I have to say I am beginning to believe that these abortions, given their excruciating moral and personal choices, may be the most defensible in context of all abortions. And yet they seem to be taking life in a more viscerally distressing way. I need time to think and rethink these things. I would not have without reading these extraordinary accounts.
What I couldn’t understand yesterday was how Andrew could hear all these tragic tales and not re-evaluate his position. These are deeply personal and horribly complex medical and moral issues that should be left to the mother and father and the doctor, not to a bunch of moral scolds, religious nuts, and outright busybodies waving placards on the street and screaming “murderers” while having absolutely no personal stake in the matter. It really should be none of their damned business.
les
It’ll be progress when and if his agonizing reappraisal shifts him off the dime. If it does, it’ll be the first move away from orthodoxy that wasn’t based on his personal situation; and I’ll be shocked.
Ash
Maybe it’s because I haven’t been indoctrinated by a religion that hates me like Sully did, but WTF is there to think about? What the hell did he think beforehand? That all these women just la dee da went down to the damn clinic because they were mad their jeans didn’t fit anymore?
He just all of a sudden had an epiphany? Spare me.
InflatableCommenter
Yeah, well, I am a hard sell. These accounts are not new, they have been around for years and years. It’s just that people like Sullivan never paid any attention to them.
That’s all I need to know about him. Anybody who could have looked at this information ten or twenty years ago and not figured out that the whole “late term abortion” issue was being demagogued by extremists is a goddam fool.
John Cole
@Ash: Have you honestly never met anyone who was raised southern baptist, strict catholic, or evangelical? Yes, this does count as an epiphany should he change his mind.
Lirpa
What does “And yet they seem to be taking life in a more viscerally distressing way” even mean? You pulled the Sully quote from his printing of part of my letter to him and even I cannot begin to understand how it is any sort of response to my story or those of other women in damnable circumstances. My point was that my family thought and still thinks that I should have put myself in a position of nearly certain death simply because I ectopically conceived when I took every precaution to prevent it. Sully responds that even though termination, for me “may be defensible,” I still should have allowed myself to die to keep from viscerally distressing Sully or my family?
I recall my shudders when McCain pulled his air quote “health of the mother” stunt during the debates. Well, I air quote his and Sully’s “pro-life” stance when they cannot even justify termination to save my life.
anticontrarian
seems to me that, once upon a time, minding your own damn business and letting people live their lives as they chose was a pretty conservative (even american) thing to do.
Blue Raven
Ash, I have a cousin who is gay. Also a Roman Catholic. And he insists on staying celibate because he believes it keeps him right with his god. Yes, damn it, Sully realizing he may be wrong about something the priests drummed into his head IS an epiphany. Just like the day, may it come swiftly, that my cousin realizes getting laid is closer to godliness than listening to those robe-wearing hypocrites.
John O
Sorry, Sullivan’s whole paragraph there is still based on the assumption that your “standard, run of the mill” abortion is exactly that, and not the extremely tough and personal and uniquely individual decision it nearly invariably is.
He’s a weird dude. I like him, too. But he’s really weird.
Michael D.
It’s because that is NOT the way it works for most people, John.
Again, I’ll use marriage as an example because it is close to me. If I lose my job, I have ten days to get out of the US. I own a house here, a car, bank accounts, 401(k) and, most importantly, my partner lives here.
Tragic if that happens right? But guess what? There are millions of people in this country who simply DON’T CARE.
That Sullivan opposes abortion is not the issue. That he doesn’t go off on absolute wingnut tirades against those who are pro-choice is great.
I don’t understand the vitriol directed at him yesterday by some of the commenters who were talking about the guy as though he were the Devil incarnate. But then, I remember a long time ago, I told the commenters here that I was a Republican – or used to be anyway. They knew none of my positions on anything. But all it took to set them off was me saying I was a conservative. Maybe they are the same way about Andrew – someone I know to be one of the most thoughtful people in both the blogosphere AND outside.
DougJ
I agree completely with the first paragraph and not at all with the second.
I agree that Sully can be seemingly deliberately obtuse at times. But on balance, it seems unfair to dismiss him as a witless right-head, despite all the evidence. After all, my dad — one of the wisest people I know, in many ways — still believes that RBIs are an important statistic.
Some issues muddle the thinking.
Krista
And therein lies the problem. A lot of the objection, I think, is really due to the “ick” factor. If they could create a “clean” abortion method whereby the fetus regressed at hyper-speed in its development to the point where it simply became an egg again, to be discarded by the body (to haul an example out of my imagination), I really don’t think you’d see anywhere near the same amount of protest.
People don’t realize that despite the fact that late-term abortion is a very nasty procedure, it HAS to be kept legal, safe and available. Otherwise, women will die or suffer irreparable harm.
Nobody who is pro-choice is saying that an abortion is a walk in the park. We’re all very fully aware of the details of the procedure. And it doesn’t sway us — not because we don’t care. We do. And not because we’re not affected. We are. It doesn’t sway us because we do not presume to know what is best for another mentally capable adult. It doesn’t sway us because we know that inserting ourselves into someone else’s medical decision is intrusive and wrong. And it doesn’t sway us because we’re not fools and we know goddamn well that even if abortion were illegal, it would still happen. And if anti-abortionists are perfectly fine with desperate women dying or being rendered infertile from back-alley abortionists — well, sorry, but we have a bit more empathy than that.
Jay
On the one hand it’s hard not to sneer at another doughy white conservative male talk about his feelings on women’s sexual health, especially when his personal politics are based so much on his own sexuality.
On the other hand if this tragedy can convince one ignorant, judgemental pro-lifer that they might, hey, not be correct about the morality of all things all the time, then maybe Dr. Tiller’s death was not in vain. It’s probably the best we can hope for.
El Cruzado
Andrew can change his opinions on stuff (see W, and he’s starting to mellow on the whole healthcare debate thing) but he’ll always have to be dragged kicking and screaming (in a drama-queen kind of way) to the new (usually better) ones.
harlana pepper
@Ash: I’m with you, big fucking deal, but then I’ve never cut him much slack to begin with. so people have to share their personal tragedies before he can reconsider his position, how about research??
epiphany, schmepipheny — too fucking little, too fucking late
I know, I know John, it is indeed progress, but I’ve always been an asshole about Sullivan and his ilk
BDeevDad
What I don’t get is that many of the folks say that G-d is telling them the fetus comes first. There is hundreds if not thousands of years of Rabbinical scholarship for at least what Christians call the Old Testament that this is not true and if the woman feels her life is at risk, she can terminate the pregnancy. Don’t they read their Bibles?
DougJ
This is a tricky one for me. I’ve been treated like a complete drooling idiot by good friends of mine because of some incredibly dumb opinion I had and been grateful for their contempt when I realized how wrong I had been. Better the devil incarnate you engage than the devil incarnate you ignore.
Ash
Ok, so he had an epiphany. I just find it really fucking hard to believe that a guy who is as smart as he is went all his life without ever hearing one of those stories. They’re not new, they’ve been part of the abortion debate for decades. And being a Catholic, I’d assume he’s delved into the topic before?
It’s weird as hell. But as I’ve said in the past, I have no religion whatsoever (labels schmabels) so maybe that was obscuring his vision and I just will never be able to comprehend.
gbear
@InflatableCommenter:
I’ve been on the side of choice and I’d never heard these stories before now either. I don’t think I’m a rarity in this. I’ll cop to being a gay man so I’ve never had to make these choices in my ‘real’ world, but I also knew that the people who want to control a woman’s reproductive rights also want to control who I am allowed to partner. I can’t see how Sullivan can’t make that connection.
Oh, and hearing these stories now leaves no doubt in my mind that we should butt out and leave the choice to a woman and her doctor.
zed
I don’t know, the most disturbing part to me is that for Sullivan, the thing that justifies them isn’t that the legality of it be maintained to prevent undue suffering of the woman’s health, but that it is the pain and suffering of the choice on the woman’s part itself that makes the procedure justifiable, ie, the late term abortion is fine just so long as you feel horribly traumatized just for making the choice. It’s “taking life in a more viscerally distressing way” but is more defensible because of “their excruciating moral and personal choices.” I don’t know, maybe I’m misinterpreting, but that’s how it struck me.
Paul L.
Fixed it for you. Men have no reproductive rights. Just ask Annie and the feminists like Amanda Marcotte.
Anne
I suppose he thinks that other abortions aren’t excruciating moral and personal choices.
Krista
Sully, unfortunately, has often taken political positions that are blatantly NOT in his own best interests, or in the best interests of anybody in a similar demographic/situation as him. Seeing someone continually embrace those who would stab him in the back tends to be rather enraging after awhile.
Death By Mosquito Truck
Sully won’t ever change his opinion on abortion because it will never impact him personally. He’s building a wall with his fancy rhetoric, not a bridge.
John Cole
@Paul L.: And they are right. Ultimately it is the woman’s decision.
Most women, however, have functional healthy relationships with their spouses and would jointly make the decision, although if you are relying on personal experiences with women, I can see how you would not understand that.
BDeevDad
@Paul L.: As a man, damn right. I’m not the one whose life is in danger. I’d hope my significant other would consult me, but it’s her decision.
The Grand Panjandrum
Michelle Goldberg has a smart piece up at American Prospect. But this just jumped out at me:
I think Andrew is finally getting a sense of the magnitude of the effect of this decision on the lives of the people involved. Most women contemplating abortion are making the least worst choice from among some terrible options. But in the end it is a fundamental human right to have control over ones body. I just hope that the women in my life will never be in a situation where they have to make this choice. But if that sad day does come I will trust them to make an informed decision.
gizmo
I wonder if the conservatives are ever going to wake up and realize that overturning Roe v. Wade would be their worst nightmare. If we were to establish that the State has a legitimate interest in controlling what happens inside our bodies, then the distinction between the individual and the State breaks down completely, and no doubt that court ruling would be used to justify all sorts of other intrusions into our personal lives. Conservatives who care about personal liberties should spend a little time thinking this one through.
harlana pepper
@Jay: I will concede that point for sure — I may be pissed at people like Sullivan for the rest of my life (mostly about the war) but I have to concede that any little bit of progress is better than nothing at all.
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
If he truly is dealing with figuring out an epiphany, other things can also come flying through that open door.
I’m not saying Sully will have that experience, but, even though it’s highly unlikely, perhaps he might actually turn into a Democrat.
Zifnab
@Michael D.:
You can’t say, “I’m a Republican/conservative” in the middle of the shit storm of ’05 and act surprised when a bunch of Democrat/liberals turn suddenly hostile. It’s like turning to a black guy and saying, “Oh btw, I’m a member of the KKK, but don’t judge me until you’ve heard where I stand on the issues.”
I mean, to be fair, there are people who consider Tom DeLay’s best friend Chris Matthews is a screaming leftist or that Dean Broder and Brian Williams have Che Guevera pin ups in their closets. So there’s a rather large fudge factor on what “liberal” and “conservative” even mean anymore. But yeah, you kinda threw yourself in the lion’s den on your own accord. Tying a giant string of sausages around your neck before wasn’t the wisest move.
gnomedad
@InflatableCommenter:
They may not be new, but I consider myself reasonably well-informed (by general standards, if not by those of contributors here), and the last few days has increased my awareness by about a factor of 10.
On the internet? Certainly not in the MSM.
What made it clear to me is why hammer on late-term abortions if you’re also calling every birth control method an “abortifacient” and therefore “murder”? Except as a foot in the door on the way to total prohibition?
greynoldsct00
Snap! Thank you John, my blood pressure was just starting to ramp up at that post
Tom G
I have to say that this whole tragic mess – the murder of Dr. Tiller, my reading about what he did for women, and these personal stories that people have been sending Andrew Sullivan – have reinforced further my pro-choice position.
I am a radical libertarian/anarchist, and the central point for me has always been the need for each person to have CHOICES in their lives.
Some of the histories I’ve read recently talked about this, that no matter what the ultimate decision the person made, the knowledge that there were choices available made it more bearable. Dr. Tiller apparently also felt strongly that he was one of a brave few who were willing to give women that set of choices.
Let us never forget his courage.
The Populist
Yep, I was a Goldwater devotee when I first got into following politics at 18. Over time, I realized how liberal I must really be because the party that claims to want to allow me to LIVE my life free of government only cares about how much that government takes in taxes. Outside of the greed and money angle, these fuckers hate that we have privacy and HATE allowing us to think for ourselves as long as we don’t hurt anybody else.
The Grand Panjandrum
@Paul L.:
Sure you do. It’s called abstinence.
Zifnab
@Paul L.: Sure they do, hero. Just slap a garbage bag on it and plunge in. La-de-da. You’ve just taken full control over your reproductive freedoms.
Do your sperm get to plant a flag in the woman’s cooter in the glorious name of “Paul L, sexual conquistador!” once you pull out, towel off, and go home? Not so much, no.
It’s still her uterus, no matter how much time you spend poking it.
Little Dreamer
@Ash:
Some men do all they can to avoid women. The fact that he’s gay might have been a big clue. Perhaps he just never paid attention?
Martin
Sure we do. We have the God-given right to never get pregnant, no matter what. And we have the right to abandon any woman we do get pregnant.
You had some other stupid thing to say?
angulimala
No!
They should be left to me.
The Populist
Gizmo, these asshats do not care about precedent. It shows whenever they whine about activist LEFTY judges who tend to follow the constitution’s guarantees of privacy, freedom and such vs. their own take which is to tell me how to live, where to live and how I can die or take care of myself. These idiots only care that they can keep a few bucks a year while bridges collapse, people go hungry and the like.
I am in California and the state has already mandated that state parks and beaches will be closed a LOT over the coming months. Every local conservative minded blog has decried this and whined HARD. They don’t get it…you can’t overtax one segment (home owners during the boom) and allow others to be protected (Prop 13). Cutting schools will backfire on them.
I love seeing the right cry when the consequences of their dogmatic rules on taxation take full effect. Same goes for abortion. Ban it and I PROMISE the GOP will be dead and buried. Funny how that escapes the raving lunatic taliban right.
TR
Hell, I’m not even sure if Goldwater would be pure enough for the GOP today. He supported limits on assault rifles, he gave strong support for gay rights, and he badmouthed the Religious Right over and over again. He’d be a RINO by today’s standards.
Hell, Reagan would too. He raised taxes in ’82, ’83, ’84 and ’86 and shored up Social Security. He negotiated face-to-face with that evil commie Gorbachev five times in two years — talk about appeasement! — and even cut-and-ran from Lebanon after the Marines there were attacked. RINO.
gbear
Shorter PaulL: Damn it, I paid you for it, now swallow it.
aimai
Sully’s inability to grasp the obvious fact that people generally end a *wanted* pregnancy at eight months is on a par, as I think others have said, with Mancow’s assumption that we were torturing people because it didn’t hurt them. You’d have to be a fucking idiot, a total solipsist, and the least empathetic human being *ever* to *start* from those assumptions.
But something else that is becoming clear in reading these stories of late term abortions is how little thought the right wing–or anyone–has given to the fact that medical “care” far outstrips the ability of families or society to pay. It used to be that late term abortions ended pregnancies in which the fetus had no chance of living outside the womb. Now severely damaged, utterly incapable, even brain dead or paralyzed fetuses could, theoretically, be kept “alive” for quite a while. The brutality of forcing this life on the “child” and on its caregivers is unimaginable because, like the abortion itself, it is very seldom discussed.
It is taboo to speak openly of lives better not lived. And even the horrors of a child’s life tied to hospital, respirator, surgeries etc… pales in comparison to what happens to some of these cases when they age out of the system–parental care and sibling care can only go so far. Families who have had to care for infants in giant bodies, menstruating women with no higher brain function left stored in nursing homes, etc..etc…etc… face enormous and heart wrenching challenges.
And this is all because we have allowed technology to determine what is life without regard to the question of what is a good life.
aimai
Seebach
Andrew’s thinking here is often what I presumed would be the most logical. These abortions were for women who wanted to be good Christian mothers, save for disaster. These SHOULD be the most “defensible” if you’re going to play be their rules. These aren’t “convenience” abortions for the sluts who don’t even care. I’m glad to see this argument is beginning to have some weight, even if only among one person.
anonevent
Sullivan reminds me of Homer Simpson and my mother. Homer has to be introduced to every gay person, my mother to every black person, and Sullivan to every woman having an abortion, and then everything will be OK.
Irregardless
Lirpa #5
Here lies the crux of the matter. Sully is opposed to abortion. What would Sully rather have Lirpa above done? Should she have put herself through the ectopic pregnancy and almost certainly die? If not what should she have done?
By the way Wikipedia list and ectopic pregnancy as one that is allowed ( some gray area) according to Catholic moral theology.
Little Dreamer
@Martin:
Little Dreamer is glad she never met Martin.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@DougJ:
Your comment makes no sense to me. The tragic stories were just as tragic 20 years ago, when I first read them.
Sullivan just didn’t listen. What I see is a guy who has had the information for 20 years and just can’t bring himself to say, I Was Wrong.
That’s an “epiphany?” That’s admirable?
Not in my book. Not even close. The guy is a fucking idiot in this matter, and I can’t respect him on anything unless he gets a goddammed clue.
What astounds me is that guys like you and John will defend this shit as if it were your fucking grandmother we are talking about. Sorry, this guy is just a hack with a keyboard and a big mouth, like me, and you. He deserves no special treatment. He is making a choice here based entirely on his own ego. Nothing more, or less.
jake 4 that 1
No please don’t go to any trouble. Just shut up.
I have to say I find all of his hand wringing more than a little contrived. Or maybe the word I want is creepy.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
In Sarah Palin’s ‘Murka, it damn well would be.
My wife, a recovering Catholic, says that it’s not a sin to *be* a homosexual. However, it is a sin to commit homosexual acts. In her view, that’s the “out” most gay priests take to justify whatever they feel.
Only the parts that agree with their positions. It’s not unlike how they use “judicial activism” as a dog whistle to the base.
And again, these people aren’t primarily about saving some blastocyst from oblivion. They’re all about controlling women and taking away virtually *all* (if not all) reproductive choices and options in their lives. It’s all about keeping the wimmin’ folk barefoot, pregnant and chained to the bed with just enough slack to get to the kitchen.
Little Dreamer
@TR:
Nobody is good enough for the Republican party. ;)
The Other Steve
I cannot in good conscience support gay marriage.
Martin
I might have the right to abandon my wife and kids, but only death would cause it to happen.
I never said we should ever exercise the right, or even that we deserved to have the right, just that we had it, which to me means we are in no position to ask for even more rights than have already been granted us.
Persia
@aimai: This.
If you’ve ever spent time in a NICU– even with babies that, unlike the ones in most of Andrew’s stories– have a chance and get healthier later– you’ll understand what a deep and complex issue you’re really dealing with.
(It’s even more galling when you remember that Andrew doesn’t think he, or anyone in any organized matter in America, should pay for all this care.)
devopsych
The Agony of St. Andrew. Spare us.
Laura W
What I’m not understanding is why two posts in two days and over 400 comments about what one blogger’s position is? Is he not getting enough air time and press lately? Why does Andrew Sullivan’s position on this matter matter?
As much as it appears to matter here, anyway.
Evinfuilt
With Sullivan its rather simple. Its very easy for someone to not hear what they’ve heard. I’m sure he’s heard these stories before, but he had barriers already up, he just tuned them out automatically. Basically it was how he was trained to handle the response.
That he’s now actually listening, and realizing what it is he’s missed all these years is a good sign. Now if only he could realize that making it illegal doesn’t stop it anyways (which he should realize, being that he wants to legalize most drugs.) Legal means safe, it means we can also educate to help eradicate.
Its a first step for him, i’m just surprised it was the cruelness of having to read whats involved in the third trimester (not sure what word to describe these, I just feel awful for families having to endure those situations) that’s making him think, instead of the back alley stories that seems more in tune with how he usually changes his mind.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Fixt.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Sorry to disagree with you sweetheart, but I don’t think Sullivan bothered to take the time to read those accounts twenty years ago. Just because you did doesn’t make him lesser of a human being for discovering this information later.
Do you fault John Cole for not understanding George Bush was a mensch before the Terri Schiavo incident?
We all learn at different times, in different ways. No one else learns on your clock.
Tonal Crow
@BDeevDad:
No. They use them to beat people. To back your comment, I present some excepts from Exodus 21:
So: causing an abortion by injuring a pregnant woman is punishable, but not by death. Killing a pregnant woman is, however, punishable by death, as is killing a man. Therefore, it appears that the OT “God” does not consider abortion to be murder.
Montysano
Points to Andrew for saying, in essence, that it’s a difficult issue and he continues to struggle with it. Intellectual honesty is all too rare.
Colette
@zed:
This kind of thinking is completely consistent with the fundamental tenet of Christianity: that suffering is redemptive. It’s an idea I find perverse and one that has done immense damage over the last couple of thousand years.
However, I don’t know Sullivan so I won’t presume that this is the root of it for him personally.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
@Laura W: You turn on the computer and go on the Internet with the bloggers (and commenters) you have and not the ones you wish you had???
Maude
I give Sully a lot of credit. He is thinking and that’s a lot more than wingers do.
He is also becoming aware of a reality that he had no idea existed before. It takes time for serious matters to sink in. He has guts to blog about this.
He will probably get death threats.
My mother, in the 1950’s, used to knock on suburban doors and ask about birth control for surveys. She would take me with her. A lot of doors were slammed in her face. I learned a lot of dirty words from women who seemed so gentile when they cursed out my mother.
A lot of people are just plain cruel. If they sense a vulnerability, they attack in the most painful way possible.
Tom Levenson
@gizmo: You are on the right track here. Not the only, but a major thread in anti-abortion zealotry is fear of and/or the need to control female sexual life. (I’m talking about the true believers here, not those with a personal opposition to abortion, or a commitment to a set of beliefs that make it impossible for oneself to contemplate an abortion — but the need to impose your conviction on all others).
That may be the hook that is tugging on Sullivan. He may not feel empathy with the daily facts of reproduction, but he surely knows what it’s like for an intrusive state and a hypocritical organized faith hierarchy to f*ck with what one does in the privacy of one’s own bed and heart.
Again, I’m not saying that the idea of women choosing to have sex is the first or largest concern for most anti-abortion types. But the idea of female sexual autonomy is a huge deal for a lot of folks who should know better, and to the extent that Andrew may be getting that part of the equation, so much to the good.
Little Dreamer
@Martin:
Okay, I will go on record stating that I am not glad I never met you now. ;)
Thanks for clarifying.
Some Guy
The underlying problem in the absolutist prolife “morality” is that any life is equal to another life, except for the life of the person who must bear the child. So a newborn facing a nasty, short life that devastates, and potentially takes, the life the mother is the same moral problem as a child who grows up to be a genius. The woman bearing the child is the host and forfeits her own rights because pregnancy that is not completed is a moral failure.
I have researched abortion history for years and the number of times people hold out death as the preferable alternative to abortion for women is appalling.
If Sullivan, belatedly and with many problematic assumptions, starts to entertain the actual context of an abortion decision, then he must, if he actually does have a conscience as he trumpets so often, consider the context of all abortion decisions. And that is all prochoice people want: the right to make decisions based on their own contexts.
gex
@DougJ: Ditto. To buy into that second paragraph is to never experienced that “a-ha!” moment in life yourself. I think we have all, as we age, looked back at ourselves from 5 – 10 years prior and wondered what the hell we were thinking. You become aware when you become aware. Hell, I’m even going to have to soften my stance on Sully now, because you have to credit him for collecting and posting these stories and in that matter bringing about the “a-ha” moment.
The Moar You Know
@Paul L.: Until you can carry it to term, you can shut the fuck up. Men justly have no rights in a decision to abort.
Tom Levenson
@TR:
He wouldn’t.
(A variation on the internet meme of simple answers to simple questions.)
Paul L.
