August 10, 2015

"'Abortions are yucky... But after that response, there is a shrugging of the shoulders.' After all, a lot of life is yucky."

The last line of a New York Magazine article by Rebecca Traister titled "The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works."

118 comments:

Gahrie said...

Abortions are usually evil, not yucky.

Ignorance is Bliss said...


Gas Chambers are yucky... But after that response, there is a shrugging of the shoulders.' After all, a lot of life is yucky."
The last line of a New York Magazine article by Rebecca Traister titled "The Big Secret of Gas Chambers: Nazis Already Know How It Works."

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

"Oh, Mini-Me! If I ever lost you, I don't know what I would ever do . . . Probably move on and get another clone, I suppose . . . But there would be 10 minutes, there, where I'd be absolutely inconsolable."

-- Dr. Evil (from memory)

Hagar said...

"Women have always had abortions."
But setting up an industry to provide the service is still different.

Bill said...

The campaign, masterminded by 26-year-old anti-abortion crusader and “proud millennial” David Daleiden, is meant to let us in on the fact that abortion is disgusting.

You're wrong, Ms. Traister. It's far beyond a matter of disgust.

n.n said...

Of course they do. The implications of reconciling scientific fact and self-evident knowledge with the demand and establishment of sacrificial rites, is that contractors, sellers, advocates, activists, and consumers of selective-child policy are mentally unstable or morally confused.

n.n said...

"Women have always had abortions."

Yes, they have, and people are generally none the wiser. That is why elective abortion is described as a so-called "wicked problem". The problem is the wicked solution: indiscriminate killing, but, more so, the normalization/promotion of an orientation and behavior that debases and destroys human life, respectively.

Freeman Hunt said...

"The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works."

No, they don't. That's a lie. Very few women have any idea about the details of how it's done.

firstHat said...

"a lot of *life* is yucky"

Not sure you want to bring up the subject of life in this context, ducky.

Rob said...

Having somebody in the middle seat on the airplane is yucky. Until every middle seat is unoccupied, abortion is the lesser of two yucks.

Todd said...

This line pretty much tells you all you need to know about the piece: So far, the heavily edited videos

The full videos have been posted since "day one" of each release. The fact that they are branded as "heavily edited" [when they have not been by those that released them] is the left / MSM trying to discredit the content cause "everyone" knows that "heavily edited" is code-speak for misleading. If they can convince everyone that the videos have been altered then maybe the "yucky" stuff in the videos isn't really that bad at all! Then we can all go back to our Starbucks coffees and talking about how awful those evil Repubs are and did you read in the NYT what they said during their clown show of a debate? Oh my God!?!

Static Ping said...

"[X] Already Know How It Works."

Uh huh.

Swampland for sale. Interested? I'd ask for your firstborn in payment, but you know.

MadisonMan said...

"The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works."

No, they don't. That's a lie. Very few women have any idea about the details of how it's done.

I read that as a more generic statement -- that is, women know they are extinguishing a life when an abortion occurs. The actual mechanics of what is done -- you many be right.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Freeman Hunt said...
No, they don't. That's a lie. Very few women have any idea about the details of how it's done.


So few women post here that I am loathe to question this statement but, this is not my impression. Even relatively young women, when I was young, seemed pretty clear on various aspects of reproductive health. With the rise of the internet I would guess that this is unlikely to have become less true.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fen said...

Rebecca Traister: "Rape is yucky"

Freeman Hunt said...

Even relatively young women, when I was young, seemed pretty clear on various aspects of reproductive health.

Yes, definitely. But the actual procedures and products of abortion, no, they do not know about this. Most people are shocked to find out the details. They've been led to believe that abortion consists of the simple removal of some undifferentiated mass. Unless someone specifically seeks out that information, he will not run across it. It is never shared in mass media.

Matt Sablan said...

It sounds like a lot of the women who had the procedure at Planned Parenthood may not have been aware of the actual procedure used, since the videos have shown that multiple doctors at multiple locations see nothing wrong with lying to women to perform more risky procedures to get more saleable samples.

Todd said...

Matthew Sablan said...
It sounds like a lot of the women who had the procedure at Planned Parenthood may not have been aware of the actual procedure used, since the videos have shown that multiple doctors at multiple locations see nothing wrong with lying to women to perform more risky procedures to get more saleable samples.

8/10/15, 2:59 PM


Who you going to believe? Your lying eyes and ears or some writer at the NYT? According to her those were "highly edited" videos and we all know what that means!

Sebastian said...

"seemed pretty clear on various aspects of reproductive health"

If they were, there would be no need to describe abortion as a matter of "reproductive health."

The industry depends to some extent on fuzziness about the "yucky" details.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

If you put "abortion pictures" into Google I doubt you are going to be left in much confusion about what is involved in an abortion, at a physical level. Even when I was young there was much talk of abortion and wire coat hangers. There was never any doubt about what the hanger was used for.

I think it is fair to say that young women often do not fully understand the emotional fallout from an abortion, whereas the emotional fallout from giving up a child for adoption is more self-evident.

readering said...

The basic point of the article seems sensible. It is naive to think that women will stop having abortions to end very much unwanted pregnancies just because they have been made to think more about who/what is growing inside them. They pretty much know. In a quarter or so of all pregnancies they still want the abortion.

