LET HIM OUT!!!
Oh, wait a minute…what am I saying? Let him enjoy.
FWIW, folks, if someone was to murder me, Sofa King, Scylla, SPOOFE, and Tranquillis, no Federal laws would be violated.
None.
This sort of stuff is generally left to the states.
So, yes, passing a Federal law about harming fetuses sends a very specific and pointed message.
If you can’t figure out what it is, then get a clue stick and start hitting yourself over the head with it.
If the clue stick didn’t do the job, also note that the bill includes restrictions on who can prescribe RU-486.
Be pro-life or pro-choice, or somewhere in between, as you see fit, but don’t bullshit yourself about the purpose and message of this legislation. Let’s at least call things by their proper names. This is an anti-abortion bill.
You’re welcome to favor it on those grounds if you so choose. I may disagree with you, but it’s intellectually honest. But don’t try to pretend it’s something other than what it is.
And Tranquilis, it’s fine to be a Rockefeller Republican. I used to be a John Anderson Republican, before I figured out where I wasn’t wanted. But don’t try to kid yourself that you and your soul brothers carry any weight in the GOP. That bill will have 150 co-sponsors, I betcha. How many can RR bills get?
I dunno how much influence I’ll have, now the Bill Roth has been replaced by a Democrat, But we’ll see. When Roth was around, I personally got him to vote cross-party (yes, I know, Roth was a notorious cross-voter, but still…) against some of Jesse Helms’ more anti-enviromental riders and bills. It’s simple, and not because I’m some big wheel, but because I was the only person in DE to express an opinion on the issue, and I did so in calm, rational, and convincing manner. The lesson is this: If you want to put this beast back in it’s hole, you’ll need to be calm, persuasive, rational, and persistent. Most Pols are rather simple stimulus-responses creatures (The late Sonny Bono being one exception), and they’ll go towards the greatest reward, away from the greatest pain.
I’ve said this before, I’ll paraphrase myself now:
- Find out whom your Reps and Senators are.
- Find out how vulnerable they are to challenges from the opposite party. Concentrate on the Repubs, as those are the votes we’ll need.
- Determine if they respond to pain, or to reward.
- Flood them with correspondence. Hard copy is preferable, but flood them. Jam their fax machines, flood their e-mail, overstuff their mail boxes. Make the commentary CIVIL!
- I can’t stress enough the necessity of Civility. If we come off as foaming at the mouth, all our effort winds up in the bin.
- Reward those whom listen with publicity, punish those whom don’t with publicity. Letters to the editor, news conferences, and the like are good. They’re even more effective if they’re bi-partisan.
- Get your neighbors, friends, and relatives in on the act.
- Create your own lists of tasks. Share them.
- Repeate as necessary.
- Realize, if we lose this one, there will be other chances. Don’t forget the mid-term election.
One possible tack: This bill runs rough-shod over States Rights. It takes powers reserved to the States and arrogates it to the Federal Gov’t.
Now, a bit about me, Tranq:
I’m a religeous man. Born again, no less. I believe that abortion is wrong. I also believe that forcing my religeon on anyone but me is wrong. I will witness, I act as a living demonstration of faith, but I will not convert by the sword. That is not the way of Christ, and doing so is not an act of Christian Love. Everyone gets to make their own way to Heaven or Hell. I’ll point the way, but I’ll can’t drag you down the path. I’m of the belief that there are any number of Theocrats, looking to create a Theocracy, hiding in my Party. I know whom some of them are, and I’m working to make them ineffective. Their reading of the Word of God scares me, because they see themselves as infallible interpreters of the word of God. The only infallible interpreter was Christ, and even the Gospels were written by fallible men. These bastards who arrogate themselves the ability to tell us ‘right’ from ‘wrong’, ‘do’ from ‘don’t’, are in no way the equal of the authors of the Gospels. I will try and show them the error of their ways, but it remains to them to see the Light. May God bless my task.
