On the 41st anniversary of Roe v Wade, just remember: the only moral abortion is your abortion (via)
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
The current Supreme Court is a rogue court. Very dangerous.
Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.
You cannot shame the shameless.
Even though I know this is a bad idea, I’m off to do it anyway!
Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.
Republicans in disarray!
Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.
My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.
People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.
Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.
Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.
rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius
I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.
The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.
Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?
If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.
The gop is a fucking disgrace.
It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.
No one could have predicted…
I was promised a recession.
They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.
Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?
When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.
President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.
revrick
Every piece of anti-abortion legislation is based on the notion that women aren’t full, complete human beings, that they lack the ability to make fully-informed moral choices, and that the rest of us, therefore, have both the right and duty to force them to make the ‘right’ choice (as defined by the rest of us…or at least that portion that deems their choices wrong).
Or to put it more bluntly, all anti-abortion legislation pisses on women.
Berial
Aren’t you guys glad that even if you don’t like football you still get to subsidize it? It’s a good racket if you can get it.
Tax free charity? my ass!
Aji
Of course it is.
And today they’ll be busily reassuring me that mine (decades ago, now) is evidence of the fact that I need to be marked with big scarlet “A” to show everyone what a complete moral degenerate I am for refusing to be owned and held hostage by a tiny collection of cells inside my body.
I’ve got a few scarlet letters for them, too.
srv
A lot of steps backwards in the last few years, they’re winning.
Has anyone ever written expose on who is the lawyer behind the Pro-Life movements successes? Someone very smart has done more to achieve their goals than decades of purity socialcon hysterics.
The rest of the party may not be rational, but that crew is.
Aji
@srv: There are several of them. One of the biggest, though, and most under the radar, is Jim Bopp.
He’s dangerous. on a whole lot of fronts.
Knight of Nothing
Those anecdotes aren’t surprising, but they are nevertheless quite jarring.
The only “moral question” is whether a sentient being should be forced against her will to reproduce.
Violet
I’m an advocate for using the term “forced-birthers” to describe the self-described “pro-lifers”. They are not pro-life. Let’s call them what they are. They’ve co-opted the term “pro-life” and it’s time to take it back.
@Aji: Since it’s an open thread, I wanted to give you an update on my sinus situation. After spending last week taking decongestants and then overdoing at a volunteer project on Fri/Sat, I crashed on Sunday big time. I also quit taking the decongestants at the same time and had a rebound effect, I believe. It was miserable–spent the whole day in bed.
On Monday I read up on sinus stuff some more and found some info on a xylitol nasal spray. It’s called Xlear and is available at Whole Foods and some supermarkets and also online. Apparently if you use it multiple times a day the xylitol can disrupt the biofilms hiding the bacteria in your sinusus, and the bacteria die.
After 24 hours using it I feel remarkably better. It’s breaking up stuff in my sinusus that nothing else seemed to have been able to get to. I don’t have the pounding headaches and a ton of stuff is draining. Wanted to be sure to mention it to you because it’s natural and non-toxic and I think you mentioned you had sinus issues from time to time. Might help others suffering as well. I’m a very satisfied customer!
Violet
@Knight of Nothing: In their eyes it’s not against her will. She did the secksy time, she must do the birthing time. Punishment for being a slut.
schrodinger's cat
They don’t want women to have options, it is all about control. They want to keep women in their place.
raven
@Berial: Aw poor baby.
Aji
@Violet: Wow! Good to know – thanks. Now that I’m off dairy, I virtually never get sinus infections anymore, but Wings occasionally has problems. Xylitol-based products are better for him than a lot of things (he’s diabetic), so this could come in really handy, especially late winter into early spring. (Well, thanks to climate change, spring’s apparently already here and has been for weeks, but you know what I mean).
MomSense
@Violet:
A couple rounds of antibiotics plus steroid sprays, and decongestants and I still have my sinus infection so thank you for that information!
Elizabelle
Is it wrong for me to be gleeful that this year’s march falls on the coldest day in DC in 30 years? Brilliant blue sky, white snowscape, 12 degrees in the sun.
Eric Cantor is addressing them. I hope the little weasel is cold through and through, cold as his empty little heart.
From local TV station WJLA:
The theme is never contraception, is it? I’d have more respect for them if they took a broader approach to reducing abortions.
Berial
@raven: Hey, I just think it’s wrong for the NFL to call itself a charity.
