Republicans Gone Retarded–A Pulse As An Excuse For Misogyny

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Heartbeat, heartbeat, listen to my heartbeat – Red 7

Texas. Yet another state the US could do without.

Texas Legislators File Radical ‘Fetal Heartbeat’ Bill To Ban Abortion After Just Six Weeks

On Thursday, three Texas Republicans filed a measure that would criminalize abortion services after a fetal heartbeat can be detected — which typically occurs around six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even know they’re pregnant.

The Texas legislature is currently in the midst of a special session that was convened specifically to give lawmakers more time to consider abortion restrictions. The session will end on July 31. Until then, GOP lawmakers have been busy proposing a slew of anti-abortion bills in the hopes of being able to rush them through.

One of those bills, a measure to ban abortion after 20 weeks and shut down the majority of the states’ abortion clinics, has captured national attention over the past several weeks as thousands of Texans have rallied at the capitol in protest. The legislature gave final approval to that bill on Saturday, and Gov. Rick Perry (R) just signed it into law on Thursday morning. But that’s not enough to satisfy Reps. Phil King (R), Dan Flynn (R), and Geanie Morrison (R) — who filed HB 59 on the same day that Perry signed the controversial abortion restrictions.

So-called “heartbeat” bills are so radical that they divide the anti-choice community. In addition to criminalizing the vast majority of abortions, they also mandate invasive ultrasound procedures for women seeking abortions. In order to detect a fetal heartbeat so early in a pregnancy, doctors typically have to use a transvaginal probe.

Earlier this year, North Dakota became the first state to pass a six-week heartbeat ban. It currently represents the most stringent abortion ban the country has seen since Roe v. Wade first legalized the procedure, and it’s being challenged in court for overstepping Roe.

None of this will go into affect unless Roe vs. Wade is overturned:

Later on Thursday night, the text for the bill was released. The heartbeat ban is a “trigger” provision, which means it wouldn’t take effect unless Roe v. Wade is overturned. If that court decision is struck down while HB 59 is law, a six-week abortion ban would immediately go into effect without requiring Texas to pass another law. Similar “trigger” provisions have been added to state constitutions in other conservative states in hopes of quickly banning abortion in the event that Roe is invalidated.

I’m actually shocked that any of these boneheads could set up a domino effect – but along with conscious denial of the facts, deception is a valued weapon in the repertoire of the rethuglicans.

And because Americans (as a rule) only live in America (mentally), they somehow think that there’s just plenty of room for more people, so hey! Let’s get fertile! As if overpopulation is the stuff of dystopian science fiction.

Which it will not be – if we keep walking down the road of irresponsible prolificacy.

Till the next post, then.

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J’accuse! What Religion Is Truly Responsible For…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; Bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein. Genesis 9:7

"We have met the enemy and he is us." – Pogo

Puff pieces. None of them ever cut to the bone. Every one of them dilly-dallies around the issues. Most articles adopt a shrug-hey-let-‘em-have-it-if-it makes-them-feel-good attitude.

The truth of the matter is this: religion isn’t responsible for anything. That’s the fallacy of reification. The fact is, that people are responsible. For everything. Good and bad. Natural selection doesn’t select on intelligence. It selects based on adaptability, and being easily influenced is a facet of adaptability.

But this religion nonsense still has got to go.

It propagates a series of vast lies: that some otherworldly other is watching out for you personally, that there’s some invisible ledger being kept and all debts and injuries will finally be balanced; in short, someone else will come along and sort your mess for you.

It’s an insane and irresponsible mindset. It gives the lazy thinker all the excuses they might need: I’ll not use birth control, because the result is gawd’s will. My gawd wants me to have multiple children (see the quote from above). Gawd is against birth control because some pointy-hatted asshole in Italy says so.

At this juncture, anthropocentric global warming is fact – the only people who battle that are the mooks fiercely clenching their SUV’s to their chests in denial. We are exhausting this planet’s resources. This is no longer speculation or science fiction. As a species, we are going to wreck this little blue pearl within a century or so.