Sydney said...

Freeman is right. Most women have been led to believe that they are just removing a "clump of cells." They have no idea how developed the human being is they are removing or how it is torn to pieces during the procedure. That's why pro-choice advocates have so vocally opposed ultrasounds prior to abortion procedures. They don't want their patients to see what is being removed.

YoungHegelian said...

After all, a lot of life is yucky

Ya know, if you're a member of the physically weaker gender, you really don't want to take that moral tack. It'll just end up in a place you don't want to be. You want the world tied up in moral strictures like Gulliver in the land of Lilliput.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

AReasonableMan said...

Even when I was young there was much talk of abortion and wire coat hangers. There was never any doubt about what the hanger was used for.

Generally, the wire coat hanger was used to hang up the doctor's coat. When it actually was used to perform an abortion, it was used to puncture the amniotic sac. It was not used to dismember or dislodge the baby.

jr565 said...

Shooting lions is similarly yucky. But we all know it happens and how it works. So get over it.

averagejoe said...

Shooting lions, or black criminals is yucky, but...

Nichevo said...

I would never have had any idea what to do with a hangar; still don't, and am the happier for it.

Nine out of ten she doesn't want to be caught.

averagejoe said...

Gee, jr565, Didn't read down to see your comment, and I hate to be redundant, but... high-five!

Eleanor said...

If a middle school or early high school teacher shows kids how a human baby grows while it's inside its mother's womb, there will always be one parent who has a hissy fit and accuses the teacher of being a rightwing pro-lifer. Most people who fully support abortion rights at any time for any reason prefer people to be ignorant of how human an unborn baby is pretty soon after its conception. Its heart starts beating at 3 weeks. You won't hear it for a few more weeks, but it's already at work. It might be tiny, but it's recognizable as a baby by week 8 or 9. The "clump of cells" argument disappears at week 3 before most women even know they're pregnant. I am tepidly pro-choice, but I don't believe it's fair to the unborn children to keep their mothers and fathers ignorant. Kill your baby if you really feel you have to, but do it with full awareness of what you're doing. You don't get to hide behind "it's only a clump of cells" unless you're taking the morning after pill, and it really is.

Static Ping said...

AReasonableMan: So few women post here that I am loathe to question this statement but, this is not my impression. Even relatively young women, when I was young, seemed pretty clear on various aspects of reproductive health. With the rise of the internet I would guess that this is unlikely to have become less true.

My suspicion is that your sampling of young women would not qualify as a random sample by statistical measures.

The list of things that people do not know - not a few people, large chunks of the population - that should seem self-evident is long. The Internet has made this both better and worse: there is more information available but a good portion of it is garbage, and it is much easier to ghettoize knowledge along various lines. Never underestimate ignorance. Never underestimate the delusion to believe what wants to believe.

Furthermore, do not limit this to the uneducated or the "true believer." Read a newspaper and enjoy college educated and objectively intelligent people completely misunderstand topics and dutifully repeat what other people tell them without a second thought, often in subject areas in which they are supposedly experts.

Quaestor said...

The ethical position is to confine the yucky consequences of yuck to the lives of people who yuck things up through their yucked-up voluntary behavior.

damikesc said...

Yeah, "Everybody knows how it is".

That's why people are so upset when people show them pictures of abortion. Why Rush got so much heat in the 80's for having "caller abortions".

Because it is so commonplace...

No, they don't. That's a lie. Very few women have any idea about the details of how it's done.

The fact that they found it to be "almost rape" for a law to require vaginal ultrasounds before an abortion when they are done ANYWAYS (because the abortionist isn't going to root around blindly) shows that.

Even relatively young women, when I was young, seemed pretty clear on various aspects of reproductive health. With the rise of the internet I would guess that this is unlikely to have become less true.

Which is why abortion supporters have to rely on so many euphemisms.

CStanley said...

Mostly agree with Freeman although I think it's a mixed bag. A lot of women know what is involved in abortion but blind themselves to the moral implications of it. Many others though, are willfully blinded to the biological facts too.

But certainly there are women who should be made more aware, and as others have pointed out, the abortion industry has an interest in making sure that they do not become so. For example, the thirteen year olds impregnated by relatives or relatives' boyfriends- do they really know everything they need to know? Did "Dr" Goswell's patients?

For that matter, I'm fed up with the implications by feminist writers that:
1) they speak for all women
2) men have no standing in discussing abortions. Even if this author's point is taken, why shouldn't these facts be made more accessible to men? Since so many women have given up their natural role as protector of the unborn, perhaps if men were to better understand the costs of the sexual revolution they will take more care.

Quaestor said...

In the end... in the end abortion is a means to force an innocent third party to foot the bill for a moment's pleasure enjoyed by two other people. I invite abortion rights activist to refute me.

Fair warning: If you try to excuse abortion by appealing to the rape/incest whinge, I'll retort by asking you to support an abortion law that stipulates only those conditions are permissible.

CStanley said...

On the last point I made in previous comment too...I think a large number of women who have had abortions and lived with regret and despair afterward....really would prefer that their feminist leaders would WANT men to be more aware of the "yuckiness" (that has to be the strangest euphemism I've seen yet- admitting that the thing defies euphemizing even as one is doing it anyway.) A mostly unexamined part of abortion is the degree to which women facing unplanned pregnancies might want to choose to carry the baby to term if their partner would support them in that choice.

