Birth control rant - DPChallenge Forums

03/22/2012 03:02:07 PM · #1001

Well, this thread had made it to the bottom of my last 10 posts, but I guess I'll foist it to the top for this. In an article entitled "10 reasons why the rest of the world thinks the US is nuts" by Soraya Chemaly (listing herself as a "feminist, satirist, and media critic") the author give her take on abortion. Most of it does look at crazy, extreme things that are apparently being discussed. Lots of that has been brought up here and it's irrelevant to my point. Here's all she has to say about "personhood"

6. Giving zygotes "personhood" rights while systematically stripping women of their fundamental rights. There is too much to say about the danger of personhood ideas creeping into health policy to do it here. But, consider what happens to a woman whose womb is not considered the "best" environment for a gestating fetus in a world of personhood-for-zygote legislation: who decides the best environment -- the state, her insurance company, her employer, her rapist who decides he really, really wants to be a father? Anyone but a woman.

My point is I feel this paragraph generally represents the dearth of understanding of the issue among many people who support abortion rights. She really has nothing to say about personhood (but pretends she has a lot). She merely calls it "dangerous" (which is true in the sense it is dangerous to her position). That's all. She has nothing more to say.

Interestingly she starts off the essay listing her rights as a woman:
I am a woman and I have these human rights:
The right to life.
The right to privacy.
The right to freedom.
The right to bodily integrity.
The right to decide when and how I reproduce.

I agree with her, but she completely fails to understand that the unborn baby is also both a human and a woman (her only qualifications listed to possess those rights). The right to life is right there as #1 in her mind.

The article is written with the usual bravado that probably comes more with her age than her particular ideology, but I can only sigh and cringe at the low quality of intellect in the piece.

Sorry, just had to vent.

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

03/22/2012 03:33:58 PM · #1002

You can't play the personhood card halfway. If the rights of a fertilized egg are of paramount concern, then why not lock up mothers who smoke or don't get enough iron in their diets? Shall we allow children to sue parents for failing to exercise or take a vitamin that may have prevented a birth defect? I can only sigh and cringe at the low intellect of people who promote early personhood without grasping its ramifications.

03/22/2012 04:01:18 PM · #1003

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

You have really done her an injustice by quoting her out of context and without the underlying examples that she links to to make her points. You might have linked to her article so that we could make up our own minds about the "quality" of her intellect.

03/22/2012 04:02:52 PM · #1004

I was going to Judith but forgot by the time I got to the end. Explain how you feel I took her out of context. Maybe it will give me some peace of mind.

Canon 12x IS USM (S3 IS built-in Lens) -- 36-432mm (35mm EQ)

03/22/2012 04:08:08 PM · #1005

Originally posted by scalvert:

You mean like this?

"Women have also faced criminal prosecution for prenatal drug use, under statutes including criminal child abuse, neglect, manslaughter, and delivering substances to a minor. For the most part, the women targeted by the courts and the media have been black, poor, and addicted to crack cocaine (Roberts, 1991; Krauss, 1991; Beckett, 1995; Neuspiel et al., 1994; Greene, 1991)."

But clearly we don't do it now because fetuses are not yet persons in a legal sense. I understand the ramifications of my argument Shannon. And the legal arguments are hardly my concern. Do I think it's morally unacceptable to not care for your baby in utero? Yes.

Message edited by author 2012-03-22 16:10:54.

GeneralE

Canon PowerShot S3 IS

03/22/2012 04:11:52 PM · #1006

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

"Women have also faced criminal prosecution for prenatal drug use ...

And what were the outcomes of these somewhat novel prosecutions?

Do you really think conviction and incarceration would be the best course of action for an addicted pregnant or post-partum woman?

scalvert

Canon EOS-5D Mark III

03/22/2012 04:24:15 PM · #1007

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

But clearly we don't do it now because fetuses are not yet persons in a legal sense. I understand the ramifications of my argument Shannon. And the legal arguments are hardly my concern.

Nor are the moral arguments, non-woman. I call BS anyway. If the legal arguments were not your concern, you wouldn't keep noting that first sentence.