We are coming to an agonizing realization: people are going to have to start taking reproductive responsibility. We have upwards of an estimated 100 million abandoned children living in the streets – and the upper percentiles are usually in the heavily religious countries. Starving children? Human trafficking? Yeah, there’ll be no divine intervention there. It’s down to us.

Pretty soon, it will get to the point where governments will be required to legislate and enforce a limit to family size. For the sake of our species. Regardless of fuzzy-wuzzy feelings or religious belief. Sad but true.

So go forth, and fuck responsibly.

Till the next post, then.

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When Tea Is The Wrong Kind Of Party: Mistaken Akin Claims Of Legitimate Rape

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Is it me, or when election time rolls around, do the Republican crazies seem to surge during an election year?

Witness if you will: Congressscum Akin has come out with the…most witless, stupidest, misogynistic crap yet:

In an August 19, 2012 interview aired on St. Louis television station KTVI-TV, Akin was asked his views on whether women who became pregnant due to rape should have the option of abortion. He replied:

“Well you know, people always want to try to make that as one of those things, well how do you, how do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question. First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.”

The comment was widely criticized as false. Medical experts say there is no evidence to support the assertion that women are less likely to get pregnant from rape compared with consensual sex. A three-year study of 4008 adult American women from 1996 that found rape-related pregnancy occurred with "significant frequency" was cited as evidence against Akin's claim.

I’m positive crack heads could make more cogent commentary. Who would even defend such idiocy?

Sadly, all the usual suspects:

Akin has been defended by some social conservative organizations and notable Republicans, including the Family Research Council and Mike Huckabee.^[59] A spokesman for the Council said that "We feel this is a case of gotcha politics... We know who Todd Akin is. We've worked with him up on the hill. He's a defender of life." Akin's remarks were also defended by the evangelical Christian activist Kirk Cameron.^[61] A representative of the American Family Association cited a 1999 article by Doctor John C. Willke to argue Akin "was exactly right". Pro-life theologian Pia de Solenni called Akin's remarks "idiotic", but also claimed that there is "no solid data" on the question of whether rape inhibits pregnancy, and opined that it was not a "far stretch [from effects of long-term stress on fertility] to wonder if women who are raped might have a lesser rate of pregnancy resulting from the rape". Robert Fleischmann, director of pro-life group Christian Life Resources, similarly argued that Akin's point was plausible but lacked data ("I have yet to see a study that demonstrates some sort of contraceptive effect from a rape. I do believe, however, it is not an unwarranted conclusion." and "Statistically speaking, it appears something happens in a rape, either with the victim or with the perpetrator, that reduces the incidence of pregnancy."). In response to Republican demands that he resigns, Personhood USA spokeswoman Jennifer Mason said that Akin's position "is an integral part of the Republican Party platform, the same position that was held by President Ronald Reagan" and that "[we] are left with Reagan Republicans, who agree with the Republican Party platform on abortion, and Romney Republicans, a fringe group of liberals who compromise on human life. Mike Huckabee supported Akin by soliciting donations for his Senate campaign, in which he accused the "Republican establishment" of a "carefully orchestrated and systematic attack."

That anyone in their right minds could even side with a breath-takingly ignorant statement is officially mind-boggling.

The great divide here is not about anything else but the delusion that there is some sort of ‘soul’ involved, that much talked-about, much glorified, but incredibly unprovable ethereal mythological will-o-the wisp that human beings are mysterious imbued with at birth (or as the more deluded claim, at conception).

We should then work from the assumption that there is no such critter, and deal with the harsh realities of the real world.

But then, when the surreal nonsense of religion invades the domicile of reason, it makes me lose some hope for our species.

Till the next post, then.

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And What Is The Catholic Cee Whinging On About This Time? Only The Usual Suspects…

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis
This is a constant complaint of the religious: WE’RE BEING PERSECUTED! WE HAVE RIGHTS! etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum. And what is it really all about? Why, the ass-clown  Catholics are up in arms about…contraceptive services?!?!? It’s like these nitwits are still living in the 50’s.

