At least you didn’t call Anne Laurie “hysterical”.
TenguPhule
It isn’t.
“Thou shalt have no other God then me”
Beej
I’m an adopted kid. I wanted to say that right off, because it explains, at least partially, why I have such ambivalent feelings about abortion. I was adopted in 1947 when I was 3 months old. I know very little about my biological parents and have never really had the desire to find out more. I do know that I was born to an unmarried mother in a time and place (Nebraska) when that simply wasn’t acceptable. And I just can’t stop thinking that if abortion had been legal in 1947, I might not be here. I know the “what if’s” will kill you, but what if. . . ? I also eavesdropped on a conversation between a couple of my students a few years ago where one confided to the other that she’d just had her 7th, that’s right, 7th abortion.
At the same time, I’m a feminist and listening to the “holier-than-thou” crowd tell some desperate woman what an evil person she is for even considering an abortion makes my blood boil. And I know that the two positions are in direct contradiction to each other.
So I guess I hope that Pres. Obama really can succeed in bringing people together over the issues on which they agree, even if they disagree on others. Somehow we have to stop seeing this issue as either/or, and start thinking of it as a social problem to be addressed.
All of that said, I want to see the trial and incarceration for life of the nutcase who killed Dr. Tiller. I also want to see every right-wing idiot commentator who played cheerleader for just this kind of violence and is now saying, “Huh? Not my fault.” afflicted with boils and dysentery. Permanently.
Michael
Here’s an awesome Orcinus post from 2005 that connects the dots between Terry and the current incarnation of the Base. He describes Schiavo as the coming out party for the sort of nuts that we see running the show today.
It also summarizes “the best of” Terry’s more assholish statements over the years.
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2005/04/cold-embrace.html
Delia
@xj – not the auto:
We’re generally a tolerant group, but you can only push us so far.
Little Dreamer
That will never happen so long as the debate is wrapped up in religion.
Martin
Well, I would disagree with that. I think we lack the means to properly challenge it rather than the will to do so. Consider that as a society we’re just marinating in supernatural thinking – not just the wondertwins of Yahweh and Xenu, but Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, angels, alien abductions, all the way out to fake birth certificates and government tracking us through our money. You can’t turn on the evening news without the Virgin Mary in an Eggo or someone who saw the ghost of Elvis spying on them in the shower. I mean, where do you push back, and how without basically attacking the very core of life in this country.
Consider that most American’s think it’s impossible to be a moral person without a supernatural code of conduct to support it. I mean, where do you even begin when that’s the baseline?
asiangrrlMN
@Beej: Thank you for sharing your story.
The problem is that there is, at the core, as President Obama himself said, irreconcilable differences. I don’t believe there really is a way to find a meeting of the minds.
@Little Dreamer: Yes, this, too.
Martin, like this. I am an agnostic, and I have never divorced, cheated on someone, I give to the poor and help those less fortunate than me. I have not bilked anyone out of money, and I pay my taxes on time. In other words, I’m pretty damn moral. So, I can personally refute the notion that you have to believe in Santa Claus, er, God (with a capital G) to be moral.
Beej
@Little Dreamer: Unfortunately, you are probably right.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
@Michael: Thanks for that post. I suspect it’ll be a cornerstone for what I plan to write tomorrow.
Michael
Woodrow, Schiavo was my watershed moment. It was the presence of Terry (along with that lying sack of shit, “Father” Frank Pavone) and their astroturfing of the issue with the GOP that really opened my eyes.
Steeplejack
@Delia: Haw! And amen.
Robertdsc-iphone
The “pro-life” movement has lost me. I don’t give two ounces of a damn anymore what they think. In flipping through Sully’s blog today, his posts on the subject were a huge turnoff. Not gonna read him for a while.
Martin
Abortion wasn’t legal in 1947 and yet there were scads of abortions being performed. That’s one part of the disconnect of the issue, that making something illegal stops it. It’s illegal to smoke weed, yet a massive percentage of the population still does it, and in almost all such cases there isn’t even a sense of self-preservation unlike with abortion.
I don’t think any pro-choice person sees it as an problem that doesn’t need to be solved. Everyone on this side of the fence is trying to solve it with access to contraception, education, adequate health care and screening, expanding adoption choices, and so on. The very people who are proclaiming that abortion is wrong are working to prevent *all* of those things. They fight for singles and gays to adopt. They fight contraception. They fight education. They fight for the ability of girls who think they might be pregnant to find out in confidence. They fight every proven solution because they don’t care about abortion. They care about stopping sex, and they use abortion to mobilize the troops. For all the money and energy that the shock troops put into blowing up clinics and providing legal defense for assassins, they could have passed legislation providing free contraceptives for anyone that asked. Instead they fight against sex-ed in school and fight against providing insurer covered birth control (but endorse coverage of Viagra).