Men’s Reproductive Rights, redux
Seebach
Because he’s an elite male who can get on TV. As long as we’re not inviting women to discuss abortion issues on TV, it might help if one of the select few who get to wring hands publicly has an epiphany in sanity’s favor.
jibeaux
Well, I certainly think that’s progress. I mean, I’m a woman, a mom, and a pretty big liberal, and I feel very conflicted about abortion, personally. While I am aware that it is the official party line in many circles that there is essentially no moral dimension to abortion (ah, fond recall of completely pointless internet debate over whether it was acceptable to endorse “fewer abortions”/ “safe,legal, and rare” type policy, in which I learned to my surprise that there are many internet people who think not), I do not actually share those views. While I think abortion under our current Roe v. Wade trimester-style framework should remain legal, I do find abortion statistics depressing and indicative of any number of societal failings that I won’t get into now. I think the point that Sully is coming around to, and it may or may not hold much sway with people who are strongly pro-choice, is that if we have a moral obligation to take seriously the effects of our choices, that not all abortions are alike. An early abortion is more likely to be elective, and a late-term abortion much more likely to be along the lines of a therapeutic abortion. Many people on this blog and others would not draw much of a distinction between those things, but for people who really grapple with the morality of abortion it makes a real difference. And I think prior to Dr. Tiller’s murder and accompanying stories, many people assumed women having late-term abortions did so for much the same reasons as early-term abortions, which is not really the case. I understand why the visceral-ness of it would distress him, but I expect if he keeps progressing in his thinking he will come to the understanding that the visceral-ness of it is far more distressing to the mother, and it’s her opinion that matters.
TR
@Little Dreamer:
I know. I can’t wait until it’s a party comprised of just one guy, completely pure in his Republican credentials. That’ll show us.
Michael D.
@Death By Mosquito Truck:
Wrong. Sullivan may never change his position on abortion because it conflicts with his religion (which I think is hooey…)
However, Sullivan is NOT demonizing people for having them. He’s not standing outside abortion clinics picketing. He’s doing what’s supposed to be done – doing his best to keep his religion out of politics.
The criticisms of Sullivan here are why I hate the more left leaning and more right leaning – take a position that is not far right or far left, and you are demonized for it.
Sullivan is doing what’s right. He abhors abortion, but he’s not advocating the overthrow of the government or bombing abortion clinics because of it.
But then, unless he comes out and advocates for abortion on demand, it’ll never be politically palatable for you.
Llelldorin
Laura W, remember, our host was a conservative until the past few years. It’s exciting seeing internet debate actually shift opinions; it means that all this verbiage is a bit more than just intellectual masturbation and basking in the afterglow of our own self-righteousness.
Andrew Sullivan always struck me as an intelligent guy with an unfortunate tendency to uncritically accept conservative shibboleths. The more he drifts left, the more the right’s bench is entirely populated by the mad. This suits my ultimate goal: Destroy the Republican party, then fission the Democratic party into center-right and center-left parties.
Zifnab
@Little Dreamer:
Early and often. His mea culpas have been legion and we still razz him over it.
Bey
@Some Guy:
Well those *are* the wages of sin after all.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Little Dreamer:
Probably so, but all due respect to Mr. Sullivan, the information was out there. And anyone who claimed to have an interest in the procedure, pro or con, could not have been informed without finding that information and incorporating it into his decision process. Just as the medical practitioners who created the procedure did in the first place, for the obvious reasons.
Sullivan is all about Sullivan. Period. And if this issue doesn’t prove it to some people around here, then nothing will. They are invested in the idea of “Sully the good guy who just hasn’t come around yet” theme, which is entirely imaginary. A good guy would never have failed to find out what this medical procedure was really all about before deciding to join a crusade against it.
Look, this is pretty basic citizenship stuff. If people are not willing to be informed, then they have to own being wrong.
They can change their mind, and stop being wrong, but that doesn’t wipe away the fact that they were wrong, and in Sully’s case, HE’S STILL WRONG because he hasn’t seen fit to change his thinking (if we can call it that) yet.
Sorry, Doug and John’s attempt to out-Broder Broder here is not convincing. It’s just bullshit.
Adrienne
QFA. (Quoted for Awesomeness)
Evinfuilt
@Colette: You win… It really is the basic tenet of Christianity. Suffering, they see the baby that will die after a couple weeks of suffering to be a blessing. A blessing to the baby itself (free pass to heaven) and a blessing to the family (look at all the wonderful suffering you get to go through, we’re so jealous that god blessed us with healthy children.)
Mind you, those who feel you’re so lucky to be blessed with one of these situations will gladly have an abortion them self. God loves them enough already that they don’t need to suffer like you.
I see it mirror’d with those Lucky Duckies on welfare. God blessed them with such wonderful suffering, if only the gov would stop being kind to them so that they could get closer to god.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Laura W:
As much as I admire John Cole and snicker at Tbogg, I don’t see either one of them on Real Time With Bill Maher or Countdown. Andrew has (his claim anyway) the most-read single person blog on the Web. He’s a playa. In addition, he’s one of the few (only?) self-identified conservatives who does not march in lockstep and mouth the party line. Also, he’s got to be one of the hardest working bloggers; his output is impressive.
gex
@Krista:
This is what bugs me. When Obama says we need to reach middle ground with safe-legal-rare he is distorting the pro-choice position. That IS the pro-choice position. It was not, ever, safe-legal-mandatory/frequent. I think his wording hurts the discussion in this way.
DougJ
I started reading his blog every day a few months ago. And it’s good. And I respect that. So I’m all for piling on when anyone says something really dumb. But I’m not ready to write off anyone who keeps a quality blog just because he’s sometimes idiotic.
Zifnab
@Paul L.: You’re absolutely right Paul. If a man gets pregnant, he should have the right to terminate the pregnancy whenever he deems it necessary.
But, again, you seem to be unaware of how babies are made. When you can figure out how to grow a newborn child in your bladder, you can start talking about what rights you have as a future parent.
Martin
It was a fair reaction on your part. :)
DanSmoot'sGhost
When did “I might need to finally think about this absolutely essential information that has been out there for decades, but I haven’t changed my opinion yet” become an “aha moment?”
Seriously? This is just nonsense.
WMass
@Michael D.: “Andrew – someone I know to be one of the most thoughtful people in both the blogosphere AND outside.”
Back when the Iraq war was gearing up and then taking place, some of us had the brains to realize that Iraq was no threat to the US, that the chances of Iraq having a significant nuclear weapons program was close to zero, and that removing Saddam from power would result in chaos. Sullivan did a lot more than disagree with us, he ridiculed us and treated us with utter contempt. Before that I used to have some respect for him. And Sullivan did not change his opinion of Iraq and his hero worship of Bush for years, until even most Republicans had come to the realization that both the war and Bush were huge fuckups.
There is an element of Karma in my dislike of Sullivan, he treated people like me as if we were mentally retarded traitorous cowards when we were actually correct. Now he wants sympathy? Fuck him.
gbear
Paul L, are you seriously trying to argue that you should have the legal right to force a woman to birth your baby? If you’re going to whine about contraception and abstinence, that seems to be the only direction your argument can go.
Seebach
I think most/all people want to reduce the number of abortions, but don’t want to cede any moral ground to people who are not arguing in good faith. On any level, abortions should be reduced, if only because surgery should be avoided whenever possible, and condoms are cheaper.
There’s one a few real ways to decrease abortion rates, and the right is opposed to ALL of them. Sex ed, contraception, financial help for mothers, medical insurance for health problems… none of it will do for them. So why make concessions to them, when they are willing to make no effort to do the same?
gwangung
Exactly.
Those who villify Tiller are, whether they realize it or not, sadists of the highest degree. They are forcing the parents to under go immense emotional suffering, forcing them to carry a non-viable baby to term. They are forcing a woman into immense physical suffering when they force them to carry a dead fetus to term. When a baby is semi-viable, they are forcing the parents to bear immense emotional suffering as the child goes through operation after operation. And they’re forcing the baby to go through immense pain and physical suffering (because they don’t think one moment of WHAT THE CHILD GOES THROUGH).
Fucking. Monstrous. SADISTS.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@DougJ:
Oh, so the fact that he “keeps a quality blog” is good enough for you.
Noted.
Sorry, at least twenty years of being willfully misinformed and implacable in the face of those tragedies and crusading to cause pain to others thanks to his giant ego trumps your “quality blog” on my scorecard.
Little
Fuck. It’s one thing to have some regular old 50-year-old man come around to this, but Sullivan is supposed to be one of our thinkers. He’s a freaking pundit. He never got around to learning stories like these? Christ.
The Moar You Know
@DanSmoot’sGhost: Twenty years ago, I used to think gay people were faggots who deserved to die from AIDS.
I’ve learned a lot since then.
Give Sully a chance on this one. Telling him he’s an ignorant idiot isn’t going to help matters.
gex
@John Cole: Hee! I love it.
Little Dreamer
We seem to have a fairly large number of women (I count three so far) who went through ectopic pregnancies on this board. Hmmmm.
Some Guy
@WMass:
Sullivan likes to make his struggles with political issues into the issues themselves. Whereas John did one of the most humbling about-faces I have read, and has never asked for sympathy or debated when he changed his mind about Republicanism, Sullivan has repeatedly tried to argue his change of heart about the war and about the GOP happened well in advance of other people. So he wants points for the manner in which he came to realize he was wrong on issue X.
I find it tedious.
Evinfuilt
gex:
The thing is, the pro-life movement already knows that. I’ve heard over and over again that it has to be 100% eradicated (its like abstinence to them, 100% or nothing, which like abstinence fails because of that.)
They know the middle ground is actually the pro-choice land, and that’s why they’re 100% against it, no matter what (Daddy says you have to have his baby.)
asiangrrlMN
I have to give Sully credit on this one. He is struggling to change a deeply-held belief. In addition, he is a pretty prominent blogger, so the more he struggles with this issue, the more people will know about it.
However, I am still miffed that Olbermann couldn’t find someone else to comment on the murder of Dr. Tiller, but that’s on Keith and his show.
Jon H
@Ash: “Ok, so he had an epiphany. I just find it really fucking hard to believe that a guy who is as smart as he is went all his life without ever hearing one of those stories. ”
There may be a difference in perception between hearing “stories”, and hearing multiple stories just from among his own readers, directly from those readers.
Having it come from among his own readers – whom he probably assumes are responsible, intelligent people, members of his own social/intellectual class, rather than flighty teenagers or irresponsible wastrels or other caricatures – might be driving home how common these situations are.
Colette
@Little Dreamer:
A tiny little nit to pick: a mensch is a good guy, a decent and honest person, somebody you can trust. I suspect you meant that W was a putz – and that he certainly was and is.
Llelldorin
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I’ve been reading Sullivan for a long time. For him, an admission that he hasn’t thought properly about something is an a-ha moment. His usual MO is to assume conservative talking points as given. When he actually starts to think, he usually drifts in the right direction.
Yes, he’s a pompous, self-important git, but he’s one with a very loud voice, and one of the few loud conservatives who isn’t fundamentally an actor playing himself for fun and profit (as, say, Limbaugh and O’Reilly are).
gwangung
@The Moar You Know:
I wouldn’t necessary villify him.
But if I had a friend like that, I wouldn’t hesitate to tell him what a frickin’ idiot he was being.
Strong disapproval from people he respects does more good than out and out dumpage (and he probably repsects women who’ve gone through these kind of abortions more than anyone else).
Rainy Day
As long as fetus is inside a woman’s body, it should be her choice to keep or abort it at any time for any reason. There can’t be a middle ground.
That is not to say that health care professionals, clergy, spouses,
family members, etc. can’t consult with the woman and help her make an informed choice. That is not to say that adoption shouldn’t be presented as an option. But, no woman should be demonized for the choice she makes, and no doctor should be demonized who facilitates that choice, should she choose to abort.
I don’t want to hear about ‘baby killers’ from people who feed their
children a steady diet of junk food; from people who oppose health
insurance/dental care for ALL children; from people who won’t support day care or parenting classes; from people who refuse to support abundant contraception and sex education, etc.
There are primarily two groups of women for whom choice is so
important: Those who have unwanted pregnancies and those who welcomed pregnancy only to discover problems with the fetus.
Whatever choice they make won’t be an easy one.
And, I’d love to know the statistics of ‘pro-life’ people who work for
the Department of Social Services, another agency many consider
unworthy of tax support. They see all the kids who will eventually be in prison (which, ironically, receives tremendous support) or in
rehab, or in the morgue.
If the ‘pro-life’ people lined up to support social programs,
regardless of the cost and were vehemently opposed to denial of
medical care, the death penalty and wars, I might take them seriously.
They aren’t pro-life; they are merely pro-birth. Any animal can give
birth. The trick is raising, nurturing and educating the offspring.
And, if you aren’t equipped to do that, and if you know that, you
should have the choice not to. And, we should all respect that very
PRIVATE choice. Government should not legislate morality on any
issue. Period.
Eric S
@ gbear
Yep, exactly. I’ve been pro choice since I was old enough to understand the issue at even a removed level. I guess I haven’t heard these stories before since I’ve made it into my
midlater-ish 30s with only a handful of friends that have any kids at all. And all those friends moved to the burbs and stopped hanging out with and calling the single guy. That and I’ve never really been on the fence about the issue.To me it really always was jut about choice. It is the mother’s life, health, and life style and her choice. It’s not mine.
I was aware of the health of the mother and viablity issues existed but had never heard any anectdotes of real world situations. For the reasons above I guess I can explain having never heard about the details before. Hearing them now has convinced me that pro-choice is 100% the morally correct position.
kay
I’m still holding a grudge for him butting into Palin;s pregnancy, so there’s no telling how long this might take.
So gross and intrusive with those side views of her. The measuring that went on! Ugh. I couldn’t stand her, and I ended up completely sympathizing with her.
Could be years, really. YEARS.
I’m ignoring him, until he stops being such a jerk. That’s my position.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@The Moar You Know:
He is willfully ignorant. The “tragic story” aspect of this medical procedure has been out there since the issue was first demagogued by the right. Since Day One. I was arguing with my brother about this stuff almost twenty years ago (he’s worse than Sully, he is so far to the right he makes Sully look like a wild eyed lefty).
I am not telling Sully anything. I am not talking to him, I am actually talking primarily to DougJ. I don’t care what Sully thinks, I have no respect for him and no reason to have respect for him. Anyone who can look at the full story on this procedure and come down in favor of banning it, is crazy as far as I am concerned. Cruel, and crazy, and full of his own ego. Seriously, how dare this asshole try to control the lives of people dealing with awful life and death situations and insist that they stick to his rules?
jibeaux
@gex:
See, this is what I always considered to be the pro-choice position also, but believe me that you can find a lot of people on the internets who consider this to be right-wing “framing” and the correct way to think is to consider abortion or bearing a child to be equivalent choices without moral dimensions, and to suggest it should be “rare” implies that it is preferable to have the child and that there’s something objectionable about abortion.
And everyone can have their opinion on that, but I think people should realize, intuitively, that while the majority of Americans are pro-choice, that point of view does not exactly describe majority views on abortion and it probably is not the ideal stance to take politically on the matter.
Little Dreamer
@Zifnab:
Well, yeah, but we forgive him for it. We realize he learned the lesson and that’s what was necessary.
Irregardless
Laura W.,
He matters because he happens to be a man who sounds intellectual and who flatters his readers as intellectuals too. That he sounds pained and tortured, others have described it as struggling, with this issue is the icing on the cake that keeps the same individuals, clicking refresh for more.
Someone said that this is Sully’s way of building a wall not a bridge and I tend to agree. He’ll still hold the same positions (unless proven utterly wrong) but since he was pained and tortured while implying that Lirpa #5 above should have just chosen an almost certain death, while deciding to hold the same position, then it’s all Fucking Good.
Cain
@Michael D.:
I remember that, it was in your first front page post. I didn’t understand the instant hostility. Of course, you were being reactionary yourself and the whole thing just started off on the wrong start. In contrast, you’ll notice that Anne Marie completely avoided getting into the comments. Probably judging the reaction based on the various posts.
cain
Stacy
I think it comes down to two things, ignorance for some, misogyny for others. Some are truly not aware that something so common in human health can also be so risky and some just cannot bring themselves to believe that the majority of women are not malicious.
I’ve been well aware of these stories for some time (although I have to say the emergence of so many has had me crying in my coffee this whole week), but I’ve been in the abortion trenches fighting it out for years now. So I would know. But aside from the claims of a few, you just don’t have much debate going on about late-term abortion, because no one wants to touch it. I find that it is somewhat of a litmus test when it comes to debating about abortion, opponents will ask me if I believe late-term abortions should be legal, I will respond in the affirmative, and they can write me (and all of my arguments) off as “extremist”, and sleep well knowing they don’t have to consider my arguments. I think many pro-choicers tend to avoid the topic because of this (or because they aren’t knowledgeable enough in their own arguments to defend it), so it doesn’t surprise me that some have never heard these stories. They just aren’t out there in the mainstream that often.
But for those that are aware, I’ve found that the most common response to these stories is this idea that “Okay, sure, that sucked for them, but still, should we make an exception for them when there are outnumbered by the baby-killing sluts that will just abort late in the pregnancy so they can make it to happy hour that night?” I’ve never understood why (a) they can just write the ones that do suffer off even if there were women that were that callous or (b) why they think the majority of women would carry a fetus for so long just to abort it in a whim. I honestly can’t see any logic behind it unless one has some truly twisted views about women.
I’ve just started reading Sullivan recently so don’t have a grudge or anything against him. So for me, it gave me a bit of hope that he’s reconsidering it. And I don’t fault him for not jumping to a snap reversal on his opinion, as he’s balancing out a major realty blow received this week to years upon years of anti-choice rhetoric. Even if people still aren’t moved by the stories that we’ve seen recently, at the very least, perhaps they will think about the realities of it a bit. And that’s a start.
Sorry for the long post.
Jon H
@DanSmoot’sGhost: “The “tragic story” aspect of this medical procedure has been out there since the issue was first demagogued by the right. Since Day One. ”
Sure, but there are also horror stories about alcohol and drug use, and those are ignored routinely.
The Moar You Know
@gwangung: I couldn’t agree more. That’s what got my dumb ass straightened out.
But some guy named “DanSmoot’sGhost” running around urging DougJ, John Cole, and Balloon Juice readers to treat Sullivan as though he is the walking leprous dead doesn’t fall under the category of “people he respects”, and fosters more of the same kind of bullshit divisiveness and lack of empathy that has gotten the abortion debate to the insane state it is today.
DanSmoot'sGhost
I know you mean well, but I can’t reconcile the two ends of your sentence.
This is about causing pain and suffering to people for reason’s of politics and one’s own ego, and doing it while ignoring easily available information that proves that that’s what it’s about. I don’t care why he did it, he did it, and he is still doing it.
Laura W
@Gordon, The Big Express Engine: Funny!
@Seebach: OK.
@Llelldorin: Good point.
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon): Fair enough.
OK, you’ve convinced me. I’ve had an epiphany. There is no one whose opinion on this matter matters more to me now than Andrew Sullivan’s!
I understand all the points. It still feels to me to be over-the-top coverage for just one man who runs a (big) blog.
asiangrrlMN
@Some Guy:
This is it in a nutshell.
@Michael D.: Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but to me, it’s his attitude that is off-putting. In this case, the fact that he had to say he was morally-opposed to what Tiller did on national TV. He interjects himself where it’s not necessary. And, he has privileges that he refuses to acknowledge. I have long since thought that if he weren’t a gay man, he would be even more conservative than he is.
I don’t really care if he opposes abortion or not, but the minute he wants to make any kind of abortion illegal, then I care.
anonevent
@Paul L.: What everyone here except you seems to get is this: When it comes to getting pregnant, males and females are not equivalent. When a male gets pregnant, he…that’s right, it cannot happen. When a female gets pregnant, she can walk away, leaving the baby to grow to term on its own…wait, this can’t happen either.
Once the pregnancy begins, men have no physical role in the pregnancy. There may be moral obligations, but the sperm-giver will never die because the pregnancy went bad, and does not have to stick around when he realizes he does not want it. That is why all of us here believe that ultimately it is the woman’s decision.
Jay
Problem pregnancies of all kinds are very common. It’s part of the reason why the cost of insurance for doctors providing prenatal care and birth services is so hideously expensive. Which is why the number of doctors providing these services is decreasing over time. Which is increasing the number of problem pregnancies due to a shortage of good prenatal care.
Incidentally, creating competition in the insurance industry via a public option would reduce insurance costs for healthcare providers and reduce the number of abortions by increasing access to reproductive healthcare for many Americans. Sully opposes both the public option and abortions, but is a huge supporter of irony.
Some Guy
@Seebach:
Agreed. No one is in favor of more abortions. Abortions are unwanted for a host of reasons. That is the point prolife rhetoric loves to obscure. Pregnancies may be unwanted, they may be wanted, but abortions are always unwanted.
I think, however (re:the quote you pull), that abortions are not a sign of societal failures. They are a part of life and have been in all societies for millenia. Using abortion to index of societal failings is a modern development and it is part of the way that people have rationalized limiting women’s decision making about abortion.
That someone gets pregnant by mistake is not a societal failing. It is going to happen (reducing the number is good for everyone but society hasn’t failed by not stopping it). That someone’s unborn suffers from severe developmental problems is not a societal failing. It is part of pregnancy on the whole that some fetuses are not healthy.
These are all very difficult situations but they don’t index social failure. Any person’s abortion is not about society’s progress – it is a problem that should be managed as humanely and respectfully as possible.
jibeaux
@Rainy Day:
But there is an existing middle ground to that point of view, which is the trimester framework. I doubt most people would consider it acceptable to abort a baby on its due date because the nursery wasn’t painted yet, and of course I realize that’s probably never happened in the history of human events but it fits within the proposed non-middle ground. Subsequent rulings have fleshed out other parameters such as arental notification laws with judicial bypass options are acceptable, without judicial bypass not acceptable, waiting periods are acceptable, spousal notifications are not, etc. I would agree that what we have now IS pretty much the middle ground.
Little Dreamer
@Colette:
My bad. People throw that word around like it means something different, and I fell for it. Apologies.
Yes, Bush was a putz. ;)
DanSmoot'sGhost
Oh yeah, I’M RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DIVISIVENESS, you lying sack of shit?
Fuck you. Seriously, fuck you. I’ve spent more time talking to pro choice extremists trying to find a way to REDUCE ABORTIONS and promote adoptions than you have, you smug motherfucker.
Don’t pull that shit on me.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@kay:
Not to drag us OT into the Palin pregnancy issue, but Sullivan was IMHO completely justified. Palin’s official story was either a) complete bullshit or b) showed a lack of judgment that is incompatible with high office. The fact that Palin was/is a serial liar just fueled the fire, also.
selskie-anon
Stranger things have happened. Seriously, DansSmoot’sGhost, would you be happier if Andrew never changes his mind? Give the man a chance. Things change.
gwangung
True.
But, then again, I’m not sure there’s anything wrong deflating Sully’s pomposity and blindness; you can do it in such a way that he HAS to take it (and that might be more fun in a way….)
The Moar You Know
@DanSmoot’sGhost: Take two to tango, my friend. So your share of the blame looks to be 50% from where I sit.
Little Dreamer
@Jay:
Well, I was one of those three, and I will admit, I didn’t go back and forth between doctors visits very often. I didn’t have health care and even if I did, most jobs that I’ve held would prohibit me from spending large amounts of times at doctor’s offices. Even when I have had health care, I have not used it much, mostly because I would get yelled at for the amount of absences/time away from work it would cause.
Paul L.
I am arguing that if a woman wishes to avoid the parental responsibility of having a child she can get a abortion. However if she keeps the child, the man has no choice in avoiding parental responsibility and must pay child support.
jibeaux
@Some Guy:
To defend my point about societal failings, it is not the existence of abortions that I am pointing to. I agree that they have always happened and as long as people get pregnant through sex they will continue to happen. It is more specifically, the U.S. statistics on abortion, which are about a quarter of all pregnancies terminated. I think this is a very high percentage for an advanced wealthy nation with easy access to birth control and the theoretical ability to care for all children whether their parents can or not.
DougJ
Yes.
John Cole
Are you new here?
@gex: I’m glad someone caught that.
Some Guy
@jibeaux:
Granted.
jibeaux
@Paul L.:
As this appears to be an argument in favor of men being able to force women to have abortions against their will, I find it a very strange variation on the pro-life position indeed.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@The Moar You Know:
Fuck you, man. I am not taking that crap from you. I have spent 25 years arguing this topic with a wide range of people, and I don’t owe anyone an inch of ground.
Hard core opposition to this procedure borders on the sociopathic, the kind of thing that leads to the murder that happened last weekend. You are not telling me that I’m the cause of any divisiveness. You’re a liar, and I am not the cause of divisiveness.
I’m doing nothing more here than holding Sullivan accountable for his actions. If you don’t like it, tough shit.
Sullivan is wrong. Period. And he is bad, dead wrong. His kind of wrong causes pain and suffering to other people. And my saying that is not about divisiveness, it’s about calling a spade a spade. It is what it is.
The Moar You Know
@Paul L.: Fear not. I don’t think you’re going to be put in a position to be “stuck with the bill” anytime soon.