MadisonMan said...

large chunks of the population

Awesome word choice.

jimbino said...

One of the yuckiest things is childbirth with all its piss, crap, blood, screaming, hemorrhoids, placentas and episiotomies.

It should be the law that any woman contemplating childbirth be forced to watch a video of it and, if possible, be subjected to a foretaste of the pain involved.

We'd probably put an end to all the breeding if prospective parents were subjected to counseling and testimony regarding the high costs to society and the breeders themselves of carrying a fetus to term and then on from childhood to adultery.

Humperdink said...

So abortions are yucky. Is that better than "less crunchy"?

Birches said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Birches said...

Freeman and Sydney are right. PP wants woman to believe in clump of cells. Check out that gif that Althouse posted awhile ago. I would guess most of the prochoice crowd would be shocked to see how quickly after gestation the "clump of cells" looks like a real, little baby.

Althouse is pro-choice though she acknowledges abortion is murder. I have found that point of view refreshing and rare. Most pro-choicers do not go there.

Michael K said...

"purporting to show that Planned Parenthood is profiting illegally from the sale of aborted fetal tissue to medical-research companies. So far, the heavily edited videos have offered no clear evidence of wrongdoing"

Lies are very common on the left.

ARM has very little idea of what abortions are like.

The Godfather said...

If women already understand what abortion involves, why do abortion supporters object to showing the mothers an ultrasound image of the child before killing it? Why object if the abortionist says, You do understand, don't you, that I'm about to kill your child? You're OK with that, right?

Birches said...

2) men have no standing in discussing abortions.

That's not entirely true. A man can be staunchly pro-choice and receive accolades and a pat on the back. It's only when they disagree the old, "But you're a man!" trope comes out.

The most staunchly pro-choice women I know are lesbians. I believe if you're going to disqualify a man from having an opinion on abortion because of his plumbing, then the lesbians should be disqualified too, on account of how they use their plumbing. My lesbian friend posted a picture of herself 7 months pregnant wearing a PP "Choice" shirt. One of her pro-choice friends commented on how happy it made her to see pregnant ladies wearing the shirt. I wanted (but refrained) from replying, "Yeah of course it was a choice. It cost a couple of grand and a lab to get her pregnant. How is that a statement of "Choice" at all?" Bizarro world.

Birches said...

Rebecca Traister talks about cysts being removed with hair and teeth as if this was just like an abortion. And yet, the prolifers are the ones who are deluded?

Bill R said...

It IS yucky, but it's the final solution to the baby problem.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

A lot of death is yucky.

Gahrie said...

A mostly unexamined part of abortion is the degree to which women facing unplanned pregnancies might want to choose to carry the baby to term if their partner would support them in that choice.

Whatta ya mean?

If the partner is male, he has no choice other than to support her...financially at least.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Althouse is pro-choice though she acknowledges abortion is murder.

Is removing life-support from a human vegetable also murder? What if they were 90 and without chance of recovery? Maybe after lying in a coma for 15 years?

The problem with fetus fanatics is that they don't acknowledge that all "life" has gray areas and obsess on visual billboards for shock value and definitions they imagine to be stricter than they actually are. Sperm and egg cells are also "life". The comatose are I suppose in some sense, "alive". Fungi are "alive". Republicans are nearly brain dead but technically a form of human life. A not insignificant number of abortions are performed on women who desperately wanted a baby, but then found out the risk of septicemia or a botched pregnancy (as if pregnancy itself lacks risks) just to risk the rare chance that an anencephalic monstrosity might bother to survive in agony for a few months was way too high a cost. And GOOGLE that, while you're at it (not that you are): "Anencephalic". There are even more disturbing "human lives" you can do the abominable disservice of delivering into this world.

But no. Conservatives don't want to touch that. Detracts from the false clarity (through "shock and awe") of their mission.

To deny that there are worse things than being born makes you wonder if there aren't worse things than dying - which would be a funny position for people who pretend to believe that dying for freedom is one of the highest callings in life.

jimbino said...

Abortion is safer than childbirth: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/23/us-abortion-idUSTRE80M2BS20120123

The fetus, not being a "person," has no right to life, so killing a fetus cannot be murder, whatever Ann Althouse might think.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood

CStanley said...

Gahrie @6:13- I agree there's an imbalance although I don't agree that men should have the choice of aborting their fetuses either. Two wrongs don't make a moral right and shouldn't make a legal right either. The correct ethical position is for both parents to take responsibility for the lives they create.

YoungHegelian said...

@R&B,

A not insignificant number of abortions are performed on women who desperately wanted a baby, but then found out the risk of septicemia or a botched pregnancy

Oh, sure, R&B. Of the 63 million abortions in the US since roe v Wade, just a whole fuckin' bunch of them were for the life of the mother. Sure. News flash: Even the Catholic Church doesn't oppose abortion if the mother's life is genuinely in danger.

that an anencephalic monstrosity might bother to survive in agony for a few months was way too high a cost.

Once again, how often out of 63 million? And, by the way, how does something without a brain live in agony? Doesn't it take a brain to have feeling?

@jimbino,

The fetus, not being a "person," has no right to life, so killing a fetus cannot be murder, whatever Ann Althouse might think.