For 40 years only one group of people have been focused on real solutions to this problem, and the rest have been focused on something else entirely.
gex
@Beej: I don’t mean this cruelly or to sound as though I’m not glad you were born and found a loving family (because I am glad), but you wouldn’t have actually noticed not being born.
Steeplejack
@Martin:
And they’re against the morning-after pill, which, if they were logically consistent or really concerned about reducing the number of abortions, they should want available in vending machines in every 7-Eleven in the country.
gex
Grrrr!!!! This is exactly how the pro-choice side views it. I’m sorry if you found one person who treats it lightly (7 abortions? Really?) but I’m really sick of everyone pretending that rare-safe-legal is a compromise between pro-life and pro-choice.
Pro-choice people do not eschew sex ed and contraception and advocate for abortion as the only means of contraception. That is the polar opposite to the anti-abortion people for which rare-safe-legal would be a compromise.
So how do you propose addressing this social problem? Do you take the anti-abortion view, the pro-choice view, or the strawman pro-choice view?
gex
You know, I’m beginning to smell troll. There are infinite possibilities in this universe but a blog post fretting about abortion by someone adopted who knows someone who’s had seven abortions sounds awfully fishy.
iluvsummr
@Martin:
The sad thing is it’s impossible to reason with people whose religiosity has led them pretty much to the edge of madness: I mean, what do you say to a “pro-life” murderer?
I wish that it was medically possible for unwanted fetuses to be transplanted. That way male and female pro-lifers could walk the talk by volunteering to carry these fetuses to term: normal, anencephalic, whatever. They could take the responsibility for raising the children that they want to force others to have and save some mothers’ lives in the process. I wouldn’t mind Randall Terry or Sully bloviating about abortion if they could step up and take a mother’s place.
And I wish there were more contraceptive options for men than condoms and vasectomy.
If wishes were horses, right?
Thanks for this thread Anne Laurie.
asiangrrlMN
@gex: That’s why ya gotta do what I do and selectively choose what parts of a post to believe. Makes it easier.
@Steeplejack: Well, it’s murder and, and, shut up! Just close your legs, you slut! Sorry. Channeling my inner wingnut (who sounds suspiciously like Michele Bachmann). Sadly, some anti-choice activists DO see the morning-after pill as abortion as well as contraceptives.
iluvsummer, the pill for men is supposedly coming soon. The question is, would you trust a man to take it?
Michael
Tell him it makes him bigger.
Michael
Weird. I think I just got tossed into moderation.
The Populist
Randall Terry should be put on trial for accessory to murder. So should Bill O.
Hey Malkin, shut the fuck up you hag. You should post an apology to Janet Napolitano now.
Everyday I see this stupid shit play out it makes me less conservative and much more liberal in my beliefs. Why should I ever consider going back to the conservatives when they can’t even speak out against this murder? They are too brainwashed and psychotic to see what this really means about them as people.
The Populist
These fucks aren’t pro-life. I will recount why:
1) They hate babies. Especially poor babies. Once that child is born to this world these asshats want nothing to do with them. These same “tea bagging” whiners hate taxes yet want every unwanted child to be born because they LIKE shoving their power on others, especially young, confused women.
2) They hate kids. When Bush had pulled the plug on a child in Texas only reinforces my belief in this.
3) They love war which kills innocents.
4) They think it’s okay to advocate murdering a doctor doing what the LAW says is fine. They have no issues with hurting anybody who disagrees with their wacky beliefs.
5) They hate gays and many of these wack-a-doodles advocate gay bashing to the point that some people die.
6) Many advocate harm on Obama.
7) The death penalty…nuff said.
Yep, the right sure love death. No wonder JESUS doesn’t come back. Even if he did, these asshats would demonize him as a liberal.
The Populist
Who got those backroom abortions? The same privileged a-holes who tell poorer people what they can or can’t do.
It’s bullshit that these people talk out of one side of their mouths.
iluvsummr
@asiangrrlMN: Seems to me like the pill for men has been “coming soon” for years. I have at least one ex I would have trusted with the pill – he was as committed to not being a father as I was to not being a mother ;).
The Populist
Hey Randall Terry, I have masterbated in my life – should I be killed for killing millions of babies.
Idiots.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
Yeah, which figures a lot in their opposition to it, along with the usual “Ick! Let’s not make it any easier for people to have sex” thing in general.
And, also yeah, the problem with male contraception is the whole “trust but verify” issue. Some guy can say he’s on the male pill (or whatever), but, if he’s not, he’s not the one who’s going to suffer the consequences. Bummer. Don’t have an answer for that.
The Populist
Yet these same idiots believe that gays CHOOSE their lifestyles and Ms. California only showed her boobs because she has a great body and there is nothing wrong with it.