Hell it payed it’s commissioner $29.5 million to run the organization, but only ‘gave away’ $2.3 million to ‘charity’. That charity? The NFL Hall of Fame.
Elizabelle
Safe, legal and RARE, you bundled up fetishists.
Safe, legal and RARE, but that would deprive you of an issue, would it not?
raven
@Berial: I read the article. I’m much more concerned about the Wounded Warriors hustle.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Kind of on topic, EvenTheLiberalMSNBC host just referred to Governor Transvaginal as “centrist”. Neither Nia Malika Henderson nor the designated Democrat batted an eye.
(Very OT, same MSNBC Host, Richard Something, “how is what Bob McDonnell did different from President Obama taking money from Hollywood?)
Violet
@Aji: @MomSense: You guys are so welcome! The directions say 2-4 sprays per nostril twice a day. But for a bad sinus infection that’s been hanging around, there tends to be bacteria hanging on up in your sinusus. So that’s when you use it multiple times a day–at least four. More is fine.
Apparently the sweetness of the xylitol attracts the bacteria but because it’s not actually sugar, they get no sustenance from it and die. It’s really working for me. Note of caution: xylitol is a FODMAP, so if you have any sensitivity it can cause tummy rumbling. Plus, I think all that bacteria coming out of your sinuses, a part of which at least ends up in your stomach, doesn’t help.
If the info helps someone, I’m so glad! I’ve been miserable with this infection and wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
ranchandsyrup
When I lived in CO I tended more to the wade side of things with flyfishing.
Now I row more in CA out on the kayak.
Evolving.
FoxinSocks
A couple of years ago, my sister informed me that any doctor who performs an abortion, even to save the life of the woman, should be jailed. Two weeks after that statement, my mother called and asked if I could watch my sister’s 3-yr-old child for the day. “Why?” I asked. Mom said my sister was going to get an abortion.
So, my sister got a safe, legal abortion and we were very grateful for it, because it was quite clear she’d do whatever it took to end that pregnancy. She and her very pro-life husband then went out to TGI Friday’s to celebrate and the next week, she was back to opposing abortion under all circumstances. (sigh) (head desk)
charluckles
I had a very close friend in high school who came from an incredibly strict religious family, MTV was the devil at work, and his Mom was a leader of anti-abortion protests in our town. This friend ended up impregnanting his girlfriend and together they decided to move forward with an abortion. He ended up sneaking his girlfriend into the back of clinic at the exact same moment his Mom was on the front step waving a placard and shouting about baby killers.
That was a real eye opener. In terms of the necessity of access to abortion, but to me even moreso about the failure of those on the anti-abortion side to acknowledge the reality that people were having sex for more than procreation and that if they wanted to reduce abortion the best approach was comprehensive sex education and access to contraception.
bemused
@FoxinSocks:
There has to be a dominant cognitive dissonance gene in conservatives.
Emma
I know I’m supposed to be all understanding about those women and rise above their hypocrisy, but I can’t. I just can’t. I wish more doctors would just turn them away and let them face the consequences.
charluckles
@Violet:
Sinus infections…uggh. Learned this trick from an old school nurse and it works for me. Get a baby/child nasal aspirator at your local drugstore and mix up a batch of saline. Table salt and warm water. The objective here is to squirt that mix up each nostril twice a day until you feel it coming down the back of your throat and out the other nostril. Be prepared to wretch and have mucous flowing like a faucet. Additional benefit of being very cheap. Hope all get better
Elizabelle
@charluckles:
That’s so patently obvious. I suspect it might even be Pope Francis’s private view, having seen a lot of the world beyond the Vatican walls, though he dare never say it.
But the pro-lifers never want to go there. It’s like if the March of Dimes campaign also threw bricks and insults at the medical community because polio was “God’s will” and not a condition that could be eradicated.
Forced birthers is the correct term. Harsh, but correct.
Tommy
@ranchandsyrup: The best thing I ever did. I was from Illinois. Going to school in Louisiana. My best friend was from Vermount. He had a kayak or two and we went on the bayous with them.
MikeJ
Via Slacktivist: Sometimes they’re honest about their agenda: Scott Lively says he wants to outlaw abortion because it diminishes the “biblical authority” that husbands are supposed to enjoy “as heads of their households.”
Knight of Nothing
@Elizabelle: with respect, I don’t like this phrase anymore. “Safe and legal” is enough. “Rare” seems to have become a trite moralistic salve. Let abortion become rare when we recognize that human beings need a solid education (including sex education), financial security, and a future – those things make abortion “rare.”
