Pro-life feminism is insane
Offline Jsut so we're clear on our terms here, I am using insane to mean "relating to an unsound state of mind, seriously mentally ill, extremely foolish, and irrational." I use this term since it never even occured to me that there could be pro-life feminists. The thought had never even entered into my mind. Of course, as is often the case in fact checking, you often learn about things you wish had never graced existence with serious consideration such as one stateing "I'm thinking about starting a nudist geriatric sky diving club." Or course, this is a different situation more like "I'm debating cutting out my neighbors unborn child and sacrificing it to God," except backwards and inverted.
Extreme imagery aside, I should explain what pro-life feminism is. It is a political view that we can enter into with the golden words of Emmy Award winner Patricia Heaton, "Women who are experienceing unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy." (From the front page of http://www.feministsforlife.org/) If you're like me, you either had the blood rush out of your brain and lost sight breifly, the very definition of blinding stupidity, or started rereading the sentence over and over trying to find some nugget of sense in the strange combination of subject and predicate which suddenly infiltrated the cockpit of your brain carrying vehicle.
The reasoning here is that abortion is part of the overarching plan of The Man to put the woman in her place by sucking resources out of those of us who happen to be born with the reproductive capacity to feed and carry that special kind of terratoma known as a "fetus." Maybe you think I am being too harsh, but let us think together on this. I'll lead. A fetus is an undeveloped organism made up of varying amounts of bone, muscle, skin, and neural tissue residing somewhere in the human body. A teratoma is an undeveloped organism made up of varying amounts of bone, muscle, skin, and neural tissue residing somewhere in the human body. The only difference is that a terratoma is misdeveloped, by human standards. They require equal amounts of resources and, in many cases, the body doesn't care to tell them apart. At one point we didn't either, as many terratomas were baptised in darker ages.
I have no desire to differentiate an organism based on whether or not it is correctly developed since I believe even teratomas could be useful in some way, granted that no one has the balls to suggest useing them for anything save cellular research. What it really seems to come down to is whether the organism in question is wanted or not. An unwanted unborn child, to me, is no different than this particular form of cancer. Worse, the fact this this kind of cancer is easily inflicted upon women and that some people think just because a certain kind of organism turns into another addition to the general resource crisis makes me sick. Frankly, it makes me want to punch a brachiosaurus's balls and run away. I think that would be very funny and would make me feel much better besides that fact that I would have seen a brachiosaurus with my own eyes.
To say that allowing abortion after rape is a form of rape-serving extortion (now I'm rhyming, I must be really pissed off) is like saying doctors who extract bullets are promoting gun violence. And if you think I'm done with this rant, wait 'till you see my rant about "biological imperitives." Oh no, son. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
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Bring the pain, man. Bring the pain.
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I agree with you but I don't really have to say anything else.
I don't agree with you, but there is no point in responding to a rant.
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A mystic is someone who wants to understand the universe, but is too lazy to study physics.
I'd call pro-lifers in general insane.
Ok, I'm confused. Does this group want to see abortion banned? Because that would be a swift kick in the ovaries. Instead of 'Man' or 'the System' or whatever making laws about my body I'm going to have women do it?
However, I didn't see anything necessarily about banning abortion so I'm assuming they are just anti-abortion. I don't have a problem with people being against abortion as long as they don't try to push it on me.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
The site is designed to confuse people. Like the way that "intelligent design" has tried to decouple itself from "creationism," it looks to me like this rhetoric of "feminism for life" is trying to disassociate itself from traditional anti-abortion language. They have very carefully avoided any use of the traditional pro-life rhetoric, kept things vague, and have quote-mined from the icons of histoical American feminism to make themselves look centerist.
But, if you look in their publication "American Feminist" in the news brief and especially legislative action sections, you find their true colors. The list of issues posted there includes the usual suspects: support for creeping abortion bans in the states, national legislative bans on cloning and embryonic research, and trying to cut funding for abortions for poor women here and abroad.