Llelldorin
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Yes, but many people do. That’s why it’s exciting (to me) that he might finally stop being loudly and dogmatically wrong on the issue. (Hell, even if he just decides to shift from “dogmatic opponent of abortion” to “tortured, Byronic hero who opposes abortion even while the ensuing suffering eats at his insides,” it’d at least be a bit of positive movement!)
Little Dreamer
@The Moar You Know:
Last I heard, we were all allowed to have an opinion, and that didn’t make us responsible for the problems in the world.
Your saying that one person not agreeing with the sentiment of the thread makes that person 50% responsible for the shitty state of the debate on abortion is ludicrous. That debate has been going on for years, and many people are responsible, and no one person is responsible for 50%.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@DougJ:
Then we disagree. Strongly.
A guy who makes his blog career out of bashing Broderisms, letting a cruel egotistical shithead like Sullivan off the hook because he “keeps a quality blog?”
At this point, honestly, I don’t even think you are being serious.
Cain
@The Grand Panjandrum:
Yes, Paul L, and we hope you’re practicing it.
:D
cain
gbear
@asiangrrlMN: Sorry I missed the vigil last night. I hope it was well attended.
The Moar You Know
@DanSmoot’sGhost: You calm and reasonable approach to interpersonal relations certainly lends an aura of truth to your words. I think you’re on to something here. I’m sure everyone will come around to your way of looking at it by being told “If you don’t like it, tough shit.”
Good luck with that.
Little Dreamer
@John Cole:
No I’m not new here. You know who I am. We still agree though that even though it took you a while, you caught on, you had an epiphany, and you admitted you were wrong. We don’t hate you for that.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Calling people “fucking idiots” and such is divisive, period.
If today is any example, then do us all a favor: don’t argue our topics. I have a feeling that you’re not helping us.
DougJ
I’m being completely serious. And it’s the same reason why I despise Broderism. What I hate about Broderism is that it’s sealed off from the rest of the world. Even when I agree (which is often), that sickens me. Sully takes input from everywhere, so even when I think he’s being a jack-ass, I give credit.
How many Times or Post columnists or tv pundits would spend hours reading graphic accounts of things where the argument runs totally contrary to what they believe? Probably none. Sully does. I respect that.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Fuck you, asshole. You are not blaming me for the devisiveness surrounding the abortion issue, and then trying to act like you are the polite police.
You are a goddammed liar, and dead wrong. And I am calling it what it is. I don’t give a rat’s ass who likes it and who doesn’t. I don’t come here to make friends and share cat pictures and kiss asses.
Sullivan is a fucking asshole on this issue, and people have been saying so here for two days now, and they (we) are right about it. You either get that, or you don’t. I don’t care.
Seebach
To interject myself, I think Dan Smoot’s Ghost is just insulted at the fact that others might consider him 50% responsible for the escalation of violence and Tiller’s assassination. To say that the hostility on the abortion issue is due to equal blame is like saying the same thing about the civil rights movement under Martin Luther King and the poor whites he imposed upon. Only one side so far has killed opponents and regularly uses violence and fear.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Seebach:
Bingo. Thank you.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@DougJ:
Again, I don’t understand your argument. The “tragic late term abortion stories” are not new, Doug.
Any person interested in the most basic understanding of the issue could have found these stories years and years ago. I did, and I didn’t even have to look that hard. And it took me maybe 5 minutes to understand what was going on and see that the thugs in the Pro Choice movement were demagogueing (sp?) this thing and using it as a cruel weapon for their cause, at the expense of people who were in terrible situations through no fault of their own, and without caring about those people at all.
Sullivan is one of those people. It is what it is, you can’t put Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup on it and call it something else.
Little Dreamer
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
Do you have a point besides taking sides?
You are talking about someone who you know almost nothing about. You don’t know his gentleness and his kindness.
Labeling one person as being responsible for the viciousness of the abortion debate is not fair. What makes you think it is?
I don’t agree with his point, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pile on. I know this man, I do know who he is and he is not what you are describing at all.
Eileen
Of course they do, and I mean that non-facetiously. i know this is an entirely different subject, but isn’t the inherent reproductive rights of people, part of the debate over chemical castration? The very personal decision to have a vasectomy? Maybe not in literal reproduction rights for criminals (since I understand that not everyone gets conjugal visits) but in term’s of one’s agency, in regards to one’s own bodily organs and functions. Hmmm…my thinking is still maturing in regards to all this. Excuse me if this is a bit of a ramble.
Ya know, I read Sully everyday, and his blog is my absolute favorite website hands-down. That doesn’t mean I agree with him most of the time, actually i don’t, and I find his stances on certain issues mind-bogglin. I don’t know how in good conscience he could still support a mostly private health care industry. I’ve never once read anything where he addresses the fact, that unlike him, there are many people with life-threatening illnesses, such as AIDS/HIV, that simply cannot afford the meds, and will simply die because of it. So, the answer? Let them die because it’s more important to prop up the private sector health care insurance industry? His main objection to government-backed healthcare seems to be something about “mediiocrity” and bureacracy. So people have to die, because you think government bureacracy is “mediocre”? Unlike him, I’m not willing to say that Americans should keep dying senseless deaths becasue American bureacracy is “mediocre.” Sometimes I get the sense that he is more interested in his ideals than in the actual reality of how people live. I think he is just naive at times.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Get serious. What you are you, an eleven year old girl?
People get called fucking idiots every day on this blog. The only time there is whining is when the arrow is pointed at the whiner.
Shoe, comfortable fit, wear. If there is not at least that level of accountability then this whole two-day topic here is just a practical joke. Sullivan, epiphany?
When he says, I was wrong, I blew it, I foolishly imposed my narrow and stubborn view on people who were in tragically awful situations and caused them pain and suffering by doing so and I call upon everyone in that crusade to stop now and take the humane view of this situation … then talk to me about a fucking epiphany.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I think you meant Pro-Life.
I made that same mistake with you the other day. Hard to name the sides correctly sometimes when there is no “Anti” involved.
Seebach
Geez, DanSmoot’sGhost. Just admit you’re a mass murderer, love the taste of infant blood, and turn yourself into the police, and the pro-lifers can meet you halfway by giving you life in prison, rather than death by firing squad. You obviously aren’t trying.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Just to wrap up the point, Doug, I remember seeing an x-ray of an anenchephalic fetus in a magazine article lo those many years ago, an x-ray from an actual case involving the subject abortion procedure, and I just said, oh my fucking god …. and it all came clear. Here were desperate people facing this hideous situation on one side, and these cruel sociopathic monsters on the other side trying to make them out to be criminals for considering this procedure ….
There is only one word for it: Sickening. What Sullivan and all the rest of them have done is sickening. And I am not giving them an inch of ground on it.
When Sullivan recants, a la John Cole, I’ll reconsider. Not before.
Mike
The great thing about Sully is that he’s capable of admitting he was wrong. The awful thing about the Right is that this makes him damned near unique.
DougJ
That’s good enough for me.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Seebach:
I was a self-declared puppy kicker for a while and nobody came to the defense of the little canines.
This is a tough room.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@gnomedad:
Speaking as a feminist guy and one who tries to be generally well informed on controversial issues, I have to admit the same thing. These things just don’t get talked about that much because of the stigma associated with them; if you’re female, you have more of a chance from hearing about these things from friends and such, but as a male, you pretty much only hear about this from direct experience (it seems).
Sully’s problems in understanding this issue are that he’s a catholic (those crazy feminist abortionist women!) , male (so he wouldn’t hear about it from female friends), and gay (so he wouldn’t have direct experience with it). So all in all, I’m not surprised that he was ignorant.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Thank you, and on that we agree. :)
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Little Dreamer:
No, I don’t. What I know, as of now, is that Dan thinks Sullivan is an irredeemable asshole, and that anyone who doesn’t agree 100% with his assessment is subjected to his spittle-flecked tirades.
Made it upthread: any conservative with self-doubt and intellectual honesty is of value to the debate.
Cyrus
@Little Dreamer:
As far as I know, Lirpa way back at comment #5 is new here, brought by the link to Sullivan’s post, and she says she’s Sullivan’s e-mailer. No coincidence there. As for the other two, this does seem like the issue that would bring them out, and this blog is sympathetic territory, relatively.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I believe I did.
kay
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
Not to drag us OT into the Palin pregnancy issue, but Sullivan was IMHO completely justified. Palin’s official story was either a) complete bullshit or b) showed a lack of judgment that is incompatible with high office. The fact that Palin was/is a serial liar just fueled the fire, also.
Oh, God. Get the qtip for the spit swab, and then onto the child-bearing risk critique, and what that says about “judgment”.
Let’s just say I’m not completely shocked and amazed that Andrew Sullivan is a little slow on the uptake regarding privacy and pregnancy.
Women who are pregnant all look different, and many of us are good with accessories. When people tell you they are the parents of a baby, the only appropriate response to that is “congratulations”.
Michael D.
@Mike:
Just the right?
DanSmoot'sGhost
@DougJ:
What? Agreement?
But seriously, if he actually recants, fine with me. But he hasn’t. And honestly, his continued recalcitrant attitude on this is just apalling. How can anyone look at these cases and not find for the parents who are facing these awful choices … and let them make their choices?
I dunno, maybe I am just too much of a softie, but those stories broke my heart a long time ago, and the pro-lifers wouldn’t even listen to a dissenting opinion.
And still won’t, actually. Witness the circus at Notre Dame a few weeks ago.
Okay, so Sully is not Alan Keyes. But he is way smart enough to do better than he is doing.
Rainy Day
jibeaux
It’s not middle ground when choice isn’t available in every county or state. It’s not middle ground when a mere day (nevermind a month or more) determines whether or not you have a choice.
I’ve always been a person who sought and found the grey comfort zone of issues. And, I’m still pretty much that same person. But, I’m beginning to adopt exceptions:
1. Every woman should have choice over her body no matter what.
2. Torture is always wrong.
3. Everyone should have access to affordable health/dental care.
4. All people should be able to marry and enjoy the legal privileges and consequences of marriage.
I’m tired of seeing ‘grey’ or compromising on those issues. I’m tired of hearing, “Yes, but…” And, I’m especially tired of MEN (gay or straight) telling women they should keep that unwanted (for ANY reason) pregnancy.
If I sound like some uber-feminist, I apologize. But, I guarantee that if men got pregnant instead of women, there would be no middle ground. There would only be choice, as it is with everything they do (unless they are gay). That’s the grand irony of Sullivan’s position.
DanSmoot'sGhost
You’re a fucking liar. A strong defense of a well thought out position is not a spittle flecked tirade, you smug piece of shit. And you know it.
This is the internet, not a Quaker meeting. And Sullivan is in fact an irredeemable asshole, right up until he stops being one. That’s the way it is.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Little Dreamer:
Well, you are nicer than most people around here. Including me. :)
Krista
Yep. And they find it very easy to say when it’s not any woman who THEY know or care about. I actually got into this very argument on RedState, and some asshat named Aaron told me that I was “selfish” when I stated that if my choice was to abort or die, that I would absolutely abort. I thought, “That’s pretty easy for you to say, fuckstick, as unless you’re a female posting under a male pseudonym, you will NEVER have to worry about your health or life being at risk due to a pregnancy.”
Mind you, this same fellow, should a woman HE actually cares about, ever be in that situation, I doubt he’d call her selfish for wanting to, you know, NOT die.
DougJ
Michael, I get apoplectic about fellow travellers’ (i.e. dirty hippies’) inability to admit they’re wrong about things at times, but there is just no comparison. The right is a million time worse.
My or your desire to lump unreasonable commenters in with Alan Keyes and Jonah Goldberg is understandable, but it’s not rational to give in to it.
Bey
Ectopic pregnancy rates are surprisingly high – anywhere from 1 in 40 to 1 in 60 according to a quick google. So: grains of salt and all that.
I heard the other day an OB/GYN quote that 40% of women undergo an abortion. I don’t know what to make of that stat – seems rather high to me and she didn’t offer any citations to back it up.
Little Dreamer
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
I agree that Sullivan’s doubt is helpful. If he comes out and says he thought about it and he still can’t agree, it will not be helpful, although I think he’d have a really hard time walking that back, so I’m hopeful he will come out with a stronger opinion soon.
Dansmoot’sGhost argues so strongly because he CARES so strongly. Something tells me that if you knew how much he cared you wouldn’t be so quick to drag him off to the garbage can.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Rainy Day:
Ditto, pretty much, on your list. Oddly, BJ has been a forum that largely has held to those positions over time.
Which makes the Sullivan Apologia all the more annoying.
If Sullivan were a goat, just a moron, I’d actually give him more of a pass. But he isn’t. He is just the guy who ought to know better, but manages to outthink the problem.
No compassionate person can look at the typical late term abortion story and declare the parents and doctors to be criminals for making the best of a horrible choice.
Little Dreamer
@Bey:
I did not realize, of course, I never went around asking other women when they had gone through such a thing. I almost died after my fallopian tube burst, I figured that was pretty rare.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Bey:
I think the context was that most abortions are natural (miscarriages). That large percentage included those.
I don’t have the cite in front of me but I am pretty sure that’s what I heard.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Please drag me off the nearest bar. This evening.
Thanks!
Little Dreamer
@Rainy Day:
Geez Rainy, I agree with your points and I don’t consider myself a feminist at all (and I’m female).
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Sake or Margharitas? ;)
Krista
‘Tis surprisingly common. My best friend had an ectopic pregnancy and very nearly died from it.
I think a lot of people have so much faith in modern medicine that it doesn’t compute with them that there is STILL a hell of a lot that can go wrong with a pregnancy and that even a healthy pregnancy is still really goddamn hard on a woman’s body (she says, while propping up her ginormous, swollen feet).
The maternal mortality rate is 11 in 100,000. So it’s a very tiny percentage. But it DOES still happen. More than 4 million babies are born in the U.S. every year, I believe. So, if you do the math, that means that over 400 women are dying in childbirth every year in the United States.
A lot of people genuinely think that because of all of that nifty modern medicine, there should be absolutely no need whatsoever to abort due to maternal risk, because hell, we can just deliver the baby via c-section at 23 weeks and keep it in an incubator, right? Easy-peasy!
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@kay:
Ummm…. no. I was speaking of the whole leaking amniotic fluid/still gave the speech/then flew 12 hours home/flight attendants unaware/arrived in Anchorage/got in a car/drove an hour to a rural hospital. That is the official story.
tavella
I never cared much for his blog — he always struck me as intellectually dishonest and twisted, what with his truly warped interface of sexuality and religion — but he became dead to me when he called me and everyone like me a fifth columnist traitor.
Nothing he’s done since has improved my opinion of him, and him wanting lots of credit for angsting about how haaaard it is to be him and have his beliefs isn’t likely to help either. As someone pointed out, John doesn’t try to bask in credit for agonizing over leaving the right-wing world view behind, he just goes “wow, that was stupid!” wryly.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Krista:
I thought it was telling that Palin thought about whether or not to carry Trick to term, making the CHOICE to do so.
Little Dreamer
@Krista:
I almost became on of those statistics. 400 a year doesn’t seem like much (although a single one is more than should have been). Considering the number of women we have on this board, it still seems like a high percentage of us have gone through this sort of thing as well.
Clio
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
It’s called personal growth, dude. Give people credit for being able to start navigating their way out of a box that they have lived in their entire lives.
You are being a judgmental ideologue. That high horse you’re sitting on aint all that impressive, either.
gsp
I did not read each and every comment above so it may have been touched upon already….What I’ve come to realize over that last while is that those on the right (and I still consider Sullivan there still) is an inability or unwillingness to see anything beyond their own experiences. If they have not been discriminated against, discrimination is not possible, if they have not faced the decision to abort then there is no choice to make, you keep the baby, if you haven’t been waterboarded then waterboarding is not torture and the list goes on and on.
In the coming years the results of brain research should be every interesting. I think fMRI scans or whatever other tool that is developed will show the brain of “lefties” and “righties” is different. I think there is something of the right winger’s brain that prevents them from seeing the world through the eyes of anyone else but themselves. Of course this is a very generalized statement and of course the there are many a weaknesses of the lefty but such research should be fascinating to see.
Moreover, I agree completely with DougJ in calling him “deliberately obtuse.” I think the greatest gift he has provided society is that he is gay though recognizing how much of struggle it was especially in his earlier years. I wonder if he would have the same thoughts about same sex marriage had he not been gay. Being a betting man, I would say his inability to wear another person shoes (as I said a common feature with the rights) would have had him against such marriage.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Little Dreamer:
Those rum things with the mint in them?
Laura W
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
I don’t know if that was a typo or a tongue-in-cheek quip. Either way, I giggled.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Clio:
Yeah, you know what? I get to decide for myself what meets that standard, and what doesn’t. If my evaluation doesn’t agree with yours, then too bad. If you think you are going to preach at me over it, you’re not. Shove it up your ass.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Oh, you want Mojitos tonight?
;)
Dinner at BA?
k.
kay
@Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon):
Right. You and Andrew Sullivan object. To what, I’m not sure. Boarding an airplane without a note from the doctor?
Pregnancies are all different. My OB breezily mentioned that I was “doing great” but could “fall off a cliff” at any moment, because there’s ” no real way of predicting”. It’s what I liked about him. He was ruthlessly direct.
He was in his sixties, and had been delivering babies for 30 years, he and I had been meeting monthly for almost a year, yet he was less sure in his knowledge of my pregnancy than Andrew Sullivan was of Sarah Palin’s.
I’m kidding, mostly. I don’t really care what he writes. I think he’s a little doltish and thick about human beings, but that’s not unusual.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Little Dreamer:
Mojitos! I can never remember the name. Seriously the best beverage ever invented.
My lifelong proscription against alcoholism would be in danger if they had been serving those 30 years ago.
burnspbesq
@BDeevDad:
Yes, they read their Bibles, but they read them the way I read statutes and cases when I am in an advocacy posture (as opposed to an advisory posture). They’ve made up their tiny minds, and Scripture exists only to validate their foolish conclusions.
John S.
Have you just met ppgaz/ThymeZone/DanSmoot’sGhost?
He’s a cantankerous old curmudgeon, like a bizarro Pat Buchanan. But far more lovable.
Amanda
As much as Andrew’s honesty is refreshing and welcome (as opposed to lying and craziness), the “defensibleness” thing really doesn’t hold water, imho.
There are, I am sure, plenty of women who get abortions late in pregnancy whose circumstances might not be as “defensible” for whatever reason — to Andrew or anyone else. It’s still their right to make that decision.
Until you’re in need of a late abortion because you’re a 14-year-old who’s in severe denial about being pregnant or a woman who’s abused and lives in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t have a car/money — both scenarios that happen all the time and mostly not to middle class white women — you have no idea what you would do if you walked a mile in those women’s shoes in terms of the decisionmaking process. None of us can begin to comprehend those situations.
And more to the point none of us have the right to butt into those women’s lives and make decisions for them. Especially if doing so might get them, say, killed by their abusers or kicked out of the house by their parents, etc. — again, situations that happen way too often in this country.
We have no right. It’s as simple as that.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Okay, mojitos it is (for you anyway, I’ll have what I had the other night. ;)
DanSmoot'sGhost
@John S.:
Yeah right, you stupid prick. I suppose you can look at a picture of an anencephalic fetus and tell me that you’d criminalize the parents for choosing an abortion under difficult circumstances … right? You can do that?
This ain’t about curmudgeon. It’s about simple things that don’t require a rocket scientist to figure out, and simple things that were at the root of a murder that happened last weekend, and simple things that were glaringly apparent a long, long time ago to anyone who wanted to understand them.
What the fuck is the matter with you?
Llelldorin
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Ah, there’s the point we disagree on. I think he’s a redeemable asshole, and am somewhat hopeful that he’s begun the process.
He’ll never do it as well as John did, because he totally lacks John’s ability to graciously admit that he was wrong. No, if Sullivan goes pro-choice, he’ll do it in a way that’ll leave the rest of us wanting to kill him—he’ll take the stance that anyone who was right before he was just didn’t understand the issues, and is a heartless bastard for not agonizing long enough. Mark my words. (Or, just watch his “yes, the Iraq war was a mistake, but at least I’m not one of those idiots who’ve been saying that for years” performance.)
theturtlemoves
Oh, shit. That’s ThymeZone? Well, that explains everything. I thought we had some new random asshole, but it is just the same old asshole who’s been telling everyone to fuck off since I started reading this blog years ago. That makes me feel better about the world…
WingNutz
Mmmm, sexy robe-wearing hypocrites…
Dang, forgot what I was going to say.
burnspbesq
@Little Dreamer:
Rethinking firmly-held beliefs when confronted with facts that undermine the validity of those beliefs? That’s Locke, not Burke. I’d settle for Ahn-drew coming to grips with the fact that, all of his protestations of conservatism to the contrary, he’s actually a classical liberal.
Little Dreamer
Oh God, help us!
Krista
Deadly, absolutely deadly. They go down waaaayyyy too easily on a warm night, you wind up dancing wildly on your lawn to bad music, and the next thing you know, you’re curled up in the fetal position on the cold tile in your bathroom, with your head on the scale, because that’s the only place you can get comfortable.
Or so I’ve heard…
Little Dreamer
@theturtlemoves:
Who else do I make dinner arrangements with?
Little Dreamer
@Krista:
good thing he doesn’t have a lawn.
I guess I’m driving tonight.
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Llelldorin:
Well, I commend your patience. What I see is at least twenty years or so of demagoguery on one side, and easily and widely available information to refute that demagoguery on the other side. And how anyone can take the hard line on this, in the face of that, is beyond me.
I think it takes a nexus of a giant ego, a cold heart, and a willful refusal to make the most basic concessions to compassion for others, to stand firm in the face of that.
This blog, of course, is a trainwreck of intellectual integrity.
Righties of every persuasion who are guilty of whatever misdemeanors from A to Z can get excoriated here day and night and year in and year out … but call Sullivan an asshole for being a complete asshole, and you’d think that somebody just raped a car full of nuns. What a crock of shit from these people today, and yesterday too.
Someday DougJ will explain how he can rant and rave for amonth about “media” and “pundit” shortcomings that are mostly just intellectual artifacts, but let one blogger really be a cruel shithead who has sided with people who are today cheering the murder of a doctor for doing something heroic, and call him out on it, and watch the bullshit fly.
Amazing. If Andrew Sullivan cannot be called an asshole for this, then this blog needs to be shut down today, and just tell everybody the last 7 years have just been a big practical joke.
DanSmoot'sGhost
Ahhh …. the spinning stopped!
Been there.
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I wish we had signatures, I’d steal that. ;)
Laura W
@Krista:
Pregnancy as (Divine) Intervention?
;-)
Mike
Bush and Cheney on one side, Obama and Biden on the other. Or, to put it another way, what was the last time a Democrat had to apologize to Olbermann?
DanSmoot'sGhost
@Little Dreamer:
Well, the bottom line on this is, if this blog can’t call out Sullivan for being a dick on this issue, then honestly, it’s just a cat picture blog.
This isn’t an intellectual exercise. We have what amounts to a cultural civil war going on in this country over this issue, and Sullivan is on the wrong side of it, and is on the wrong side in the face of powerful and available facts that give the lie to his position on it, and we are supposed to be cheering because he might change his mind?
Next, Charles Manson will recant his mad rantings, and we will be seeing him on The View with the girls.
Argh.
Laura W
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
I vote for that to replace Consistently wrong since 2002 next time the site is re-designed.
binzinerator
@Seebach:
It never was about decreasing or preventing abortions because otherwise they would have backed the ways you suggest. It’s really about controlling women’s sexuality and reproduction — in other words, controlling their minds and bodies.
Silver Owl
I feel totally blessed now that Sullivan has decided that pregnant women are not lying bitches just trying to pull one over on him and his peter.
It is mighty mighty good of him to consider that maybe just maybe we women could come close to being human enough to make decisions about our own pregnancies and bodies without having him supervise us.
Hope he does not strain himself. He has only had all his fucking teen and adult life to learn to about pregnancy, risks and half the human race, but he must have been well busy with other things. It is tough being king.
Llelldorin
I don’t know that I’m cheering. It’s more like the game I play with my toddler: Warmer,…, warmer,.. no, colder,… warmer!
Little Dreamer
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
We’ve talked about this privately already, yes, it is true he has not come out and said he would change his opinion… BUT he’s damned close to pro-choice heresy on what he’s already said and if he doesn’t come out and officially announce he has changed his mind, this blog will go back to hating him and doing so even more. Wait and see what he does.
It’s that simple.