Oh, gosh, a link to wikipedia! Well, that solves that great philosophical question! We've got a link to Wikipedia to look at!

Jimmy boy, how did humankind ever manage without you?

jimbino said...

YoungHegelian:

Wikipedia provides links to original sources. What does the bar provide where you get your learning, such as it is?

Cynicus said...

Under jimbino's theory nobody would ever have a second child

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Cynicus said...
Under jimbino's theory nobody would ever have a second child


In Japan and much of Europe that is largely true.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

It doesn't matter what number of 63 GODZILLION it is. If you pretend to believe in individual rights, you look at the individual cases, of which these definitely exist. And everyone knows they exist and that's why they rake every reactionary over the coals who thinks he's a badass by intentionally leaving out the exception of the "rape, incest and life of the mother" shibboleth he hates saying, no matter how badly his ass knows that he must.

Even the Catholic Church doesn't oppose abortion if the mother's life is genuinely in danger.

Oh yes! And let's ask the sex-o-phobes and human body-phobes (who have had leaders that opposed the reduction of AIDS in Africa through condom use!) how great their leadership is in that regard. Because it can't be Catholicism's stronghold in Irish culture and society that led to the murderous death of Savita Halappanavar now, could it!

Yep. You keep relying on finding a way to work in those weirdos, as afraid as they are of their own penises and pussies (but not those of little children!), to make a decent point on anything! I mean, it's only been thousands of years of moral and social fuck-ups, authoritatively handed down. But sooner or later I'm sure they're bound to get something right. They are much bigger than even the largest broken clock, after all.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

And much more glorious!

chickelit said...

jimbino said...

We'd probably put an end to all the breeding if prospective parents were subjected to counseling and testimony regarding the high costs to society and the breeders themselves of carrying a fetus to term and then on from childhood to adultery.

Instead, why not just send all the abortive mothers-to-be on a free two vacation to National Park of their choice? You yourself have noted in the past that the sorts who have abortions don't visit parks enough. We could even supply them with marijuana because pot has nor been shown to harm fetuses.

chickelit said...

John Pennekamp Coarl Reef State Park might be the most therapeutic vacation: the abundant seahorses could endear them to their fetus.

You were the one who likened a fetus to a seahorse weren't you? Or am I thinking of garage mahal?

sunsong said...

"...Progressive sex and gender reform is sweeping the country. At the same time, conservatives and liberals largely agree that access to contraception reduces teen pregnancy and abortion. So why do reproductive rights continue to incite such anger?

"History suggests that sexism has much to do with it..."


America's war on women

I Callahan said...

Sun song - there is no war on women. The person who wrote that is a blithering idiot.

Krumhorn said...

"They know that what is inside of them is going to die and come out. They know it. And they have abortions.”

I'm pretty sure that would also have described the thinking of James Holmes as he entered the theater.

- Krumhorn

YoungHegelian said...

@R&B,

It doesn't matter what number of 63 GODZILLION it is. If you pretend to believe in individual rights, you look at the individual cases, of which these definitely exist.

Bullshit, R&B. Most of those 63 million cases have absolutely nothing to do with abortions in extremis & you know it. 63 million. That's an awful, awful lot of dead babies. And, for what? Mostly, it's the same women having them over & over again, using abortion as a form of birth control, because they just can't get their shit together to manage their contraception. Would the pro-life movement agree to a law restricting abortion to hard-luck cases as you describe, but banning the grounds for the other 62.5 million? In a heartbeat.

As for your nonsensical, frothing at the mouth, anti-Catholicism, you need to take that to another forum. Tradguy has the franchise on that chez Althouse.

Quaestor said...

Hey, sunsong, you thoughtless desiccated flower child, what about American's war on babies of color?

Black lives matter, or do they?

Christopher said...

The fact of the matter is that the modern abortion movement is just the eugenics movement by another name (hell that's the reason it was created).

R&B and his ilk can't state outright that the poor are better off dead so they grasp at straws and use statistically rare cases as a means to justify their murder of the lower classes lest they over-breed.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Bullshit..

Hey - you don't care about the dead mothers and the deformed experiments you want them to undergo? Then I have no reason to care about your fetus fetish. Go cry about it to your leader in the white hat.

I am not anti-Catholic and Tradguy is in good company to have a partner in exposing what people realize to be a widespread crisis of moral reasoning stemming from the institution they are caught in. Catholics are just like any other society or subculture: Many are decent and a number are not. But their institution creates unique spiritual disabilities. Some have found within themselves the moral independence to challenge the theological imperialism put upon them (at GREAT cost to them) and a strong minority exert themselves in direct opposition to that. The hierarchy and authoritarian structure is the problem; it was based almost directly on the model of the offices, government and society of the Roman Empire - and you must know that. To deny that that would be extremely ignorant. To deny its consequences - well, I guess the incoherence you exhibit must be a testament to that.

Catholics can be very charitable and community-oriented. But for you to acquiesce in the intellectual authoritarianism it enforces (which is what you are forced to believe is required of you) is part of the very reason for why you cannot have a coherent conversation about this. (And probably about AIDS in Africa, for that matter). That you have rationalized some kind of goodness in your captivity, with all its aesthetics and the arbitrary and byzantine complexity of its dogma, does not mean that you are not a captive to how it keeps you from thinking. If not, prove me incorrect.

