Fuck the Motherfucking Pope

[Bricker]

@RTFirefly

Extreme cases like what, exactly?

‘Partial-birth abortions’ are a badly-defined political construct, a construct that was defined in the way it was in order to bypass people’s brains in the discussion of the abortion issue.
.
.
.

So the first thing is for you to bring some of your vaunted legal precision to this question, and say what the fuck you’re talking about.

I’m talking about intrauterine cranial decompression, which is not a political construct but, so far as I’m aware, a rarely-used but non-imaginary medical procedure which the American Medical Association describesas follows:

…deliberate dilatation of the cervix, usually over a sequence of days; instrumental or manual conversion of the fetus to a footling breech; breech extraction of the body excepting the head; and partial evacuation of the intracranial contents [the skull’s contents - ed.] of the fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus

I’m no doctor, but as I understand it a fair lay retelling of that is: a living fetus is manouevered to a position where it can be vaginally delivered feet-first; the fetus is then delivered except for the head; a suction tube is then inserted into the birth canal and punctures the fetus’ skull, vacuuming the contents up and causing the death of the fetus; and then the remainder of the now-dead fetus’ body is removed from the birth canal.

[tagos]

@ElvisL1ves

What is foremost for him is the written rules, and a “textual” reading of them. That’s it. It’s the quintessential definition of amorality. It’s futile to try to engage him in a moral discussion, because he literally has no fucking idea what the concept even is.

+1

[heatmiserfl]

@eleanorigby

Because one has traditionally been the purview of men and the other addresses that oh so thorny issue of female sexuality? Just a stray thought… One kills one’s enemies nobly in battle and is lauded and glorified; the sinful whore of a bad mother slays her innocent babe and is condemned to Eternal Fire and societal disgust and shame.

And other tommy-rot.

Bingo! And they deny and deny and deny, but there’s really no other explanation.

[Buck_Godot]

@Bricker

I don’t quite understand this objection. It seems to me that if our law and policy won’t prevent undesirable extreme cases like this, we should continue to work on our law and policy.

Or are you saying that because it happens so rarely, we can simply ignore it as we formulate policy?

Because that doesn’t seem to be the rule applied to discussing rape and incest-related abortions. I don’t recall you, or anyone, caviling over rarity as we discussed the pregnant nine-year-old victim of rape.

@Bricker

The introduction of rape and incest victims is a ploy; they are a vanishingly tiny percentage of abortion-seeking women, and, as my question demonstrates, irrelevant to the objection, since not one of you that is inveighing against this law would change your opposition if the rape and incest exception were added. It is, in short, a dishonest attack.

Please replace Rape and incest victims 0.3% in the above paragraph with late term abortions 0.1%.

And add in the fact that most such fetuses are not viable in any case and so would not result in a baby but instead would risk the life of the mother.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Bricker

I’m no doctor, but as I understand it a fair lay retelling of that is: a living fetus is manouevered to a position where it can be vaginally delivered feet-first; the fetus is then delivered except for the head; a suction tube is then inserted into the birth canal and punctures the fetus’ skull, vacuuming the contents up and causing the death of the fetus; and then the remainder of the now-dead fetus’ body is removed from the birth canal.

I find myself unhorrified, even if the above was performed purely electively. Just for the sake of argument, I tried to find out how often this was done electively, but casual research is complicated by various biased websites. In any case, I’m prepared to assume that at least some of the time, this procedure is being done because the woman is at significant medical risk, and ban attempts often fail to recognize that medical professionals are in the best position to evaluate those risks.

[Bricker]

@Buck_Godot

Please replace Rape and incest victims 0.3% in the above paragraph with late term abortions 0.1%.

And add in the fact that most such fetuses are not viable in any case and so would not result in a baby but instead would risk the life of the mother.

Both quotes go to the same point: adopt the same standard. If rarity should not drive public policy, fine. Let’s have no more talk about rape and incest abortion. If rarity is a legitimate concern in formulation of policy, let’s discuss intrauterine cranial decompression.

But you can’t dismiss intrauterine cranial decompression as too rare to be the basis of sound policy while at the same time championing abortions for victims of rape and incest without regard for the rarity of that event.