You’re “day” is almost finished. Let’s concentrate on mojitos and steak and worry about it later. ;)
asiangrrlMN
@gbear: I didn’t go. I posted in another thread. I crashed hard last night. My sleep has been shitty.
@Rainy Day: I am with you on looking at gray areas, and I am with you on the four absolutes you cited. Oh, and I am a hard-core feminist. I will not apologize for that. (Except I like sex lots so maybe I’m not such a hard-core feminist. Or is that a tenet of feminism these days?) Anyway, thank you for your thoughtful posts. I enjoy reading them.
jcricket
You know, I’ve been thinking about what bothers me regarding Sully’s reaction and it boils down to two things:
1) We’re supposed to give Sully a frickin medal every single time he comes around to the “correct” position after years of not only being on the opposite side, but ridiculing those of us who hold the opposite position as less moral, less serious, etc. (see 5th column, abortion, etc). How many times does this have to happen before we can basically say Sully’s logic cortex and reasoning center is broken. No matter how many words, references to Burke/Oakeshott, or other “seriousness” he displays, he’s wrong, time and again. And while it’s better to be wrong, and then admit it, than it is to be wrong and not – it’s better to be right more often. For us not to be, at the least, frustrated by Sully’s still-wrong opinions in the face of this continued evidence pattern would be unreasonable.
2) What if we said that AIDS/HIV was a public health matter, and since it’s contagious, we should treat it like TB – require testing, quarantine those that test positive. He would go apoplectic, start ranting about ghettos, the Holocaust, anti-gay hysteria, etc. And he would talk about those of us who “don’t know” having “no right” to interfere with his personal decisions about his body and sexuality.
Yet here he is, doing the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING with women. It’s none of his FUCKING BUSINESS whether this is your first, second or tenth abortion, whether you are poor or rich, married or not, nor how you came to the conclusion to have an abortion. That he can’t see people are asking for the law to reflect the same respect he’s demanding for himself is just ridiculous. I don’t care that he’s Catholic, or British, or conservative. I don’t have sympathy for his inability to get it. Even his epiphany still contains within it a deep and fundamental error in logic when understanding what pro-choice advocates are requesting when it comes to the law and women’s choices about their reproductive system.
Little Dreamer
@binzinerator:
You know the only reason we are even talking about this now is because the right wing was upset about Sonia Sotomayor and some crazy pro-life ideologue decided to make the abortion debate front and center again with this killing (SCOTUS pro-choice debate fodder). I’m amazed nobody has figured out the timing of all this. I should shut up actually, because it has so far worked beautifully for the left, we haven’t actually equated the two events. Even more, we’ve opened up minds to the reasons why abortion is necessary. I think the right lost this debate with this murder.
You never heard it, forget I said it.
asiangrrlMN
@Silver Owl:
@Llelldorin:
Gotta say, you two made me laugh. Ta.
jcricket, that was righteous.
burnspbesq
@DanSmoot’sGhost:
Well, the bottom line on this is, if this blog can’t call out Sullivan for being a dick on this issue, then honestly, it’s just a cat picture blog.
This isn’t an intellectual exercise. We have what amounts to a cultural civil war going on in this country over this issue, and Sullivan is on the wrong side of it, and is on the wrong side in the face of powerful and available facts that give the lie to his position on it, and we are supposed to be cheering because he might change his mind?
Next, Charles Manson will recant his mad rantings, and we will be seeing him on The View with the girls.
Argh.
If we are all such retards, why do you continue to hang out here?
John S.
Fuck you ppgaz!
You are bizarro Pat Buchanan, and your little screech at me proves that. You may want to use the Great Gizoogle to familiarize yourself with what the modifier ‘bizarro’ means before flying off into another baseless rage.
For the record, I’m pro-choice and I dare you to parse my accurate commentary on you for evidence to the contrary. Now settle down you cantankerous motherfucker.
Clio
@theturtlemoves:
Yeah, I would have just ignored it if I had made the connection. His last handle was SrichaHotSauce or something like that. I thought DanSmootsGhost was a new self righteous prick. All is still right in the Balloon Juice world and I can go back to lurking.
jcricket
@asiangrrlMN: Thanks. I read follow-up Sully posts like this and it just gets my blood boiling.
Let’s make sure all places frequented by gays have huge signs warning them about the dangers of sex, and unprotected sex. Let’s make sure their doctors, after the see a gay person, lecture that gay person about having sex, because it could lead to AIDS. And maybe gay people should have to sign some sort of paperwork showing they’ve seriously considered the ramifications of having sex before they get a drivers license, or credit card (with which they could by Zima, condoms and astro-glide).
That’s basically Andrew’s logic about women. Abortion is “deeply troubling” and it’s important we have women “think about it”. STFU and Go away. None of your business.
Legislating from some narrow, particular view of morality is always a stupid idea – and it’s what Andrew asks us not to do in the case of gays/HIV, but seems to be embedded in his thinking about lots of other stuff.
North Dallas Thirty
These are deeply personal and horribly complex medical and moral issues that should be left to the mother and father and the doctor
I fail to see how, given the position of abortion supporters that it’s not a person, just a bit of excess tissue that can be easily killed and removed with no moral qualms whatsoever.
Why on earth should we believe that those who declare even children outside the womb to be “stinky filthy whining needy human larvae” have any difficulty whatsoever in killing one when it’s even simpler and cleaner?
geg6
This thread is about dead and I’m about to write a long post. But I am compelled to tell my story because I feel we’re all getting too wrapped up in only defending the most defensable cases for abortion, these horrible stories of great sadness and medical disaster on late abortions. And, to me, all abortions are defensible because none of you have walked in that woman’s shoes. So you don’t know and should really just STFU. In the mid-70s, I got pregnant at age 16 while in a good relationship with a wonderful young man. Although I grew up in a very strict Catholic family, I had already turned away from the church and was considered very odd in my conviction to never marry or have kids, a conviction I’d been voicing since I literally could talk. My parents (well, really, my mother) took me out of school, refused to let me tell my young man, locked up in a Catholic home for unwed mothers for the duration, and did not visit or call me for the entire 6 months I spent there nor did they allow any of my siblings to call or visit. The only person who did was my oldest sister who was already living on her own. I had asked for an abortion, but my mother made clear that she would do anything to force me to give birth. When I finally had that baby, I was forced to give her up for adoption and to lie about the father on the birth certificate and the adoption papers because they didn’t want my young man to have any say in the matter. It was probably the most traumatic and politically formative experience of my entire life. Fast forward five years and I’m living on my own after college and a fanatical devotee of proper use of the birth control pill, you know, the 99 percent effective method. I had a casual boyfriend who was not someone I wanted to spend my life with (nice guy though), as I still never wanted to marry or have kids with anyone. And of course, I’m that one percenter for whom the best method used exactly as prescribed failed. When I realized what was going on, I couldn’t believe it. I had no health care was tending bar for two dollars an hour plus tips while searching for whatever job I could get as a poli-sci major with a minor in history (hint: there aren’t any). I didn’t want to tell the guy because I was sure he’d guilt me into marrying him (he felt a bit more strongly for mr than I did him). So my only option, as I saw it, was to just kill myself. And I methodically went about doing what needed done to do just that. As I sat, trying to build the courage to put the noose around my neck and climb on the chair (and no, I’m not being one bit melodramatic), the guy walked into my apartment with the key I’d left outside for him many times. He immediately saw what the deal was and begged me to tell him why I was doing this. After many circular discussions, I finally told him. And he was wonderful. He told me that he’d pay if that was what I wanted and he took me into the clinic in Pittsburgh to have the procedure. He even came I and held my hand while the wonderful and compassionate doctors and nurses performed my abortion. We are still close friends who speak on the phone once a week to this day, almost 30 years later. I tell this story because I feel there is too much emphasis in much of the discussion here on these, as far as I’m concerned, easy to defend abortions like ectopic pregnancies or terribly defective fetuses with implication that abortions like mine are just not defensible because there was no physical problem. But my teenage trauma was just as life-threatening as any of these. I could not, emotionally or mentally, go through the give birth and then give it up for adoption stuff again. I would have killed myself anyway had I been forced to do that again. And had I kept the child, my resentment of it would, no doubt in my mind, made me at least an unloving and neglectful mother, if not an angry and abusive one. People need to understand that I see legal abortion as something that saves lives. I know for sure, it saved mine (with a little help from a friend). If you’ve never had the same experiences I have in exactly the same way, you can’t know what that was like. I am thankful that I was able to have the procedure when it was legal and safe and at a time when it was widely available. If I was that same young woman today, I’d have a hard time finding a place to get it done, not to mention the courage to face down the crazies who assault and harass women at the clinics. The clinic I went to no longer exists because of the escalating vandalism and threats directed at the great people there who helped me. Only women should make these choices and the facilities and services they need should be easily accessible to them in their need, whatever that need may be. No one has the right to judge their situations. I am sure some will judge mine and think the dirty slut murderer geg6 deserves worse than Dr. Tiller. And to them, I say fuck you.
jcricket
i’m in yer balloonz, drinkin yer jooc.
Seriously, what Sully’s remarks remind me of, whenever he does have an epiphany, is the remarks coming from people like Operation Rescue, or the Republicans after they admit torture happened.
I’m glad Sully’s coming around, but it’s basically a 2 out of 10 for “conversions to the right side”. I give John Cole a 10 out of 10, OTOH. It’s not about suddenly being a liberal, it’s about realizing that not only were you wrong, but the way in which you were wrong, and the reasoning you used, and the vitriol you displayed for the other side likely infuse all of your opinions.
Witness John Cole saying things like, “The DFH were right again” vs Sully saying, “Well sure, abortion’s ok in these circumstances, but the pro-choice side is still deeply unserious and to be discounted”.
slightly_peeved
The awful thing about Sully is that being wrong on one part of his philosophy doesn’t cause him to re-examine any of his other philosophies. The Catholic church is wrong on homosexuality, but right on the money when it comes to abortion. Bush is an idiot, but conservatism is fine and dandy. He admits he is wrong, but he never thinks about why he was wrong. If he did, John & Doug wouldn’t have to call him on all this shit.
This is what makes John Cole a more interesting writer (for me, at least) than Sully.
I don’t think he’s the devil incarnate. I don’t think that many people do. I just think he’s a bad writer. The titanic struggle within his psyche takes more space on the page than the issue he is concerned about, and that style of writing just doesn’t float my boat.
North Dallas Thirty
They are forcing the parents to under go immense emotional suffering, forcing them to carry a non-viable baby to term.
A “non-viable” baby?
You mean one who has the wrong eye color or wrong hair color? What exactly do you mean by “viable”? As I said on another post, my cousin was considered “non-viable” because he was of mixed race and his mother was a drug addict.
They are forcing a woman into immense physical suffering when they force them to carry a dead fetus to term.
Do you mean dead as in already dead, or as in, “Well, it’s not dead yet, but since we think it will die outside the womb, we’ll just assume it’s dead because then it’s easier to rationalize”?
When a baby is semi-viable, they are forcing the parents to bear immense emotional suffering as the child goes through operation after operation. And they’re forcing the baby to go through immense pain and physical suffering (because they don’t think one moment of WHAT THE CHILD GOES THROUGH).
Yes, because splitting open a baby’s skull and vacuuming out their brains involves no pain or suffering whatsoever.
Incidentally, does this mean all parents of handicapped children are evil sadists who should just kill their kid out of mercy? Why don’t you say that, abortionist? Or do you suddenly develop some sort of appreciation for the value of life when you can’t kill it without looking at it first?
jcricket
@slightly_peeved: What this person said.
HyperIon
@kay:
That must be hard in light of the several hundred comments on these two Sully posts. But it’s my position also. I stopped going to his site about a year ago. I figure that’s the only way I can influence his reputation…by decreasing page views.
Bey
@North Dallas Thirty: Fuck off North Dallas. You fucking halfwit. If that’s all you’ve gleaned from 700 comments, you can just go fuck yourself.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
I watched a segment on Anderson Cooper’s AC360 yesterday where he had a woman who had a ‘non-viable’ pregnancy. She had a chromosomal situation that was “not compatible to life” (her words, not mine), and she talked about how she carried that baby for four extra months knowing this because she wanted the baby to have a normal death. She stated that although the baby could not breathe at the end, there was no suffering or pain. PLEASE!
Your rhetoric is exactly that, and nothing more.
Phoebe
Sullivan thinks and feels and changes in public, every day. If you don’t like to watch, because, you know, he’s wrong and all, wrong and bad and evil and must be boycotted, then you’re boring and echo-chamber-loving, like Rush Limbaugh. And being right doesn’t make you less boring.
Viva Brisvegas
There is an easy answer to this, just tell the rabid anti-choice scolds that they can have their way, all abortions will be made illegal.
The only caveat being that they will first have to supply a trust fund to finance all the medical and educational needs of these “saved” births.
Until they hand over the cheque they can all just STFU.
HyperIon
@Michael D.:
Michael, what I remember was your post about banning smoking in bars/restaurants. Or maybe it was a comment. But the gist was “If you don’t like bars with smokers, then don’t go there.” And then many people jumped on you for ignoring the plight of bartenders and waitrons. It may not have been your first post (and certainly wasn’t your first comment…who can forget the Riverdance joke?) but it was EXTREMELY tone deaf.
Besides, JC was still identifying as a repub then, so IMO negative reactions to you were probably not about your party affiliation. My take on folks here is that they tend to judge/attack others based on the positions they espouse, not how they label themselves.
But I have not gone back to the archives so I can’t support my assertion with links, etc.
But I do appreciate your mention of your tenuous situation here not being on most folks radar. We are self-absorbed creatures. Figuring out how much empathy is the correct level of empathy is a lifelong matter. I hope you don’t lose your job.
TenguPhule
North Dallas, if you’re going to fuck a straw man, at least have decency to put on a rubber.
TenguPhule
Viable as in it can survive and the mother *chooses* to have it.
Otherwise, fuck off per prior posts in threads below.
binzinerator
@kay:
IIRC Palin butted her pregnancy into us.
She used that poor baby like a prop. And when the public scrutiny came — as it surely would when one puts one’s infant in front of the whole freakin’ world — we learned about her hours-long flight to Alaska after her water broke. (My wife’s water broke before having each of our kids so we both knew the immediacy and importance of getting to a place where the baby can be safely delivered. Doing what she did all sounded so surreal to use — or damn reckless.)
Kinda hard not having lots of people inquiring into one’s pregnancy after that.
No one would have a shit if her explanation of her plane ride had not only sounded bizarre but sounded as if she really took a risk with herself and her baby. (Ah, those ‘pro-lifers’!)
Didn’t her choice to put her infant in front of that media circus she created make you go WTF?
I don’t hate Sullivan for not letting it go. God knows Palin gave us ample reason for us to think she has problems telling the truth.
kay
@binzinerator:
She absolutely did use that baby like a prop. I completely disapprove of the Palin family parenting approach, but it doesn’t matter, because they’re adequate parents, apparently.
My beef with Sullivan was that the baby has a interest, and the teenage daughter has an interest, and, while it’s true their reckless momma drug them into the limelight, that isn’t their fault, and they were collateral damage.
Too, his weird knowing. He read like 3 pages of sketchy medical records and he was ready to indict.
binzinerator
@North Dallas Thirty:
You fail to see that a lot of people who support abortion do have moral qualms. They struggle with their decision.
You just simply FAIL.
Laura W
@geg6: Nearly every time you post something I feel as if I’m listening to a twin sister from a different mother.
Thank you. I suspect you speak for far more of us than you may ever know.
gwangung
@North Dallas Thirty:
Yeah, you’re a sadist. Pain either way and you want MORE MORE MORE!
FormerSwingVoter
I think the most important part of the conversation taking place on Sullivan’s blog is this one, by one of his readers:
I understand that these stories have been out there for a long time, but most people have never heard them. We need to talk about these stories in order to humanize the debate. “The Woman’s Choice” seems too abstract to many people without these stories of what actually goes into these decisions, and how the actual lives involved are affected.
The stat about 40% of women having an abortion by the time they reach menopause is one that I’ve heard before, so I’m wondering where it came from. If true, then this is something that should come up in nearly every life/choice debate. It basically means that not only does everyone know someone who has been through this, but pretty much everyone works with someone who has been through this, and is close friends with someone who has been through this, and is almost definitely related to someone who has gone through this, somewhere along the line.
These women are not the caricatured baby-killers people would have us believe, but instead the people we see and care about in every day of our lives. But because of the continued demonization of a legitimate medical procedure, they won’t speak about these experiences with anyone. Why would you, when your church and family and friends all assure you that only the most vile and evil people would be involved with such a thing?
Telling these stories and humanizing the debate is how we can show the moderates and independents just how important this right really is.
latts
@Stacy:
What you said.
@Paul L.:
I certainly hope you’re not arguing that a man’s money is equivalent to the very heavy, medically stressful use of a woman’s body, or the pure grind of childrearing solo.
Some random thoughts:
Okay, Sullivan is annoying as hell, and I think the irony of the original BJ post was that it basically amounted to ‘get over yourselves,’ and Andrew Sullivan will never, ever get over himself, period. What he really needs to do IMO is to learn a bit of humility, to throw out a bit of a disclaimer like ‘I still don’t support the late abortions, but I can no longer oppose them as a matter of legality either. Or maybe just an occasional ‘I realize that my feelings are not very pertinent to people who are actually facing these difficult situations.’ But he’s progressing… I just wish he’d do it in a more humble manner.
One thing that I suspect would help a lot with the abortion rate is for us to not sentimentalize babies & parenthood so much. Having a baby will not make your partner ‘settle down’ if he’s not already on that path, it’s not going to improve your relationship in the short [and probably medium] term, and it’s not going to make you feel more grown up. And trust me, the diaper towers you’ll face at 4 am aren’t the same as the beribboned ones at baby showers. It’s seriously, soul-grindingly hard, so passive neglect of birth control is not a good way to start– we need to be more honest about that before conception, not after.
Personally, I’d say the late-term abortions Tiller performed were probably the most ‘justifiable’ kinds overall… even allowing for, say, a high-single-digit rate of supposedly frivolous ones (and I seriously doubt he had time for those cases), that’s still a lot of people in serious crisis that he helped. But, they were very convenient for the fanatic right’s exclusive specialty cocktail of media/language manipulation and outright lies, so we’ve mostly been hearing crap for decades now. Even if he withholds his ‘support,’ if we could get Sullivan (and I notice he’s still nattering about undeniable humanity, souls, etc., which don’t seem to be of much use wrt public policy, but whatever) on more shows to relate the stories, that would probably help.
kay
@binzinerator:
Too, you and your wife had babies, so you know the stories. Just insane, what happens to people. I can’t even believe we’re all walking around. It’s a complete crap shoot.
“Then she changed the tires on the semi, and delivered the twins!”
It’s just such an unpredictable world. Andrew Sullivan lives in some orderly place that I’m not familiar with. I’m a little envious.
tripletee (formerly tBone)
@jibeaux:
Late to the party, but just wanted to say that was an excellent comment. You summed up my own feelings better than I could have. Anti-abortion extremists (like North Darrell Thirty) are so disgusting and intellectually dishonest that I’m reflexively pro-choice on a general level, but on a personal level I think it’s an issue that’s a lot more complex than many people on our side of the fence are willing to admit.
Krista
No, genius. Non-viable means that it has no hope of living outside of the womb. A baby that has not developed a face. A baby whose intestines have developed on the outside of its body. A baby who only has 1/4 of a brain inside of a partially completed skull.
Stuff like that.
Or like when the baby has already died inside of the womb, and the mother is getting sicker and sicker from having what amounts to a rotting corpse inside of her.
When the fetus is non-viable:
1. What is more cruel to the mother: to force her to continue with the pregnancy, having to endure the well-wishes of unwitting strangers and acquaintances, only to give painful birth to a child who is either stillborn or dies less than 24 hours afterwards? Or, to allow her the choice of going through with the pregnancy or terminating it and starting the grieving/healing process?
2. What is more cruel to the fetus: to give it a quick death, or to allow it to be born and take however long it takes to die outside of the womb?
But, to put it more succinctly, if you don’t like abortions, fine. Nobody’s ever going to force you to have one. Happy now?
Death By Mosquito Truck
The topic of Andrew Sullivan is tearing this blog up. Let’s just agree to disagree about him! Now, who wants to go get an abortion and ice cream cone with me?
Krista
And that’s very much the reality of life for a lot of women. But you still have the scolds and the prudes who are firmly of the opinion that if you wouldn’t walk (or haven’t already walked) down the aisle with the man, then you have absolutely no business sleeping with him. They truly have their heads in the sand, and are trying to shove their own version of morality on everybody else.
I always laugh at these “abstinence until marriage” people. Christ, I didn’t get married until I was 32 (which is the average age for women getting married for the first time in Canada)! People are marrying later and later in life (if they’re getting married at all), yet we’re all supposed to remain virgins? In 1959, 47% of brides were under the age of nineteen — a good deal easier to stay a virgin until marriage if you’re getting married at age 17 or 18, no? Not so much now, when that age has increased by about 10 years.
But abortions happened then, too. That’s the irony.
Belvoir
Basically, Sullivan is wallowing in other people’s misery, and using that as a stage to highlight what a profound moral thinker he is, by casting judgement on them.
As a gay man, may I say he’s a disgrace, pontificating (ha! Papist) on something that’s literally none of his fucking business.
Laura W
@Krista:
You know what, Krista? Reading this, and trying to personalize it, I ask myself “Who? Who in my life would this apply to?” No one. Not my closest family (70 y/o mom or 94 y/o grama), nor my closest friends. There is no one in my inner circle who still thinks or feels this way. Either I am very blessed and lucky, or I just know how to pick my friends and family. It’s been decades since I’ve cared about what “others” think of me. Maybe I’m just lucky that way.
Krista
I’m lucky too, Laura, as I come from a long line of degenerate women. ;)
But the women like in your family and mine, they ARE the ones who mind their own damn business. It’s the ones who are scolds and prudes who aren’t content to limit their scolding to their immediate family and their prudishness to themselves. Nope, they’ve got to get the entire damn COUNTRY on board with them.
Those women need a better hobby. Or a good vibrator and a joint.
North Dallas Thirty
You fail to see that a lot of people who support abortion do have moral qualms. They struggle with their decision.
Why? Why would you “struggle” over something where you just believe it’s excess tissue and leftovers?
This is the irony of abortionists and abortion supporters; you claim to be upset and sad over something that you completely and totally dehumanize.
Meanwhile, I can show you exactly what “non-viable” is, according to abortion supporters:
Viable as in it can survive and the mother chooses to have it.
In other words, if the mother doesn’t want it, no matter how healthy the baby is, it’s “non-viable” and you can abort it.
North Dallas Thirty
And had I kept the child, my resentment of it would, no doubt in my mind, made me at least an unloving and neglectful mother, if not an angry and abusive one.
So you would take your own bad feelings out on a defenseless child and feel completely justified in doing it.
That, really, is the root of the abortion issue: the liberal belief that a child is nothing more than another mouth to feed, another drain on the welfare system, another inconvenience to your social life, another inch on your waist and hips.
El Cid
Maybe because there’s an excess of people like you who lecture them continuously on how it’s the most important decision in the entire universe since it’s possible that one day that collections of cells could be a human, though it isn’t yet.
jcricket
You know what, the statistics show that the percent of people having sex before marriage has barely budged up in the past 60 years. Page 76 has the salient conclusion:
The age at which people get married has changed, as has the number of partners, the types of sexual activities, percentage of people who claim to have same-sex encounters, # of people living with each other before marriage, etc. But the idea that there was a “non-premarital sex culture”, at least in this century, where people regularly waited until marriage to have sex is complete bunk.
jcricket
Some women feel upset, some do not. Depends on the circumstance. Doesn’t really impact whether abortion should be legal or not.
Next.
Krista
North Dallas Thirty, are you illiterate, or just obtuse? Because your reading comprehension is absolutely abysmal.
There has been comment after comment after comment on this thread and others, talking about how abortion IS indeed a difficult choice, but one that we still all firmly believe should be between the woman and her medical professionals. And yet, you insisting that we’re dehumanizing the fetus.
If you were at all interested in an honest debate, you would look at what people are actually saying, instead of cherry-picking the odd quote and twisting it to try to create a “gotcha”.
Basically, if other people on here start calling you troll, you’ll know why. It’s not ’cause you’re disagreeing with them. It’s because you’re obviously trying to pick a fight by putting words in peoples’ mouths.
Laura W
@Krista: Clearly it’s not just the women folk. See posts above (Edit: I see you’re on it. GO!). Yawn. Bored with trolls. Bored with men who think their opinions carry equal weight.
