You’re Right — It *Was* a “Monstrous Decision”
For an object lesson about why it infuriates me when the Dana Milbanks of the world assume that the forced pregnancy lobby has some sort of monopoly on assessing morality, see here. Forcing your mentally disabled daughter to bear her rapist’s child without her input (let alone consent,) based on utter nonsense about Plan B being an abortifacient. And then bragging about it! This isn’t some great act of moral conscience; it’s an act of barbarism.
I think the presidential suite in Hell is now officially reserved.
I certainly hope child abuse charges have been filed as well.
What’s the odds the writer supports the death penalty? I’m saying 80-20 for.
There’s a creepy focus on the innocence of her daughter’s hypothetical child, juxtaposed with a very creepy comment equating her daughter’s birth mother (who was a sex worker) with her daughter’s rapist … so, yeah.
Since she sites as justification the USCCB, I’d be happy to take those odds.
In any case, as only the Catholics are wholly consistent on this issue, I’d have to ask: aren’t fetuses and vicious, violent felons who received due process of law morally different in a number of interesting and relevant ways?
And aren’t women who would be forced to bring an unwanted pregnancy to term the equivalent of . . . wait, there isn’t anyone like that in the death penalty, is there?
Just because Catholic sexual morality is simple doesn’t mean the world is.
Question well begged.
No, no, the question is raised.
No, actually, the question is simpered.
No, actually, you did beg the question in the proper sense. Sorry!
How so?
Begging the question (or petitio principii, “assuming the initial point”) is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.
You assume that there is a category of persons safely identifiable as “violent felons” who have received due process. Considering what we know about wrongful convictions, that is not actually a safe assumption.
Unless you’re saying that no one on death row could ever receive due process, that the death penalty is incompatible with due process, I don’t see how that works. I’m not assuming that anyone in particular received due process, or that being on death row is somehow indicative of due process, just that there is a case to be made that if due process was in fact delivered that the death penalty could be possibly be justified.
Catholic teaching argue that the death penalty is never justified, due process or not.
I’m not assuming that anyone in particular received due process, or that being on death row is somehow indicative of due process…
Oh, as you are talking about the Platonic Ideal of Violent Felon. Why not just use Hitler as your archetype then? Does that make this too self-evidently silly?
If the daughter is severely mentally disabled then I’m not sure how her input or consent is relevant. I can’t think of any issue of this magnitude where one would ask a 8 to 10 year old for her input or consent.
I hope your 9-year-old daughter never gets pregnant.
Actually, I hope you never have kids.
You know, a twelve year old who functions at the level of an 8-10 year old isn’t all that disabled. I can’t imagine making this kind of decision for any of our kids (5, 8, 11, and 12) without asking them.
That depends. “Functions on the level of…” is a poor metric. Mental disabilities can be very severe in one area and less so in others. If she has reasoning skills significantly superior to her communication skills, she might not be able to be made to understand her condition in time for the EBC to be effective. I think this matter is genuinely in doubt.
I still think the mother is a monster. She placed her own selfish desires above her daughter’s welfare.
Having read other bits, it looks like this is not the case. She probably does have the capacity to understand.
Good thing you don’t work in children’s health for a living.
Hopefully he never allowed anywhere near children.
Really? I can: whether or not she is going to risk her health and life undergoing a pregnancy and giving birth. See, that wasn’t hard.
It is not hard if you have a brain and a moral compass. Since Fritz has neither, it may be near impossible for him.
I hope this story isn’t true, and there’s enough fishy about it to make one skeptical about the details. It seems the mother is the Media Logistics Coordinator for the Acton Institute, which is an orthodox religious and über-libertarian think tank funded by the likes of the Koch, Bradley and Exxon-Mobil foundations, and opposed to Health Care Reform, global warming, and so on. The fact that she would publicly out her daughter as a rape victim is pretty grim, and specifics like “the Gloria Steinem Conference Room” certainly make me question whether the story is as she describes it. It would be horrific fiction as is, but if it’s true then my sympathies go to her daughter, for her terrible experience and for having such a small-minded, rigidly ideological adoptive parent.
