Politics – Abortion

Goodness gracious, I got a right wing comment on my blog.

I've heard it said by leftists that men have no right to have an opinion about abortion. Well, then, what about women unwilling to engage in the procreative act with a man?

Abortion is a constitutional right, but I'll still address this issue by Issue

Anti-choice people do not care about fetuses

If anti-choice people thought a fetus was a person, then they would never make an exception in case of rape or incest or anything. That wouldn’t matter. A person is a person. When someone miscarried, they would mourn it like a dead child. They don’t. They would have a ritual to name a fetus or otherwise celebrate its conception. This would be a religious celebration. I know of no such Christian celebration.

More than half of conceptions are never born. Is the afterlife overrun with the souls of those who never made it past a few cells?

A fetus, therefore, is only a person when a woman is pregnant by having consensual sex. Pregnancy is thus imposed upon women, if unwanted, as punishment. Women need to keep their bodies under control. If they do something they shouldn’t have, a person may be thrust upon them. If they were attacked or did not consent, then it’s not morally a person. Obviously, this has more to do with controlling women’s sexuality than with fetal people.

Controlling Women’s Sexuality Directly Effects me

If the only allowable sex is in marriage between a man and a woman, well, my life sucks then. Men are just not cute. I appreciate that people have different religious views than I do, but hopefully this is not a theocracy and what I do that doesn’t negatively effect any other person is my own business.

Just cuz I’m a dyke doesn’t mean I’ll never be pregnant

I read a few years ago that there was a gaybe-boom going on. Artificial insemination is all the rage. You can do it at home with a willing donor and a turkey baster. (It's not the procreative act, but it's certainly one of them.) I’ve been thinking about having kids. It’s terrible to contemplate, but something could go horribly wrong. I can’t say for certain that I’ll never have an abortion.

I can’t say for certain that I will never date (or whatever) a boy. I mean, people change their minds.

Women sometimes get raped. A small percentage of raped women get pregnant from it. Less than half of reported rapes get prosecuted. If women don’t want to report that they’ve been raped and, when they do, half the time prosecutors don’t think there’s enough evidence to take it to court, how is an exception for rape supposed to work? Weeks later, when she realizes that she’s pregnant, the victim comes forward and says what happened and there’s no evidence? That’s supposed to be in a court hearing? Or would we take her at her word?

Or if she does report it, but the DA decides it’s a case of he-said-she-said. If there’s not enough evidence to convict a rapist, then how could there be enough evidence to terminate a person. Except that a fetus isn’t a person, or the circumstances wouldn’t matter.

People can have opinions on any damn thing they want

I have opinions on lots of things. I have an opinion on how Russia ought to handle its oil companies. I formed it by reading the BBC’s news feed. I could blog about it here and probably only Marek would care. But I have an opinion.

I have zero voice in the matter though. I’m not a Russian. I don’t get to vote in Russia. I will never be in a capacity where I make a decision about a Russian oil company.

Pro-choice means I think women should be empowered to chose how they live their lives and make their own decisions about sex and procreation. If somebody wants to have a baby, great! If somebody wants to terminate, she can do that too. Birth control, fabulous. Dating girls, awesome. Women should control their own bodies. I’m a person, so I get an opinion. I’m a person so I get to control my own body. We live in a free society, so I don’t get to control anybody else’s body. How is that not clear?

Roe Vs Wade Established the idea of a constitutional right to privacy

Pregnancies end all the time. Sometimes by accident. Sometimes on purpose. How it happened is between a woman and her doctor. That's the descision. I like having a right to privacy and in this era of spyware, homeland security and gigantic data-mining operations, I really don't want to lose that right. Everyone, possibly preggers or not, has an interest in whether that right stays or gets chucked out. (I would make a joke about babies and bathwater, but it's in terrible taste.) since it's clear that anti-choice peopel don't really care about fetuses, I wonder how much of their politics has to do with maintaining heteronormativity and male domination and how much has to do with the idea of destroying constitutionally-protected privacy rights.

I am a lousy speller

It’s always good to point out a misspelling in a flame, because it shows that you have much better spell checking software than I do. Also, I got an A in spelling when I was in 8th grade, but I failed typing. I hope this is somehow consoling.

Please go counter-protest tomorrow

10 AM Powell and Market. I would be there if I could.

Tags: Pro-choice, Politics