Thank Goddess for “So You Think You Can Dance”, Crazy Mary notwithstanding.
;-)
@jcricket:
Thanks for that. People totally overlook how nuanced and individual this whole “process” is, totally dependent upon the timing, the couple involved, and a myriad other factors. It’s not one dimensional, y’all!
El Cid
I don’t give a fuck what any of you people think about abortion — I’m not going to just let the crazies create a governmental authority which interposes the government between a woman and her doctors in order to prevent a legal medical procedure regarding an embryo that is not a separate human.
You can think whatever the fuck you want about liberals and how no one manages to be as sanctimonious as you about how much you crap halos and urinate baptismal water whenever you think about babies and the potential of children.
I don’t think we’re going to let the crazies outlaw it, you’re not going to pass some Constitutional Amendment with the insane proposition that the fetus is a separate human with human rights, so you can keep bitching and moaning about how unserious all the shallow hippie chicks are for failing to respect your musings.
Krista
And that, really, is the root of the abortion issue: the conservative belief that any woman who has sex outside of marriage and gets pregnant as a result, regardless of how careful she was, deserves the punishment of an 18-year sentence of taking care of a child that she did not want and may or may not be able to properly care for.
At least the person you quoted knew early on that she did not want to ever become a mother, and was taking precautions to avoid that. So because she had the temerity to have sex anyway, despite being responsible and taking precautions, you think she deserves to have her life irrevocably altered?
Mayken
@Rainy Day: Thanks. I’ve come to the same conclusion. Thanks to the anti-choice zealots, 87% of counties in this country have no abortion provider, only 2 doctors perform life-saving, late term abortions, access to affordable contraception is getting harder and harder (not covered by insurance or pharmacists’ “morals” protected over her rights) abortions cannot be paid for by Medicare and many insurance companies refuse to pay for elective abortion, new forms of contraception are being held up not for scientific reasons but for politics and our children are being told ridiculous and insane things about contraception. ETC.
So, no, I refuse to be middle of the road any more. As Miyagosan said “Walk middle, sooner or later get squished just like grape.”
Ceil
@ Viva Brisvegas
As a follow-up to your comment.
I’ve always thought there must be many men in the “pro-life” movement with one kidney. Non sequitur, I know.
If the state can tell a person, in this case a woman, what she can and cannot do with her body in the interest of “saving a life”. Then I think the same principle should be extended to men.
Let me explain. In order to apply this principle of the “pro-life” movement to both genders, because, the principle is “universal” but it is only a biological “accident” that it applies to women in the case of abortion, we should also institute mandatory tissue typing of all men and keep a federal registry. When men reach physical maturity, say 25 years of age, if there is a tissue match then the state can harvest one kidney and/or bone marrow from every male in order to save the life of a person who would otherwise die without a new kidney or a bone marrow transplant. Harvesting bone marrow can be repeated, obviously. Of course, the state does not need the agreement or consent of the male donor.
The dangers of the harvesting, the health status (except the health of the harvested organs), the personal or family situation of the man, or the impact on his quality of life is irrelevant.
Also, the costs of the medical procedure and any of the costs of treating complications at the time or in the future is the donor’s responsibility.
In the interest of some equivalence.
Silver Owl
Geg that should never happened to you. I’m sorry it did. You should have been treated like a human being with a say in your own life.
geg6
Laura W: You use a very important qualifier: “still” thinks or feels this. It illustrates that people’s thinking and feeling can change. And I know that’s true. My dad felt so bad about what happened to me as a teenager (he let my mom bulldoze him) that he changed his thinking on abortion. He never voiced it to my mom, but until the day he died, he would make sure to talk to me alone and let me know that he supported me and my right to my own decisions about such things and was infinitely sweet and gentle toward me quite noticeably to the whole family from the moment I came home showed that people can change. Unfortunately, my mom never did. Our relationship never got beyond it. We spent time together just as would seem normal and I loved her and even miss her now she’s gone. But I didn’t and still can’t like her. And it’s only recently I’ve come to accept that. Joy and tragedy, that’s the crazy relationship I had with my parents.
Laura W
@Krista:
I’ve said this before on this site but I’ll say it again: Because every method of BC I ever tried failed me, and I was fertile as a bunny, and knew I did not want to birth or raise a child, and had my tubes tied at 30 to prove that…one night when I was about 40 I had this epiphany that if the men with whom I’d shared a pregnancy were still in my life simply by virtue of sharing a child? I’d be a raving maniac. Simply BECAUSE they were still in my life, for the rest of my life, for no other reason than that we had made a terrible mistake and co-mingled genetic material. Gads.
I can not think of a worse reason to bring an innocent child into this insane world. Or a more dysfunctional, unhealthy situation.
Laura W
@Death By Mosquito Truck: mmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Ice Cream! With nuts? Will you spring for the nuts?
And will you drive? Cuz I really shouldn’t.
Mayken
@DanSmoot’sGhost: and others
According to guttmacher, 40% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion. 22% of all pregnancies end in abortion (excludes miscarriages.)
Laura W
@geg6: At this point in the thread, I really don’t know which of my many posts you are responding to. Would it be possible for you to use the blue arrow linkey back thing so I could at least retrace my words? As convoluted as that prospect is?
Clio
@FormerSwingVoter:
I could not have said this better myself. Even among most women, abortion is never talked about. I’m one of those women who found myself in circumstances that would not allow me to even consider becoming a mother. It would have taken away my ability to hold on to the sanity that I was already just clinging to with tiny threads. The abortion was bad enough, considering that I was raised Catholic, in the South. That and the fact that my divorce wasn’t final yet, I was working three jobs to make ends meet, going to school…. I remember thinking “When did my life become a Jerry Springer episode?” I knew that I was doing the right thing for me and for what would have been the child in terminating the pregnancy at five weeks, but these stories over the past few days have really helped me deal with this decision without the horrible shame that I have been carrying around for the past two and a half years. My mother is a big time pro-lifer and her reactions to even my lukewarm pro-choice statements are reminiscent of commenter Dallas. I know that I can’t be the only woman out there who has been living with this “secret” and feeling like I have no one to turn to, because no one talks about abortion. Sully’s posts and the comment threads here have likely helped personalize this issue to many people who had never thought of it that way, and also made many women not feel alone in having made this difficult decision.
grumpy realist
For all the “prolife” men out there, would you please STFU? It’s an incredibly easy task to talk about the “morality” of a situation that you know damn full well you will never be confronted with. You DON’T know what the situation is like and never will. Until you can get pregnant, you can’t say that you can understand our fear, understand our pain, understand our terror. And there are far too many of you who are willing to coldly condemn us to death or a sadly diminished life simply because it makes you feel more “moral” than other people.
Birth control doesn’t always work. Men refuse to use birth control. Women get raped. Zygotes don’t always implant, and embryos don’t always develop property. Women get life-endangering conditions during pregnancy.
No one goes out and has an abortion because she thinks it’s such *fun* to do that day. An abortion is almost always simply the action of a woman who is stuck in a horrible situation and is carrying out triage. If you really want to get rid of abortions, then construct a world and a society where having an abortion is not the best bad option for a woman surrounded by a choice of horrible options.
Mayken
@asiangrrlMN: Liking sex is indeed a tenet of 3rd Wave (I think, I may have lost count) Feminism. Actually, it’s been, if not orthodox than at least not fring, since I was a baby-feminist (gasp! That was more than 15 years ago!) in college that liking sex is a Good Thing.
FormerSwingVoter
@North Dallas Thirty:
According to Merriam-Webster’s Medical Dictionary:
You don’t get to redefine words just because it would support your argument. I’m sorry that your cousin’s mother got an incorrect diagnosis. Since the doctor specifically mentioned the race of the parents, it would seem that he was letting his personal prejudices get in the way of sound medical advice.
That said, several people on this thread have already stated, in less literal terms, what would be considered viable. If someone tells you what they mean, it doesn’t somehow make you clever to insist that they really mean something completely different. That’s called a strawman argument.
Phoebe
Well, look, if you think a fetus is a human life worth preserving [and I know this changes for a lot of people as the thing develops a spinal cord or nerve endings or whatever] then you can carry it to term and give it up for adoption [unless you are forced into the Dr. Tiller scenario, but we’re just talking about unwanted pregnancy with no complications now, it seems].
If you don’t think that the fetus or embryo is a human life worth preserving, then go ahead and kill it. You don’t really have to get into the “I wasn’t ready/willing/able to be a mother” etc. etc. arguments. Because nobody – not even Randall Terry – ever said you had to keep it. That seems like a straw man to me too. You have the legal right, it’s your parasite, so if it doesn’t bother you then just do it and don’t rationalize. You don’t need an excuse.
And I’m pro-choice for what that’s worth [I’m hoping it will spare me the presumption that I want to control women’s bodies].
Bey
@Phoebe: It’s because we *do* take this seriously that we have reasons for aborting. It’s not a rationalization and it’s not as simple as carrying it to term and giving it up for adoption for most women.
Who pays? In my case I was on the bleeding edge of survival with an ex-husband that wasn’t paying his child support, no skills, and 2 kids under the age of 3. It was all I could do to keep them in food.
Church Lady
The absolutism here, whether pro-choice or pro-life, is mind boggling. I don’t think one can really weigh in on the matter unless you are a female and unless you have actually had to face making the decision of whether or not to end a pregnancy. To the pro-choicers, it’s always easy – it’s her choice, damned what the prospective father might think or whether or not it’s actually a “life” that will be terminiated, rather than an inconvenience to be taken care of. To the pro-lifers, it’s also a case of absolutism, it’s murder and you have to carry that baby to term and what happens afterwards is your problem.
Thirty years ago, at 21, I terminated an unwanted pregnancy. Thirty years later, I still question my decision. At the time, yes, it was the right decision for me – at that point in time. Now, I’m not so sure. Could I have been braver? I don’t know. Could I have found a way to stay in school and make it work? I don’t know. Today, if I was once again 21 and my circumstances were the same, would I reach the same decision? Once again, I don’t know.
What I do know, however, is that there is not a year that goes by that I don’t think about it and wonder if I made a mistake. There is not a year that goes by that I don’t wonder if it was a boy or a girl. There is not a year that goes by that I don’t wonder how my life would have been different if I had not only had the baby, but had kept it. Now, at my age, I sometimes wonder if I would be a grandmother yet.
Anyone that thinks that any woman takes the decision to end a pregnancy lightly has either never had to face the choice themselves or doesn’t know anyone that has. It is a heartwrenching decision and a difficult one to reach. Even while laying on the table, with my feet in the stirrups, knowing that, at that time, I was doing what was best for me, I cried the entire time. Anyone that thinks the right to an abortion is absolute and refuses to acknowledge the complexity of the matter also has never had to face the choice themselves or doesn’t know anyone that has. No matter where you stand on the issue, the one thing that does remain absolute is that by terminating a pregnancy, you are in fact ending a life and that is a hard thing to accept and to go through with.
The final thing that I do know, even now, thirty years later – I’m glad I had the choice. It might not have been the right choice, but it was mine to make. I hope that the same right I had, to make a choice, is never taken away.
bago
jcricket: You have to admit that gay men will have a predilection for being retards about women.
First off, they’re men. Duh.
Secondly, they haven’t been spending hours and days and weeks to figure out how to sound sane/smooth/sexy to women so that they can get in their pants. Seriously, gay men be slingin the dick all over the place.
The fact that Andrew has AIDS is kind of proof on this point.
Phoebe
There is an inconvenience and expense to carrying it to term, for sure. That certainly goes in the “con” column. And again, there’s a sliding scale for most pro-choice people, where morning-after pill is totally ok [in fact I think it’s even ok for Andrew] but the thing that kicks you and sucks its thumb is a different story, and somewhere in-between is where it gets tough for most people.
It’s just the “I wasn’t ready to be a mother” argument that baffles me. Nobody is asking anybody to be a mother. And this goes the other way – Bristol Palin didn’t have to be a mother. My stepdaughter didn’t have to be a mother. They could have stayed against abortion and still had the baby and just given it to a pair of heavily screened adults. People act like this option does not exist.
latts
Of course it’s not– really, the abortion decision is about pregnancy, not parenting. There are no guarantees that continuing even a wanted pregnancy means you’ll end up with a live baby, after all. I think most of us work from the assumption that we would not go through all of the physical risks and strain just to give a baby away– we’re generally hard-wired to keep ’em, even if we’re not likely to be good parents at a given time, and we all know some of the miserable stories of women who did the adoption thing & suffered– so deciding whether to continue a pregnancy or not is simply the first fork in the road, not so much a destination in itself (one that clearly comes later & unexpectedly to some women, as we’ve seen in recent days with the Tiller stories). Parenting’s the default path if nothing interrupts the process, and it takes a fairly strong effort to change that.
jcricket
But you see, this makes you an “absolutist” – you absolutely want women to have the choice to make the decision for themselves. Whether you would do it or not, whether women who do it later regret it or not, whatever their reasons at the time, whether they “carefully consider it” or use it as their de-facto birth control method – I am 100% on the side of keeping abortion legal, and with minimal restrictions.
And in a sense, yes, this is an easy decision for me (the decision to support choice). It’s not about whether the individual abortion is an easy decision to make, or whether there aren’t larger issues at stake. That’s probably true in any medical procedure (e.g. should grandpa get that surgery even with a 20% survival rate; should gastric bypass be encouraged or should we force people to lose weight on their own; etc.) – fundamentally we leave these decisions to the individuals involved and the judgment of medical professionals. And that’s exactly how it should be in abortion, no matter what anyone’s personal views are, which is the pro-choice position, fundamentally.
BTW, that reminds me. Isn’t it hilarious how Sully thinks the “natural state” of corporations/the economy is essentually minimally regulated capitalism (libertarianism), and he’s loathe to impose anything resembling government control over anything economic? Yet the minute we’re talking sex and women’s bodies he’s all, “we should start from the position of making this stuff illegal”.
Hmm..
Laura W
@Phoebe:
But what about those of us who are not ready to spend 9 months being a host to a baby they do not want and have no desire to birth a baby? You are asking us to agree to the preliminary stages of motherhood here, in terms of incubation and birthing. Where is our right to decline and why can you seemingly not understand our choice to not participate in these very motherly and maternal processes?
latts
@Church Lady:
Honestly, better an ‘inconvenience’ than a lifelong burden that warps multiple lives. Maybe that sounds harsh, but there’s too much at stake for childbearing to be a thoughtless, passive default position, and especially one that is enforced by the state.
This is pretty common for all of us, not just regarding abortion. Alternate histories are sometimes a useful exercise, but they can be maddening as well.
Ah, but I think the right to an abortion is absolute and that it’s an incredibly complex matter… the crucial point is that the complexities cannot be codified into policy without irreparably harming women’s ability to actually manage them.
And as a matter of law and policy, that’s all that really matters. The disapproval factor– the indignation over less-reverent terminology or not-quite-virtuous reasoning– is of no use whatsoever in this legal terrain, and IMO the fact that the anti-choice side is so desperate to impose their will legally means that they’re lost the rhetorical battles.
Phoebe
jcricket @281 – of course. That is what I sign onto. Freedom = freedom and I’m not going to be grilling people about their reasons.
But I don’t think you get the pro-lifers, including Sully, if you think it’s about women’s bodies for them. Just as he needs a leap of imagination [which he’s getting tons of help with these days] to put himself in the place of a woman with a non-viable late term fetus, and just as he asks straight HIV-negative citizens to take a leap of imagination – empathy – for him and those like him, you need to put yourself in the shoes of someone who really does view this – WHETHER OR NOT YOU AGREE – as killing a wee baby. I didn’t mean to go allcaps but I don’t know how to italicize. Then you will understand that this is not a government control issue on a par with free trade agreements. Unless you think murder should be legal, and any libertarian who disagrees is a hypocrite.
latts @280. I do know it’s hard to give up the newborn, and I’ve heard many stories on that, too. But. Call me a cold logical robot, but it seems just weird to me that someone would think “hmm…abort or raise to adulthood?” and just dismiss adoption. It’s essentially saying “I would kill this thing before I hand it over to strangers to raise.” I mean, no matter how misanthropic you are, strangers are already having kids all day every day. Unless you are just very zealously anti-population growth, but in that case you wouldn’t keep/raise it either. I know people’s emotions are messy and all, but shoot, they’re wrong is all I’m saying. Messy emotions are often things that should be had, acknowledged, and then not acted on/catered to.
Phoebe
Latts!
“You are asking us to agree to the preliminary stages of motherhood here, in terms of incubation and birthing. Where is our right to decline and why can you seemingly not understand our choice to not participate in these very motherly and maternal processes?”
I’m not asking anybody to do anything. I’m all about the choice, see above. I’m talking about women who – understandably – are not blase about the termination decision, who are not wanting to abort, and yet who are not wanting to raise a kid to adulthood, starting x-many months from now. People are acting like those are the only two options, and no, they aren’t. At all. And yes, I’ve acknowledged that being pregnant is a responsibility and a drag, a mini-parenthood, a fetus-fostering if you will. That’s why they pay the surrogate mothers the big bucks. But it’s an option. It’s significantly LESS of a responsibility and drag than doing the exact same thing plus raising the kid to adulthood. At least give me that.
Laura W
@Phoebe: It wasn’t latts, it was me, Phoebe. And I obviously misunderstood your point.
Apologies. Just realize that for some women the whole concept of a 9-month pregnancy followed by a birth is undesirable. To give the baby up for adoption is the least of the considerations. It’s the entire process that some of us have no desire to engage in. Which is why we should be allowed to tie our tubes young in life, IMO.
North Dallas Thirty
When men reach physical maturity, say 25 years of age, if there is a tissue match then the state can harvest one kidney and/or bone marrow from every male in order to save the life of a person who would otherwise die without a new kidney or a bone marrow transplant. Harvesting bone marrow can be repeated, obviously. Of course, the state does not need the agreement or consent of the male donor.
Oh really? When did pregnancy become spontaneous and an act over which the woman had no influence whatsoever?
This is why I get a chuckle out of women whining about “controlling their own bodies”; had they actually done so, the abortion wouldn’t be necessary in the first place.
TenguPhule
The irony is that it is a public health matter and people with AIDS who keep on having unprotected sex damn well SHOULD be locked up in quarantine until they die.
The AIDS equivalents of Typhoid Mary are too dangerous to society to be allowed to roam free.
TenguPhule
Shorter North Dallas: See, the stupid slut deserved it!
I called this shit three threads ago.
TenguPhule
Krista, this presumes he will ever care for a woman except as a receptacle for his sperm.
gwangung
@TenguPhule: Eh. I’m bored with the git. Kinda pathetic, trying to boost his ego by stirring up shit.
TenguPhule
I’m sorry Laura W, we can’t vouch for BOB.
You go to dessert with the nuts you have, not the ones you want.
North Dallas Thirty
But what about those of us who are not ready to spend 9 months being a host to a baby they do not want and have no desire to birth a baby?
Then don’t have sex.
And if you want to have sex, have your tubes tied, take your pills, have the man wear a condom, and accept the risk that these all fail.
After all, can’t you “control your own body”? Or is that what you invoke after you choose to play grownup without being willing to take responsibility like a grownup?
PK
I don’t understand what your problem is with a woman who has an abortion if there is a dead fetus inside her.
My pregnancy ended at three months and the ultrasound showed that the baby had no heartbeat. I could not have a D&C for a week and a half because the doctor could not schedule it. It was the most painful time for me to carry a dead baby inside while going through all the symptoms of a normal pregnancy. I also had the fear of what would happen if I spontaneously miscarried before the scheduled D&C.
I can only imagine the trauma if a woman faces the same situation in the 7th month.
And by the way no doctor will ever say that a fetus is dead in order to facilitate an abortion. I insisted on a blood test to make sure that my hormone levels indicated a non-viable baby, even though the ultrasound clearly showed no heart beat, and my nice doctor catered to my wishes.
Its a fantasy of the pro-life movement that women are getting abortions on a whim and doctors are happily slaughtering fetuses.
What exactly is your objection to a late term abortion to remove a dead fetus from a woman?
It is one thing to be pro-life, but this goes way beyond anything I have ever heard.
TenguPhule
Sometimes a pregnant woman puts her own survival/wellbeing over that of the fetus.
Sometimes they don’t.
Either way, it’s a choice they make.
So get the fuck off your high wooden horse and let these women make their own decisions.
North Dallas Thirty
Ah, Tengu, such amusement value.
The irony is that it is a public health matter and people with AIDS who keep on having unprotected sex damn well SHOULD be locked up in quarantine until they die.
Followed up by:
Shorter North Dallas: See, the stupid slut deserved it!
HIV infection and pregnancy come about through exactly the same pathways.
North Dallas Thirty
I don’t understand what your problem is with a woman who has an abortion if there is a dead fetus inside her.
I don’t have a problem with it. You’re merely surrounded by a bunch of abortion pushers who need to rationalize their support of aborting live children by claiming that anyone who opposes their doing so also opposes procedures that remove a dead child; hence, you thought I did.
TenguPhule
Wait, whatever happened to “dealing with things as they come along”?
Oh right, they can only deal with it in ways *you* personally approve of.
I hope you enjoy dating your hand pal, because with that attitude, that’s probably going to be your only companion in life.
TenguPhule
Corrected for the grammer impaired.
Laura W
@North Dallas Thirty:
OK, ice cream instead then. Chocolate chip. Two scoops. With nuts. Thanks!
TenguPhule
I’m sorry, when did pregnancy spread from women to men to other women to gay men to children? When did pregnancy become 100% lethal without treatment?
Equivalence FAIL.
TenguPhule
Laura W, you may want to skip eating with BOB and North Dallas. Unless you’re on a diet.
North Dallas Thirty
Oh right, they can only deal with it in ways you personally approve of.
I hope you enjoy dating your hand pal, because with that attitude, that’s probably going to be your only companion in life.
Why on earth would I WANT to have sex with a woman whose only method of anything was to get rid of the baby after she had unprotected sex?
If she isn’t asking the men with which she sleeps to wear a condom, she’s an HIV hotspot waiting to happen. Did you ever think that, by enabling abortion as a preferential method, you’re actually making that problem even worse?
Laura W
@TenguPhule:
I’m trying hard to be. I think this is pretty good aversion therapy, don’t you?
TenguPhule
Look, I don’t care how much you enjoy barebacking that strawman, wear a rubber.
Abortion is not a preferential method of birth control under any circumstances. Between the cost, general trouble to find a place able to do it with a free slot available and post-op recovery, it’s not fun or easy.
But it’s an option that needs to be available for women.
TenguPhule
Thymezone would be gentler on the stomach.
Also on the bloodpressure. He’s only an asshole some of the time.
latts
@Phoebe:
That’s exactly my take on anti-choicers, actually– their emotionally-driven perception of what’s going on in other women’s bodies shouldn’t be catered to by passing laws to strongly express our collective disapproval of sluts.
I’m not going to support martyrdom, which is pretty much what the adoption thing is about, though… the woman errs, yet makes Womanly Sacrifices and carries that knowledge of her unknown offspring the rest of her life, etc., etc. I’ve only met a few women who gave infants up for adoption pre-Roe, and to be blunt, they had some massive issues that the good-sacrifice narrative didn’t mitigate. Some do it and are mostly okay, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone I didn’t already see as a rather pious doormat, to be honest; most of us really don’t want that kind of miserable validation. Again, their choice, but I find it a very distasteful and rather cruel concept of womanhood.
North Dallas Thirty
Abortion is not a preferential method of birth control under any circumstances. Between the cost, general trouble to find a place able to do it with a free slot available and post-op recovery, it’s not fun or easy.
But, at an average cost of $487 per times 1 million pers, it’s seriously profitable — and given the amount of money that abortionists contribute to the Obama Party, definitely going to be their preferred method. Indeed, Obama’s own advisors have stated specifically that they do NOT want to reduce the number of abortions.
North Dallas Thirty
I’m not going to support martyrdom, which is pretty much what the adoption thing is about, though… the woman errs, yet makes Womanly Sacrifices and carries that knowledge of her unknown offspring the rest of her life, etc., etc.
Turns out the same thing happens with abortion.
What I do know, however, is that there is not a year that goes by that I don’t think about it and wonder if I made a mistake. There is not a year that goes by that I don’t wonder if it was a boy or a girl. There is not a year that goes by that I don’t wonder how my life would have been different if I had not only had the baby, but had kept it. Now, at my age, I sometimes wonder if I would be a grandmother yet.
The difference is that the former produces a living, breathing human being who makes their adoptive parents very happy, and the latter ends up feeding the dumpster cats.