[Bryan_Ekers]

What if we’re arguing for unrestricted access to abortion for all? Thus, rape and incest and ICD lose significance.

[Buck_Godot]

@Bricker

Both quotes go to the same point: adopt the same standard. If rarity should not drive public policy, fine. Let’s have no more talk about rape and incest abortion. If rarity is a legitimate concern in formulation of policy, let’s discuss intrauterine cranial decompression.

But you can’t dismiss intrauterine cranial decompression as too rare to be the basis of sound policy while at the same time championing abortions for victims of rape and incest without regard for the rarity of that event.

I’m not arguing that either should be eliminated from the discussion on the basis of rarity, I am instead pointing out your hypocrisy in claiming a line of questioning in “dishonest” in one context and then pursuing it in the other context. I was thinking of making this point in the first thread you brought it up in, but since I didn’t have any quotes of you objecting to dilation and extraction I gave you the benefit of the doubt that you would be consistent.

I would argue that the main objections to dilation and extraction is that it is gross and gives us a queasy feeling. Although the same could be said about a colonoscopy. In general the late term abortions are the ones that make the most ethical sense since they are primarily done in emergency cases where the fetus is non-viable and the mother’s health is at risk.

Regarding rape and incest cases there is a clear real issue of psychological harm to the mother that goes far beyond a mere queasy feeling.

[42fish]

@RTFirefly

Some of this, I’ve said earlier; some I haven’t. Bricker’s main response was some crap about Idi Amin that still makes no fucking sense.

Actually, I think that Bricker’s argument that pointing out that someone has made an inaccurate statement about Idi Amin does not make one an apologist for Amin’s crimes is perfectly legit.

However, if one follows up on correcting people’s misinformation about Amin by then noting “Well, the number of people engaged in state-sanctioned killings during the Amin regime was a small percentage of the Ugandan population” and “Hey, it was the 70s: there were dictators in Africa everywhere so why are we singling out Amin?” and “If you all don’t denounce Mobutu Sese Seko and Robert Mugabe as enthusiastically as you do Amin then you’re a bunch of Uganda-bashers” then people just might start to wonder about you.

[Bricker]

@Buck_Godot

I’m not arguing that either should be eliminated from the discussion on the basis of rarity, I am instead pointing out your hypocrisy in claiming a line of questioning in “dishonest” in one context and then pursuing it in the other context.

Except I wasn’t pursuing it in the other context. My point was: “Because that doesn’t seem to be the rule applied to discussing rape and incest-related abortions. I don’t recall you, or anyone, caviling over rarity as we discussed the pregnant nine-year-old victim of rape.” Perhaps I could have more clearly linked the issues, but my point here was precisely that rarity was irrelevant in other cases but now had become a meaningful distinction.

I was not adopting a contrary position, in other words: I was pointing out that a contrary position had been adopted by others.

I would argue that the main objections to dilation and extraction is that it is gross and gives us a queasy feeling. Although the same could be said about a colonoscopy. In general the late term abortions are the ones that make the most ethical sense since they are primarily done in emergency cases where the fetus is non-viable and the mother’s health is at risk.

Regarding rape and incest cases there is a clear real issue of psychological harm to the mother that goes far beyond a mere queasy feeling.

Without accepting the actual argument, I have no objection to your approach here, because you’re drawing a principled distinction between the two cases.

[redtail23]

@Shot_From_Guns

Nitpick: *Exactly *as important as. They’re not giving the glob of cells preferential treatment, simply equal.

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. That’s not a nitpick, it’s been a major point of contention.

In any other situation, a person is allowed to defend themselves from another person who is causing them harm or is undeniably about to cause them harm.

If you’re pointing a gun at me and threatening to kill me, I can shoot you without any repercussions. I don’t have to wait for you to shoot me first before I can defend myself.

If you have a seizure while driving and become unconscious, I can run you off the road if that’s what I have to do to keep you from accidentally killing me with your car.

In all cases, self-defense is an acceptable reason to kill someone. There is the concept of “least necessary force”, which means that I can’t kill you if I could stop you with lesser means.

But I don’t think there’s a principal that says I can’t kill you because you’re not going to kill me, you’re only going to chop off my legs.