Hypocrites and buffoons are what they are.
asiangrrlMN
@The Populist: Seriously, you were a Republican once? Oddly enough, people like you and John give me some hope.
Oh, wait. That wasn’t you. Still, John gives me hope.
@Michael: Now that was just damn funny.
@iluvsummr: But it’s really coming this time, honest!
@Steeplejack: Exactly! On a feminist board, women were arguing that it’s just as sexist to say a man can’t be trusted to take the pill as it is to say women lie about taking the pill in order to get knocked up, but bottom line is, the woman is the only one who can get pregnant.
I really need to get my tubes tied.
Anne Laurie
Well, a good man is still dead — a mighty warrior in the fight for justice. If only Roeder had been able to eat his victim’s heart, his own Warrior Credentials would have been hugely enlarged! To put the magical thinking into modern terms, he would totally have Levelled Up! He would’ve gotten the admiration of fellow warriors and the attention of the tribe’s women!
And, yes, I’m afraid that’s more or less what was going through Roeder’s mind.
TenguPhule
I bet all the men say that. :P
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: Another zinger! Thank you. I really need laughs right now.
@Anne Laurie: Not very different from the seventy-six virgins, is it?
Beej
@gex: No troll, just someone who thinks the issue is a little more complicated than either side is willing to admit. If I absolutely have to come down on one side or the other, I’ll always come down on the pro-choice side. But I’ll always be uncomfortable about it. I’ll bet I’m far from alone in feeling that way. And incidentally, I was adopted in 1947, and I did actually overhear the conversation about 7 abortions. Please don’t pretend that such things never happen. I’m willing to bet you that they happen far more often than anyone wants to think they do.
TenguPhule
72. Unless there are some very interesting sex practices going on in the after-life.
The Populist
No, I was once a Republican so don’t give up hope.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Many Libertarians (LGF-style) are also, how shall we put it, not only not opposed to abortion, they believe that it should be easier to get, especially among certain types of people with certain levels of melatonin, if you know what I mean and I think that you do.
Either you mean the Libertarians think people who can sleep well should have abortions, or you’ve confused melatonin with melanin…
And as regards bundling, the idea on the surface was that houses were a long way apart and that having the courting male stay over at the potential fiance’s house was necessary. Allowing them to share a bed would give them a chance to talk and sticking a board in between themand relying on their honour would prevent any hanky panky.
The more important reason had something to do with lack of social stigma faced by visibly pregnant brides, provided they were married when the sprog was hatched. Ensuring sexual compatability and mutual fertility was VERY important on the frontier.
GReynoldsCT00
Love you Anne Laurie!
GReynoldsCT00
if this blog is so distasteful to you then move on
k? thx bai
oh, wait I guess you don’t care for LOLZ either.
Louise
If I were god, I’d give you those powers.
Thank you Anne,
Lx
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
Boy Annie L, I can’t wait for you to open up and let us have it with both barrels. Excellent rant/writeup, absolute and total WIN. I read it to my wife and she agrees with you.
schrodinger's cat
As a believer of the ceiling cat this offends me.
Bey
/ jumps up and down
/ cheers
TESTIFY SISTER!
Persia
@gizmo: Thank goodness.
Medical Students for Choice seems like a worthy cause to pimp in this post.
Tax Analyst
Great post, AL. I haven’t been over here for a bit, so it’s the first time I’ve seen you post over here at BJ.
This idea – I like it. I find it very disheartening that a legal activity that helps women in difficult situations has been virtually eliminated in large areas of America by the use of threats and intimidation and actual murderous assaults. I find that an affront to the proposition that we are a nation of laws and are obliged to conduct ourselves in accordance with the same. How dare these people threaten fellow citizens and incite violence against them just because they do not agree with their “moral judgment”. With that in mind I’d like to go you one better – in addition to your fine suggestions, how about AG Holder announcing that he’s forming a task force to look into the groups using or advocating these tactics to determine if the RICO statutes might apply, and if they do that he will move to enforce them.
Oh shucks, as I writing the above it occurred to me that the idea sounded just a bit familiar, so I just looked it up…the SCOTUS scotched just such an effort by NOW in an 8-0 vote as recently as 2006.
Shit.
4AllLife
Figure me out, girlfriend.
I’m pro-life, and also spent time as a VISTA, helping people with AIDS. I think the “Reverend” Fred Phelps is disgusting and would probably make Jesus puke his guts up. And I agree that babies and mothers need care after delivery. I support universal health care; those moms and babies are part of my reason. I support a true living wage, and think the fact that we women still don’t get equal pay for equal work is deplorable. I stand up for the rights of anyone I perceive as weaker than myself, and that includes the unborn. I don’t support the death penalty for anyone.
Be careful about tagging people as monsters: you may not know who you’re condemning. Few people are as one-dimensional as you seem to think.
God bless, toots,
The pro-life liberal