So it looks like one of the "holistic, woman centered solutions" this group is pushing to help stop abortions is making them illegal and/or harder to get.
"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert
It really is just reclothing the argument in faminist terms. Yes, they want to ban abortion. This little comment is just to tide me over 'till Abortion Rant Part Deux: The Biological Imperitive. I'll elaborate more later.
If an unborn child/fetus equals a terratoma in your mind then you have more issues with reproduction than George W has with Stem Cell research being worse than innocent civilian casualties.
"I am an atheist, thank God." -Oriana Fallaci
Regarding the survival of a species, a fetus has value. A species which has no chance of becoming extinct (short of it's self-extermination) has no reason to hold a fetus on a higher level than any other glob of cells. Of course, a person can give a fetus any value it wants but to legislate for or against the removal of said glob of cells assumes that there is some universal importance to it.
If we, as enlightened people, do not assign a universal importance to the issue of a fetus then there is very little difference between it and any other group of cells (not integral to the function of the original organic life form).
To the original point, for a woman, any woman, to be "for" governmental control of her body is a wrinke in space/time and it melts my fricken brain.
They need to understand that you can be against abortion while still respecting others' views.
That's what choice is. Allowing everyone to have a choice! How can they call themselves feminists while wanting to take away other women's rights?
That was my problem with them as well. After I slogged through all the bullshit and realized they were an anti-abortion site I almost laughed. What kind of woman (or person) can call themselves a feminist when their whole goal is to regulate women's bodies? They are still taking away a choice.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
Seems like the typical religious-right 1984-esque thinking - ie "Liberty University", "right to life" being used to describe denying people's right to die with dignity, etc.
Matt Shizzle has been banned from the Rational Response Squad website. This event shall provide an atmosphere more conducive to social growth. - Majority of the mod team
Yes, but my problem is that they are labeling themselves so-called feminists. I dont' know any feminist who would support legislation that dictates what a woman can do to her body. That's simply not feminism. Women should have a choice. It seems to me that this site is against women having that choice. Not feminism at all.
If god takes life he's an indian giver
Your views are quite intresting but I must protest what I concieve as a misunderstanding of femism. The most well known and universally accepted feminism known as first wave feminism was actually more related to womens sufferage and equality of rights. The issue of abortion was not really adressed in that branch of feminism. This is the most generally accepted feminist advocacy. The feminists which you refer to are an evolution of the movement known as third wave feminists these were an evolution of the movement but not the movement in it's entirity and they are most generally associated with the left branch of american politics. It is similar to saying that many conservatives are christian but it does not in itself mean that every christian is conservative or that all conservatives are christian they are a portion of the group but to say that a christian can also be a democrat is not wrong nor are the premises inherently contradictoary. In my mind at least to critizize other branches of the movement touting a seperate agenda from those with which you associate yourself is fundamentally falicious. What you would proably call right wing feminists are really just another branch of the movement itself. Both are still fundamentally concerned with equality of women and so in a basic sense can call themselves feminists they just differ in their political agendas. Regardless however I am glad that the world consists of people willing to discuss issues such as this in an informal and polite manner. I hope that I have offended no one but if I have I suppose that is your problem not mine.
I could understand if someone were to be on the same side as this guy; that is, they are "pro-choice" or they are confused by its paradoxical nature, but I must say, if you want your point to be made effectively, you should silence this guy permanently because he is a moron. His sentences were just barely coherent and his points were pitiful. I am against abortion and I could have made better arguments for it than he did. His most compelling (not convincing) argument likens a fetus to a tumor. Fine, if you attribute an equal amount of value to a fetus as you do a tumor, your point is validated merely because you believe it, mind you this opens up no door other than one which forces us to engage in moral semantics. This cannot be argued, only strongly disagreed with.
"I use this term [insane] since it never even occured to me that there could be pro-life feminists. The thought had never even entered into my mind."