Fortnight for Freedom sees religious freedom in peril

Church bells will ring across Rapid City at noon on the Fourth of July, tolling a threat to religious freedom that Bishop Robert Gruss and others see in the 2010 Affordable Care Act and elsewhere.

Churches of all denominations are asked to ring their bells for five minutes that day in support of the Fortnight for Freedom campaign being waged through Wednesday, July 4, by U.S. Catholic bishops. The campaign is designed to promote religious liberty by enlisting opposition to the contraceptive services mandate that's part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

So…just what are these contraceptive services, exactly?

With the exception of churches and houses of worship, the Act's contraceptive coverage mandate applies to all employers and educational institutions. The mandate applies to all new health insurance plans effective August 2012. It controversially includes Christian hospitals, Christian charities, Catholic universities, and other enterprises owned or controlled by religious organizations that oppose contraception on doctrinal grounds. Regulations made under the act rely on the recommendations of the Institute of Medicine, which concluded that birth control is medically necessary "to ensure women's health and well-being."

Current Department of Health and Human Services regulations that govern ACA require employers — even Catholic hospitals, charities and universities —  to offer contraceptive services at no cost in their employee health care plans. It has generated outrage by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who say it violates Catholic religious teaching against artificial contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs.

Which is horse dung, because these things didn’t exist over 100 years ago.

Gruss, head of the Catholic Diocese of Rapid City, has promoted the two-week national campaign against the HHS mandates as an issue of religious freedom that goes far beyond the contraception question, affecting all Americans, not just Catholic Americans.

"This is not just a Catholic issue. It's not a Democrat or Republican issue. It's not a contraceptive issue. It's an American issue. It's a religious freedom issue," Gruss said June 19 during a panel discussion on how the mandate would affect Catholic schools and charities in Rapid City.

It is an American issue – but if this so-called ‘religious freedom’ is going to have a massive impact on women’s reproductive health, then I say, screw the religious. I’ll take the real over the surreal any day.

Gruss said religious freedom is more than "the right to go to Mass on Sunday or to pray the rosary at home."

I’d say that as the religious are posturing themselves as the arbiters of all they survey, it’s getting to the point that maybe that’s the limit we should impose on them.

"The current climate is reducing religion in the public domain to a private matter ... but it is also the right to engage in the broader society," he said. The HHS mandate on contraception coverage, with its narrow exemption for certain religious groups, would force Catholics institutions to either violate the teachings of the church or to stop engaging in the Gospel's call to serve others — through its hospitals, schools and charitable organizations, he said.

  Then they can abstain. Isn’t that what Catholics are famous for, after all?

To be exempt from the contraception mandate, a religious employer would have to meet four narrowly defined criteria, including that it employ and provide services "primarily to persons who share its religious tenets."

That actually sounds…reasonable. But of course, Sour Gruss won’t have that:

Gruss called the current religious exemption "far too narrow" and repeated the frequent observation that "not even Jesus would be included in it," since Christ ministered to both Christians and non-Christians while on earth.

Uh-huh – then again, the mythical man-child didn’t really provide anything resembling reproductive services, did he?

In Rapid City, Catholic Social Services would be forced to comply with the mandate or risk steep fines of $100 per day, per employee, for not providing health insurance to its employees. Neither is an acceptable option, since the costs would cripple the small social services agency, director Jim Kinyon said. "But our mandate comes from some place a little more important than Washington," he said.

Which translates to forcing it onto the rest of us.

CSS's mission is to serve people of all faiths, and Catholics are a minority on its staff. "There's no doubt Catholic Social Services would not meet the exemption. This is not about CSS, it's about the 23,000 people we serve each year," Kinyon said. 

Which means, when you are in Rapid City and in dire need of this sort of help, give these control freaks a wide berth.

Kinyon criticized contraceptive pills as a "failed experiment" in sexual morality and said that forcing employers with a moral objection to abortion to provide insurance benefits that cover abortifacients is akin to "participating in the shedding of the blood of innocents."

