Quick News Roundup: 09/02/10
Domestic News: Did you know that Illinois has parental notification laws on the books? You wouldn’t from the way abortion is treated in the state – but some pro-life activists want to change that. They went to court to try to have the 1995 law enforced and so far, the law has been deemed constitutional. But, the until the appeal process is finished – the court said it can not be enforced. The Illinois Supreme Court refused to hear arguments to begin enforcement immediately. In Pennsylvania, a man raped his wife in front of their children after she refused to get an abortion. The suspect, Thomas Hill, is an ex-convict and is currently in police custody.
International News: In Croatia, the number of abortions have finally fallen to a point where they no longer outnumber births. For a while, the number of abortions outnumbered the number of live births in Croatia, but over the past 9 years those numbers have finally dropped. Canada‘s Prime Minister has begun rolling out their African maternal health program. What’s missing? Support / funding for abortion. Canada’s Prime Minister Harper is pro-life and actively opposed funding abortions during talks regarding maternal health programs in Africa during the G8 summit.
Discussion Topic: I had friends in college who were supportive of “abortion rights.” Recently they all seem to like referring to pro-life people as “anti-choice.” How offensive is this term? What other dispariging terms have you heard used in regards to members of the pro-life movement.
It's not that "anti-choice" is offensive, exactly. It's just dishonest. Of course people can make choices– as long as those choices don't violate the rights of others. If anyone thinks for a moment about what it would actually mean to be against choices (in the dictionary sense of "decisions"), the term "anti-choice" becomes ridiculous.
Some pro-lifers have tried to reclaim the label: "Since by 'choice' you really mean abortion, yes, I'm anti-choice." I usually just ignore it, and do my part to counter it by using pro-life language regularly.
"Anti-choice" assumes that a woman's right to make choices is the *only* relevant value in the abortion debate, and that therefore anyone who opposes abortion must be opposed to that. When of course, many of us are in favor of women making any choice they want about their bodies as long as nonconsenting people aren't harmed. I consider it an intellectually dishonest slur. (I feel the same way about "anti-life".)
Other disparaging terms? Oh, we've all heard them. I think it'll raise my blood pressure too much to rehash them here. Basically, anything about hating women, worshipping fetuses, or being a religious fanatic.
I just turn it around on them (Oppose slavery/rape/arson/kidnapping? You're anti-choice too!). I have a whole video on the topic.
The most absurd one I've heard is "fetus fetishist", though "pro-forced pregnancy is a contender too.
Always interesting to see how pro-lifers support government interference in the relationship between parent and child.
Except of course that it's all about putting another bureaucratic layer of interference between a vulnerable young woman – often one who has been raped, sometimes by the father whom she is supposed by pro-lifers then to beg for permission to have an abortion! – and the abortion she needs.
You can read about the young women whose lives pro-lifers like to play with here.
As with sidewalk harassment, pro-lifers are all about the bullying, nothing about preventing abortions.
Discussion Topic: I had friends in college who were supportive of "abortion rights." Recently they all seem to like referring to pro-life people as "anti-choice." How offensive is this term? What other dispariging terms have you heard used in regards to members of the pro-life movement.
Oh, how about: murderers.
Doctor David Gunn was shot to death by a pro-lifer in Florida in 1993, because Doctor Gunn performed abortions.
Doctor John Bayard Britton was shot to death by another pro-lifer in Florida in 1994, because Doctor Britton performed abortions. One of the clinic escorts, James H. Barrett, there to protect Doctor Britton from the sidewalk harassers, was also murdered by the same pro-lifer. June Barrett, another clinic escort, was injured by not killed.
Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols, clinic staff, were murdered by a pro-lifer in Massachusetts in 1994, because they worked in a clinic that performed abortions.
Most recently, the murder of George Tiller, killed by a pro-lifer in church, for performing abortions that saved the lives of literally thousands of women – Doctor Tiller's heroic work was to perform late-term abortions on life/health-threatening pregnancies. For which the pro-life movement vilified him, his clinic staff, and his patients, and finally murdered him in church.
Pro-lifers murder. They're killers. They regard with equanimity and approval the deaths of 70000 women a year in unsafe illegal abortions – every single woman a life that COULD have been saved if not for murderous pro-lifers who want women to be denied access to safe legal abortion and followup healthcare.