Understand something here: I don't hate you or your institution for it. I just wish you would develop the normal human desire to have the freedom to challenge it. Or at least, see what it is that you're missing.

Christopher said...

Why do I get the feeling that R&B has used the Pope's comments on global warming as a means to attack opponents of major environmental regulations.

Bobber Fleck said...

Words have meanings. Even "yucky" has a meaning.

I would hope that eliminating yucky abortions from our world is a worthy goal.

I have no intention of "getting over it".

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

The current pope has actually done the right thing on AGW. Many liberals (I would consider myself one) admire the current pope for offering leadership in the way of rational positions (within the extraordinarily stifling political/institutional limitations of his capacity to fight for them) and just for having an all-around, better sense of decency. The pope before his predecessor was a little like that, too.

But it just goes to show how ridiculous it is to invest that much power in someone. Why should it matter if a religious leader actually does something decent, or rational for a change? Why? I'll tell you why: Because he has way too much power. He's just a man, after all. As was this guy. Just men.

There is no reason why any such man should have that much influence and authority on any policy, trend, issue or anything else like that. But he does because his underlings threaten people with "very scary things" if they don't. And they seem to be spiritually authoritative due to the ridiculous reasoning of hating the material world and even their very own bodies (and those of their followers). They are taught that the normal developmental course of cultivating one's own moral independence is wrong. They become morally stunted, dependent upon those leaders for ALL guidance, and contribute to the cycle by keeping that same power invested in him - to be used as his own personal biases dictate, whether for good or extreme evil (pushing to prevent the use of condoms in AIDS-ravaged parts of Africa, for instance).

So my position is that Fran, or Francis, or Frank, or whatever the heck is name is -- seems like a pretty nice guy. I just have no reason to care any more about his pronouncements than I do those of anyone else. Except for the fact that a billion people are irrationally taught that they must care. And so it goes.

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Would the pro-life movement agree to a law restricting abortion to hard-luck cases as you describe, but banning the grounds for the other 62.5 million? In a heartbeat.

Not if they deny that those cases exist. Or persist in their ignorance of them. Which you contribute to by minimizing them.

Again, what was the reasoning for the law used in Savita Halappanavar's case? The whole purpose of the "pro-life movement" is to make a movement out of something complex. To dumb it down. Throw it to the mob. Vulgarize it. Substitute raw emotion for any rational argument about what is right or wrong when it comes to legislating what happens inside a woman's body. Don't tell me for a second that the "pro-life movement" is more concerned with complexities, contradictions and basic rights than it's opposition is.

Theranter said...

Related and worth a read:
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-07/free-contraception-can-t-end-the-abortion-debate
and
http://minx.cc:1080/?post=358355 (Ace of Spades Blog, "The Overreach of Planned Parenthood And Their SJW Supporters")

bgates said...

The Big Secret of Abortion: Women Already Know How It Works, And How Many Tiny Limbs An Abortionist Has To Sell To Afford a Lamborghini

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Here's an example of what I mean.

A queen and her counterpart.

All very official-looking. All very important, apparently.

Can anyone tell me what the hell they're doing? What is the purpose of their visit and the purpose of this broadcast? And the parades.

What I can say, is that they dress well. So they certainly look the part.

Maybe that is the point.

If only it were possible to derive spiritual maturity from nothing other than such pomp.

As my good libertarian-atheist friend would have once said: He's a politician.

They're all politicians.

Just some more useful than others.

SGT Ted said...

If women already "know" it's so awful, why the butthurt about those videos?

Pro-choice women can't handle the ugly truth about the abortion industry, is what the butthurt about the videos is revealing.

One can be pro-choice and be against Planned Parenthood. That so many pro-choice women cannot grasp that distinction shows they aren't really doing much thinking about the videos.

Diamondhead said...

Articles like this betray the author's larval existence in a place where everyone agrees with each other. 40-45% of women call themselves pro-life - where do they fit into this analysis? If one were to go solely by what one reads in middle-brow east coast publications, he'd be left with the misapprehension that the abortion debate boils down to: women - pro-choice, men - pro-life.

jimbino said...

Quaestgor: Black lives matter, or do they?

No they don't; if they did, we'd let some Blacks into our lily-white national parks, forests and BLM lands, or at least into Ken Burns's documentaries about them.

Medical tourism to Cuba will soon solve the abortion unavailability problem in Amerika.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

"...men have no standing in discussing abortions..."

I love this line of reasoning. If I agree to its premise can we go back to 1973 and say, "Wait a minute, Guys, we can't decide on a right to abort. Hell we can't even discuss it!"

Funny how nine old men saying "do it" are OK but any discussion by men now is verboten. Hillary did the same with her malevolent appearance in NH today, referring to "men" discussing aborting at the debate last week as if just answering the question posed to them was wrong. Because men. Right.

Diamondhead said...

Pro-life women are lectured to by pro-choice male toads quite often. As far as men discussing the issue of abortion in Congress, this has to be the stupidest argument out there. We live in a representative democracy...to wit: Senator Cornyn is in Washington to represent the views of his constituents, millions of whom are women who would rather he represent their views on abortion than Senator Boxer or Hillary Clinton.

