Yes, but keep in mind that I’m not just arguing that abortion = oppression of women; I’m arguing that the two go together. The sort of people who oppose abortion tend to be hostile to women in many ways, not just on the abortion issue. I’m not saying that the per Roe/Wade was anti-woman just because of abortion; to a large degree, it was anti abortion because it was anti-woman.
Giving up options unnecessarily is a bad idea. Allowing the government ownership of your body ( which is what such laws amount to ) is really a bad idea. I do think a great deal of such female support comes from religiously induced self hatred.
A cite is offered from a PRO CHOICE vantage point…and we get the usual “I doubt the accuracy of this”…followed by the standard hand waving.
Hell even Wattleton has the honesty to acknowledge what the survery shows
Now I’ve said numerous times, in other threads, that abortion polling is a tricky business…often filled with a bunch of push polls from either side. If you frame the poll in terms of “womens reproductive rights” you often get different answers than if you frame the poll in terms of “rights to life”, “ending a life” etc… That being said…when a pro choice organization admits that a plurality of women do NOT support elective abortions except for the “hard cases” (which constitute less than 5% of abortions)…than it’s silly and insulting to just “blame” it on “self hating” women.
Why ? Are women incapable of being wrong ? I also blamed it on stupid women as well.
Sure it’s insulting; I have no objection to accurate insults. If my opinion hurts their feelings, too bad. If women really want to turn themselves into incubators for the state, that’s stupid - and I’ll keep calling it stupid.
Eh. Maybe. Voluntarily abrogating my right to unfettered speech–accepting punishment for yelling “Movie!” in a crowded firehouse, for example–is not “allowing the government ownership” of my mouth.
If I might digress for a moment (from the evening’s symposium), two things. Firstly, I am pro-abortion. Secondly, while I love your user name, you are aware that Howard is himself very anti-abortion, right? I just found that interesting.
That’s because you seem to be incapable of understanding a different point of view. You say giving up options “unnecessarily” is a bad idea, which is probably true. But, you can’t seem to understand that reasonable people can disagree over what is a necessity and what is not. There are people who genuinely believe that a fetus is human life worth protecting, not because they hate women, but because the value human life. I personally think they are mistaken (about the fetus being a human life), but that doesn’t make them woman-hating or self-hating (if they are women).
No doubt your view is accurate, to some extent, in some groups of people. But you are simply painting with too broad a brush, since the support for the pro-life position isn’t confined to some small fringe group of religious fanatics, but represents a large portion of the political mainstream of this country.
Now then, knowing that I am on your side in the abortion debate, I hope you won’t take it amiss when I say that IMO this kind of silly rhetoric and scaremongering does not help the cause one little bit.
But I gave up the option to pummel someone with my fists; isn’t that also government ownership of my body, as I’m not allowed to use my hands in the way that I so choose? Do I hate myself if I agree that I do not actually have a right to punch someone who disagrees with me on a political issue?
Walking into a Great Debate thread and asking why everyone’s having a “pointless discussion” is like walking into the BBQ Pit and asking, “Why is everyone flaming each other? And why is everyone being so mean?”
I try to keep my entertainment and my politics seperate; a lot of writers/actors/musicians are total jerks. Does the fact that I think Arnold Swartzenegger is a woman-hating, right wing jerk mean I should never watch Terminator again ?
Honestly, I try to avoid learning personal details about entertainment figures; reality tends to be quite disappointing.
First, it involves other people; not something that one has to twist the definition of the term to qualify as a person. If you beat me up, no one can plausibly argue that I’m not a person.
Second, not hitting people is passive, you’re not doing something. Pregnancy is nine months of stress, a physically dangerous labor and delivery, and a lifetime of potential medical problems. The draft would be a lot closer, and I oppose that too.
They have a twisted definition of human life. I’m not surprised such people tend to be indifferent to the baby after it’s born; their definition of “person” is “blob of flesh with human DNA”. They don’t care about such things as the mind or the emotions, so why should they care if the mother suffers or the child is uneducated.
If they are being forced into carrying a fetus to term and birthing it, how is what I said inaccurate ?
Since everyone that’s pro-choice clearly believes and reasons in precisely the same way as Der Trihs does, we can easily demonstrate that the pro-choice argument is not rational, not susceptible to reasoned argument, and largely hysterical.
How is a definition that considers the mind, emotions and consciousness unimportant not twisted ? This is the same sort of view that caused the Schiavo nonsense.
The OP has been answered several times by several people. Basically, the argument can be summarized: Such a strategy in the long run not only will not reduce the number of abortions performed, it will cause a backlash against the anti-abortion cause. There are better, and legal, remedies.
On your own words. And your reluctance to answer the question that I asked and that John Mace asked. Now you’re even waiting for John Mace to produce a definition of the term elective. Sweet.
Misquote.
But I am being honest about knowing my facts. I don’t. But I haven’t seen anything that proves conclusively you’re innocent, only suspect circumstances that you’re guilty (of mysogynist tendencies). You support (maybe you want to call it condone?) the position of the Roman Catholic Church on women, and you support keeping the brethren sister-free because, well, it saves tax. Lots. Except that I’m fairly certain that this tax ruling can be ‘fixed’ if shown to have such mysogynistic side-effects. Ever tried that? Interested in trying? Be honest now, because there’s the tradition bit that it would ruin, after all.
And then you want to take away the right of a woman to decide over her own body. All added up, the net result is a position that is damaging to women - unless of course, you’re being a saint because you’re rescuing them from Hell, really.
Who knows you may be right. But unlike you, I have reasons to question your position. And, I will guarantee you, I am and will always be a reasonable person, open to sound argument.
I agree completely. Mind you, for all that he’s devoutly LDS and pretty conservative, Howard is a hell of a guy. He did a custom for a charity auction last spring that’s now hanging on my son’s wall, and did a sketch for me gratis at a con. Sharp as a tack and far too nice for words.