As one of the tags for this post states, ‘Boo-fucking-hoo’.

Gruss also complained that the HHS mandate doesn't protect private employers who object to providing contraceptive coverage. Numerous Catholic dioceses and institutions, as well as non-Catholic organizations, have filed 23 lawsuits against federal officials, including HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, challenging the contraceptive mandate. The Rapid City diocese is not among those plaintiffs, but Gruss said the lawsuits are an "opportunity to direct the conversation on freedom of religion" in America today.

Well then, it looks like the criterion for employees is going to be stricter – such as 40 year old virgins who live with their mom, Jehovah’s Witless…oh wait, that’s discriminatory, so they can’t do it.

"We didn't pick this fight; we've been forced into it," Gruss said. 

Another litigant challenging the HHS mandate, the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, said Thursday those lawsuits will continue in light of the June 28 Supreme Court decision upholding the ACA's individual mandate. That decision left untouched the HHS mandates.

The BFRL is one of those institutions who go to bat for ridiculous religious stubbornness, AKA ‘we wanna say the Pledge with the words “Under God” in it!’

“The court’s opinion today did not decide the issues in our cases,” said Hannah Smith, senior counsel.

Of course it didn’t.

Some non-Catholic churches will add their bells to the noon ring on July 4, but at First Congregational United Church of Christ, the Rev. Susan Huffman said she declined the invitation as "too specific an issue for us."

"Although we believe in the concept of religious freedom ... we feel like this is not our issue," Huffman said. 

The reasonable among them are few and far between.

The Fortnight for Freedom campaign closes on July 4 with a special Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. Archbishop Charles Chaput, formerly bishop of Rapid City, will give the homily focusing on religious liberty in America. In Rapid City, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help will hold an 8 a.m. Mass.

This still not an attack on religious liberties in the slightest: the medicinal facts say otherwise. Of course, these idiots believe in an ‘immaculate conception’, which means they have little real clue how biology actually works.

Catholic churches in Rapid City have sponsored a variety of gatherings and religious services from June 21 to July 4 to pray that religious liberty be protected and fostered in America. Those events included a showing of the movie, "A Man for All Seasons," which tells the story of St. Thomas More's martyrdom at the hands of King Henry VIII. Several "patriotic rosaries" at local Catholic churches offering special prayers for the presidency, the Supreme Court and Congress have been held. 

Thomas More was a fuckhead. He went around actually persecuting the Protestants, so he wasn’t quite the martyr he was made out to be. And prayer doing anything at all? Don’t make me laugh. 

"The Patriotic Rosary is different in that with each decade there is a reading from a Founding Father or historical document, singing of a patriotic song, and each Hail Mary is said for a state and all the people in that state," said Marcia Williamson, an organizer of the Fortnight For Freedom. "It really is very inspiring."

I’d bet the rent they won’t be reading from Thomas Paine’s Age of Reason any time soon. Or at all.

People wonder why atheists detest religion – this is a perfect example of why. They claim exemption from common sense based on superstition. They want to supersede human health issues by blathering on about ‘moral imperatives’ that they say come from on high. And they claim they answer to a ‘higher power’ or bear witness in a ‘higher court’. Which means the rest of us will be screwed. 

As religion takes more and more of a back seat in our lives, their whiny little voices will metaphorically be advising humanity on how to drive. Better then, to turn the music up to drown them out.

Till the next post, then.

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Pennsylvania Joins The Freakshow Frenzy: More Misogynistic Mumbo Jumbo

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

Well, now Pennsylvania is joining the ranks of the truly demented: perhaps it should secede along with Oklahoma, Texas, and Indiana.

Biased counseling and mandatory delay

Counseling Ban/Gag Rule

Insurance Prohibition for Abortion

Other Anti-Choice Law

Refusal to Provide Medical Services

Restrictions on Low-Income Women's Access to Abortion

The rest can be read here.