Violet
@charluckles: I’ve used both the squirt bottle type “neti pot” and an actual neti pot. They just don’t work for me. I’ll have a think about your suggestion. Sounds like maybe less water is involved than with a net pot?
Violet
@Knight of Nothing: I like the “rare” part of it at this point because it points to making birth control available to all and sex education just part of education in general–not something parents have to sign permission slips for and can keep kids from getting proper info about.
charluckles
@Violet:
Little bit less water, but you definitely want to get that crap loosened up. I have been very luck that this trick works so well for me, because I am sure it doesn’t work for everyone.
Another Holocene Human
all of this talk since MLK day about how little we’ve accomplished and how tenuous the victories and how little each side understands each other has me wanting to escape and curl into a little ball. I’ve got to believe the fight isn’t hopeless.
I’m so tired of emoprogs negging everyone because they have ODS and don’t want to believe the economy is doing any better because their fantasies didn’t come true already. I’m in the labor movement fighter for higher wages. POTUS can’t do that for us. He can appoint people to the NLRB, which is exactly what he did, so why don’t emoprogs have his back?
Tell me D and R are the same when they take your rights away.
Elizabelle
Today would be a great day to watch “Citizen Ruth” again.
Director Alexander Payne’s first movie, and a fine one it is.
(Or go see “Nebraska” — you owe it to yourself.)
1997 sfgate article on Payne and “Ruth”:
Knight of Nothing
@Violet: I don’t disagree with what you’re saying, but in the current climate, “rare” does not and will never placate the opposition. Even the women cited in the essay, flying in the face of all logic and reason, maintain a posture of “okay for me, but never for thee.” So I think we ought to drop the “rare” for now, and focus on “safe and legal” for all.
Tommy
@Violet: I think I was 15. Mom bought me condoms. I didn’t need them at the time. Later I did. She told me I needed to treat women with respect, and using protection was a part of that.
MikeJ
@Another Holocene Human:
Here’s the last time anybody ever got a pony from the president.
Another Holocene Human
@revrick: I actually see it as a form of sexual and economic competition. Just like outlawing prostitution, it’s another crusade pushed by women which ends up hurting a lot of women … poor women. The problem for women (women who are fucking pinheads, that is) is that there are just so many women. This is bad. One’s value rises with scarcity. Causing poor women to die, be jailed, go broke, starve, etcet is the politics of spite and a Social Darwinist fantasy on a grand scale.
I doubt that women with careers and some sort of sense of value that does not come from being wife/mother/baby incubator are not found in great numbers among the fetus fetishists, although there are certainly women with jobs attacking other women with jobs, though I’ve noticed it’s basically female academics attacking prostitution today. Don’t think a blue collar woman could attack a prostitute with a straight face. Being an escort or a stripper is quite frankly a better job.
The other goal of the forced birthers is to steal white babbies. Don’t forget that. Whole industry devoted to it. The fact that MOST young ladies who choose to give birth wherever in the world do not then want to give up their babbie does not factor into the desire, need, Godly command that comfortable, Christian women must steal babbies.
If anything, the fetus fetishists achieved an own-goal in destigmatizing teenage and out of wedlock birth to millions of young people. Nature takes care of the rest. Once you’ve donated all of your omega-3 fat stores and Vit D plus 10% of your bone calcium to the little parasite you’re really, really loth to let it out of grabbing distance.
Violet
@Knight of Nothing: I see what you’re saying and I also understand the “rare” point of view. I guess I think there’s merit in both. Hard for me to say which is the better path.
Ajabu
46 years ago (while in college) my then girlfriend became pregnant while back alley and coat hangars were still the national standard. I had the good fortune of knowing someone whose mother was an M.D. and who hooked me up with an elderly physician in a state three away from us who performed abortions as a moral choice – though quite illegally.
The experience was a nightmare. Not the procedure, that was the easy part. It was the cryptic notes back & forth, the rush to fly there last minute and the weird experience of being a Black couple in a lily white small town (where all the residents clearly knew why we were there.) There was an Asian couple there at the same time and we bonded.
I called my girlfriend’s mother from the airport and told her “I’m bringing you back a carefree college girl.” I remained her hero until the day she died.
The girl and I never married (although our relationship continued on & off for more than 20 years and we never discussed that experience until 1986) but my tribute was to act as a conduit for other young women in that situation until Roe v Wade became reality.