Birches said...

Pro-life women are lectured to by pro-choice male toads quite often.

R&B just did it, didn't he?

chickelit said...

Barbara Boxer, eh?

Don't get me started.

walter said...

From the article:

"Women who have been pregnant past quickening have felt the nauseating turn of a baby inside them; some have had the horror of feeling that baby stop moving"

Wait...we're talking around 18 weeks..as far as perceived movement. Did the author go temporarily rogue mentioning a "baby"?

This is kinda interesting:

"Perhaps the most exciting pregnancy milestone is the first time you feel the baby kick. This first movement, which is called the quickening, generally comes shortly before the halfway mark in your term, and it is in some ways a mother’s first bonding experience with her baby.

As its muscles and bones develop, the baby gains the ability to flex its arms and legs. It responds to your movements, to the sound of your voice, and to ambient noises in your environment. As your baby grows larger, it may sometimes squirm when you sit in a position that makes it uncomfortable.
The Origin and History of the Term Quickening

The term quickening goes back many centuries. Words can change in meaning over long periods of time, and at the time when this term entered the language, the word quick meant “alive” (if you think about it for a moment, it is easy to see how quick evolved to have the meaning it has today).

To people who lived before modern developments such as pregnancy tests and ultrasound, the moment when a pregnant woman first felt her baby kick—the quickening—was the moment when the baby first “came to life.” In fact, to legal scholars of the time, the quickening marked the moment from which the right to life could be applied to a baby, and after a woman felt her baby kick for the first time, anyone who harmed her in such a way as to cause a miscarriage or stillbirth was guilty of murder. Later, when procedures such as abortion became feasible, this standard was employed to determine when this operation could be performed."

Lewis Wetzel said...

R&B wrote:
"Here's an example of what I mean."
I am not certain what you are objecting to. How long have you been walking this earth, R&B? Thirty, forty, maybe fifty years?
The late Christopher Hitchens' arguments were weakest when he was on defense. He knew this, so he tried to stay on offense.
By Hitchens' lights three thousand years of Jewish tradition were supposed to give way to the wisdom of a middle class English boy with a minor degree from Oxford. If Hitchens had been instructed in Jew-hatred he would have adopted it or rejected it based on whatever prejudices he had learned as a child, just like the religious people he attacked.

rhhardin said...

Super-yucky is the release of an egg from the ovary. Look for it on youtube.

Jason said...



Althouse is pro-choice though she acknowledges abortion is murder. I have found that point of view refreshing and rare.

I don't. I find that position demented, incoherent, cowardly and depraved.

Rusty said...

jimbino said...
Quaestgor: Black lives matter, or do they?

No they don't; if they did, we'd let some Blacks into our lily-white national parks, forests and BLM lands, or at least into Ken Burns's documentaries about them.

Medical tourism to Cuba will soon solve the abortion unavailability problem in Amerika.


Why? When Mexico is so much cleaner and cheaper. Cuba is a shithole. You'll get an infection.

deepelemblues said...

I have friends who have had abortions, and not a single one of them "shrugged their shoulders" over any part of it. All of them (there are four) except one regrets having done it, and the one who doesn't regret it never had such a cavalier attitude either. Maybe on the Upper West Side the various aspects of abortion are just something to shrug at in between bong hits, but not to most women in most places.

tim in vermont said...

What is more horrifying to me is that Webster's has removed "fetus" as a sense of the word "baby." Clearly baby has that sense and is used in that way millions of times a week.

Webster's is angling to be "Newspeak."

tim in vermont said...

I love too how the language police seek to restrict usage of the word "murder" to a strictly legal definition the term. If you limit discussion to the politically approved terms, you can prevent yourself and others from committing thought crimes.

On the internet, everybody gets to play political officer!

damikesc said...

2) men have no standing in discussing abortions. Even if this author's point is taken, why shouldn't these facts be made more accessible to men? Since so many women have given up their natural role as protector of the unborn, perhaps if men were to better understand the costs of the sexual revolution they will take more care.

I'd actually go for that...

...the moment they stop forced child support.

If am an is required to financially support the child for 18 years, he absolutely should have a voice. That men can be horribly defrauded by women in a wide array of loathsome ways (stolen condoms, etc) should give us FAR more of a voice than we have.

And add in that a lot of men still have to get their wife's permission for a vasectomy.

The fetus, not being a "person," has no right to life, so killing a fetus cannot be murder, whatever Ann Althouse might think.

Congrats on citing slave owner logic for slave treatment and Nazi logic for treatment of their undesirables.

In Japan and much of Europe that is largely true.

Working out SPLENDIDLY for them, too. No issues with that at all.

So why do reproductive rights continue to incite such anger?

"History suggests that sexism has much to do with it


I actually agree.

Feminists want men to bankroll their bad decisions but have no voice in it.

That's pure sexism.

The current pope has actually done the right thing on AGW. Many liberals (I would consider myself one) admire the current pope for offering leadership in the way of rational positions (within the extraordinarily stifling political/institutional limitations of his capacity to fight for them) and just for having an all-around, better sense of decency. The pope before his predecessor was a little like that, too.

So you have no problem with the requirement to suspend thought to follow the dogma...as long as you support the dogma.

Don't worry. It requires a total lack of thought to buy into AGW nonsense today.