Here, embedded in the state code, is where Pennsylvania stands:

"In every relevant civil or criminal proceeding in which it is possible to do so without violating the Federal Constitution, the common and statutory law of Pennsylvania shall be construed so as to extend to the unborn the equal protection of the laws and to further the public policy of this commonwealth encouraging childbirth over abortion."

When in actuality, this is in direct violation of the 14th amendment, which states unambiguously:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Until the child leaves the mother’s womb, it is unborn – it has no rights. So much for the lip-service of ‘what the Founding Fathers wanted’.

And who is at the heart of these nonsenses? Who else but Republicans. And what are their grounds for restricting the reproductive rights of women? Why, religious of course.

I for one am sick unto death of these people legislating based on their beliefs. If your beliefs are going to dictate your actions in office, then you should not be in office. Because as history shows us, religious people make the worst leaders. And the least capable of being able to weigh all options objectively and decide properly for the greater  good.

Till the next post, then.

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And The Twit Of The Year Race Is On! (Or Rather, The Republican Presidential Nomination)

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

And what a line-up it’s been!

The idiots have lined up, and it’s a cross between a spit-take, a face palm, a headdesk, and picking one’s metaphorical jaw off the floor.

We have the Right Honorable Newt Gingrich, he of the many wives, who right out of the gate, announced that he would dispatch US Marshals to arrest ‘activist judges’ Even his Republican peers (none of whom can rightfully called ‘rational’ by any standard) found this to be a tad…nuts. The likelihood of his getting the nomination is now out. (Phew!)

Sadly, the remainder is still scary enough. Rick Santorum alone is enough to eyeball a high-power rifle. This guy is seriously nuts. He’s the epitome of everything America is not. He’s intolerant of gay rights: his view of abortion is frighteningly anachronistic; he keeps using the code words ‘activist judges’ (a phrase that instills fear in conspiracy theorists galore, but translates to ‘not popular with the conservative crazies’). I don’t even need to cite anything more than his web page.

I’ve laid into Rick Perry before: his status as a fucknut changeth not. 

Ron Paul is a mixed bag of nuts: he thinks that ‘life begins at conception’, has the prevalent asinine dictate against abortion (touting himself as ‘an unshakable foe’), also thinks there’s a war against religion going on,  and proclaims global warming a hoax. What makes more moderate Republicans (almost an oxymoron, there) want to vote for him is that he actually sounds more rational than the rest of the monkeys in the zoo.

At least Ms. Monkey is off the ticket – never thought I’d ever be booing a woman running for president, but there you have it.

The last two are the least worrisome, which is weird, because they’re both Mormon.

Huntsman seems nearly intelligent – he doesn’t boo science or substitute crazy for reality (well, at least mostly). He doesn’t deny global warming, or evolution.

Romney is still an anti-woman’s choice, but is at least willing to change his opinion. Problem is, it’s usually way off into right field.

We can only hope that Obama gets re-elected. While he hasn’t been the best president ever, he still rates well above the baboons that ride the GOP elephant.

Till the next post, then.

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The Colonic Catholics Are At It Again–Banning Breast Cancer Donations? Really?

Cross posted @ the Atheist Oasis

(Tip o’ the derby to Pharyngula for this one)

I call these people colonic Catholics because – well, they just need the shit cleaned out of their brains. For your weekly dose of outrage:

Bishop of Toledo bars assistance to Komen group

Toledo Catholic Bishop Leonard Blair has banned parishes and parochial schools from raising funds for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, citing concerns that the global anti-cancer giant may someday fund embryonic stem-cell research.

These sorts of idiocies cross my eyes. Seriously? Really? Stem cells? Why is this even a hot topic anymore for anyone with half a brain cell?

Mary Westphal, executive director of the Northwest Ohio Affiliate Susan G. Komen for the Cure, and board chairman Angie Ash said they were "extremely disappointed" in Bishop Blair's decision.

Should’ve just stated that you were pissed.