Thank you Dr. Robert Spencer!! If there’s a heaven you’re definitely in it.
Violet
@Tommy: Glad you grew up in that kind of family. Not everyone does. Making sure kids understand basic biological functions should be a part of everyday education. And I think it should go further. Educating girls on how their bodies work–what ovulation is, what hormone levels are, what tests to get when. Same with boys–how to self-inspect for testicular cancer is just as much a health issue as sex. Teach all of it in a comprehensive health and biology class.
Another Holocene Human
@Knight of Nothing:
See, it’s worse than that. Pregnancy is so risky, so demanding, that you’re asking a hell of a lot more than just the burden of having something running around with your DNA (which you must pay for, if not care for, for 18 years). Women can literally die for want of appropriate reproductive care. Young teenagers forced to bear a pregnancy to term too early can develop fistulas, give birth prematurely, die in childbirth, or lose their fertility, depending on the level of medical care. #2 is most common in the US (at great expense to the rest of society, but hey, beats #1, which is very common in Africa for child brides).
There’s a weird thing that can happen when a miscarriage is not passed… Of course, the woman could just die of sepsis. But there are also several cases of the woman’s body calcifying the fetus. Of course, no more children for her.
It’s just like with the birth control pills that save your fertility. These asshats want you to lose your fertility. Or they want to believe their little fluffy bunny fantasies and just stick their fingers in their ears and sing lalala. And then they lie to the next generation to trick them into joining their evil crusade.
Another Holocene Human
@Violet: OT, that sounds kind of awesome. I sometimes chew xylitol gum for the same effect, never thought about it in sinuses but, yeah.
That’s why people with IBS have to avoid the -ols–their guts are full of bad bac and sugar alcohols cause massive die-offs resulting in “fecal urgency”. Or so I’ve heard.
Another Holocene Human
@Elizabelle: Women don’t want to put their child up for adoption because of stigma. They don’t want to put up their child for adoption because of natural economy. Granted, concepts like that are beyond bible thumpers, but even they can understand the notion of the babe ripped from the breast.
This is why these goons try to get women to stay in their facilities so when the woman gives birth they can grab the baby away when she’s weak and disoriented and has no family members (or the baby’s father or his family members) to stop them.
They do it in the US, they do it in Africa. It’s forced imprisonment and child snatching. In the US they “pay” Native American women small amounts of cash to steal their babies (again, at these away facilities) then run the adoptions through the racist and lax South Carolina courts. In Nigeria so-called Christians lure pregnant women into “charity” facilities and then imprison them in order to steal their babies.
MikeJ
@Another Holocene Human:
Just last week I got into an argument with an idiot on imgur about just this. He was trying to argue that men die younger than women because they take all the dangerous jobs, I then pointed out that childbirth is more dangerous than every job except commercial fishing, which ties it. When then got into one of those back and forths where for every comment I left, he replied with two. Eventually I got sick of him and stopped responding so I’m sure he thinks he won.
I got bored before I even got to the point of arguing that men take all the dangerous jobs because men specifically prohibited women from taking them.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The Cooch gave McDonnell a lot of political cover. He could then position himself as the reasonable one. He also passed a transportation package–that sucked, but that accomplished a lot of things–Virginia will be getting more intercity rail service as a result. To VA voters he didn’t represent the obstruction and burn-the-house-down attitudes of the Tea Parties in Congress. If not for the bribery scandal there would probably be another R in the gov mansion right now.
Botsplainer
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/kevin-oleary-oxfam-poverty-fantastic
Rob in CT
@FoxinSocks:
You gotta be kidding me. How can that actually have happened?
Another Holocene Human
@FoxinSocks: I will never understand these people. How can these hypocrites not grasp what side their own bread is buttered on? Even when I was a Catholic I counted myself lucky to be in a pro-abortion state because options–for everyone–were always open.
If your religious choices aren’t choices but imposed, you have made no act of faith but rather an act of self-preservation… right?
Even the Inquisition suspected as much, which is why the morenos fled the Continent in great numbers.
Belafon
@MikeJ: Someone needs to give a speech chastising the quarter of the women there who are in their period: They should be in a shed.