Something sounds off about this story, as reported. For example, you don’t first do a rape kit (a fairly lengthy, involved, forensic exam), especially in a random clinic outside a hospital, and then refer the patient to the ER to treat severe injuries.
Yep sounds like a fake.
Or at least I will sleep better tonight believing that to be the case.
I absolutely believe an anti-choicer could and would do this, if s/he could get away with it.
But indeed this story sounds extremely fake. The health-care workers handed Mom a box of Plan B and vanished in a puff of smoke, did they?
“Pro-Choice” means allowing individuals to make a choice and this girl’s guardian is the decision-maker since she is not a legal competent.
A choice was made. You just don’t like the choice.
No, pro-choice means you get to make choices about your own body. The mother made a choice about her daughter’s body, and it is her daughter who will have to live with the consequences.
No, what we don’t like is making a medical decision based on lies, trickery and/or ignorance* (never heard of Ms. Hilton, so can’t tell which is which).
*Hilton says her daughter understands what happened and is glad she did not take the pill. “I said, ‘That kind of medication makes you have an abortion if you’re pregnant.’ And she said, ‘Oh, it would kill the baby. Oh, then I’m glad you didn’t give it to me.’”
And since we’re on the subject:
The drug [Plan B], also known as the morning-after pill, is used nearly universally in North America for rape victims, even in Christian hospitals. The aim is to prevent a pregnancy by blocking the rapist’s sperm from reaching the victim’s ovum. But numerous studies have found that the drug also acts as an abortifacient – it can kill the newly conceived zygote by preventing him or her from implanting in the mother’s womb.
1) Plan B has no effect on a pregnancy.
2) Blocking fertilization is not Plan B’s mechanism of action.
3) There is not one single, solitary study with that finding. It’s a silly lie. The majority of fertilized eggs do not implant and there is no way to differentiate.
So the story is fake?
Hoping that there truly are limits to one’s brutal stupidity.
Indeed. The morning after pill works exclusively by preventing ovulation. It does not prevent implantation nor cause an implanted pregnancy to abort. There is speculation that regular use of birth control pills might reduce the chances of implantation in some of the rare cases where it fails to inhibit ovulation, but the mechanism by which this is speculated to happen–thinning the lining of the uterus making implantation more difficult–doesn’t apply to Plan B.
If preventing ovulation is an abortion then so is preventing the release of semen into a woman’s reproductive tract. The wackadoodles against Plan B are in effect arguing that women are morally obligated to allow themselves to be raped.
I like how the daughter can’t be allowed to have an opinion, until she (supposedly) says she doesn’t want to kill “the baby”, then her opinion is holy writ.
Talk about claiming a monopoly on assessing morality–note her claim about the immorality of abortion–”every genuinely honest person on the face of the earth knows it“.
She’s on to something. For instance, President Clinton desired abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. Why else the emphasis on rare?
No one who isn’t a moral monster thinks abortion is a good thing. The question for the pro-choice crowd is whether it’s less bad than the alternatives.
I am completely fine with abortion. Call me a moral monster if you want, I really don’t care.
Imagine this horrific scenario: a woman got pregnant purposefully in order to have an abortion for its own sake. Aside from any legal question, wouldn’t that kind of behavior strike you as morally questionable? Maybe I’m begging the question, but it strikes me that this would be some female equivalent of bugchasing. Wouldn’t that be a problem?
Imagine this scenario–an alien comes down from Mars right now, discovers how tasty Chicken McNuggets are at McDonald’s, takes a bunch of chickens back to Mars, and Martians start eating chicken.
This scenario and your scenario are equally likely.
Now, do you blow up Mars, or do you speculate as to whether the chickens wanted it or not, what was their frame of mind at the time of the abduction, how many times had they been abducted previously and did they use any protection during said abductions, and are they likely to experiences fits of hysteria on account of their subnormal nether bits
brains?If those chickens weren’t sluts, they wouldn’t have deserved to be blown up.
I’d call that a win-win.
Is it unlikely because abortion is at root morally problematic and you can’t imagine someone acting that obviously evil manner?