Why? When Mexico is so much cleaner and cheaper. Cuba is a shithole. You'll get an infection.

Like he cares.

His side supported Gosnell as well and tried to cover up his crimes.

Remember that.

mikee said...

I will be pro-choice when the biological father has the same right to choose termination as the mother. Just for laughs.

Hey, if you can't laugh about abortion, the genocide situation in a few years is gonna be a real downer for you. Just a warning.

Levi Starks said...

I'll bet those nazi death chambers were pretty icky too.

Curious George said...

"jimbino said...
The fetus, not being a "person," has no right to life, so killing a fetus cannot be murder, whatever Ann Althouse might think."

I don't remember Althouse being named arbiter on this subject. Nor wikipedia.

"jimbino said...

Medical tourism to Cuba will soon solve the abortion unavailability problem in Amerika."

Abortion unavailability? In the US. WHere?

What a fucking moron.

Moron.

jimbino said...

Curious George: Abortion unavailability? In the US. WHere?

You can educate yourself right here:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/the-difficulty-of-getting-an-abortion-in-texas/283045/

Planned Parenthood should just change its business model to provide abortions to oppressed Amerikan women by way of chartering flights to Cuba, where abortion has been legal for decades. In Cuba, the woman could just buy RU-486 to solve her problem without physician intervention and let the Amerikan goody-goodies back home just stew in their juices. Who knows, there might even develop an active market in fetus parts in Cuba. We Amerikans are lucky to have a free country just 90 miles from Key West!

Todd said...

imbino said...

We Amerikans are lucky to have a free country just 90 miles from Key West!

8/11/15, 12:57 PM


Free country down there? Really? Hows about I purchase you a round-about ride to Cuba and when you get there, you go to the capital building and hold up a sign calling Castro a murdering butcher. Mehkay? I will do you the service of making it an open-ended return trip ticket so that when you finally do get out of prison, you can still get back home to "un-free" Amerika.

What do you say? What departure date do you want? Next Tuesday work for you?

jimbino said...

My brief research shows other nearby free countries, besides Cuba, namely Canada, Greenland, French Guiana, Guyana and Uruguay. Misoprostol and other abortion pills are available by mailorder without prescription from some free countries:

https://www.womenonweb.org/en/page/6875/information-about-the-use-of-misoprostol-pills-available-locally

jimbino said...

Todd: Free country down there? Really?

Cuba is not totally free, of course, just free in comparison with Amerika. Cuba, for example, abolished slavery by royal decree on October 7, 1886, without losing 600,000 of its citizens in a civil war. Some 60% of its citizens are Black and aren't specifically targeted by cops in the streets. They've also never locked up all their Japanese citizens.

Todd said...

jimbino said...

8/11/15, 2:15 PM


So you are not taking up my offer? OK, got it.

jimbino said...

Private, non-commercial sexual relations between same-sex consenting adults 16 and over have been legal in Cuba since 1979. It took the less-enlightened USSA until Lawrence v. Texas in 2003, to come to its senses, and 16-year olds still have no right to choice of their sex partners, homo or hetero, in Amerika.

jimbino said...

Todd So you are not taking up my offer? OK, got it.

Whereas ad hominem is your preferred method of argumentation, it's not mine.

Todd said...

jimbino said...
Todd So you are not taking up my offer? OK, got it.

Whereas ad hominem is your preferred method of argumentation, it's not mine.

8/11/15, 2:42 PM


I don't believe "ad hominem" means what you think it means. I made you an offer to prove your statement that "cuba is more free than America" and it appeared that you refused. I was simply verifying your refusal. That is not an "ad hominem". I was not / am not "attacking you". I am "challenging your assertion". They are different things even if most "liberally minded" people no longer think so.

ad ho·mi·nem
ˌad ˈhämənəm/
adverb & adjective

1. (of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining. "vicious ad hominem attacks"

2. relating to or associated with a particular person. "the office was created ad hominem for Fenton"

jimbino said...

Todd, to "hold up a sign calling Castro a murdering butcher" would be an ad hominem attack if ever I saw one.

Todd said...

jimbino said...
Todd, to "hold up a sign calling Castro a murdering butcher" would be an ad hominem attack if ever I saw one.

8/11/15, 2:55 PM


Again, you misunderstand and/or misrepresent. First Castro was a murdering butcher. He did kill many of his own people for political and other reasons. The truth is not an "ad hominem". Second, My requesting that you do it is a "political speech" act. A demonstration of relative freedoms. During the Bush administration, signs calling Bush names and calling for his death were common place. No one (as far as has been reported) was "disappeared" as a result of those signs and those protests. Would those individuals fared as well if their protests were in Cuba, against Castro? I think not. Hence the test I put to you.

If you wish I would allow you to replace "Castro is a murdering butcher" with "This government is a failure and does not treat us well and we deserve better. Free and open elections now!"

jimbino said...

Castro is a murdering butcher compared to what? He never did deliberately kill 129,000 civilians with two bombs, as far as I know.

damikesc said...

Jimbino he isn't calling YOU one. It's not ad hominem. Sorry.

damikesc said...

Remember when jimbino limited his idiocy to the evils of married folks?

Good times.