03/22/2012 04:39:28 PM · #1008

Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
"Women have also faced criminal prosecution for prenatal drug use ...

And what were the outcomes of these somewhat novel prosecutions?

Do you really think conviction and incarceration would be the best course of action for an addicted pregnant or post-partum woman?

Don't know and nope. It was a concept thing.

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D

03/22/2012 04:40:35 PM · #1009

Originally posted by scalvert:

Originally posted by DrAchoo:
But clearly we don't do it now because fetuses are not yet persons in a legal sense. I understand the ramifications of my argument Shannon. And the legal arguments are hardly my concern.

Nor are the moral arguments, non-woman. I call BS anyway. If the legal arguments were not your concern, you wouldn't keep noting that first sentence.

Because it's been at least a dozen times in the conversation that people have steered it to purely legal questions. I'm trying to let them know that my response to their queary is now in a "legal" frame of mind rather than a "moral" frame of mind.

Let the legality reflect the morality and not vice versa.

Message edited by author 2012-03-22 16:40:59.

frisca

Nikon D70

03/22/2012 05:31:03 PM · #1010

while law and morality often intersect, one does not depend on the other. Shifting morality may cause a shift in laws (for example, prostitution or drug use) but some things will always be illegal no matter what prevailing morality is (ex. murder).

Morality cannot be the sole judge of what is a law and what is not simply because it can shift and the law has to be based on more concrete principles. If you give a symbiant (like a zygote) the same rights as a person (such as the woman carrying the zygote) then you've effectively pitted its right to become a life against her right to BE a life. One cannot ignore that you are trading one for the other when they are at odds, and the decision must be made about who gets the trump. That's where viability and such arguments come in -- its a balancing. Its not black or white, its grey, and we have to recognize that.

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM

03/22/2012 05:37:50 PM · #1011

Originally posted by frisca:

I agree with everything you say frisca except for the "become a life" and "be a life". That sorta muddies definitions. "Life" is scientific and it's clear both are lives. Anyway, you are right, when the rights are at odds you have to decide who gets the trump and I agree it's far from black and white. Neither side can boil this argument down to a bumper sticker.

RayEthier

Canon EOS-5D Mark II

03/24/2012 09:56:08 AM · #1012

Originally posted by DrAchoo:

...I agree it's far from black and white. Neither side can boil this argument down to a bumper sticker.

Sure you can...it goes like this "The Left is Right"

Voila done, one bumper sticker... Good eh?

Ray

War On Women: Anti-Contraception Literature Handed Out At Conservative Conference Headlined By Santorum, Paul Ryan

03/28/2012 02:26:53 PM · #1013

cynthiann

Nikon D810

Nikon AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.8

03/28/2012 02:30:49 PM · #1014

Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:

War On Women: Anti-Contraception Literature Handed Out At Conservative Conference Headlined By Santorum, Paul Ryan

Saw that... but they deny they would attempt to do anything about it if elected. You don't have to be downwind of a barn to smell BS!

David Ey

Nikon D80

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8D

03/28/2012 08:52:45 PM · #1015

Who exactly, is stopping you from using birth control and why should I be required to pay for it?

03/28/2012 09:41:49 PM · #1016

Originally posted by cynthiann:

Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
War On Women: Anti-Contraception Literature Handed Out At Conservative Conference Headlined By Santorum, Paul Ryan

Saw that... but they deny they would attempt to do anything about it if elected. You don't have to be downwind of a barn to smell BS!

:-)

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8D

03/28/2012 09:42:11 PM · #1017

Originally posted by David Ey:

Who exactly, is stopping you from using birth control and why should I be required to pay for it?

Who exactly would require you to pay for it?

David Ey

Nikon D80

03/29/2012 11:31:39 AM · #1018

Have you been asleep the last year?

escapetooz

Canon EOS-500D Rebel T1i

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

03/29/2012 11:37:03 AM · #1019

Originally posted by David Ey:

Have you been asleep the last year?

Have you been asleep this whole thread when this was debated to the death?