But the latter has the advantage of making certain that you never have to actually see or confront the consequences of your decision. You can just dehumanize it as a “tumor” or a “parasite” and be off on your merry way.
PK
The ban on late term abortions also prevents using the procedure on women who are carrying a dead fetus late in the pregnancy.
North Dallas Thirty
Meanwhile, an interesting statistic.
Fifty-four percent of U.S. women who had an abortion in 2000 were using a method in the month they became pregnant.
Even more interesting:
What proportion of U.S. women who had an abortion in 2000 had never used contraceptives?
* Eight percent had never used a contraceptive method—down from 11% in 1996.
So let’s see; despite the theories of abortion supporters that the only reason women seek out abortions is because they were ignorant of or not using contraception, it turns out that the majority of women who get abortions are familiar with contraceptives and claiming to use them.
TenguPhule
Ah, vintage Wingnut.
That poor adopted child may still regret ever being born if the aunt and uncle are anything like you.
Some fates are worse then simple death.
TenguPhule
We’re going to have to burn this strawman now, there’s no way it can be salvaged after you bukkaked it.
TenguPhule
Except when it doesn’t.
Or when it produces heartache as millions are spent trying futilely to keep it alive.
I won’t even get into the horrors of the foster system and the myriad abuses in it.
El Cid
I don’t think the anti-choicers are going to succeed in making abortion illegal.
Also, I don’t think there is a single particular woman on any of these post comments asking anyone’s opinion on whether she should have an abortion.
So, what’s the point?
If you’re pro-choice but have serious reservations about abortions, who cares? Why are you commenting here? No one is asking your opinion about her particular case.
And if you’re anti-choice, you’re a loser, and you’re going to keep losing, and I think it’s possible we’ll reverse the idiot redneck restrictions that the Talibangelical movement has succeeded in pressuring into law in various localities.
bago
ND30: Abortion 4 teh lulz and campaign contributions! slutz! aids! Dude is piling up so many straw-men that this place is turning into a sausage party.
Leave it to a republican to queer the thread.
North Dallas Thirty
The ban on late term abortions also prevents using the procedure on women who are carrying a dead fetus late in the pregnancy.
Says who?
North Dallas Thirty
Or when it produces heartache as millions are spent trying futilely to keep it alive.
I won’t even get into the horrors of the foster system and the myriad abuses in it.
Yawn. When you’re ready to advocate mercy killing of children in the foster system or children with extensive medical problems to save money, call me. Until then, you’re just rationalizing.
Ben
Says who?
Well, the federal law banning this procedure. It doesn’t rely on aspects of what status the fetus is in; it bans the procedure and the procedure alone. In fact, that’s why some anti-abortion people think the law isn’t good enough! This guy calls the law an “instruction manual for abortionists”!
http://www.newswithviews.com/Brownlow/david1.htm
(I obviously don’t share this man’s opinions, but he sure is more consistent in his beliefs than you are.)
tripletee (formerly tBone)
See, abortionistas? Not only do you want to murder children, you’re also responsible for AIDS. And swine flu, because you have to import illegal immigrants in order to maintain the profit margins on your baby-killing factories.
I’m convinced ND30 is Darrell, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Same piling on of strawmen, same tired rhetorical tricks, same inability to view the world from anyone else’s perspective.
bago
@North Dallas Thirty:
It’s a side effect of being rational. It also means I’m not a one bit thinker and I don’t view everything in Manichean absolutist terms.
Also, whoah! You see the Cheryl from Operation Rescue that was in contact with the murderer? No wonder they obsess about other people’s sex lives. It’s the only sex life they’ll ever have.
North Dallas Thirty
ND30: Abortion 4 teh lulz and campaign contributions!
Average cost of an abortion: $487
Number of abortions performed in the US in 2003: 1.29 million
== $628 million
And what do they do with that money?
It is hard to imagine how a party backed so heavily by abortionists wants the procedure rare. In the 2004 election cycle, 97% of the money that NARAL’s Pro-Choice America PAC gave in political contributions went to the Democrats. In 2002, it was 90% to the party and in the 2000 cycle the number was 94%. The Planned Parenthood Federal PAC also gives heavily to the Democrats. Of all their contributions in the 2004 cycle, 92% went to Democrats; in 2002, the figure was 87%, and it was more than 92% of their PAC contributions in the 2000 cycle.
So sure, Barack Obama is going to do something that would affect the revenues of his best and most reliable contributors.
PK
Says the law!
Church Lady
@ND30 (#309):
You mistake the meaning of my story. My point was that most women do not take the decision to terminate a pregnancy lightly. Some, like me, even have doubts many years later. That doesn’t mean my decision was wrong at the time, or even that I regret that decision thirty years later. I can question myself, but the right to question my decision doesn’t extend to you or to anyone else. Back then, I was young, single and scared. Now, I’m older, hopefully wiser and was blessed enough to discover the joys of motherhood when I was better equipped and more mature to handle it. No matter what, the bottom line is that I was fortunate enough to have a choice in the matter and for that I am grateful.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Abortion is legal. You can’t stop anyone from having one simply because you’re a moralistic prude.
Sex is normal. Sex is pleasurable and it really bothers you that people don’t use it simply for procreation. Too bad.
North Dallas Thirty
Well, the federal law banning this procedure. It doesn’t rely on aspects of what status the fetus is in; it bans the procedure and the procedure alone.
You might want to actually read the law first.
It’s a side effect of being rational.
That’s not the definition of rationalization.
In this case, you really are OK with murdering children, but you can’t say that; therefore, you have to make up excuses about how their lives would be rotten and you’re killing them out of “mercy” for the rotten life that you “know” they’re going to have.
Ben
You might want to actually read the law first.
I may do that, but did you read David Brownlow’s article?
North Dallas Thirty
Sex is normal. Sex is pleasurable and it really bothers you that people don’t use it simply for procreation. Too bad.
Not really. It bothers me more that people do it irresponsibly and then kill the human life that results from it.
if you want to play grownup, you should act like one. Too bad abortion is roughly the same as the child who breaks a lamp and tries to sweep it under the rug. Man up and say that you have no problem with killing babies that are inconvenient to you.
Ben
Not really. It bothers me more that people do it irresponsibly and then kill the human life that results from it.
Here’s the thing though: You’re only referring to women. They are the only one’s who get called “irresponsible” for having sex, despite the fact that they are the only one’s who get pregnant. Abortion bans place a large burden on them, and none on the men who get them pregnant.
So it’s not just about sexual relations. There’s something else you’ve got a problem with that you aren’t fessing up to.
North Dallas Thirty
You mistake the meaning of my story.
Not really. I pointed out that those who were saying how bad adoption was because the mother would think about the child for the rest of her life weren’t applying the same rule to abortion; in addition, adoption results in a living person and abortion produces nothing but death. The problem was that doing so puts abortion in a negative light, and we can’t have anything that might call into question the dogma that abortion is always a good thing.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Oh that’s right, nobody ever got pregnant using contraceptives.
Original Lee
@Krista: Exactly. And you can stop reading this comment here if you like, because you’re pregnant and I don’t want to give you the heebies.
.
.
.
.
.
I know 2 women who died in childbirth within the last 15 years. I know 2 women who very nearly died during childbirth within the last 5 years. I know 3 women who experienced a stillbirth within the last 5 years. I know several women who have had ectopic pregnancies, one of whom had an out-of-body experience when she flatlined. Over half of the women I know who have been pregnant have had at least one miscarriage. Not to mention my neighbor from the previous post with the ancephalic baby. We don’t talk about the risks of childbearing anymore because the mortality rate is so much lower than it used to be, but I don’t think I’m all that unusual. I think that needs to change in order for the public discourse about abortion to become more realistic.
BTW, I’m fairly certain that I have at least a few friends who have had an abortion (not counting the ectopic pregnancies), but none of them have told me so. Isn’t it awful that we can tell each other about the most horrendous pregnancy and labor complications and discuss other intimate and personal topics, but abortion is still off-limits, despite being perfectly legal?
North Dallas Thirty
They are the only one’s who get called “irresponsible” for having sex, despite the fact that they are the only one’s who get pregnant.
Hell no. It takes two people to produce a baby, and the man is just as responsible as the woman. Isn’t that why we have paternity suits and requirements for child support? I will gladly blast as “irresponsible” any man who gets a woman pregnant and then refuses to support the child or take any sort of responsibility for his behavior, and I FULLY support laws that mandate paternal responsibility for men relative to their biological children.
I find it amusing that liberal abortion supporters always assume men are completely irresponsible. One wonders if they’re just applying to everyone else the things they do. My parents made it clear that, if I was irresponsible enough to get a girl pregnant, the baby was my responsibility. I guess in the liberal universe, Mommie and Daddie just pay to have the abortion done every time Junior impregnates another girl.
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
Ah, there you are. Your email is calling.
Little Dreamer
You know, the way this ND30 is arguing all these black/white issues, I could swear he’s hoping to talk us all into considering adoption in the future because those living beings might become Republicans. God knows the Republican party is getting so small these days, they need new blood.
By the way, I do use contraception because although I’m old enough that I shouldn’t be having children (birth defects probability increases with age), I’m still capable. I will not be having anymore children, so ND30, you can stop looking at me as the mother of your next Young Republican recruit.
Ben
I will gladly blast as “irresponsible” any man who gets a woman pregnant and then refuses to support the child or take any sort of responsibility for his behavior, and I FULLY support laws that mandate paternal responsibility for men relative to their biological children.
Ok. But that doesn’t solve the problem of what to do about abortion. If you had your way and abortion was banned, would you penalize any men who got women pregnant and didn’t stop them from getting abortions? Or would it still not be their concern at all?
I guess in the liberal universe, Mommie and Daddie just pay to have the abortion done every time Junior impregnates another girl.
You know full and well that is a lie. Shame on you.
LD50
You know, if you, like, got out more and actually *knew* some ‘liberals’, you might be less prone to say moronic things.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
Answered. ;) Thanks!
North Dallas Thirty
If you had your way and abortion was banned, would you penalize any men who got women pregnant and didn’t stop them from getting abortions?
Why would they not be just as responsible for the death of the child? After all, without them, there would have been nothing to abort in the first place. It’s a rather healthy incentive to “control your own body” and wear a condom.
Ben
Why would they not be just as responsible for the death of the child? After all, without them, there would have been nothing to abort in the first place. It’s a rather healthy incentive to “control your own body” and wear a condom.
Um, you didn’t answer my question!
North Dallas Thirty
You know, if you, like, got out more and actually knew some ‘liberals’, you might be less prone to say moronic things.
Right. You expect me to believe that people who think babies in utero are just little bits of tissue that can be thrown out at will are going to require Junior to actually take any responsibility for his actions? A lot easier to just go down to Doc Tiller’s and get a little scraping done. After all, we wouldn’t want these kids to destroy their lives like their birth did to ours, would we?
North Dallas Thirty
Um, you didn’t answer my question!
Yes I did. You just didn’t like the fact that your choice is either to agree with me or argue that men should not be held responsible for their irresponsible behavior — which nicely supports my theory that abortion supporters are merely looking for a convenient way to cover up their “indiscretions”.
Ben
Right. You expect me to believe that people who think babies in utero are just little bits of tissue that can be thrown out at will are going to require Junior to actually take any responsibility for his actions? A lot easier to just go down to Doc Tiller’s and get a little scraping done. After all, we wouldn’t want these kids to destroy their lives like their birth did to ours, would we?
Um, except for the fact that lots of pro-choice people already have raised kids of their own.
Maybe you never talk to people in real life and didn’t know that, but I’m suspecting that you are actively lying.
LD50
QED.
Little Dreamer
Well ND30, as a male, you never have to live through the situation, never have to consider the changes to your life and never have to choose an abortion. Lucky you. You don’t have a uterus, you don’t have a say. Goodbye!
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule:
@El Cid:
I love you guys seriously hard right now. It has to be said.
Shorter ND30 (from skimming your responses):
Slut. Whores. Keep your fucking legs shut. Bitches. Why won’t anyone date me? Sluts.
I lost count of strawmen many threads back.
I am a pro-choice absolutist in that it’s absolutely the woman’s right to choose. There are many different responses to having abortions, including remorse, regret, relief, and sometimes, a combination of all three.
That’s all. If a woman wants to have an abortion? Her choice. If she wants to give up the child for adoption? Her choice. If she wants to raise the child herself? Her choice. To me, that’s what pro-choice means. The woman gets to choose.
P.S. @geg6: Thank you for sharing your incredibly painful story. No woman should have to go through that. I am so glad your dad changed his mind, even if your mother did not.
More women need to tell their stories. The pro-choice side needs to reframe the issue.
Ben
Yes I did. You just didn’t like the fact that your choice is either to agree with me or argue that men should not be held responsible for their irresponsible behavior—which nicely supports my theory that abortion supporters are merely looking for a convenient way to cover up their “indiscretions”.
Ok then.Just to make it clear… sex partners of women who have abortions get charged with a crime if… what do they have to do to get charged? You still haven’t mentioned exactly what. Do they get charged if they are accessories to the abortion (i.e. they pay for it)? Or for encouraging or persuading the woman to have an abortion? Or is just making the woman pregnant reason enough to charge them?
That’s why I keep asking you… I don’t think you understood the question the first time, but now it should be crystal clear.
TenguPhule
Right, we expect you to force a 9 year old impregnated by her stepfather to carry a pregnancy that will more then likely either kill her or prevent her from having children in the future, to give brith because the slut had it coming and obviously the cargo is more important then the container.
Obviously if the guardians prevented an early abortion it must be God’s Will so that good fine people can adopt colored babies to feel good about themselves.
Dance little sluts, dance!
asiangrrlMN
P.S. Rachel had a worker from Dr. Tiller’s clinic on her show tonight, and he was presented in silhouette and with a pseudonym. How sad is that?
My best friend had an ectopic pregnancy, too. I think it’s more common than we know.
Little Dreamer
@asiangrrlMN:
Absolutely correct!
::high five::
LMAO!
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
Honey, have you seen his failed blog? You are arguing with Gay Darrell.
asiangrrlMN
Nope. We teach our kids about contraceptives and shit like that. No abstinence-only or withdrawal messages for us! We’ll leave that to you in the conservative world as it’s your kids who tend to get pregnant with distressing regularity.
@Little Dreamer:
Yes. This. You have no uterus? Then, buh-bye. I always see a thread of slut-envy with the rabid anti-choice males.
I don’t think ND30 is Darrell because from the one old thread I read, Darrell called everyone a lying sack of shit. Right?
TenguPhule
And how much do they cost to perform?
After you subtract costs from gross income, you get net income.
That’ll be $10 for your basic accounting lesson.
Please donate it to Planned Parenthood.
Missing is the actual dollar amounts donated.
And yes, pro-choice prefer to donate to pro-choice people and not the Christian Taliban.
TenguPhule
Actually, I think the male equivalent of giving birth can be arranged.
This would involve shoving a football down his urethra into his testicles and then extracting it out the same way.
For a Caeseran, just cut through the belly and into the prostate and sew it back up again.
What could possibly go wrong?
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
Well, he is from Texas, perhaps your friend came out of the closet? ;)
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: Will you marry me? Seriously, your tenacity is awesome.
Little Dreamer
@TenguPhule:
OMFG!
::laughing hysterically::
Thanks for that. ;)
North Dallas Thirty
Right, we expect you to force a 9 year old impregnated by her stepfather to carry a pregnancy that will more then likely either kill her or prevent her from having children in the future, to give brith because the slut had it coming and obviously the cargo is more important then the container.
What makes that attempt particularly hilarious is how your fellow abortionists are telling 13-year-olds how to sneak across state lines and get an abortion so their parents won’t be told and the louse of the boyfriend that got them pregnant won’t be arrested for statutory rape.
Meanwhile, let’s look at some actual statistics, shall we? Page 4, to be precise.
TenguPhule
Yes, that rape fetus is just shits and giggles.
That brainless mutation is only proof that more prayer was needed.
God strike down the whores who don’t put out for North Dallas with fallopian tube pregnancies that are obviously figments of the imagination and anyway, look at that colored baby my folks adopted out of the goodness of their hearts, we’ll raise him to be a good girl-hating man who learns to harass and murder medical professionals in the name of babies.
North Dallas Thirty
Nope. We teach our kids about contraceptives and shit like that. No abstinence-only or withdrawal messages for us! We’ll leave that to you in the conservative world as it’s your kids who tend to get pregnant with distressing regularity.
I believe we touched on that in post #311 above.
Fifty-four percent of U.S. women who had an abortion in 2000 were using a method in the month they became pregnant.
Even more interesting:
What proportion of U.S. women who had an abortion in 2000 had never used contraceptives?
* Eight percent had never used a contraceptive method—down from 11% in 1996.
Isn’t that amazing; the promiscuous kids you raise need more abortions, despite your “teaching” them all about contraception.
TenguPhule
Obviously the child must be punished by being forced against her will to complete this pregnancy, regardless of the consequences.
It’s not like any of the parents could possible be involved in a pregnancy like this, is there?
Oh well, citing Assrocket is the equivalent of running a white flag in BJ. We accept your surrender from reality with pity.
Phoebe
I know this is a stupid, pointless, naive question, but why are you all arguing with ND 30? He thinks it’s baby killing to an extent that you all just do not. He is never going to be ok with it, although, to his credit, he is not anti-contraception. But you are all just approaching the same chasm, the same impasse, over and over, by different paths, and with different sunburns and hats and haircuts, but always the same spot. You will never cross this. But I’m pro-choice, and you can keep trying if you want.
And, before I hit the sack: I’m not trying to coerce anyone into adoptions, really, I’m just saying they are an option I don’t hear discussed much at all, particularly open adoptions, where you know the people your kid ends up with and don’t have to wonder if they’re Joel Steinberg and whatsherface, the abuse enabler.
Agreed, too, that the best thing of all is to not get pregnant in the first place, but that’s not an option when already pregnant.
El Cid
@asiangrrlMN: We love you too.
TenguPhule
So now we’ve moved from “use birth control you stupid sluts” to “you stupid sluts used birth control and you still fucked up, Hah hah!”
I’m sensing a deep hate of women here.
I suggest some serious counciling and therapy is in order.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
You are equating those who never used it with those who didn’t use it at the time they got pregnant. I’ve used contraception, that doesn’t mean I’ve always used contraception. I’ve gotten pregnant, I’ve had children, and I’ve also had sex merely for the pleasure of it without wishing to produce a child either and have used contraception during those times.
Your first statement about 54% said “in the month they got pregnant” not “when they got pregnant”. Your second statement that 8% never used contraception does not say that 92% used it at the time they had sexual relations that produced a pregnancy.
You’re lying.
And again, you don’t have a uterus, the choice isn’t YOURS.
TenguPhule
Until now.
Also, making him look like an idiot amuses me.
And right now, I really need to be amused.
North Dallas Thirty
Obviously the child must be punished by being forced against her will to complete this pregnancy, regardless of the consequences.
Since when does a thirteen-year-old have the right to consent to an invasive medical procedure without parental notification?
Since when does a thirteen-year-old have the right to consent to sex in the first place?
TenguPhule
Because it’s a potential option that occurs after birth. Which is well beyond the point being argued about.
El Cid
You won’t get to make abortions illegal, and no one cares what you think should be done. This is beyond pointless.
TenguPhule
Since when should a 13 yr old girl be forced through pregnancy?
SrirachaHotSauce
@Phoebe:
I seriously doubt that he really thinks it is baby killing. I think he is one of those people who just picks on people that he can characterize as inferior to himself. Look at his blog, and look at his comments here. He is all about making himself sound morally superior. His remarks are dripping with patently absurd condescensions, mostly toward women.
And as for baby killing specifically, the law is clear. Abortion is not baby killing, it is just abortion, a procedure that mother nature herself carries out in some third or more of pregnancies according to figures I heard yesterday. If I heard the figures correctly, spontaneous abortion is the largest segment of total abortions.
ND30 is a troll, pimping a failed blog and looking for attention. Arguing with him is a waste of time.
TenguPhule
Thank you, I try.
Little Dreamer
So ND30, do you condone a man going into Dr. Tiller’s church and murdering him? Let’s have your opinion on that.
Clio
@North Dallas Thirty:
Enough with all of the hysterical “abortionist” labels and hurling out of ridiculous statistics. This is not about statistics. It is about a serious circumstance that only women physically experience and go through. The male role in the life of a child is just different. It’s our society and it is human nature.
You are not walking in the shoes of that woman. You have not experienced her life or circumstances. You have no right to judge her or force her into what are your religious beliefs. I would love to see your face when a woman that you respect told you one of these stories and personalized it for you outside of “dirty faceless sluts”.
North Dallas Thirty
I’m sensing a deep hate of women here.
Of course. In the liberal abortionist world, anyone who doesn’t buy into the theory that murdering babies for whatever reason is a good idea hates women.
Your first statement about 54% said “in the month they got pregnant” not “when they got pregnant”. Your second statement that 8% never used contraception does not say that 92% used it at the time they had sexual relations that produced a pregnancy.
I do so love it when they don’t ask what the source is first before screaming that everything is a lie.
And again, you don’t have a uterus, the choice isn’t YOURS.
Which choice?
Your choice to have unprotected and promiscuous sex?
Or your choice to kill the baby that results from your making that first choice?
asiangrrlMN
@TenguPhule: Especially as is often the case it’s daddy who is the father of her baby. Wait, I wasn’t supposed to mention that?
I found this telling:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=3096
It was true at my Lutheran school, too.
Oh, and I caught one line about teaching their kids compassion or some shit like that. Hahahahahaha! Yes, because ND30 is allllll about compassion–until the child is born. That’s a good one. I’m still chuckling.
Well, my amusement is over. Trollie man is tedious now. Good bye.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
How many sex partners have you had?
North Dallas Thirty
So ND30, do you condone a man going into Dr. Tiller’s church and murdering him? Let’s have your opinion on that.
With pleasure.
Since when should a 13 yr old girl be forced through pregnancy?
Why don’t you ask your fellow liberals who are protecting the person who got her pregnant by refusing to report him?
Or is it better for the 13 year old to get pregnant, then get an abortion so you can collect the fee?
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
promiscuous? I’m a 47 year old woman, I don’t do promiscuous anymore. That is a term that doesn’t compute.
Are you getting off? Where’s that other hand? You pervert!
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
How many sex partners have you had?
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
I asked for your opinion, not someone else’s fucking opinion on a website.
TenguPhule
Look, just because your rapist didn’t use a condom, it’s your fault. ND30 doesn’t care if it was your daddy, your vagoo should always have a latex glove inside, ready to snap on at a moments notice.
Remember, when there’s a fire at the fertility clinic, forget the people, save the petri dishes!
SrirachaHotSauce
Don’t laugh. I have actually heard approximately that argument made by a pro life lunatic.
Not kidding.
TenguPhule
Obviously we must force the girl to reveal who it was just as we must force her to give birth. Force Force Force!!
Ben
Once again, ND30, you can’t answer a straight question. Nobody can be this stupid, so I must conclude that you are a liar.
The Gospel of John says to us that the father of all lies is Satan. Therefore, I tell you that you must repent of your sins, troll. (You don’t have to do it to me, I’m just some random guy on the internet, but you must repent of them to God.)
North Dallas Thirty
I asked for your opinion, not someone else’s fucking opinion on a website.
Learn how to read. That link goes directly to my comment, posted bare minutes after the event happened. You can click on the hyperlink name and see that it goes directly to my blog.
Or are you just ignoring it because you don’t like it?
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Excuse me? How in the hell do you get “asked for the source” from:
The numbers don’t add up. That is what I’m saying. I said nothing about your fucking source. You see, I don’t click on any of your links, not your blog, not your stupid fucking “opinion”, or any other link you posted, because I refuse to give you the pleasure of another hit. Answer the fucking questions or fuck off.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
How many sex partners have you had?
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
No, I asked you for you to write your opinion here. I’m not clicking any of your stupid fucking links. Why would I visit some website to find your opinion when you can write it here?
Since you are so afraid to state your opinion here, I am sure that you agree with the murder of Dr. Tiller until you state otherwise.
North Dallas Thirty
Look, just because your rapist didn’t use a condom, it’s your fault.
LOL…..and again we see the abortionists insisting that the only reason women ever have abortions are rape and incest.
What do the facts say? Page 4, please.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
One really good one. ;)
North Dallas Thirty
Ok then.Just to make it clear… sex partners of women who have abortions get charged with a crime if… what do they have to do to get charged? You still haven’t mentioned exactly what. Do they get charged if they are accessories to the abortion (i.e. they pay for it)? Or for encouraging or persuading the woman to have an abortion? Or is just making the woman pregnant reason enough to charge them?