Jesurgislac, are you saying parental notification doesn't prevent any abortions?
Every group has it's wackos. The abolitionists had John Brown. Muslims have Al Qaeda. Christians have the Westboro Babtist Church. Even pro-choicers have attacked pro-lifers. The vast majority of pro-lifers, along with every major pro-life group, oppose violence against abortionists. Even if we accept your premise, pro-choicers still explicitly defend the death of 1.2 million innocents every year *in the U.S. alone*!
Nulono: are you saying parental notification doesn't prevent any abortions?
Nothing prevents abortions except preventing unwanted pregnancies. Pro-lifers are demonstrably not interested in preventing unwanted pregnancy, ergo, pro-lifers are not interested in preventing abortion – only in bullying girls and women who have decided to have an abortion.
What parental notification laws accomplish is forcing vulnerable teenagers to figure out how to get their legal abortion without needing to go to an abusive parent, or forcing them to abort unsafely/illegally. If a teenager has a good relationship with her parent(s), she'll tell them when she needs an abortion – and if they're good parents, they'll support her. Good parents don't want their children to be denied treatment, just because they've failed as parents so that their child does not trust them to support her.
Every group has it's wackos.
Pro-life murderers are supported by the pro-life activist mainstream. The justification for the murders, clinic bombings, and other violent assaults on people and property, is always the mainstream pro-life claim "they kill babies!" It was notable that while pro-life mainstream organizations tried to claim they were denouncing the murder of Doctor Tiller, not one – not one – acknowledged any fault in their years of vilifying him and lying about him and his patients.
The vast majority of pro-lifers, along with every major pro-life group, oppose violence against abortionists.
Every single major pro-life group justifies violence against health clinics and staff by claiming they're "killing babies". Your justification of their violence with "the death of 1.2 million innocents" is noted.
Yes, abortion kills children. But that doesn't justify violence against abortionists.
If an analogy will help you: we all agree that Lee Harvey Oswald was scum, but Jack Ruby was still wrong for taking revenge.
Jesurgislac, do you think anti-war groups encouraged violence against George W. Bush or the U.S. military by pointing out how many people would be/were killed in the Iraq War?
But that doesn't justify violence against abortionists.
So, in your view, killing children isn't really that bad?
You see, pro-lifers CLAIM they believe that in health clinics and hospitals, across the US, quite legally, about 1.2M children are killed each year.
I don't believe prolifers (most sane prolifers) believe this, because when prolifers are called on why they don't move heaven and earth to reduce the abortion rate in the US down to the Netherlands abortion rate by the methods proven to work* – which would, if they genuinely sincerely believed doctors were "killing babies" reduce that "babykilling" by a whopping 850 000 abortions per year?
…why then, prolifers suddenly go "OH BUT. The IMPORTANT thing is punishing women for having SEX!" and run headlong into explaining why good sex education is bad, why free access to contraception is bad, why women must regard pregnancy and childbirth as the UNAVOIDABLE CONSEQUENCE of having sex.
And then they go serenely right back to claiming that doctors in women's health clinics are "killing babies". Inflammatory rhetoric which most prolifers plainly don't take seriously – except as a means of rousing strong violent emotions. Which rabble-rousing ends in murder, arson, and other crimes. And the pro-life movement is responsible.
*Explicit, sex-positive sex education for all children in all schools that emphasizes that sex is a normal, healthy part of life but contraception MUST be used unless you deliberately intend to engender a child: and make contraception readily and easily available for all via a single-payer healthcare system that covers EVERYBODY: and provide for ALL children and mothers in a welfare system… etc: anti-abortion policies that the pro-life movement in the US actually campaigns AGAINST…
Jesurgislac, do you think anti-war groups encouraged violence against George W. Bush or the U.S. military by pointing out how many people would be/were killed in the Iraq War?
Do you think that George W. Bush is as vulnerable as a 14-year-old girl raped by her father, whom you want to have to go beg her father to let her have an abortion? George W. Bush has the Secret Service to protect him against violent attack: George Tiller and the other doctors and clinic staff murdered by pro-lifers didn't have anything like that level of protection.