No, it’s unlikely because people don’t act that way. And let’s say your the scenario your twisted misogynist brain came up with actually came to light, the woman might need mental help for putting herself through medical procedures unnecessarily. But I really don’t care if she wants to have an abortion for the hell of it. Go for it.
For thirty odd years we’ve had cranks bewailing the proclivity of young, immoral strumpets (read: poor women, WoC) for using abortion as birth control, when: surprise! That’s what abortion is, that’s what it does. How can one rail senselessly against the outcome of a procedure when the procedure was designed to produce that very outcome?
If there were a cheap, safe, reliable, and legal abortifacient in convenient one-dose pill-form available, would anyone want to put up with the hassle (the physical invasion of it, the arch questions, angry spittle-laden dudes throwing shit at you as you enter and exit the building) of an abortion? Would anyone use contraceptives (excluding barrier methods that protect against the transmission of diseases), for that matter?
That might give misogynist slut-shamers the shivers, but I quite fancy that brave new world.
This.
Fritz compares it to bugchasing. But we don’t make medical policy based on the idea that there might, somewhere, be a tiny number of crazy individuals who will misuse it. When they invented the hypodermic needle people didn’t worry that people would use to inject smack, they hailed it as a medical breakthrough of immense benefit.
If Fritz’ imaginary insane girlfriend wants an abortion in that situation, then for fucks sake, she should get one, because Cthulhu help any child born to that person.
But the scenario tells us far more about how Fritz views female sexuality than it tells us about abortion.
You left out the part where the chickens give the Martians chickenpox, because Martians, like Fritz’ imaginary female, like “bugchasing,”, leaving Mars with no chicken predators, and Mars becomes populated by a race of intelligent super-chickens, who then, in an act of cosmic irony, come to earth specifically to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions.
What about that, libtard?
From what I remember of my philosophy classes in college plausibility wasn’t always salient. For instance I remember plenty of talk about brains-in-vats, evil demons, donkeys between two bails of hay, men who didn’t know who their parents and siblings were and were told that they were made of Gold, Silver, and Bronze, other men who lived their wholes lives chained up in caves watching puppet shows, and Achilles racing tortoises.
I can’t say that I’m particularly bothered that you don’t find my example plausible.
For instance I remember plenty of talk about brains-in-vats, evil demons, donkeys between two bails of hay, men who didn’t know who their parents and siblings were and were told that they were made of Gold, Silver, and Bronze, other men who lived their wholes lives chained up in caves watching puppet shows, and Achilles racing tortoises.
I do hope you remember the etymology of the word “sophomore,” as it really applies here.
What Erik said.
To follow your analogy, this is like saying that we shouldn’t allow adults to decide when and whether they have sex because they might have it for the wrong reasons.
See?
Even given an example of something that does happen, ever, unlike abortions for fun, all you get is fascism.
Because he was pandering to a crowd that incorrectly believes abortion involves precious, precious babbies?
Abortion, spontaneous or willful, is not a moral issue. It’s no different than taking a dump. Count me as one of your “monsters” because I’m not pro-choice, I’m pro-abortion, I’m for abortion whenever a woman wants one and for any good reason. It ought to be rare only because women ought already to have full and unimpeded access to all safe contraceptives, anyway, and, in a different world, wouldn’t be, simply by virtue of being women, likely to be raped, assaulted, or otherwise molested in their lifetimes.
This.
My only problem with abortion that it can be harder on a woman’s body than other forms of birth control. Thus it may not be as ideal as other forms of birth control. Otherwise, go for it.
If an abortion is not morally significant, why limit it to any “good” reason? It would seem to me that any reason, or no reason at all, would be permissible if you were to be consistent in your standard.
If you’re truly pro-abortion, then it seems that you might be holding abortion to be a good. If it’s a good, is there any circumstance where one could be forced to have an abortion?
“It would seem to me that any reason, or no reason at all, would be permissible if you were to be consistent in your standard.”
Sounds good to me.
Of course your next sentence about people being forced to have an abortion is idiotic.
Everything he has said in this thread is idiotic and morally repugnant. I did not think it was possible have a lower opinion of Fritz, but I was very, very wrong. He is simply a moral monster.
