Comments on: Killer Law

By: The Mahablog » The Parameters of Religion

The Mahablog » The Parameters of Religion — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 03:27:29 +0000

[...] But the results of the criminalization of abortion are not so beneficial. Those pushing for criminalization manufacture civil reasons, such as claims that abortion causes breast cancer (it doesn’t). They imagine that women suffer emotional damage after abortion, a condition they call Post-Abortion Syndrome that, by any objective measure, does not exist. Yet I have no doubt most of the criminalizers sincerely believe they are doing God’s will. This is fanaticism, pure and simple, not religion (click here for an explanation of the difference). [...]

By: The Mahablog » Boxes

The Mahablog » Boxes — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 15:13:53 +0000

[...] You can find high-flown absolutist rhetoric declaring that even a zygote has rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That may sound glorious and all, but in real life an absolute “protection” of “human life” from conception requires stripping fertile women of their rights to liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and in extreme cases their rights to life, also. There are copious real-world examples of women living under draconian abortion laws who die gruesome deaths because of those laws. Clearly, such laws value the lives and humanity of women less than the lives and humanity of embryos. Women in these countries often go without medical help after a miscarriage because they fear persecution by the Womb Nazis. This is nothing other than political oppression. [...]

By: The Mahablog » Free to Be

The Mahablog » Free to Be — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 20:42:12 +0000

[...] In the real world, life doesn’t sort itself into a series of neat binary choices — good/bad, black/white, right/wrong. We humans are messy and complicated creatures, and we exist within complex webs of relationships and responsibilities that affect our personal and “moral” decisions in countless ways. I think most people understand that, which is why many Americans who consider abortion to be “morally wrong” are still reluctant to criminalize it. We need only to look at the real-world consequences of criminalizing abortion to see the harm caused by shoving abortion underground. [...]

By: Ashley

Ashley — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:17:44 +0000

“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament”
That is a very correct point. It has nothing to do with male bashing. Also, men on this thread, when we say “men”, we are generally referring to the men of the religious right who are anti abortion. Also, the idea that pro-life is a way of controlling women is correct. Consider the ten commandments: do not commit adultery. With men in religions, this doesn’t seem to apply. With women however, it is fiercely enforced. This is to keep women in their place, which is what religion has been all about from the get go. Also, the other reason for pro life is the idea that fetuses, or a group of cells even, has souls at conception. What a load of tosh! If that were true, then God aborts fetuses ALL THE TIME. women have natural miscarriages without even knowing it a lot of the time. Sometimes they think their periods are a little strange, that’s it. It all comes down to science. Is a clump of cells worth more than a full grown person’s life(who’s had experiences, loves, etc)? And just forgetting the ‘life’ argument for a second, forcing a young teen to have a child, knowing it will ruin her future, possibly put her into poverty(no career b/c no college b/c child burdened), and will ruin the child’s future as well. Funny how we won’t flinch at slaughtering cows, sheep, and other animals for food or fur, who have more self-awareness than any fetus, but we cry at a group of cells.

By: blue

blue — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 20:24:25 +0000

This is yet another example of how unborn humans are somehow more valuable than living humans. Once these children are born, they can beg in the street for food. Let them starve to death or die from untreated medical conditions. But don’t you consider having an abortion to save your own life.

How do these people justify this. Such a world.

By: maha

maha — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:49:48 +0000

Gary — Steinem was a Playboy Bunny before she was a Ms., but I think the CIA accusation was bogus. I am a veteran of second-wave feminism and assure you that Steinem represented real, mainstream feminism, and spoke for many of us. The Redstockings, the group that came up with the CIA charge, were a pack of radical Marxist homophobes that I did not choose to associate with.

The quote “If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament” didn’t come from Gloria Steinem, but from Florynce Kennedy.

By: Gary

Gary — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 09:57:05 +0000

I support absolute personal choice, not some political hack choosing for anyone something so personal. Anti-Abortion is a police state intrusion INSIDE the bodies of women. (Drug laws too.)

That’s my position.

The reason Gloria Steinem came out with DIVISIVE and insulting messages — pro-women via anti-men — is she was CIA before she was Ms.
Look it up.
She got outed as CIA by a real feminist group, while WaPo’s Katherine Graham (also CIA) tried to cover it up. Steinem finally had to admit and minimize.

By: dr. luba

dr. luba — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 23:52:22 +0000

KingCranky,

You sum up quite well what I’ve been trying to figure out how to say to the now-banned Rant93, who had his panties in a bunch over how mean we were being to men.

A corollary to the abortion situation is the different approaches the insurance industry has taken to coverage of medications for men and women.

Birth control pills have only rarely been covered by insurance plans. I used to work for one of the few HMOs that did cover them; I would save my samples for those non-HMO patients that came to our practice, mostly teens, blue collar workers and college students, who couldn’t otherwise afford them. BCPs were, then, about 25-35 dollars a pack. Even if I put a patient on the pills for a non-contraceptive reason (painful periods or heavy menstrual bleeding), it was nearly impossible to get most insurance companies to cover them as they would any other medication.

Fast forward to the introduction of Viagra, a pill whose only function is sexual. The insurance company executives fell over each other approving coverage by their drug plans. And they still cover them.

BCPS are now covered by more plans, but ONLY because female legislators in some states got laws passed demanding pharmaceutical parity. Rather than save money by not covering ED meds, the (largely male) insurance company executives grudgingly agreed to cover BCPs.

Because hard-ons are sacred, I can only assume……

By: Amen

Amen — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:42:36 +0000

Comment #40, hit the nail on the proverbial head, it is about pro-choice although i would add with one condition the ’secularity’ of the State.

Pro-choice occurs in reference with the State as the embodiment of legislation. Nicaragua has shown clearly that the ’secular’ has been diminished for a more of a theocracy. The Catholic Church is the power behind the State, much as many describe Islam or Sharia Law to be behind much of the rights of Women in say Iran.

Those living in truly secular societies can have the debate between pro-life and abortion, yet those living in States where the regulations of the State superimposes itself on the individual regardless of the context do not have the same rights. In this case its religion as throughout much of history it has been, and todays it brings out it ugly head.

It is not to say that the ‘church’ is wrong or is to blame, or a ‘church’ can’t have a debate upon abortion and pro-life, yet the dogmatic teachings of dogmatic faiths that outrightly reject ‘philosophy’, means that you have no pro-choice, and hence one must accept the consequences of the ‘unfortunate’ reality they have been born in i.e. the State.

By: KingCranky

KingCranky — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 20:05:39 +0000

If it was us guys who could get pregnant, there’d be no problems with abortions in the least, we’d get paid time off and paid counseling to deal with any emotional after effects we might have

By telling women what they may or may not do with their own bodies, us males open the door for such behavior directed at ourselves, and I refuse to allow that to happen if I’m able to argue and vent about it

And sticking up for always medically necessary late-term abortions is my line in the sand, and it’s one area in which us liberals should look to Slick Clinton, as he vetoed this kind of legislation on three separate occasions

I will always support the women who are here now, this is not some kind of theoretical or game, the women who die because of botched abortions, or in a medically risky delivery, count as much as any of us do, their lives matter every damn bit as much as ours do

This is really a simple matter of human dignity and autonomy

Don’t like abortions, don’t have one, and don’t tell others they can’t either

End of story