<Stepping down from soapbox>
Meanwhile, I’ll do what I can, short-term, to put this duplicituous legislation in an early grave.
RTF:
Well, right now a fetus has no protection, you on the other hand do. I figured you’d already have seen that.
I looked point for point in that article, and I see nothing that undermines responsible abortion rights. In fact, it actually supports them by protecting a mother’s choice one it’s made.
The only question I have are the restrictions on ru-486. I would like to know what they are.
Now, I know the Bill is being proposed by evil Republicans, and that you feel that this is first step in the anti-abortion agenda, and there’s a whole big slippery slope we’re about to go down. But, I think you guys are full of shit that you’d oppose something that is so obviously good because of political fears and games.
Good intentions pave the road to hell, Scylla.
Attempting to do ‘good’ by evil means is evil. If that’s not sufficient, how about ‘…all powers not specifically reserved to the Federal Government are reserved to the States…’? (may be a slight misquote, but close enough) That includes murder. Murder isn’t a Federal crime save in specific circumstances directly threatening one of the reserved Federal responsibilites. This isn’t one of those special cases.
Of course you don’t see anything that undermines abortion rights in the bill, Scylla. You’re One of Them.
You’ll just have to take the word of Those Who Know Better.
So, if I’m a pro-choice Republican, I must “send these fuckers to the cleaners in '02?”
and
Which party is the “Party of Inclusion,” again?
Tranguilis:
A women’s right to choose is the law of the land, Federally speaking.
An attacker undermining that right is a Federal issue, and it damn well should be if the states are unwilling to protect it.
The road to hell may be paved with good intentions. I don’t want to know where the bad intentions lead.
Shit. In and of itself this is not a complex issue, it only becomes so, when we attach all the partisan bullshit to it. The democrats didn’t like it any better when the republicans tried to attach partisan bullshit and evil intentions to every little thing they did. “Why don’t you just look at what we’re trying to do, and not read stuff into it?” they said.
Well, now the shoes on the other foot.
The slippery slope is generally considered to be one of the classic fallacies. That’s the argument against this law. “It will lead us to diminished reproductive rights.”
No, granted that’s a possibility. But, police don’t necessarily lead to Gestapo. Booze doesn’t necessarily lead to drunk driving, and poppy flowers don’t necessarily lead to heroin addiction.
What it might lead to is only possibility. What it accomplishes is protection of women, their reproductive rights, and their unborn children.
Like anything that accomplishes good, their is the potential for evil.
The good is ignored, and unaddressed, because you guys are so certain that the Republicans are evil and that this is full of evil, that any good must be incidental.
That’s just a sad and stupid attitude.
It’s stupid, because the concerns about this law are valid. You go for the ad Hominem attack the Republicans approach, rather than addressing these valid concerns, so that they don’t become reality. The result is you look like simpletons.
Argue like this, and the law will probably come to pass as is. Your concerns may very well bear fruit. Then you can say “I told you so,” in patented self-righteous fashion.
Stupid.
Accept the beneficial nature of the proposal, and work to preserve that, while addressing your concerns and everybody wins. THat’s the smart way.
But this is much more fun. It’s easier to pretend it’s all black and white, cowboys and indians, and as long as you wear the white hat, you can keep your eyes closed.
The attitude is so common, it’s cliche.
Scylla, I admire you as an astute, cogent, humorous person, but right now you are hiding behind the very same argument that the NRA opposes on a daily basis. (And thank you for stepping away from the simplistic arguments you originally espoused and taking off the gloves.)
I need to qualify my following arguments with a big, fat, if, but I trust you will allow me that.
If this proposed legislation sees the light of day, most of your arguments so far are instantly negated. There is no slippery slope here; it’s a legislative cliff. It instantly brings women who are victims of violence under Federal scrutiny. It batters states into falling in line with Federal, Republican, doctrine. It is designed to compel the Supreme Court to accept the view that all fetuses are legally alive, from cell number two.