All reasons are good reasons. Of course.
A pro-abortion stance is not because I just love the idea of putting women through potentially traumatic, physically painful, humiliating, and time-consuming procedures. (Yes, abortions are often shit and we have them after long considerations, and it’s nobody’s business the whys and wherefores.) It’s because I respect everyone’s right to full bodily autonomy. So, no, of course I don’t advocate forcing women to have abortions. What a silly waste of time you are, with your hypotheticals.
Women: their lives are not just fodder for your armchair devil’s advocacy, fucker.
Sorry, but I have to disagree: Everyone’s lives are fodder for my armchair devil’s advocacy.
If you’re truly pro-abortion, then it seems that you might be holding abortion to be a good.
Abortion, like ibuprofen, hammers, and the Funky Chicken, is a tool to implemented under appropriate circumstances. It is possible to believe that a tool is used less frequently than necessary (spellcheck) and that it is used badly (spellcheck) without believing that the tool is either good or bad in itself.
I’d say, it’s as morally significant as the people considering one makes it. That’s up to her or them, just like the decision to try to carry a kid to term or not should be.
Even if I think the hypothetical woman is being irresponsible, that doesn’t effect whether I think abortions should be legal or not. I think a lot of people are irresponsible when they decide to have children, but I’m not a moral monster, so I don’t want a two-child policy enforced at the point of a gun.
No one who isn’t a moral monster thinks a safe and effective medical procedure that significantly reduces the patients morbidity and mortality is a good thing? May I have the name of your planet?
This. 1000 x this.
I think chemotherapy should be safe, legal, and rare.
Clearly this means I think it is at root morally problematic, and only endorse it as a lesser evil.
Snark aside, I do not think I am alone in thinking that abortion should be rare because if it happens, it means someone got pregnant who doesn’t want to be pregnant. That is not a good thing! It means you either need to produce an unwanted child or undergo an invasive medical procedure! Why the hell wouldn’t I want that to be rare?
Certainly the state doesn’t have a moral interest in protecting cancerous tumors in the same way as prenatal life. Indeed, isn’t there an important moral distinction?
For instance, if someone refused chemotherapy in order to “protect” the cancer, or talked about the cancer’s right to life, wouldn’t we regard them as deranged? But, if a woman loses her pregnancy, talks about the life of her baby, etc…, we feel bad, we express regret.
Root canals should also be safe, legal and rare. That is because root canals suck, cost a lot of money, and can often be prevented, not because they kill an innocent life.
Heart surgery should be safe legal and rare. Do we exercise and eat right because it’s immoral to cut into the heart?
President Clinton desired abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. Why else the emphasis on rare?
You remember his words, but you forget his program, which was essentially to make abortion rare by educating people about sex and birth control, and making contraception more available. This, of course, is intolerable to the antichoice crowd, because they don’t want birth control, either.
This, of course, brings us back to the linked article. Notice how she’s framed the issue as abortion (successfully, too–look what we’re talking about), but it’s not about that at all–it’s about birth control.
Precisely. The anti-abortion, anti-woman set wants, through sheer voluminous whinging and countless fantasies like the story above, to elide the distinction between contraception and abortifacients in order to muster up support for legislation against both (or “allow individual states to decide”).
So a world with more birth control and less abortion is a better world? Would a world with perfect access to birth control and no abortion at all be the best possible world?
Would a world with perfect access to birth control and no abortion at all be the best possible world?
We would still need ponies for everyone, plus the Twilight series to be un-written.
In a world with perfect access to birth control (access which, in this world, anti-choicers work to restrict rather than expand) that birth control would still fail. Real people would still fail to plan. Women will, sadly, still get raped.
Better best possible worlds, please. Failing that, a world where people don’t get all worked up by what ladies do with their lady bits.
Would a world with … no abortion at all be the best possible world?
No, because it would mean women have been wiped out of existence.
No really. Go ahead and rape my daughters! I really need some blastocysts to protect!
C’mon, Lot. Just be a good dad and do it yourself, don’t let outsiders interfere with the morals of your family.