You're calling pro-life feminists insane because you were unable to conceive the possibility of their existence? That's your reasoning? That does not demonstrate how pro-life feminists are insane; It demonstrates that you have a feeble, unimaginative mind. You, therefore, should not be allowed to talk.
I can tell you're stupid by your tendency to be overly verbose and unnecessarily long-winded. For example, "...those of us who happen to be born with the reproductive capacity to feed and carry that special kind of terratoma known as a 'fetus'." - First of all, a tumor is not something you feed and you don't need to be a woman to have it, not to mention that it has no consciousness or meditative abilities, a fetus does. (This is an example of a "strawman" argument) Just because they have common characteristics, does not make them the same thing especially when the only comparable characteristics you employ are the ones which prove your point. You conveniently omit the OBVIOUS differences.
Secondly, your stupid point is disguised by all your decorative word choices. Here, for instance, you employed all these words just to say the word 'women'. That is a common strategy employed by people who are compensating for the fact that their points are actually quite poor.
"At one point we didn't [differentiate] either, as many terratomas were baptised in darker ages." - we also used to burn people as witches for having moles.
"Women who are experienceing unplanned pregnancy also deserve unplanned joy."
While I can understand someone not wholly agreeing with this or being convinced by it, how are you unable to see that it is a perfectly RATIONAL stance? As in, it CAN be rationalized. Here
I'll do it for you. It means, even though you didn't expect to have a baby right now, it could still make you very happy. Make sense? It wasn't exactly layered in ingenious allegory.
ANYWAY, I can appreciate arguments made for women's right to abort if she so chooses, while I would argue the woman and man (mother and father) have made their choice prior to conception, and opting for abortion is an exercise of their "right" to choose their consequence, not behaviour. That aside, abortion only became a feminist issue in a time when it was actually legal for a man to rape, as often as he liked, his spouse with the intention of conception OR sexual gratification. Women were forced to make the choice to give birth or abort simply because they were FORCED to conceive in the first place. Consequently, there were many accounts of self-induced abortion which resulted in a death rate far exceeding the # of fetuses aborted. Women were dying, not in the name of not wanting to give birth, but in the name of being raped. Political action had to be taken and so came the legalization of abortion. (but not the illegalization of spousal rape? What a stupid world) Now, approximately half a century later, women ACTUALLY have a choice: to engage in unprotected sex or to not. In the rare circumstances when a pregnancy takes place as a result of sex which is non-consensual, the woman is not aborting a child because she "chooses" not to have the child, but because she did not choose its conception. If a woman and man engage in consensual sex which results in an unintended pregnancy, it is either because they did not take appropriate precautions or in simple terms, because "shit happens". Shit happens and you have to deal with it. It sucks, but it's the way the world works in every OTHER aspect and you just have to deal with it and by dealing with it, I mean doing the right thing and the right thing in this case, in my opinion, is not killing the child.
So it appears that I have made an exception for abortion in the case of rape which tends to suggest that I believe women should have to pay for their desire for sex with her pain. I reject this argument simply because it's a logical fallacy. When women find themselves pregnant and contemplating their options, pain is irrelevant in the deciding factors. For example, if a woman makes a choice to have the child, she does so despite the prospect of a painful labour and likewise when she chooses not to have the child she does so on the basis that she does not want or is not ready for a child, not because she does not want to endure the pain of labour.
By the way, stating that a fetus only has calculable value if it is a contribution to a waning a population of its species is not being pro-choice, it is merely having a scientific objectivity and it therefore has no place in a discussion about the incalculable human and women's rights issues surrounding abortion.
Anyway, if it hasn't been made clear yet, I am Pro-life feminist....a BIG one. I support equality, human rights and the de-objectification of women (I think chicks ROCK, I just think they've forgotten), but I don't think women have an inherent right to kill hers and the father's child because she is inconvenienced by being the biological vessel. I have explained why it is NOT insane. In order to have a legitimate argument, you need to have a premise for it otherwise it's just a meaningless statement. Don't blog your offensive and unfounded statements; or do it, just know that you're stupid.