Ban abortion and I’ll tell you. :)
My opinion? They are responsible for the child’s welfare. If they force the abortion or are accessories to it, they are guilty. If the woman gets an abortion without their consent, they are still responsible, but it becomes manslaughter.
Ben
Little Dreamer,
Well, from the opinion he gave on that one link, it wasn’t quite as extreme as “I agree with the murder”, it was more like “yeah, the murder was kinda bad, but how dare them libruls make an issue out of it!”
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
My answer too. But ND30 seems to fancy himself the arbiter of who is promiscuous.
Unless we know how many partners he has had, I’m afraid that we are lacking essential information in order to judge his competancy on the subject. He is 35 according to his blog, so the thing will be easy once we know the number.
SrirachaHotSauce
What, you are going to act cute now?
Banning abortion is not going to happen, amigo. Trust me on that one. Not happening.
Abortion is legal, and there is not a goddam thing you can do about it.
How many sex partners have you had?
Little Dreamer
@Ben:
Kinda bad? Hmmm, sounds like he agrees with the murder.
North Dallas Thirty
No, I asked you for you to write your opinion here. I’m not clicking any of your stupid fucking links. Why would I visit some website to find your opinion when you can write it here?
Because you could have saved a lot of effort by simply clicking.
Right on. The people involved should be caught, prosecuted, and punished to the fullest extent of the law.
And that needs posting, Ace. The ironic thing is that you’re going to have lefty trolls who are in favor of leaving babies dying on hospital floors coming to mourn Tiller and talk about how they value the “sanctity of life”.
Life is life, regardless of age or disgustingness, and those who take it without a damn good reason should be punished. This isn’t even close to a good reason.
Posted by: North Dallas Thirty at May 31, 2009 12:33 PM (vYNqn)
The games and lies that abortion pushers play are well known to me, and I wanted a site that could demonstrate that I wasted no time or effort condemning it. The nice side benefit of making you look like a bigoted fool because you claimed I supported the murder is just an extra.
TenguPhule
And every miscarriage will be a homicide investigation.
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
North Dallas Thirty
Unless we know how many partners he has had, I’m afraid that we are lacking essential information in order to judge his competancy on the subject.
Which, as we see, has never stopped you before. Go to it.
SrirachaHotSauce
You are familiar with all the abortion pushing traditions, then?
Heh. Newsflash: Games and lies are not necessary, abortion is legal in this country and you can’t do a thing about it.
When are you going to answer my question: How many sex partners have you had?
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Sure looks like you support the murder of Dr. Tiller to me. Interesting that you said “people” and not “person”. Were you a part of the Operation Rescue plan to tail and kill Tiller? Hmmmmm.
North Dallas Thirty
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
What did I tell you? You guys were going to make up your own number anyway, just like you made up your claim that I supported Tiller’s murder.
TenguPhule
Fuck, the strawman is too sticky to cleanse with fire.
TenguPhule
Fuck, the strawman is too sticky to cleanse with fire.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
How many sex partners have you had?
You assert yourself as an arbiter of promiscuity. Surely you are not reluctant to answer?
Ben
My opinion? They are responsible for the child’s welfare. If they force the abortion or are accessories to it, they are guilty. If the woman gets an abortion without their consent, they are still responsible, but it becomes manslaughter.
So in other words, big government conservatism. The type that seeks all these elaborate rules for how to jail more people for abortions, yet howls at the moon whenever people suggest spending government money to stimulate the economy. Nice
SrirachaHotSauce
Why should that be necessary? Surely you are eager to share the number with us? You claim to be in a position to judge promiscuity. How many partners have you had?
TenguPhule
Summarized North Dallas Thirty: All women are sluts so use birth control. Actually fuck you sluts who got knocked up on birth control. Who cares if it was rape, the parents must force the kid to give birth. Genetic Defects never happen and all clumps of cells are babies. Also, it doesn’t matter if it has no brain, it will simply be born a natural Republican. Also, I fail basic accounting forever.
North Dallas Thirty
Sure looks like you support the murder of Dr. Tiller to me. Interesting that you said “people” and not “person”. Were you a part of the Operation Rescue plan to tail and kill Tiller? Hmmmmm.
Whatever floats your boat, dear. :) Lord knows, that’s the only thing you’re going to listen to anyway.
North Dallas Thirty
Why should that be necessary?
I don’t know. I certainly didn’t ask you to do it; you just went ahead and did it anyway.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
I want to listen to you. How many sex partners have you had?
Little Dreamer
@TenguPhule:
That’s about it. ;) Thanks!
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
Don’t talk gibberish. Answer the question. How many sex partners have you had? Why are you afraid to answer? Surely you are proud of your answer?
North Dallas Thirty
So in other words, big government conservatism. The type that seeks all these elaborate rules for how to jail more people for abortions, yet howls at the moon whenever people suggest spending government money to stimulate the economy. Nice
No, more like the one who simply treats babies inside and outside the womb in the same fashion. It’s merely applying the laws against infanticide — which apparently now is also something that abortionists think is “government interference”.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Rumors that you can’t get laid apparently seem to be true?
Poor thing. Sucks to be you.
North Dallas Thirty
Don’t talk gibberish. Answer the question. How many sex partners have you had? Why are you afraid to answer? Surely you are proud of your answer?
Nope, sorry, you gave your answer already.
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
Run with it.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
He sure is cryptic, isn’t he? He only sounds sure of himself when he’s defending an ideology that he has no need to defend, since he doesn’t have a uterus.
North Dallas Thirty
Rumors that you can’t get laid apparently seem to be true?
Poor thing. Sucks to be you.
That’s an interesting statement. Apparently, in the abortionist universe, you have no value unless you’re having promiscuous sex.
Is that why liberal women need abortions? They have to constantly be having sex in order to maintain social status?
TenguPhule
There are no babies inside the womb.
Only fetuses.
And there are no walking wombs.
Only women.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
How many sex partners have you had?
You are sitting here making assertions about the sex lives of other people, calling them promiscuous.
You are going to need to tell us how many sex partners you have had.
Is it more than one? More than two? More than twenty?
Let’s have it. Otherwise, you are done.
TenguPhule
Apparently in fundie world, incest is the new safe sex.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
You are done with this, pal, until you tell us how many sex partners you have had.
Ben
No, more like the one who simply treats babies inside and outside the womb in the same fashion. It’s merely applying the laws against infanticide—which apparently now is also something that abortionists think is “government interference”.
Infanticide is different in many ways, the most particular is because it’s already illegal in established law (and also, IMHO, it’s a good law that doesn’t need to be changed.) True conservatives like order and stability, and don’t seek radical changes like overturning judicial precedent like Roe V Wade.
TenguPhule
Dude, even if you were ever to have sex, you’d still be of no value.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Social status? What the fuck is that? I don’t need social status. I have individuality. I have my own thoughts and ideas. I have the right to choose who I am. I don’t need anyone to define me, unlike you.
Little Dreamer
@TenguPhule:
You should get published for that. ;)
Ben
Rumors that you can’t get laid apparently seem to be true?
Funny enough, I was assuming the opposite, that ND30 has had way too many sex partners and really didn’t grasp the whole thing about commitment.
North Dallas Thirty
You are sitting here making assertions about the sex lives of other people, calling them promiscuous.
And you are sitting here making assertions about my sex life.
Rumors that you can’t get laid apparently seem to be true?
Poor thing. Sucks to be you.
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
The difference is that your making fun of me and claiming I’m less of a person because (you believe) that I’ve never had sex kind of falls flat.
Little Dreamer
@Ben:
ND30 is wishing for an activist judge, and is pissed that Obama won the election and got to choose a SCOTUS justice. His friends are upset too, so upset that they decided to kill a doctor.
Ben
And you are sitting here making assertions about my sex life.
There you go. Now you understand what you’ve been doing to other people; who knows, it may cause you to stop making these crazy assumptions.
Little Dreamer
@Ben:
Nah, that won’t stop him. He likes inserting his opinions into other people’s life choices. ND30 is a busy body.
rachel
Two words: Pie. Filter.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
You’re a goddam liar. I haven’t made any assertions about your sex life, have I?
How many sex partners have you had? You do know the number, don’t you?
asiangrrlMN
Aw, guys. Still at it? How about a group hug? Minus ND30, of course. Then a romping orgy since we are all just promiscuous sluts (boys included!). ND30, you can even watch, since that’s what apparently gets you off as long as you don’t say a damn thing.
P.S. ND30 lies when he says he cares about born babies since he obviously doesn’t give a shit about women.
North Dallas Thirty
True conservatives like order and stability, and don’t seek radical changes like overturning judicial precedent like Roe V Wade.
Of course, that would be the logic of an abortionist, because Roe v. Wade was a radical change that overturned a hundred plus years of laws passed by the legislatures of the states and the Federal government that set a clear precedent establishing abortion to be illegal — based not on a clearly enumerated constitutional right, but the justices’ “belief” that it was in the Constitution somewhere, limited to only the first trimester or so, they weren’t sure.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
email. ;)
TenguPhule
We have now moved to the “only liberals get abortions!” phase. Next, ND30 will begin contorting into a human gordian knot explaining why so many forced-birthers get abortions.
Oddly enough, so many of these “abortions on demand” are the result of Rightwing women demanding a McDonald’s get up and go for their abortion. And yes, they want fries with that.
Little Dreamer
@asiangrrlMN:
Sorry, no orgy for me and TZ, we’ll just slink off into the corner. ;)
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
Whatever. The point is, you don’t get to decide whether abortion is legal or not. That ship has sailed.
Now back to the bigger point: How many sex partners have you had?
North Dallas Thirty
There you go. Now you understand what you’ve been doing to other people; who knows, it may cause you to stop making these crazy assumptions.
Why? It certainly didn’t stop you from doing it. Nor did it stop you from claiming I supported Tiller’s murder.
TenguPhule
We also overturned slavery. And look, women can vote now!
Next ND30 will be amazed that gays are not stoned to death here in America.
TenguPhule
Never let it be said that I was found wanting in the defense of women everywhere.
Little Dreamer
@TenguPhule:
It really surprised me to find out how many pro-lifers who were involved in the protests ended up in the clinics for abortions.
One girl I read about was back on the protest line with her mother in front of the clinic she had just been to for an abortion the day before. I’ll bet she probably never even told her mother.
North Dallas Thirty
You’re a goddam liar. I haven’t made any assertions about your sex life, have I?
Sure you have.
You do know the number, don’t you?
Is it more than one? More than two? More than twenty?
Come on. Take some pride in what you’re doing.
Ben
Of course, that would be the logic of an abortionist,
Oh, so you think I’m an abortionist now, eh? Ha ha ha ha. You know first I was mad at you, but now it’s clear you’re so delusional that all I can do is laugh.
because Roe v. Wade was a radical change that overturned a hundred plus years of laws passed by the legislatures of the states and the Federal government that set a clear precedent establishing abortion to be illegal—based not on a clearly enumerated constitutional right, but the justices’ “belief” that it was in the Constitution somewhere, limited to only the first trimester or so, they weren’t sure.
That doesn’t make a difference. Even if it was a radical change, making another radical change isn’t conservative either (maybe it might fall under the definition of neo-conservative, which is what most so-called conservatives in America really are nowadays). A true conservative would deal within the law as it is.
And with that, I must be gone for the night. Remember, ND30, most of your problems on this thread would be gone if you remember this one piece of advice: Don’t be a liar.
North Dallas Thirty
We also overturned slavery. And look, women can vote now!
By constitutional amendment in both cases.
Abortion? Loopy justice opinion. Figures.
Charon
Note the additional idiocy: no person in the country could ever be charged with manslaughter if his/her SO went off and killed someone, even one of his/her children, without his/her knowledge. So not only is a fetus apparently a person, but it’s a person so much better than the rest of us that its death can incur legal penalties to innocent people.
North Dallas Thirty
Remember, ND30, most of your problems on this thread would be gone if you remember this one piece of advice: Don’t be a liar.
Said, of course, while a myriad of assertions fly around his ears claiming that I supported the murder of Tiller, that I never have sex, that I’m promiscuous, that I hate women……
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
Maybe you need the question rephrased?
How many sex partners have you had, fuckhead?
TenguPhule
Fixed.
Remember, baby steps first. Then he can work his way up to honesty.
Clio
@Little Dreamer:
I’ll never tell my mother. I never protested with her, though. It’s sad.
Ben
Ok, I need to clarify one thing first before I call it quits for the night:
Nor did it stop you from claiming I supported Tiller’s murder.
Is someone on this thread keeping track of all the lies you are writing? I never claimed that. I claimed that you didn’t put all that much effort into speaking out against the murder, and instead that you spoke out against pro-choice people speaking out against the murder.
Now, maybe that is be a bit of exaggeration on my part, but if you really want to clarify, go ahead.
North Dallas Thirty
Note the additional idiocy: no person in the country could ever be charged with manslaughter if his/her SO went off and killed someone, even one of his/her children, without his/her knowledge.
Yup. And once that’s demonstrated in court, the charge of manslaughter is dismissed. Would work perfectly fine for abortion as well.
TenguPhule
You didn’t really need those Miranda rights, did you?
Little Dreamer
@Charon:
Good point!
DougJ
@Church Lady
Thanks for sharing this.
TenguPhule
Mutually contradicting.
At this rate, ND30’s idea of an abortion free world will involve all humans having their genitals removed at puberty and preserved in large pickle jars.
Charon
@North Dallas Thirty:
Yeah, I remember all the time Susan Smith’s husband spent in the pokey before he was finally released.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
Yeah? And forty years later, and all those Republican presidents and conservative judges and all that stomping of feet and abortion is still legal.
Now the Republican party is collapsing and a new president is appointing more liberal judges and you know that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Meanwhile, you sit around and queer blog threads with abusive attacks on other peoples’ sexuality but reveal nothing of your own.
That makes you a delusional sore loser, doesn’t it?
And how many sex partners have you had? Do you even know?
Little Dreamer
Well, ND30, it was fun but TZ and I need to be going to bed now.
Remember, you still don’t have a uterus, so you still don’t have a say in the matter. ;)
North Dallas Thirty
Is someone on this thread keeping track of all the lies you are writing? I never claimed that. I claimed that you didn’t put all that much effort into speaking out against the murder, and instead that you spoke out against pro-choice people speaking out against the murder.
And amusingly, you sat there and lectured me about “lying” while your fellow abortionists claimed that I was part of the “plot” to kill Tiller, that I supported his murder, that I’ve never had sex, that I’ve had tons of sex, that I hate women, and all these other things.
I suppose I should expect no better. It’s still entertaining to watch, though.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
I have never performed an abortion in my life. How am I an “abortionist”? I believe in choice, why don’t you call me a choicist instead?
North Dallas Thirty
Meanwhile, you sit around and queer blog threads with abusive attacks on other peoples’ sexuality but reveal nothing of your own.
Why interrupt?
Rumors that you can’t get laid apparently seem to be true?
Poor thing. Sucks to be you.
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
You do know the number, don’t you?
Is it more than one? More than two? More than twenty?
Aside from the obvious entertainment value to me, it also serves nicely to demonstrate what a hypocrite Ben is when he tries to lecture me about “lying” while not saying a word to any of you.
SrirachaHotSauce
Do you own a dictionary there, caballero?
An “abortionist” is one who performs abortions.
There are no abortionists conversing with you here, son.
Are you capable of making one post that is not some kind of lie or distortion?
A simple integer equal to the number of sex partners you have had will clear up a lot about you, though. What is that number?
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
Ben didn’t say a word to any of us? He informed me of his take on your opinion link because I refused to read the link. He DID talk to me. Liar!
Ben
And amusingly, you sat there and lectured me about “lying” while your fellow abortionists claimed that I was part of the “plot” to kill Tiller, that I supported his murder, that I’ve never had sex, that I’ve had tons of sex, that I hate women, and all these other things.
Again with that abortionist thing. You really don’t know what any of us do for a living, do you.
As for everyone else, the thing is that you are egging them on. With sarcastic comments like “Take some pride in what you’re doing.” and “Run with it.”, I’m going out on a limb and guessing that either you’re in on the joke and I’m being the one who’s being fooled (in which case I can laugh at my self for being tricked, I’m not that full of myself), or you’re just all about insults and random accusations (right now you’re calling us abortionists, what are going to call us next, zipper-repair engineers?) going both ways; you’d rather retaliate than defend your honor. This recent comment you made is the first where you’re serious about not wanting people to guess at your sex partner count. Part of me is laughing, the other part is just scratching my head.
SrirachaHotSauce
You’re sitting here casting aspersions on the morality and promiscuity of others’ sex lives, and you think a suggestion that you reveal how many sex partners you have had is “entertainment?” You think this whole subject is just a big joke, then? Har-dee-har?
So why should anyone here take you seriously?
Tell us how many sex partners you have had, and let’s judge what your authority on promiscuity actually is.
I just can’t seem to quit (asking) you.
Ben
it also serves nicely to demonstrate what a hypocrite Ben is when he tries to lecture me about “lying” while not saying a word to any of you.
See, here’s my point. You are defaming my honor, and you should be ashamed of doing that. I’m calling you on your lies because lies are a huge evil. Snarky guesses on sex partner count shouldn’t be taken seriously, and even you weren’t taking them seriously… until now that I’m calling you out, you are feigning outrage. I really don’t get it.
Little Dreamer
@Ben:
Well, it’s been my experience then when wingnuts accuse others of something the reflection in their own mirror reveals the hypocrisy. ND30 apparently is promiscuous as hell!
Ben
Oh noes, how dare you say that, Little Dreamer! There’s a possibility that ND30 might not bet promiscuous, and if that’s the case, you’d be… lying! Oh noes! Yeah verily, I must tell you to stop, else the grand ND30 may call be a hypocrite!
North Dallas Thirty
This recent comment you made is the first where you’re serious about not wanting people to guess at your sex partner count.
Correction, Ben. You assume that because I am pointing out that you are lecturing me about “lying” while all around you are abortionists claiming that I was part of the “plot” to kill Tiller, that I supported his murder, that I’ve never had sex, that I’ve had tons of sex, that I hate women, etc., I actually care about what they’re saying. It’s more about making the fact that you apparently only care about lies when they’re allegedly coming from people who aren’t abortionists.
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
I’m done with this clown. He doesn’t have a dictionary. He’s just a crazy loon who nobody can take seriously.
Nothing to see here, move along folks. Let him rot in his mental prison.
Little Dreamer
TZ, time for bed honey. :)
North Dallas Thirty
You’re sitting here casting aspersions on the morality and promiscuity of others’ sex lives, and you think a suggestion that you reveal how many sex partners you have had is “entertainment?”
Yup, given how you’ve already gotten numbers based on your iron-clad truthful sources.
Rumors that you can’t get laid apparently seem to be true?
Poor thing. Sucks to be you.
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
You do know the number, don’t you?
Is it more than one? More than two? More than twenty?
ND30 apparently is promiscuous as hell!
The schizophrenia of liberals towards sex is pretty obvious when they try to smear a person for not having sex, but then having too much sex.
SrirachaHotSauce
Well, it appears that our friend is done for the night. Revealed as a fake, a charlatan, and a coward who attacks the sexual behavior of others but reveals nothing of his own.
What a huge surprise. And here I thought this guy with his almost-out-of-the-closet website and his “husbear” would be loud and proud, proclaiming his sexuality and his background so that we could judge what we were listening to.
Welp, I am wrong again. Just like the blog, consistently wrong. Dang it.
Okay, tomorrow is another day. In fact, it’s today, and I have to go to work in the morning and dance for The Man.
Good evening to all. Except you, ND30. For you, this extended middle finger will have to do.
Ben
Correction, Ben. You assume that because I am pointing out that you are lecturing me about “lying” while all around you are abortionists claiming that I was part of the “plot” to kill Tiller, that I supported his murder, that I’ve never had sex, that I’ve had tons of sex, that I hate women, etc., I actually care about what they’re saying. It’s more about making the fact that you apparently only care about lies when they’re allegedly coming from people who aren’t abortionists.
It’s got nothing to do with that. It has to do with you being a troll. (in my opinion, I don’t know what the Balloon Juice bloggers would consider) Oddly enough, I didn’t figure that out right away, I tried to address you in good faith and assumed that you’d the same… ha!
Also, I don’t think you’re getting the point; I don’t see any of the other commenters making outright lies. Those things you mention might be really off-base assumptions (ie. you probably don’t hate every single woman in the world, but it’s not lying to suggest that your attitude towards women could be better).
TenguPhule
We don’t claim you hate women.
We know you hate women.
TenguPhule
We don’t claim you hate women.
We know you hate women.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
What a weak little horse’s ass you are, pal.
Fucking fake.
North Dallas Thirty
You are defaming my honor, and you should be ashamed of doing that. I’m calling you on your lies because lies are a huge evil.
Except, of course, when they involve claiming I’m in on an Operation Rescue plot to tail and kill Tiller. Or that I supported Tiller’s murder. Or that I hate women.
Charon
@Ben:
I’m somewhat new at troll baiting. Is there a point at which it becomes acceptable to just say “I know you are but what am I?”
Ben
Charon,
Actually, it’s been so long since I’ve interacted with trolls, so needless to say, I can’t remember. Sorry I can’t help :(
SrirachaHotSauce
Are you in fact capable of making one honest statement?
I doubt it. How many sex partners have you had? You can establish what you really are with that truthful answer. Without it, you are just a little kid with a really big internet connection and nowhere to go.
Little Dreamer
Oh, and ND30, you STILL don’t have a uterus. ;)
Good night asshole.
SrirachaHotSauce
Oh yeah, and ND30 crossed that line about an hour ago.
North Dallas Thirty
And I just found another one to add for you, Sriracha, from Ben:
Funny enough, I was assuming the opposite, that ND30 has had way too many sex partners and really didn’t grasp the whole thing about commitment.
So see, you have great numbers. You just suddenly seem unwilling to use them.
TenguPhule
I’m still waiting to see if you passed my lesson on net income.
Ben
I’ll sum it all up by saying this:
When some random commenter comes on a blog known to be generally friendly to people who are left of center, and says
the liberal belief that a child is nothing more than another mouth to feed, another drain on the welfare system, another inconvenience to your social life, another inch on your waist and hips.
that’s not a way to get the other people to respect one. So, a flame fest was for the most part inevitable.
My mistake was in taking the fight too seriously to begin with. If I’d just laughed along with everyone rather than trying to be the gallant paladin fighting against “lies”, this boring meta-commenting crap that I’ve had to do at the end wouldn’t have been neccessary (not that all meta-commenting is boring).
North Dallas Thirty
You can establish what you really are with that truthful answer.
What? And ruin what you and your fellow abortionists have already established that I am?
Much easier to just let you do it for me. And infinitely more funny.
TenguPhule
This is Balloon Juice. If you’re not having fun U’re doing it Rong!
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
There is only one number that matters, and you know it. It’s the truth. Tell us what the truth is, and the problem goes away.
You can’t, because you are totally dishonest. Your authority to pass judgment on other people is gone until you clear this up.
You’re a coward, and won’t do it. Fine with me. I knew you wouldn’t. You are all about name calling. You don’t dare reveal anything honest about yourself, because then the arrow swings around and points at you. That would take a set of balls. You can look those up in the dictionary too, I think that’s where you will find the nearest example.
Little Dreamer
@Ben:
Ben, did you just have a Doogie Howser moment? ;)
That’s so sweet!
Ben
If I’m an abortionist, then you’re a post-Classical manuscript preservationist.
TenguPhule
You can lead the horse to water….
North Dallas Thirty
@North Dallas Thirty:
Actually, that was my first comment on the thread.
And Ben, you’re not fighting “lies”. If that were the case, you’d actually have to be attacking your fellow abortionists and their claims about me being in on an Operation Rescue plot to tail and kill Tiller. You’re actually just attacking someone whose opinion you don’t like and rationalizing it as “lies”.
Anne Laurie
When I was attending parochial school, this philosophical theory was called Jansenism — and officially heretical. I don’t know the Evangelical position, but last I looked the elevation of “suffering for the sake of suffering” was still a heresy for Catholics like Andrew Sullivan.
As for the frequency of ectopic pregnancy… IIRC, until the early/mid 1980s testing for chlamydia was tricky & expensive and many doctors believed it was a rare disease. Now that there are fast cheap tests, it’s considered the commonest veneral disease in ‘developed’ countries. Untreated (undiagnosed) chlamydia can cause scarring of the fallopian tubes, and scarring of the fallopian tubes leads to tubal pregnancies. Ergo, any woman who had sex during the Boomer Golden Age (post-Pill, pre-AIDs) probably has a statistically significant risk of ecotopic pregnancy, I’d think?