If you read the passages in question, you will see that Lot’s daughters raped him, not the other way around. I find the pillar of salt business a bit more believable.
Probably they were overexcited by his offers to let the rioting townsfolk rape them the day before, and just would not quit whining about it. You know how kids are.
This whole “morally”-based objection to access to abortion, contraceptives, and full reproductive healthcare (tube-tying on demand and all) is a red herring. Nobody honestly gives a shit about The Innocent Baybies or human life [sic] or the inherent goodness or badness of these things themselves, given that if cis-dudes got pregnant this wouldn’t be an issue at all; this is about policing women’s behavior and ensuring, through terrorist-style tactics, that they’re kept inexperienced, obedient, and fearful “virgins” who are not allowed to enjoy and experience sex the way men do (for pleasure and for recreation). If every time you fuck or are raped, you risk being exposed to a disease or risk becoming pregnant, thereby ensuring that the state will force you to gestate and carry the subsequent zygote and fetus to term (risking injury and death in the process), you are not going to fuck very often or you are going to have to acquire blackmarket contraceptives or back-alley procedures in order to deal with the consequences, especially so if you’re not the governor’s daughter / wife / property.
That‘s the moral issue at hand: are women human and do their desires, hopes, and wishes matter very much?
While I agree with you on an institutional level, I think you’re wrong when it comes to individuals. It’s true that these cultural beliefs are for the control of women rather than the protection of babies, that doesn’t mean that there are not true-believers. The effectiveness of these cultural beliefs lies in their effectiveness at creating true believers.
I think you get the full range, from true believers who genuinely care about other people’s babies after they’re born, to the cognitively dissonant, to hypocrites, to those who lie and manipulate for selfish gain.
Maybe. But, if you’ve ever interrogated one of these self-professed baby-lovers as to the foundation of their beliefs, they’ll reiterate the same old slut-shaming cliches–”if you want to play, you have to play”–and so on. They see nothing wrong in the detrimental physical and socio-economic repercussions felt by women forced to bear children when they don’t want to and/or can’t afford to, and felt by women as whole irrespective of their status as childfree or as mothers. Of course, that women are born, in this culture, second-class citizens to begin with is not offensive to them, because: Eve.
Misogyny works at both the individual and institutional level very well in this country. The sincerity of an individual’s misogyny is not relevant to the discussion.
Nobody honestly gives a shit about The Innocent Baybies
Here in California we are forced to pay for poor kids’ preventive care through money obtained in the tobacco settlement more than a decade ago…and that money is running out. When the Legislature started casting about for new funding streams, it was the “pro-life” crowd in the Assembly that stalled the process.
The anti-abortion crowd has had decades to demonstrate their concern for the already-born and they have repeatedly and consistently failed to do so.
If the government would get out of the charity business there would be a blossoming of good-will toward one’s fellow man, and charity would flow freely like a stream of bullshit from a right-wing politician’s mouth.
Life begins at conception and ends at birth.
Exactly!
and then the unperson is brought back into being if the power of the state is necessary to ensure that they are kept on life support for decades against their wishes
So that’s why the ostensible fetus worshipers push free prenatal care for all. Oh, wait . . .
Punishing a woman for having sex begins the moment she has sex and ends never.
Actually, the punishment is also there pour encourager les autres, so it starts well before any given woman has sex.
I stand corrected.
Kill the poor?
You’ll never be Jello Biafra, Fritz. Don’t try.
If abortion was made illegal and unavailable (a Fritz-strength fantasy on the second part) then how would people like this woman brag up their moral superiority?
They would adopt children and brag about how their children just got raped and they were just fine with it. They didn’t get all upset like those disgusting immoral liberals. That’s how superior they are.
Besides, the woman in the story has now gotten her disabled child to produce another child for her, no adoption fees this time! Maybe this one will not turn out to have mental issues.
Win-win for grannie.
I never thought people watched Chinatown for parenting tips until now.
You just don’t know enough wingnuts.
Wow, what to say? This woman’s lack of knowledge is dangerous – not just for herself but clearly for her daughter as well.