It specifically undermines the current law of the land by changing that law through a redefinition of the fetus. Viability has always been the argument up to this point; this legislation would cut that ribbon clean and go straight to the chase. The chase is redefining an unviable fetus as a person with legal rights. Once that’s on the books, it’s all over.
The partisan bullshit I attach to this issue is not without reason. I contend that a majority of Americans want the right to choose. Anti-abortion Republicans are taking advantage, and a tenuous advantage it is, of a temporary confluence of political ideology in order to put this issue to rest, legally and forever, in their favor and against the will of the majority. You, as Republicans, must accept the responsibility for this and use your influence to divert your party’s path if you disagree. (Or better yet, come to the Dark Side, where we accept the mistakes of others.)
To some, the abortion issue has been a political football that has been blithely kicked around in the assumption that “it will never come to pass.” Well, I’m here to tell you that it will come to pass, if you don’t get off your can right now and do something about it.
Here’s a simple suggestion:
*Before the House of Representatives:
H. R. ______
An amendment.
Before every instance of the word “fetus,” insert the term “viable.”*
Now you’re on to something. Now the right of unborn children is protected, now we’re all happy.
Until then, I contend that these people are working against the majority of citizens to further an agenda that is not acceptable to that majority, including those they purport to represent. In other words, it’s a trick, and if it’s pulled off, it will be a political hat-trick which will redefine this nation in ways I fear to comprehend.
If you’re for that, fine. But don’t hide behind the bullshit rationalizations those people are offering you. You want to protect an unborn child? Fine. If you want to use an unborn child as a mechanism to further your warped political agenda against the will of the people, then I’m coming after you, close fisted and bitter.
On a personal note, I’d like to tell you, Scylla that I hold no ill will against you. But I want you to read what I say and to stop dismissing my fulminations as unfounded. My anger bleeds through, but it is disingenuous to attempt to dismiss me for being angry. I have offered a voice, an opinion, and a course of action, and I’ll appreciate it if you will accept that and carry on your debate with that in mind.
Sofa offered viability as the line between one and the other, and I see no real problem with that. Or if science is what makes you comfortable in this debate, I read on another forum that fetuses begin having distinguishable brain activity around the start of the third trimester, which could be another place to draw the line. I don’t have any cites for the last assertion; if someone has a pointer to a site discussing fetal brain development, I wouldn’t mind checking it out.
You bring up the “8 1/2 month-old fetus.” That phrase, though, comes not from the legislation, but from a Democratic senator describing the circumstances under which she might be persuaded to vote for such a bill:
The bolding is mine, to draw attention to what Feinstein said having nothing to do with the bill as it exists. As it exists, it makes no mention of viability, as Sofa King pointed out. From the article again:
Again, the bolding is mine. The important part, that’s raising all the alarms with many of us, is the emphasis on making it a separate crime to kill a fetus, and applying that to all stages of fetal development. The article mentions that Democrats proposed a bill two years ago that would have “enhanced the penalties for attacking a pregnant woman” but that it was defeated. The conclusion I draw from this is that protecting pregnant women is secondary to protecting fetuses. Since that is such an important distinction to these Republicans, it’s clear to me that their intent with this legislation is to undermine a woman’s right to choose (maybe technically not their sole intent, but it’s there, and it’s big).
No, now the rights of unborn children that fit your definition are protected, and I’m not happy. What, exactly, is the definition of viability? Wait a minute, don’t even bother to answer, because Scylla’s original point still stands. If it is truly up to each individual woman to decide whether or not to bring her child to term, if it is truly each woman’s right to decide if she carries a “child” or something different, why would this make everyone happy?
If my pro-life wife is 3-months pregnant and our child is killed in an assualt–and our “choice” has been taken from us–why would your “viability” exclusion be anything other than an assault on her reproductive rights if we disagree with whatever definition you come up with? Or are reproductive rights only unlimited in one direction?