They do this stuff because they can’t see any way it will cost them. Everyone who needs an abortion must be a slut.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@FoxinSocks: If anyone remembers Susan Carpenter-MacMillan the Loni ANderson-Gabor sister wannabe who latched on to Paula Jones so she could get herself on TV back in the day, her background (after being born to and marrying money) was as a “pro-life” activist. She had a story about having had an abortion in college left her wracked with guilt and regret. Then it came out that she had had an abortion in her late thirties, in the middle of her activist period. She explained, and I’m sure believed with all her heart and Jesus-lovin’ soul, that the second abortion was a “therapeutic miscarriage”.
eemom
@Elizabelle:
“Is it wrong for me to be gleeful that this year’s march falls on the coldest day in DC in 30 years? Brilliant blue sky, white snowscape, 12 degrees in the sun.”
heh….been thinking the same exact thing, minus the “is it wrong” part. I’m fucking ecstatic about it.
Knight of Nothing
@Another Holocene Human: I agree, and I would never argue otherwise: pregnancy is risky! I will point out, however, that 40 weeks seems small weighed against a lifetime of parenthood – I know from experience that parenting doesn’t end at 18. My aunt is a home-birth midwife, and to calm the fears generated by our hypochondriac society, she says this to women: “if you did nothing to take care of yourself, the most likely result is that you will have a healthy baby in 9 months.” We need to remember that childbirth is a natural process, and in spite of risks and complications, it is still normal and natural.
My point is that we always frame abortion as a moral choice, and I’d like to move past that. Abortion is a complex and difficult decision for an individual. But keeping the focus on the debate at that level (“abortion: right or wrong?”) ignores the more relevant “moral” question – whether a person should be forced to risk her health and future to soothe the the feelings of people who are against it and have no stake in her outcome.
Violet
@eemom: I just saw a photo of them there. Looks miserable. Not crying over that.
Another Holocene Human
@MikeJ: How about the fact you’re more likely to die in a car crash in the US than in an industrial accident? And who leads for crashes? Well, besides the over-70 set, 16 year old males in a car with other teenage males are most likely to not wear seatbelts and get in a crash. (This is why NYS doesn’t let you behind the wheel until you’re 18.) I’d like to see the MRA argument for how feminists and their shriveled vaginas are responsible for those little statistics.
More than likely, someone will argue that seatbelts are a nanny-state innovation that emasculates society. Thus, dying in stupid ways is just a sign of a male’s vertu, and hardly an imposition by smothering apron strings–the opposite.
MRAs are so confused.
Elizabeth
Re the sinus-Neti pot thing:
There are different ways to use the neti pot, and I find the ‘pour through’ typical way just doesn’t cut it when everything is blocked up. There is another technique that really gets up in the sinuses. See the #2 technique in this Youtube vid: watch-video/how-to-use-a-neti-pot-a-cleansing-technique-for-the-upper-respiratory-system/aQzlJU5RMMgzfH7KwZDCLA
I take that technique further, and draw up and hold plenty of warm water in my sinuses on each side alternately for as long as possible several times, then expelling everything out of my mouth as shown in the video. It has loosened amazing amounts of infected yuck at times. Yeah, gross, but grosser having all that stuff going down your throat later! This really works for me, ymmv. I also brush my teeth and use mouthwash afterwards. I’ll have to try the Xylitol neti solution; it sounds like an improvement!
Steroids and I don’t mix, although the nasal sprays are my last resort. However, there is an antihistimine spray, active ingredient Fluticasone Propionate, that works even better for me. Makes me sleepy, but can’t be beat before bedtime, or if I’m super-miserable anyway.
So, I take sinus probs seriously, and hope everyone gets back to health soon finding the solutions that work well for them.
FoxinSocks
@Rob in CT:
I swear upon His Noodly Appendage that I am speaking the truth. The only explanation I can offer is that my sister, who I care for very much and who I wish got her life together, is one of those people who is never to blame for anything. She flits through life, lurching from one disaster to the next, always the victim. She constantly bemoans the fact that people let her down. I guess with that attitude, you can be as hypocritical as you want.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
This is why even when I was religious I was still a secularist and considered it theologically unsound to be anything else. Forcing people to be religious in public doesn’t make them religious in private, and “in private” is the part that’s supposed to matter to the powers-that-be.
You would think the people who squeal “charity is better than welfare because charity is voluntary and comes from the heart!” would be able to process this, but apparently not.
Elizabelle
@Violet:
@eemom:
That warms my heart!
Another Holocene Human
@Knight of Nothing: I don’t think we disagree. Pregnancy and birth are risky. Pregnancy even when it goes well robs the woman’s body of resources. (Hence the natural economy argument.) I think there’s also a tendency to fall into naturalistic fallacy here. Humans, like many large mammals, have trouble giving birth and there’s nothing best of all possible worlds about it.