If you are harming me, my family, or even my property, I can kill you in self-defense, according to Church principles.

EXCEPT when a pregnancy is harming a woman. Suddenly that fertilized egg/zygote/glob of cells/blastula/embryo/fetus/baby becomes all important.

An ectopic pregnancy, with no chance of survival for either party unless something is done? Can’t just kill the egg, have to carve up the woman and destroy her health so that we can pretend we didn’t kill the egg, we just waited passively for it to die.

The aforementioned pregnant 9 year old? Her health and life don’t matter, the only thing that’s important is what’s in her womb.

The woman in the OP, whose fetus was going to kill her if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy? Too bad, so sad. It’s fine if you die, you’re just a woman. What’s really, really important is that no one harms that fetus, even if it’s going to die anyway.

These situations are a consistent and ongoing result of Church policy that women are less important than the contents of their wombs.

And that’s exactly what a large portion of this umpteen-page thread has been about, so trying to pawn off your argument by assertion as a “nitpick” is quite precious.

The other point of the thread, of course, being that the Church claims they have the moral authority to make these sorts of decisions, while at the same time running a systematic cover-up protecting and supporting child molesters.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Why is the rarity issue relevant? The discussion is already sufficiently muddied by false equivalences and cases of “Well, if your argument is based on X, you also have to argue for Y, since X and Y have something in common.”

[Buck_Godot]

@Bricker

Except I wasn’t pursuing it in the other context. My point was: “Because that doesn’t seem to be the rule applied to discussing rape and incest-related abortions. I don’t recall you, or anyone, caviling over rarity as we discussed the pregnant nine-year-old victim of rape.” Perhaps I could have more clearly linked the issues, but my point here was precisely that rarity was irrelevant in other cases but now had become a meaningful distinction.

OK Bricker, then for the record do you believe that bringing up rare emotionally sensitive cases are relevant to the discussion. If so, then why did you complain against them in the previous thread? If not then why did you bring up partial birth abortion in this one?
I’ll accept your answer and then stop the hijack.

[Bricker]

@Buck_Godot

OK Bricker, then for the record do you believe that bringing up rare emotionally sensitive cases are relevant to the discussion. If so, then why did you complain against them in the previous thread? If not then why did you bring up partial birth abortion in this one?
I’ll accept your answer and then stop the hijack.

Rare but emotionally sensitive cases are generally NOT relevant to the formation of sound public policy.

[Buck_Godot]

@Bricker

Rare but emotionally sensitive cases are generally NOT relevant to the formation of sound public policy.

I know I promised to stop but just since you didn’t get to the second part of my question I just want to make certain I understand. To continue through with your logic, that makes discussion partial birth abortion irrelevant to the discussion of abortion in general. Correct?

[SteveG1]

@redtail23

EXCEPT when a pregnancy is harming a woman. Suddenly that fertilized egg/zygote/glob of cells/blastula/embryo/fetus/baby becomes all important.

An ectopic pregnancy, with no chance of survival for either party unless something is done? Can’t just kill the egg, have to carve up the woman and destroy her health so that we can pretend we didn’t kill the egg, we just waited passively for it to die.

The aforementioned pregnant 9 year old? Her health and life don’t matter, the only thing that’s important is what’s in her womb.

The woman in the OP, whose fetus was going to kill her if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy? Too bad, so sad. It’s fine if you die, you’re just a woman. What’s really, really important is that no one harms that fetus, even if it’s going to die anyway.

These situations are a consistent and ongoing result of Church policy that women are less important than the contents of their wombs… The other point of the thread, of course, being that the Church claims they have the moral authority to make these sorts of decisions, while at the same time running a systematic cover-up protecting and supporting child molesters.

And, this sort of thing is annoying to me. Tortured legalistic pseudo-logic that is based on unproveable or false premises (bullshit), covered in layer upon layer of hypocrisy, and no one is supposed to question any of it, even when (especially when) none of it makes any sense once you start asking WHY.

Sometimes, right is right, wrong is wrong. If it takes 15 or 16 pages of legalistic doubletalking mumbo jumbo, based on premises that can be pretty weak to begin with, to defend an organization that is clearly wrong in such important areas, then maybe whatever action or policy it was, is just wrong.