Bullies go for the weak. Rapists target the vulnerable. Pro-lifers attack raped girls because young girls are an easy target. Sidewalk harassers hang around outside health clinics to bully women going in because bullies like to actually see their victims. And pro-life murderers attack doctors because the pro-life movement tells them that doctors who perform abortions are "babykillers" – who deserve everything they get.
Point me out a single pro-life organization in the US that used to vilify Doctor Tiller, that acknowledged wrong-doing and apologized for vilifying him and took responsibility for it? You won't find one. Pro-lifers are murderers.
I can also add, of course: the peace movement has not been associated with any violence since the Weather Underground went under: the pro-life movement has had its immensely successful terrorist wing for thirty years now.
Peace movement people want to stop war.
Pro-life movement people want to punish women for having abortions.
The peace movement attracts moral and non-violent individuals concerned for the general welfare: the pro-life movement by definition attracts misogynistic people who are at best indifferent to deaths and damage done to women, completely unconcerned for the general welfare, focussing only on their single hateful issue of dehumanizing and dominating women.
I see your debating skills haven't changed since I left Slacktivist.
Jesurg, that's demonstrably false. There are many women who got pregnant and were convinced by a pro-lifer to not abort, and many who were prevented by pro-life legislation.
I don't know what your definition of a good parent is, but my definition of a good grandparent doesn't include facilitating your grandchild's demise.
Pro-life individuals are concerned with preventing homicide, in or ex utero. I have no interest in killing or dehumanizing anyone. Yes, abortion kills babies. That doesn't make killing abortionists okay.
*Explicit, sex-positive sex education for all children in all schools that emphasizes that sex is a normal, healthy part of life but contraception MUST be used unless you deliberately intend to engender a child: and make contraception readily and easily available for all via a single-payer healthcare system that covers EVERYBODY: and provide for ALL children and mothers in a welfare system… etc: anti-abortion policies that the pro-life movement in the US actually campaigns AGAINST…
I strongly support all of these and more.
Do you think that George W. Bush is as vulnerable as a 14-year-old girl raped by her father, whom you want to have to go beg her father to let her have an abortion?
You're changing the subject. The analogy was to violence against abortionists and pro-life free speech.
Nulano: I strongly support all of these and more.
That's a lie. You were opposing access to contraception on the earlier thread where my comments kept getting censored.
I only oppose abortifacient forms of "contraception", which are only defined as contraception because the definition was expressly altered to include them.
Nulano: I only oppose abortifacient forms of "contraception"
You opposed use of emergency contraception which is not abortifacient.
Only there's a consistent prolife campaign of lies, censorship, and propaganda, claiming that contraception is "abortifacient". In a minor way, the censorship on this blog of my comment explaining exactly how emergency contraception works and how it is not abortifacient, was a part of your this campaign.
Pro-life deals in lies because they have no facts: they censor others presenting facts because they have no answer to them: they propagandize falsehoods because serious examination of the issues destroys their argument.
Which is why you had to censor me, earlier.
And guess what: the comment I posted pointing out that you were censoring plain presentation of the facts, was … deleted.
Yes, the above was me – I used another Google account to see if it would stay up, given you don't want the facts I wanted to present on your blog.
I've told you if you're having technical difficulties I'd be glad to post your messages.
We're not intimidated by your arguments, because you haven't given any. All you seem to have are absurdly inaccurate ad hominems of pro-lifers. Even if half the population WAS exclusively composed of woman-hating bullies who are against contraception, sex ed, single-payer health care, et al, that would not negate the human rights of unborn humans.
However, if you have scientific evidence to show that EC cannot result in the death of a preembryo, I'd be glad to rethink my position.
I've told you if you're having technical difficulties I'd be glad to post your messages.
"Technical difficulties" is an interesting term for censorship. Good excuse. I'm sure if I e-mailed you what I wrote, you'd have "technical difficulties" in receiving it.
The analogy was to violence against abortionists and pro-life free speech.
Yes. And I invited you to consider how your "analogy" plays out in real life. The President of the United States is genuinely at risk, just as any doctor who works in a health clinic that provides abortion is.