Past the natural economy issues you have societal issues. Like the fact that children of a young mother who has not completed her education and has no job are likely to have behavioral and academic issue and poor life outcomes compared to children of the same mother once she has completed her educated and has a decent job. So you have the moral issue of what kind of life you give to your children. For years young women were gulled into making a poor choice by the forced birth movement romanticizing motherhood and childrearing (and, as I said, scoring an own-goal by destigmatizing keeping the baby–people don’t realize how active the adoption factories once were). Research has just been released showing that the MTV show 16 and Pregnant, which showed the unvarnished hardships of young motherhood, has been responsible for 1/3 of the decrease in teenage birthrates since it came out. (The researchers attribute the rest to an existing secular decline and the recession since 2008).
These are real moral issues as well. That is why pro-choice activists talk about how “pro-lifers” only care about a “baby” until it is born.
These are moral but they are also economic issues, and the fanatics have a perceived gain by pursuing their fanaticism.
lurker dean
@charluckles: just watch those baby bulb syringes, apparently they can get moldy, even when regularly cleaned. i always wondered about this.
http://thestir.cafemom.com/baby/149964/treating_babys_stuffy_nose_how
Villago Delenda Est
@revrick:
Women who have agency are sluts.
Sluts must be punished.
I think this covers it all.
charluckles
@lurker dean:
Absolutely agree with that. I get them replaced often. But the best thing now is that my local store carries one from the American Red Cross that allows you to take the back end off and give it a good cleaning.
Villago Delenda Est
@Chris:
This is, if the sacred book of the “Christians” is to be taken literally, a direct hint from the Son of God Himself that you should shut the fuck up in public about it.
But then again, they ignore their own sacred book when it gets in the way of their malicious mendacity, so there you go.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet:
Perhaps their invisible sky buddy is trying to tell them something?
Nah. Can’t be that…
SiubhanDuinne
@raven: Why can’t they both be hustles?
Villago Delenda Est
@Elizabelle:
It never was about the babies.
Ever.
It’s about punishing the sluts.
Always.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh I am with you. But kind of nice not to slam folks that believe in religion. This is there thing I have. I hope folks respect I don’t believe in god. And therefore I will let others think as they want.
Tommy
@Villago Delenda Est: Yes it is. How about a women that enjoys sex. That might masturbate. Called a slut. Well in many circles they are and that is just wrong. I could rant on this topic for hours, but I won’t.
Knight of Nothing
@Villago Delenda Est: this is, in a nutshell, why the “rare” part of “safe, legal, and rare” bothers me. If abortion opponents wanted abortions to be “rare,” it would already be done – it is a modest goal that could be accomplished in a few years. Heck, abortion already is relatively rare. (As someone else noted, MTV inadvertently contributed to this goal with a exploitative but nevertheless educational show about the stark and unglamorous reality of teen motherhood.)
Since their goal is actually control and punishment of women, continually pressing the “rare” part of the equation seems like wasted effort.
Mnemosyne
@Knight of Nothing:
“Rare” is the construction that works on the general public, not the committed forced birthers. It assures middle-aged moms that people won’t be running around willy-nilly getting “abortions as birth control” or whatever the current scare phrase is.
It’s never going to win over the committed forced birthers, but it’s not meant to. It’s meant to weaken soft support from people who like to think of themselves as “pro-life” but aren’t on board with the anti-contraception agenda.
Knight of Nothing
@Mnemosyne: I get what you’re saying, but I think trying to weaken “soft support” at this stage is poor strategy. Moderate/centrist rhetoric hasn’t been moving the debate in our favor, and meanwhile the “forced-birthers” are as close as ever to realizing their goals.
Let me see if I can express what I’m trying to say with a parallel analogy: “biopsies should be safe, legal, and rare.” Actually, no: I want biopsies to be safe and legal and as frequent as they need to be. One may hope that they would be infrequent, but if they are frequent, that probably signals a different and bigger problem. Either way, that should have zero impact on the “safe” and “legal” part. Safe and legal are necessarily linked, but “rare” is a preference that seems to be based upon a vague moral distaste for the procedure.
I think that in our current anti-abortion climate, the “rare” part of the phrase not only perpetuates the “for me but not thee” attitude that some anti-abortion women have about abortion (again, I refer to the essay to which mistermix linked), but it also unfairly stigmatizes and shames other women facing such a decision.