Does a woman have a right to deem her unborn a child, one that she wishes to carry to term? Then why is it so difficult to understand why these rights deserve protection? Assuming there are ulterior motives behind these efforts does not render the right non-existent, as much as it may anger you–even if you are are correct about the legislators’ real objectives.
Sofa:
It’s an interesting idea, but I think Bob’s nailed the problem the problem right on the head.
I think probably the best way to look at it, is that the women speaks for her unborn child, as a provisional full fledged human being, with all the attendant rights.
That is, it’s an individual human being in all ways, and its right to life is superseded only by its mother’s reproductive rights.
When you start getting into viability and late term abortion issues, that’s a seperate debate. For the record, my opinion is that a fetus should become an independant human being with its own individual rights somewhere in the 5th or 6th month. Then a woman can no longer choose to have an abortion except for medical necessity, but as I said, that’s another debate.
BTW: I’m not a hard feelings kind of guy, either. Thanks for the compliments, that had to be tough. Frankly I’m surprised to find a liberal had it in them to be that big 
Then why wouldn’t increased penalties for assaulting pregnant women do the trick? Why do there have to be separate charges for the fetus? It’s not the idea of acknowledging the choice of a woman to bring her baby to term that’s sticking in craws, here, or at least my craw. It’s that this bill would acknowledge a woman’s right to make that choice at the expense of her right to choose to terminate. I, for one, have no problems with laws that proclaim, “We, as a society, love pregnancy, and we love pregnant women, so don’t fuck around with 'em,” just as long as those laws aren’t worded so as to imply, “But you better stay pregnant, honey, or we’ll get you too.”
Increased penalties based on what, then? What exactly are you acknowledging requires additional protection? If I am understanding your logic, then you feel it is better to acknowledge a woman’s right to an abortion at the expense of her right to treat and protect her unborn as if he were actually a human being. It seems perfectly logical to me that if this right does indeed exist, it would include the opportunity to legally prosecute someone for the act of killing your baby. If it does not, then only certain reproductive rights are real; only some people really get to decide if their unborns are/aren’t babies.
If only she gets to decide if this is a baby or a blob of tissue, who is anyone else to interfere with that choice? Why should even the wording of a law contradict or countermand that decision? Why wouldn’t the law protect that decision and all of its implications, just as you feel so passionately it should when the decision is to abort?
So there I was at the Fights, and an Abortion debate broke out…
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Scylla *
**
Um, & Fucking 3: Hi, Opal!
All right, dammit. There’s too many level-headed thinkers in here who are raining on my fucking tantrum. It’s difficult to be a raving lunatic with you folks around.
Here’s what I’m saying:
-
Republicans, exploiting a temporary and tenuous advantage in numbers, are actively working to pass a series of laws that affect women on the most personal level, against the will of the majority of Americans.
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I think it is disingenuous in the extreme for a party that claims to want the government to get out of the lives of the people to intrude directly into the personal lives of women, against the will of the majority of Americans.
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Those of you who would defend such an act must justify in your own minds how it is in any way fair, or even sane, for the Federal govenment to care not a whit for a violent crime against me, a man, or my girlfriend, a woman, but to be intimately concerned whether or not my girlfriend’s gestating fetus, which she may not even be aware of, was harmed.
-
I appeal to those of you who are of like mind to motivate yourselves to do the following things. Contact your delegation in Congress and express your disapproval. Be vocal and passionate in your opposition. Vote against the individuals who threaten your point of view in the next election.
And that’s pretty much all I have to say on the matter. I will be spending my off hours attempting to help organize opposition to this legislative effort. Feel free to mail me for information, or to submit your death threats.
Actually your article cites about a 70% support rate for this. And, it does effect women on a very personal level. It protects their rights.
Didn’t we just go over this?