Ben
This is Balloon Juice. If you’re not having fun U’re doing it Rong!
Tis’ true. At the very least, I get a kick out of the whole “everyone here is an abortionist” line!
Little Dreamer
@North Dallas Thirty:
methinks thou dost protest too much!
Ben
And on that note, good night everyone. It has been amusing, thanks everyone! Even you ND30. I just hope you don’t get paranoid that the people at the store bagging your groceries might be moonlighting as abortionists!
Charon
@North Dallas Thirty:
Once again you fail basic reading comprehension. Notice the words apparently and assuming and all those question marks? These show that we are working on less than complete information. We have not established anything; simply using a working hypotheses on incomplete data and previous experience with people that your comments have reminded us of.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
Again with the dishonesty: It’s you I don’t like. Not your opinion. You’re a liar and a fake.
North Dallas Thirty
There is only one number that matters, and you know it. It’s the truth. Tell us what the truth is, and the problem goes away.
What the truth is? You already have the truth, don’t you?
What’s wrong with those? Are they not the truth?
You’re a coward, and won’t do it. Fine with me. I knew you wouldn’t. You are all about name calling. You don’t dare reveal anything honest about yourself, because then the arrow swings around and points at you. That would take a set of balls. You can look those up in the dictionary too, I think that’s where you will find the nearest example.
You forgot, “Your mother wears combat boots”, “Your father smelt of elderberries”, and whatever else is “hip” in the insult world these days.
SrirachaHotSauce
I’ll get my coat hanger and be right with you!
Clio
@North Dallas Thirty:
Wow, someone is intensely insecure and uncomfortable about sex. Our unrealistic and ancient/tribal attitudes towards sexuality are the root to so many of society’s problems.
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
Who cares? If the truth is not important enough for you to post it, then it’s not important enough for me to guess at your question.
Little Dreamer
@SrirachaHotSauce:
Bedtime honey, you’re going to regret this in the morning. :(
Little Dreamer
@Clio:
Absolutely correct.
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
I know. But knowing that ND30 ground himself down to ND0.9 is going to give me a big grin.
That was the shortest lived troll in the history of Balloon Juice right there.
North Dallas Thirty
Wow, someone is intensely insecure and uncomfortable about sex.
So Charon: where are “the words apparently and assuming and all those question marks” in this statement?
Charon
@Little Dreamer:
I realize that this wasn’t directed at me, but is still sound advice. Goodnight all.
North Dallas Thirty
Who cares? If the truth is not important enough for you to post it, then it’s not important enough for me to guess at your question.
As the fox once said, “Those grapes are probably sour anyway.”
SrirachaHotSauce
@North Dallas Thirty:
My god, you are really bad at this.
Forget sex partners. How many conversational partners have you had? Three?
Little Dreamer
Goodnight Elizabeth, Goodnight Mary Ellen, Goodnight Jason, Goodnight John Boy!
TenguPhule
And the donkey spoke to ND30 and said “I was born an ass, what’s your excuse?”
Clio
@North Dallas Thirty:
I don’t question your discomfort with sex. You proved it by your reactions on this thread.
SrirachaHotSauce
@Little Dreamer:
Good night dear <3
Ben
Goodnight Chief, Goodnight McCloud!
/couldn’t resist a good MST3k line!
Charon
@North Dallas Thirty:
Sorry, can’t help myself; to the well one more time. My post was a response to what was either supreme idiocy or blatant falsehood in your prior comment. What happens after that point has no relevance to this particular back and forth.
Secondly, even assuming (there’s that word again) that Clio’s comment was over some imaginary, arbitrary line, you still haven’t taken the most basic step(s) to refute these types of charges. If they truly bother you, share a bit of yourself with us. As empathy-ridden liberals we promise to be kind.
There is a legal maxim that goes something like “He who is silent has acceeded.” In otherwords its easy to take your refusal to answer as prima faciae evidence of the truth of the allegations.
Charon
@TenguPhule:
FTW
North Dallas Thirty
I don’t question your discomfort with sex. You proved it by your reactions on this thread.
Actually, I didn’t react to much of anything. I just sat back and watched and catalogued as you and your fellow abortionists made wild assertions about how I’d never had sex, how I’d had too much sex, how I was this, how I was that, all sorts of statements, most of them contradicting each other.
Furthermore, I noticed how, in order to provoke a reaction, you and your fellows made repeated attacks on my sexuality and sexual behavior. What that makes evident is that a great deal of the self-worth of abortionists like yourself is tied up in your sexual reputation. It is very telling that the first line of attack of you and your fellow abortionists was to claim that I had never had sex and that no one would want to have sex with me. Obviously, this would be catastrophic and world-shattering to you, since the only value abortionists like yourself feel that you have to offer is your sexual availability.
North Dallas Thirty
There is a legal maxim that goes something like “He who is silent has acceeded.”
There is also a legal precedent called the right of silence, and that one happens to be the one enshrined in the US Constitution.
In otherwords its easy to take your refusal to answer as prima faciae evidence of the truth of the allegations.
For some reason, I’m not too worried about that.
Just because ND30 isn’t getting any, he doesn’t want the rest of us to either.
ND30 apparently is promiscuous as hell!
Funny enough, I was assuming the opposite, that ND30 has had way too many sex partners and really didn’t grasp the whole thing about commitment.
When the allegations directly contradict each other, it’s much better to just get out of the way and let it be made obvious that people are just making all sorts of statements that aren’t even consistent.
That is prima facie evidence of bias and prejudice.
TenguPhule
This is actually relief. It means a cleaner gene pool for the rest of us.
It means people like you who hate women and children who must face difficult decisions have a less likely chance to do harm in this world.
Clio
@North Dallas Thirty:
This is getting hilarious. I love all of the “abortionist” talk.
It’s obvious that you are uncomfortable with sex and with talking about sex and most likely view sex as something “dirty” and “wrong” because you seem to view children as a punishment for having sex.
Because sex is a human need, I can imagine that you’ve had sexual partners. I recognize the type of rhetoric used by people who are uncomfortable with sex whenever the topic comes up. I used to be one of those people and most of my family still are.
TenguPhule
I’m still confused.
You were for contraceptives for sluts before you were against them and pregnant 13 yr olds are okay only as long as they can’t give consent and fetuses missing their spines or brains somehow are babies who take priority over the woman making the choice and all of this means liberals are abortion donors to Obama through the miracle of an operation that seems to cost nothing while having a colored baby somehow makes babies die on the hospital floor?
Zuzu's Petals
ND30 says:
I like pie. All kinds. Coconut, banana, cherry, rhubarb…you name it. I just like that pie.
DougL (frmrly: Conservatively Liberal)
I am sure that he can show us with one hand, just ignore the callused palm.
I am enjoying watching
ND30MD 20/20 trying to extract what little fun he is going to have for the next four years because next to nothing he supports is going to go his way. The only pleasure he is going to have is this small one of going around trying to piss off liberals.All we have to do is smile and watch him twist in the wind.
Zuzu's Petals
@Belvoir:
Good point !
El Cid
Some 500+ comments in, and abortion still will not be made illegal, and no one cares what any of the busybodies think about any particular woman’s choice on it will be — it will remain a choice between that woman, her doctor, and anyone she chooses to involve.
Phoebe
TenguPhule,
“Because it’s a potential option that occurs after birth. Which is well beyond the point being argued about.”
Adoption is not beyond the point when the argument is being made that nobody should be forced to raise a baby to adulthood. Nobody is. That is all. Just everybody say “nobody should be forced to carry a fetus and deliver it” and I’ll be happy. But I’m happy already. Because I’m not arguing with ND 30. And it’s a tiny point, I know, but it’s a hole in the wall that needed spackling. I’m on y’all’s side, choice-wise.
Cyrus
@North Dallas Thirty:
Without reading the subsequent comments, if no one responded to this by linking to the dictionary definition of “and”, then I’m disappointed in all of you.
North Dallas Thirty
It’s obvious that you are uncomfortable with sex and with talking about sex and most likely view sex as something “dirty” and “wrong” because you seem to view children as a punishment for having sex.
Actually, that would be your fellow abortionists.
Like here.
Or the one where children are referred to as, quote, “stinky filthy whining needy human larvae”.
Or when the lead abortionist in this country makes it publicly clear that he considers babies punishment.
Seems pretty clear that abortionists are the ones looking at children with disdain and hate, dehumanizing them, and insisting that they are “punishment”.
That answers a whole lot of questions of why abortionists have so little trouble with advocating killing them.
North Dallas Thirty
Without reading the subsequent comments, if no one responded to this by linking to the dictionary definition of “and”, then I’m disappointed in all of you.
Really? Are you planning to ban abortions of a healthy baby?
Simba B
Uh, might want to go and re-read that post before using it as evidence against pro-choicers.
Deekaa6
Several days ago I posted the story of my family’s experience with Dr. Tiller. I am grateful for the exposure that the posting has received. The post was written in the hope that it might provide comfort where necessary and perhaps change hearts and minds where possible. Mr. Sullivan’s journey toward what appears to be a real and absolute change of heart is welcome. The fact that his is a voice with influence is a gift to people everywhere who believe that this most intimate and personal of decisions is best left to mothers and families.
PurpleGirl
Deekaa6 — your post was incredible and I thank you for making the story public. I hope you, your wife and your family are well and thriving.
And you hope you jumped to the end of this thread to write comment #533 — ’cause believe me reading the whole thread (especially after ND30 joined) was torture. Okay, most of you were interesting but after ND30 joined I skimmed the thread because he’s an asshole and I don’t need my bp to go through the roof today.
TenguPhule
Yes, if the circumstances are such that the woman requests an abortion.
One twin may be dead, the other still alive, but they both need to be removed or the mother could die.
9 year old girl raped by her stepfather, the fetus is healthy but the pregnancy could potentially destroy her reproductive system, she doesn’t want it then out it goes.
Woman facing cancer treatments, if she chooses to have a late stage abortion because the cancer showed up near the end, then yes it’s her choice to make.
So yeah.
One size does not fit all. And in the end, the woman gets to choose.
Llelldorin
You have to love the crazy wingnut logic above. Last time I checked (two years ago when my daughter was born), labor & delivery costs a hell of a lot more than five hundred smackers, even if you ignore prenatal visits. Given that abortions are provided by OB/GYNs, wouldn’t they have a severe financial incentive to not abort?
Stacy
This is an interesting statement. Apparently the moral dilemma here for ND30 is that (a) the father may get away with statutory rape, or (b) an abortion doctor may make a profit, or (c) the parents are being left in the dark.
Notice anything missing? You know, like the decisions or dilemmas of of the young woman? She is apparently just an object being used by various forces instead of a rational human.
I’ve noticed that ND30’s arguments tend to be the typical knee-jerk (but the baybeees!) emotionalism and the demonizing of “abortionists”.
Anti-choicers do this quite a bit. They go on and on for hours about the precious little baybees and the evil abortionists and avoid the life and rights of the woman completely, because gosh, to actually acknowledge that the woman and her rights are central to this debate might make his argument for forced birth a bit more difficult. The only way anti-choicers can argue that the potential person trumps all is to cancel out the actual person in the debate, because logically, you would always side with the actualized person with rights then the potential person. So it’s better to just pretend baybees grow in pumpkin patches, or that women’s rights as people aren’t worth shit and don’t need to be considered, or even more bizarre, believe women become second-class citizens the second they are penetrated by a penis. And being that sex is not a criminal act, one would wonder why that would be. Seems to hint at some old stereotypes about women being tarnished by sexuality.
Note that when he mentions women at all, he attempts to paint them as reckless and malicious sluts, or hapless victims of their pro-choice overlords (this is part of the newer, kinder paternalistic anti-choice rhetoric, being that saying “bitches ain’t shit” wasn’t working out as well as it had in the past. So now they have to pretend to care about the women, and do so by assuming they are all idiot two year olds that need daddy government to protect them from themselves). Either way, apparently they are not to be considered as rational humans whose lives carry any weight in this debate.
Gretchen
I’m the mother of 4 and have been pro-choice forever, and still didn’t know all the details of the reasons people have third-trimester abortions. I know people don’t wait because they’re too busy shopping until the 7th month, but these stories were a revelation even for me, so I think we should cut Sully some slack. He’s a gay man, he’s never had to deal with these things personally, and he’s willing to take in new information and change his mind – surely a trait to be encouraged. And I enjoy his take even when I disagree with him, because I know he’s thinking.
North Dallas Thirty
Last time I checked (two years ago when my daughter was born), labor & delivery costs a hell of a lot more than five hundred smackers, even if you ignore prenatal visits. Given that abortions are provided by OB/GYNs, wouldn’t they have a severe financial incentive to not abort?
You’re forgetting the overhead costs of multiple visits, the equipment necessary to actually take care of a baby, and so forth. Not to mention that, thanks to the Obama Party, abortion clinics usually don’t have to meet the same standards of required equipment, health, and cleanliness as do other outpatient surgical centers. You don’t need to have all that expensive equipment, recordkeeping, or cleanliness staff around, which really helps the margins.
Notice anything missing? You know, like the decisions or dilemmas of of the young woman? She is apparently just an object being used by various forces instead of a rational human.
Sorry, but she’s thirteen years old. One, she doesn’t have the capability to consent to invasive medical procedures, and two, she’s the victim of a crime.
When abortionists will state publicly that thirteen-year-olds are fully emancipated from their parents and that having sex with them is not a crime, then the discussion will become relevant.
Either way, apparently they are not to be considered as rational humans whose lives carry any weight in this debate.
That would be true if pregnancy were spontaneous. Unfortunately, pregnancy in the vast and overwhelming majority of cases is due to a) the woman choosing to have sex and b) the woman choosing to have unprotected sex or risky sex.
The woman has already had the chance to avoid pregnancy and the resulting entanglements that come from producing another human life. She chose to waive that; by doing so, she accepts the risk and the responsibility that her actions will produce another human life.
Now, if the sex is non-consensual, that’s another matter entirely. The baby in that case is the result of another person’s criminal behavior, and both the woman and the baby are the victims. Then you have a clear case of conflicting rights, and the woman has the choice of whether or not to kill the baby.
In the case of rape or incest, while I am morally opposed to doing so, the fact that the sex is non-consensual means the woman’s right to her own choice still exists. The solution is simple: abortion is allowed if rape and/or incest charges are filed against the offending party.
Phoebe
I’m an idiot, but here we go…
ND 30:
“In the case of rape or incest, while I am morally opposed to doing so, the fact that the sex is non-consensual means the woman’s right to her own choice still exists. The solution is simple: abortion is allowed if rape and/or incest charges are filed against the offending party.”
When you say “still exists” you mean, I take it, in the world as you wish it would be, not as it is in this country. So you would morally oppose her decision to abort, but she can still make that decision because she did nothing to cause the pregnancy?
If all that is true, then my question is: If she is allowed to have the choice to abort, then at how many months or weeks [and why then]?
TenguPhule
Oh good grief. Now ND30 who has never even been in a clinic, is trying the old “back ally butchers!!” canard.
One and two: Forcing a thirteen year old through pregnancy is a crime. Try again.
Now it’s getting silly. The parents have decide that the girl has to have sex and keep the baby?
Shorter North Dallas Thirty: They’re sluts, they deserve it!
How wonderfully condescending of you. Maybe you can go lecture the couples who wanted the child only to discover that it wasn’t viable.
Or the women who aborted because complications from the pregnancy endangered her life.
One size does not fit all.
Zuzu's Petals
@TenguPhule:
Fixt.
North Dallas Thirty
So you would morally oppose her decision to abort, but she can still make that decision because she did nothing to cause the pregnancy?
Yup.
If all that is true, then my question is: If she is allowed to have the choice to abort, then at how many months or weeks [and why then]?
Same rules as currently. Up to quickening, then after that, health exception is required.
One and two: Forcing a thirteen year old through pregnancy is a crime. Try again.
A crime by whom, pray tell?
The person who is “forcing the thirteen-year-old through pregnancy” is the rapist or the incest practitioner. But for some reason, you don’t even want to report or hear about who did this to the pregnant thirteen-year-old. You just want to perform the abortion, even if you have to completely ignore the law and parental rights to do it.
Shorter North Dallas Thirty: They’re sluts, they deserve it!
Why is saying that a woman needs to take responsibility for her behavior calling her a “slut”? Aren’t women capable of being responsible? Aren’t they educated or intelligent enough to stop themselves from making the wrong choices if they don’t want to be pregnant?
TenguPhule
I don’t approve of raping strawmen either. Kindly restrict that to the privacy of your own home.
Wait, what happened to the sluts deserve it? Now you’ve flipped positions yet again.
Accidents happen, things go wrong, circumstances change.
So kindly decide your own medical choices and let others decide their own.
Phoebe
ND 30,
What you call “quickening” – the first trimester, right? That’s where you draw the line for women who were raped, which, since their rapedness is the same for before the first trimester and after the first trimester, I’m guessing is because of the qualities possessed by the fetus, the pre-quicken vs. the post quicken, and the first being acceptable to terminate and the second not. Is this the case, that it’s because of qualities possessed by the fetus?
Thank you.
Stacy
This is kind of a strange complaint, considering if what you wish comes to pass, women that seek out abortions post-Roe will be placed in much worse situations when it comes to their abortion. You don’t score any compassion points for stating that women’s health matters to you only when you can use it to score rhetorical points.
So you concede my point then. The young woman in the picture matters nothing to you.
Do you not think children have any rights outside of parental guardianship? They obviously do. I mean, to play devil’s advocate here, wouldn’t that put you on the side of the parents in the case overseas where the parents sold the nine year old to the old guy for marriage, and would not allow her to have a divorce due to her minor status? Children do have rights in this country, sorry to say.
And I’m confused – you state the young woman was raped. Doesn’t she get an exception per your own argument, then? Why would the state compel a 13 year old victim of rape to give birth, but not an 18 year old?
Again, you concede my point. You do not see women as rational humans in this debate, and as such, feel that daddy government must step in. Being that this debate is fully about women’s rights, this is a pretty strange angle to take (not to mention a bit creepy and paternalistic).
Now, I get what you are arguing here, you are arguing about the need for punishment. However, this doesn’t quite follow, because sex is not a crime, and there is nothing about consensual sexual activity that would negate your rights. Nowhere in law do we find a precedent in law that states that citizens are required to sustain the lives of other citizens if they are partially responsible for the state they put them in. If you accidentally injure someone else, you are not required to keep them alive. You are not required to give them blood, or sacrifice your time and resources to take care of them in their vegetative state. So I’m curious as to why pregnant women, and only pregnant women, would be expected to waive away their rights to do so when no one else is required to.
I suppose we could argue that if it’s a criminal act, as in you mowing down someone with your car, you can be held criminally or financially responsible, but that’s a far cry from the state demanding you use your body to sustain theirs. And even if we were to argue this, you’d still have to explain how consensual sex can be considered a crime.
You really feel that we should push for forced birth as a punishment for sex? Man, and they say pro-choicers are callous when it comes to children. I can’t think of a worse idea then to bring more unwanted children in this world and shuffle them through the foster care system because some random dude on the internet is pissed of that we can’t punish sluts with forced birth.
First off, you are arguing from a conclusion here. You have not shown that the fetus is a person with rights, and you have given no reason as to why the rights of a potential person is equal to the rights of an actualized person. I see no reason to take your word for it, being that you appear to be operating under some other strong motivations, such as punishing women for sex.
Second, if your whole argument is that a fetus is equal to a person, then there is no reason to make an exception for rape victims. Being a person sired by a criminal does not make one any less of a person. So either (a) you do not actually believe that a fetus is equal to a person, which pretty much destroys your entire argument, as an actualized person’s rights will trump those of a non-person every time, or (b) personhood is determined by the behavior of others and varies greatly depending on their actions (to the point that we can kill them), which seems a pretty shaky platform to place rights on. I mean, come on. It’s a person if the woman is “innocent” of a non-criminal act and not a person if she’s “guilty” of a non-criminal act? That’s pretty absurd once you break it down like that.
North Dallas Thirty
What you call “quickening” – the first trimester, right? That’s where you draw the line for women who were raped, which, since their rapedness is the same for before the first trimester and after the first trimester, I’m guessing is because of the qualities possessed by the fetus, the pre-quicken vs. the post quicken, and the first being acceptable to terminate and the second not. Is this the case, that it’s because of qualities possessed by the fetus?
That’s the Roe v. Wade definition, at least.
North Dallas Thirty
This is kind of a strange complaint, considering if what you wish comes to pass, women that seek out abortions post-Roe will be placed in much worse situations when it comes to their abortion.
Correction. Women will not “be placed”; they will choose to place themselves into these much worse situations.
Your view paints women as helpless idiots who are incapable of making intelligent and informed decisions about their health, such as the danger of having a backalley abortion. I think women are far more intelligent than that.
So you concede my point then. The young woman in the picture matters nothing to you.
Correction. The young woman in the picture is a thirteen-year-old who is the victim of a crime. I do not expect thirteen-year-olds to make decisions of that magnitude. Society agrees with me, inasmuch as said thirteen-year-old would likely be unable to even get her ears pierced without parental consent.
Your view is consistent with one in which the health and welfare of the thirteen-year-old is secondary to your need to abort the child. This is not surprising; abortionists and abortion clinics openly aid and abet violation of the law in order to facilitate performing the abortion.
Again, you concede my point. You do not see women as rational humans in this debate, and as such, feel that daddy government must step in.
Correction. I see women as rational humans who have made two conscious choices that can with a large degree of certainty be expected to result in pregnancy.
Your view is consistent with one that claims that women are intelligent and rational human beings who are so incapable of controlling themselves that society must facilitate getting rid of the results of their choices. You denigrate the intelligence of women at the same time as you claim to be protecting their rights in an absurd bit of plantation kindness.
Nowhere in law do we find a precedent in law that states that citizens are required to sustain the lives of other citizens if they are partially responsible for the state they put them in.
Which would be news to John Edwards and other prominent members of the Obama Party trial bar. There is an entire portion of law dealing with negligence that says that, if your choices result in a negative impact, you can be held accountable for any and all damages.
I can’t think of a worse idea then to bring more unwanted children in this world and shuffle them through the foster care system because some random dude on the internet is pissed of that we can’t punish sluts with forced birth.
I can: killing these children before they ever have a chance to be born under the theory that they’re human garbage who no one would ever want.
In other words, your viewpoint.
You have not shown that the fetus is a person with rights, and you have given no reason as to why the rights of a potential person is equal to the rights of an actualized person.
The fetus exists because, in every case, an actualized person has chosen to engage in the behavior that produces it. In most cases, it’s the mother and father; in a tiny fraction of cases, it’s the rapist or incest practitioner.
When you have unprotected or risky sex, you waive your right by making that choice, just as you waive your “right” to drive when you choose to drink to excess.
It’s a person if the woman is “innocent” of a non-criminal act and not a person if she’s “guilty” of a non-criminal act?
Either way, it’s a person. But in the case of a nonconsensual situation, the mother has not waived her right. That sets up a horrible choice in which the reality is that she has to choose.
Phoebe
ND 30,
Roe v. Wade draws a line at the first trimester, but I was asking why you do. Is it for the same reasons as Roe v. Wade?
TenguPhule
Shorter ND30: Just because I prevent women from getting a safe legal abortion doesn’t mean it’s my fault they will get a illegal dangerous one instead. This is their “choice”. That I have rigged the outcome in advance is to be disregarded.
But you expect 13 yr olds to give birth without their consent. I’m sorry, where is the concern about a MAJOR medical invasive procedure now?
You have no concern for the welfaree or health of the child in question. You repeatedly dodge the issue of is forcing a 13 yr old to give birth against her will in her best interests?
I believe we call these orphanages and foster homes.
Again you miss the point, the fetus is a non-legal entity, and the woman is a person with full rights. This is the law.
Now when you get into individual cases, things get complicated because some of these women WANTED the fetus to be born, only to learn that something went wrong and they have to make a choice.
Fetuses and clumps of cells are not children. Stop trying to redefine words.
Except when it’s not. And you then contradict yourself immediately.
Nope. Neither when there is safe sex involved. Accidents happen and just because you get off on punishing “sluts”, it’s not your decision.
But you have just argued for personhood. Now you wish to qualify it, which is the EXACT SAME THING you were villifying others here for.
It’s simply None of your business as to what a woman decides.