I’m no longer interested in arguing about “personhood” or how an ice cream scoop and a Quisinart MIGHT cause brain death, or sanctity of canon law (which was written by men and can be CHANGED by men), or the need to accept a moral authority that was caught with its pants down (literally), or any of that jibber jabber. No matter how fancy the argument, no matter how outlandish the claims, they were simply WRONG. And every step they take to deny, defy, cover up, deflect, confuse, etc, just takes away more of whatever moral authority they try to hold on to. This moral authority was not taken away, it was thrown away.

[Bricker]

@Buck_Godot

I know I promised to stop but just since you didn’t get to the second part of my question I just want to make certain I understand. To continue through with your logic, that makes discussion partial birth abortion irrelevant to the discussion of abortion in general. Correct?

Correct, in a sense. Later-term abortions, no matter the method used, are certainly relevant, given the discussion of “personhood=brain activity” that has developed herein. But that specific method is not relevant.

[LavenderBlue]

@redtail23

I said what I meant and I meant what I said. That’s not a nitpick, it’s been a major point of contention.

In any other situation, a person is allowed to defend themselves from another person who is causing them harm or is undeniably about to cause them harm.

If you’re pointing a gun at me and threatening to kill me, I can shoot you without any repercussions. I don’t have to wait for you to shoot me first before I can defend myself.

If you have a seizure while driving and become unconscious, I can run you off the road if that’s what I have to do to keep you from accidentally killing me with your car.

In all cases, self-defense is an acceptable reason to kill someone. There is the concept of “least necessary force”, which means that I can’t kill you if I could stop you with lesser means.

But I don’t think there’s a principal that says I can’t kill you because you’re not going to kill me, you’re only going to chop off my legs.

If you are harming me, my family, or even my property, I can kill you in self-defense, according to Church principles.

EXCEPT when a pregnancy is harming a woman. Suddenly that fertilized egg/zygote/glob of cells/blastula/embryo/fetus/baby becomes all important.

An ectopic pregnancy, with no chance of survival for either party unless something is done? Can’t just kill the egg, have to carve up the woman and destroy her health so that we can pretend we didn’t kill the egg, we just waited passively for it to die.

The aforementioned pregnant 9 year old? Her health and life don’t matter, the only thing that’s important is what’s in her womb.

The woman in the OP, whose fetus was going to kill her if she didn’t terminate the pregnancy? Too bad, so sad. It’s fine if you die, you’re just a woman. What’s really, really important is that no one harms that fetus, even if it’s going to die anyway.

These situations are a consistent and ongoing result of Church policy that women are less important than the contents of their wombs.

And that’s exactly what a large portion of this umpteen-page thread has been about, so trying to pawn off your argument by assertion as a “nitpick” is quite precious.

The other point of the thread, of course, being that the Church claims they have the moral authority to make these sorts of decisions, while at the same time running a systematic cover-up protecting and supporting child molesters.

Yeah.

Laws made by men for men who will never, ever become pregnant.

Because the zygote/embryo/fetus is an innocent creature whereas the woman is a dirty whore who had sex or used artificial means of reproduction and is therefore not innocent and most certainly not allowed even allowed a means of self defense once pregnant.

:rolleyes:

[Cartooniverse]

@Eva_Luna

You know what? I am sick of the complaints that being pissed off about the systematic coverup of criminal offenses against children by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is Catholic-bashing. I suspect the OP feels the same.

Ooooh, how much do I agree? So much that I cannot assemble enough old posts using Search to support just how much I agree.

Gosh do I agree. I agree with the OP, I agree with the tone of loathing and the level of DISrespect that this Pope is held in. He personally made sure to protect a babyfucker who should have been excommunicated.

Oh wait- excommunication is, as we’ve learned on Page 1 of this thread, best saved for nuns trying to save a woman’s life.

Oh wait- it’s much more important to protect his good name than it is to stop the babyfucking being committed to this day by priests worldwide. Gosh. Where were my priorities??

My bad. He’s a saint. Carry on.

Cartooniverse

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Bricker

Later-term abortions, no matter the method used, are certainly relevant, given the discussion of “personhood=brain activity” that has developed herein.

Well, for those who follow the personhood line, anyway.