Anyone within the US borders who utters a credible threat against the President may find themselves shortly being visited by the FBI and/or investigated by the Secret Service. Presidential death threats are taken very seriously.
By contrast, pro-lifers make credible threats against named doctors all the time. Backed up by sidewalk bullies outside health clinics repeating the lying rhetoric about how "they kill babies in there".
When a pro-lifer killed Doctor George Tiller, how many pro-lifers did a mea culpa for their decades of murderous vilification aimed at him for saving women's lives?
That Dr. Tiller killed babies is an easily verifiable fact, as is the fact that he did not exclusively perform last-resort life-saving abortions.
Nulono: That Dr. Tiller killed babies is an easily verifiable fact
Wow, you can't stop traducing him even now your people murdered him.
Doctor Tiller never killed babies. It's not an "easily verifiable fact": it's just a nasty, ugly lie that was used to smear him for decades until, finally, he was murdered for the lie.
as is the fact that he did not exclusively perform last-resort life-saving abortions.
Also false. As Doctor Tiller had to prove in court more than once. The witness stand is a lonely place to lie, and in court, pro-life traducers were unwilling to stand up and repeat
their lies when under oath.
For years pro-lifers tried to stop Doctor Tiller. Finally a bullet did.
Doctor Tiller was No. 1 target on the pro-life hit lists, according to the FBI, for at least eleven years until the day a pro-lifer finally shot him.
During those eleven years he helped about three thousand women who went through an experience that no pro-lifer would help them with – that mobs of pro-life bullies, "sidewalk counselors" as you call them, tried to attack the women for: "We were mobbed. They were banging on our car window. My husband wanted to explain and tried to talk to them but quickly backed off. Just by winding down the car window he was putting himself at jeopardy."
Pro-life hypocrisy: the desire to see women suffer, to use pregnant women as incubators, till broken, and kill doctors who presume to treat women as human.
Were you trying to pretend you support "universal healthcare", Nulono? Out of your own mouth: evidently not for women.
A few days ago, an abortion facility head was criminally charged for a fake bomb threat that she attributed to pro-lifers. In response, Planned Parenthood official Anita Fream proclaimed that "it isn't the policy of abortion rights activists to make pro-life advocates appear violent or dangerous."
Looks like Jes et al. didn't get the memo.
http://amarillo.com/oklahoma-news/2010-09-04/ex-leader-abortion-clinic-charged-bomb-scare
From the story you linked to: "Investigators said Linda Meek reported on Aug. 13 that a bomb had been placed in a trash can at Reproductive Services of Tulsa, according to documents filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Tulsa. The clinic, which was bombed twice in 1997, and an adjacent building were evacuated, but a bomb technician determined that a suspicious box in the trash can was not an explosive."
Perhaps you've led too sheltered a life to understand this, but in my book, someone who's lived with the threat of terrorist violence against her workplace for decades – as Linda Meek had – and who, at the age of 63, based on past experience of bombs that were all too real, makes a wrong judgement call – deserves better than to be condemned for "wasting police time".
Linda Meek gave evidence about the punishing effect of Oklahoma's law requiring a woman to receive a sonogram before she has an abortion (and that no woman had ever cancelled her abortion as a result). Is she being prosecuted not because she made a wrong judgement call, but because she's criticized pro-life politicians and politics with the benefit of her decades of experience?
In response, Planned Parenthood official Anita Fream proclaimed that "it isn't the policy of abortion rights activists to make pro-life advocates appear violent or dangerous."
Isn't actually necessary to make pro-life advocates "appear" violent or dangerous. Pro-life advocates do that all by themselves.
Tiller didn't kill babies? I guess he just sent them to a farm upstate where they can roam free and be happy!
Hmmm lets compare the number of abortions with the number of deaths caused by extreme Pro-Lifers.
Now who causes genocide and war crime numbers and who doesn't?
The funny thing is that I've read articles who point out Pro-Life isn't actually about saving lives because if it was indeed murder of innocents then one would think they would react more violently!
Seems you can have your cake and eat it to.
So Jesurgislac one could be violent and kill like Pro-Lifers do but you can also take the Gandi approach and how the other side will chancge by other means.
Huh?
D'OH
Pro-Choice