As a mom, I can’t say that it’s made me feel differently about the preciousness of all human life. It’s simply made one particular human life indescribably precious to me.
I get what you’re saying, but… understanding the preciousness of life is different from expressing your respect for it.
Such as?
My kid dying.
I guess I just don’t get it. I think the worst thing that happens to a person is their own death.
Nah, *anticipation * of your own death sucks I suppose, but the actual event doesn’t matter, since the moment it happens, you’re dead. Death is easy on dead people, and hard on their survivors.
The Times interpreted according to their own lights and came up with something the judge didn’t say. And the judge also didn’t say that the bond between mother and child was the ultimate expression of respect for life. He said it was an ultimate expression, reasonably meaning one of those that’s way out in front of the rest.
Being eaten by the undead and then turning into one of them. That sucks. I don’t recommend it.
Really??
a) Having one’s limbic system badly damaged so that one continues to live and to think but doesn’t retain the ability to care about anything at all any more. Rather be dead.
b) Having one’s ‘upper’ cerebral capabilities destroyed so that one’s intelligence, and the capacity for abstract thought, has been destroyed. Rather be dead.
c) Being situationally and systematically coerced into a situation where one must actively participate in hurting people one cares about in order to prevent actively hurting other people that one cares about even more, all of it as an intentional act of cruelty towards one. Rather be dead.
d) Being progressively maimed, with one organ or limb rendered permanently dysfunctional after another, with full awareness of the body functions one has just lost at each stage. Rather be dead.
e) Being subjected to deliberately invoked, sustained, extreme pain. Rather be dead.
f) Being coerced through the application of any of the above and/or threats thereof into engaging in an unending sequence of humilating and degrading activities as an active and (within those coercive constraints) willing participant. Rather be dead.
Need I continue? I doubt that death makes the top 40.
And if it’s what you fear most, you’ve got a problem: it’s gonna happen eventually. Perhaps not as a consequence of someone deliberately making you dead, and perhaps that’s what you meant?
How about being in constant agony, pain to the point you are incoherent and eventually driven insane, for the next forty years.
How about being “locked in”; being conscious and aware but unable to move a muscle. Unable to do a thing, ever. For decades.
As far as I’m concerned, death is almost moderate as far as consequences go; it’s an ending. I’d choose death over any number of things.
Re the OP; what did you expect ? At best, the anti-abortion crowd looks at women as cows. Breeders. Less than human.
What the fuck does that asshole know about the bond between a mother and child? I had an abortion. I lost my job and broke up with the father. Five years later I am doing well for myself, engaged to a wonderful person I couldn’t imagine living without, and planning to have a wanted and loved child in the near future. Exactly how good for my mental fucking health would it have been for me to be unemployed and carrying the fetus of a man I realized I hated and who had mental issues himself, and then have the baby I wasn’t sure I wanted and most likely go on welfare and probably move in with one of my parents? That is supposed to be better for me than deciding to change my life and be the productive, happy and financially stable person I am today? True, some women do regret having abortions. People regret a lot of things. That’s not a good enough excuse to prevent women like me from making our own decisions about what to do with our bodies and our lives.
Justice kennedy s atitude is unbearable.
There’s a lot of presupposition here. There are several primarily “Caucasian” groups that insist upon having lots of children (the Mormans, the Amish).
I once took a passenger (a young woman) from Silverlake to Frogtown (about 7-10 minutes), whereupon we arrived at what seemed like an outdoor quincianero, and she said, “Espereme,” then walked up to a guy there at the party, took off an engagement ring, and threw it at him–with an obviously high degree of spite. She promptly returned to my cab, and said “Let’s go back now.” While we waited at the first light, I said, “I’m sorry,” because she was obviously on the brink of crying. Then she said, “Para el mejor,” and launched into a diatribe about what an asshole the guy was. In surprisingly personal detail. Before letting her out at the original starting place, I asked her why she didn’t just sell the ring. She said that she had to make it “official.”
Total cab time: About 18 minutes.
You think the father of the child should have no say whatsoever?
Outside of arguing with her, why should he ? Should she get a say in whether or not he gets a vasectomy or appendectomy ?
And yes it’s unfair, but biology is unfair; the simple fact that women get pregnant and men don’t make true fairness in this matter impossible.
slight hijack.
I have no dog in the fight of whether he meant to demean childless by choice women, but he said “finds AN ultimate expression…” not “…finds THE ultimate expression…”.
Now maybe his grammar, technical writing skills weren’t so great (I’m pretty sure ultimate means there is just one), but he may just have meant “an ultimate” by way of meaning “one of the most important”.
A mother and child bond is that. And it doesn’t take actually BEING a parent to realize that, after all, all of us have been children, a pretty damned important bond was experienced by us even if we didn’t eventually become parents ourselves.
Why? Is half of his appendix made up of her DNA?
And this makes it sound as though you know full well that a fetus is not the biological equivilant of an appendix. Otherwise, why would fairness even be an issue?
And either way, so what? I **am ** a mom, I’m not disparaging the mother-child bond. I just don’t see what the hell it has to do with the question at hand. Let’s look again at what he actually said:
I call bullshit. Being a mom hasn’t made me any more or less likely to have an abortion. In fact, over 50% of women who have abortions already have children. Does that mean that they don’t love their existing children, or have no “respect for life”? And more importantly, why does Justice Asswipe feel the need to take this “painful moral decision” out of my hands in order to save me from potential regret and loss of self esteeem? Could it be that his “respect for life” doesn’t extend to respecting the ability of women to make their own medical decisions? Because I’m thinking he can take his generous concern for my welfare and shove it up his ass sideways.
No, I think you’re misunderstanding what he’s saying. He’s just saying that abortion is a difficult decision for mothers to make, and they’re may regret it afterwards, and that they’re more likely to regret having this type of abortion after they learn just how gruesome it is.
I DON’T misunderstand what he’s saying. He’s saying that I don’t have the RIGHT to have this procedure, even if my doctor and I believe it’s the best thing for me to do, because HE has decided it’s too gruesome for me to be able to live with. And he can get fucked hard and sideways with something sharp and rusty.
Yes, if he’s her husband.