Todd said...

jimbino said...
Castro is a murdering butcher compared to what? He never did deliberately kill 129,000 civilians with two bombs, as far as I know.

8/11/15, 3:10 PM


Compared to me, Mother Teresa, the Pope, and at least 85% of the rest of the world's population.

If you don't want to do it, just say so. I understand. It is really, really easy to talk smack about a government that will not punish you for "saying stuff". You are a lot like all of those feminists that hold their "slut walks" and other protests in America and Canada denouncing rape (like anyone normal approves of rape) whereas they don't do that sort of thing in Iran (could get rape raped there or stoned to death). Nor are they in Africa or ME protesting genital mutilation (again, that could really get you killed).

Is America perfect, course not but it is not worst than just about every place else. If Cuba is so great and free, what are you doing here?

Kirk Parker said...

jimbino,

"we'd let some Blacks into our lily-white national parks, forests and BLM lands"

OMFG, not this other hobby horse of yours again!

For the record: I doubt you've ever spent a single moment in a national forest, other than by driving through it completely unawares on a state highway or something... because if you had you would know that there aren't any admission gates like there are at (some!) national parks!

There's literally no "keeping blacks out of our national forests" because there are, literally, no gatekeepers.



jimbino said...

Compared to God of the Book of Job, Castro is junior varsity when it comes to wanton killing: http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/03/gods-107th-kiling-god-and-satan-kill.html

Kirk Parker said...

Roost,

This dad (of 4 babies) most definitely sees it Hegelain's way.

sorry.


R & B,

"Give a year's paid leave average for any new parent"

Do you know how completely insane that would be?


Yancey,

Jimbino could make an honest man out of himself, but he won't.

Todd said...

jimbino said...
Compared to God of the Book of Job, Castro is junior varsity when it comes to wanton killing: http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/03/gods-107th-kiling-god-and-satan-kill.html

8/11/15, 3:39 PM


Yep, just keep moving those goal-posts.

Why is it so very hard for you to just admit that you over sold it? Instead you keep dancing around and digging that hole deeper...

damikesc said...

Compared to God of the Book of Job, Castro is junior varsity when it comes to wanton killing

...except you don't believe in God. Allegedly.

He never did deliberately kill 129,000 civilians with two bombs, as far as I know.

Some reports have his him killing about 141,000 people. And not in a war, mind you.

For the record: I doubt you've ever spent a single moment in a national forest, other than by driving through it completely unawares on a state highway or something... because if you had you would know that there aren't any admission gates like there are at (some!) national parks!

He seems to have few problems with Castro's known limitations on places in Cuba Cubans are allowed to visit. Odd

Fen said...

2) men have no standing in discussing abortions.

Wrong, its my DNA too.

But I like the direction you are taking.
Women have no standing discussing war
Women have no standing discussing boys
Women have no standing discussing economics

Get back in the kitchen and refrain from discussing topics outside of your gender...

tim in vermont said...

jimbino has already made it clear some time ago, on being pressed, that what he wants is for whites to stop reproducing and Hispanics to take over "Amerika." Oh yeah, and for all of his neighbor's pets to stop pooping on his property. At least CrackMC was entertaining. Why you guys waste any further time with him is beyond me.

darrenoia said...

What amazing work that one word, "yucky" does! It simultaneously infantilizes the woman and dehumanizes the infant.

It infantilizes the woman (something we're seeing as a hallmark of present-day feminism, in which women are never, ever responsible for their choices) by resorting to baby vocabulary to protect her from the ugliness of her choice. It de-emphasizes the horror of dismemberment and torture of a living creature (whatever linguistic contortions you want to use to deny that abortions are the killing of babies, no wordplay has yet been devised to pretend that abortions are not performed on living creatures), and thus dehumanizes the infant.

Bravura turn.

walter said...

"It infantilizes the woman"
Yep..as does this article. The disconnected logic therein: We have periods, therefore we understand this better than you.
Maybe an effective anti-abortion campaign would go something like:

Abortion: Ewww..that's gross!

AHL said...

"So far, the heavily edited videos have offered no clear evidence of wrongdoing but have shown Planned Parenthood doctors and administrators in frank conversations about specific protocols and ethical concerns involved in the donation of fetal tissue, for which consent is obtained from the women undergoing procedures. (Fetal tissue is crucial to research into ALS, Parkinson’s, sickle-cell anemia, and Alzheimer’s; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was among the Republicans who voted to make its donation legal in 1993.)"

I'm confused about the lives abortion activists value. They claim that the fetuses help people with specific ailments and diseases, but genetic counselors advise women to abort babies or not to conceive if there is a chance the baby could have a disease, for which aborted babies could provide treatment in the future. In my mind, the reasoning is circular. If science really had hope that they could find cures for so many diseases from stem cells, why do they suggest aborting babies based on genetic potential? If they value the lives of the disabled, why is it suggested to abort babies who will have Down Syndrome? The reasoning also has us believe that we value life by not allowing it come into the world, or that the life is worth it because, #science.

walter said...

Apparently being born "differently abled" is more yucky than abortions.

Interesting that the err clinicians in the video used the term "products of conception".

That would be..all of us, no?

Unknown said...

When a mother has an unplanned pregnancy and abortion, there is a more likely chance of an unhealthy relationship and that will be detrimental to the life of the child and the mother.