I guess reasonable wasn’t something you could maintain for more than a post or two. That’s a total bullshit statement. You know it’s a total bullshit statement. “So what,” you say. “As long as I’m proselytizing under the infallible banner of righteous wrath against those dirty Republicans, I can say whatever I want, and get away with it.” Now obviously, you didn’t say it to yourself that well. More likely you said something like “Fucking bullshit, fucking Republicans. Fuck! What the Fuck?”
My God! What a startling point! Your right! Clearly we must pass some laws to protect regular people! How can he have gotten along so long without them? The first thing we should do is make murder illegal. Next should be assault, rape, stalking, theft etc.
How come we have no laws against these things to protect adults?
Dude, that’s so stupid it’s laughable.
I appeal to those of like mind, to get a fucking clue, and pull their heads out of their asses. Failing that, as a mindless lemming you may choose to throw yourself off a cliff.
Which is both a blessing and a shame. The blessing is self-evident. The shame is that there are actually valid concerns about this legislation. Somehow you’ve managed to miss them all.
Lux Fiat is saying most everything that I would want to say in here.
You gotta admire the devious creativity of whomever came up with this bill. Anyone who opposes it can be made to look like they SUPPORT ATTACKS ON PREGNANT WOMEN OH MY GOD!
Milo, Scylla, I love you like brothers but you are kidding yourselves if you think this bill is not about abortion. We’ve managed without this law up until now - why is it necessary? When we argue about hate crime laws, isn’t the argument that current laws concerning murder, assault, etc. are enough to deal with violent crimes, they just need to be enforced better? This bill is an attempt to grant fledgling separate legal status to unborn fetuses. It’s already illegal for me to kill or harm you or anything about you. And if it’s not about abortion whatsoever, why are they including RU-486 restrictions in the same bill?
Scylla, you asked about the RU-486 restrictions. If the bill passes, only doctors who also perform surgical abortions will be allowed to prescribe RU-486 and that a surgical backup must be available if the pill doesn’t work. Since RU-486 requires more than one trip to the doctor, women will have to make multiple trips to abortion clinics to receive it, instead of receiving it from their GP or gynocologist. This is the the equivalent of only heart SURGEONS being able to prescribe nitroglycerin for heart patients.
And I know this started off as Sofa King’s hysterical rant, but here is a link for you that has other interesting links within it.
Sofa King’s cogent analysis is but the tip of the iceberg. All you gooey little crypto-fascists are gonna pay along with the rest of us. Garnering enough votes for Dems to shut these foetid hypocrites down in '02 will be no problem because the Dow will be at 3000 a year from now, rolling blackouts will spread to the other Western states, the trade deficit will balloon to unprecedented levels and the depilated chimp from Texas will still be hurling inane, irrelevant, soundbites that had to be explained to him twice.
No, it’s OK. Faith based organizations will feed all of us unemployed folks. The wildlife preserve will increase domestic production about a third of a percent and our buddy Ashcroft will make us safe from all those mother rapers.
Bush equals Recession. If you are a woman or a “minority” or just a right thinking individual, you have no business voting Republican. Spare me the “respect for a plurality of opinions” ethic. We won and you fucking myopic Republicans, with your fuzzy math, giant ill-advised taxcuts and total disrespect for human rights are a brutish anachronism hell bent to send us back to the McCarthy era.
Sofa do you recall all of the pre-election threads where some of us were saying the right to an abortion will be eroded, and a whole lotta folks came climbing out assuring us we had nothing to fear, that RvW was firmly entrenched yadda yadda yadda. Month #2. yep, right on schedule.
Yep. I remember back in the mid 70’s when only a few states allowed abortions. I hope that all those folks who are busy assuring me my future right to choose is not at risk will be willing to help defray the cost to travel to Canada when the time comes.
And, yes, mags incredible achievement on the political score board “Senator so and so actually voted against a law designed to protect pregnant women!”