Bishop Blair, in his letter sent over the weekend to all priests and parishes in the 19-county Toledo diocese, stated that "at present the Komen Foundation does not fund" embryonic stem-cell research.

Which compounds the stupidity, not excuses it.

However, he said, "their policy does not exclude that possibility" and the foundation "may very well fund such research in the future."

With that sort of ‘logic’, he may as well tell everyone not to drive combustion engine cars, because the proceeds may eventually promote Sharia laws in Middle Eastern countries.

And to heighten the stupidity, in the idiot’s own words:

Few of us remain untouched by the scourge of breast cancer. Whether among our families, friends or neighbors, there are a great many women in our country who confront this disease every day with tremendous faith and courage.
Researchers, physicians and medical personnel, using their God-given intelligence and skill, work very hard not only to provide healing of those who are afflicted, but also to find a cure. We are all familiar with the mobilization of effort in our country on behalf of this worthy goal.

Always with the appeals to an imaginary sky daddy.

One of the most widely known initiatives is that of the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Many people participate in efforts to raise funds for this cause, including some of our Catholic institutions and schools.
While we want to do everything possible to support the search for a cure, sadly the landscape of medical research today is sometimes marred by the erroneous belief that research is not bound by moral norms rooted in faith and reason, as reflected in the teaching of the Church. That teaching holds, for example, that it is not morally acceptable to destroy one human life, even in its embryonic stage, in order to save another human life.

This fails on so many levels. A., faith is nothing more than fuzzy feel good crap, and reason triumphs over it in the real world, B., their holy book barely touches on the concept of abortion except that if someone harms a pregnant woman and she miscarries, the person causing the injury has to pay a fine to the husband, and C., a life in the embryonic stage hardly counts, and doesn’t count, via the 14th amendment, until it’s born.

For some time, moral questions have been raised from various quarters about the research funded by the Komen Foundation.

Ha! Catholics talking about morality! That’s a running gag nowadays.

The Bishops of Ohio have discussed this and have looked into the matter.

Christlation: “We muddled through our holy fairy tales, and decided against it. And will defend this with flowery, insubstantial rhetoric.”

As best we can determine, at present the Komen Foundation does not fund cancer research that employs embryonic stem cells. However, their policy does not exclude that possibility. They are open to embryonic stem cell research, and may very well fund such research in the future.

Which is none of your dog-damned business, is what it is.

They are also contributors to Planned Parenthood, which, though it may claim to provide needed medical services to poor women, is also the largest provider of abortions in our country.

Gotta watch these little snakes. ‘May claim’ my homesick ass. But the real problem is what most Catolicks have: the abortion issue. Although PP is one of the largest providers in the US, abortion is only 3% of the services provided. Regardless, it’s obvious that these control freaks in frocks want to tell everyone how to live (which is no surprise).

In order to avoid even the possibility of cooperation in morally unacceptable activities, the other Bishops and I believe that it would be wise to find alternatives to Komen for Catholic fundraising efforts.

The biggest conglomeration of pedophiles since NAMBLA think there’s such a thing as ‘morally unacceptable activities’? What a laugh.

For that reason, I am directing that in the fight against breast cancer, fundraising carried out under Catholic auspices, including our schools, should be channeled to our locally known Mercy Cancer Centers instead of Komen.

At least he’s not directing everyone to ‘pray the cancer away’. Because nothing fails like prayer.

One of the major problems we have, is that we let these assholes dictate to the general public how to act, what to think, and we honor the opinions of some dumb fuck in a frock because they’ve pretty much been in charge for centuries, and nobody in power’s got the gumption to tell these assholes their numbers up, their numbers are down, and their opinion’s for shit.

I really can’t say this often enough: fuck religion. It teaches discrimination, it teaches crazy horseshit, and it lets the nutjobs squeak by under the radar way too frequently.

Till the next post, then.

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Ciranda Of The Sewer Rats Of Rio– Another Atrocity Thrown At The Feet Of The Churches…

Cross-posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!

There was one of those horrifying moments in the news – the report of eight children mercilessly slaughtered by off-duty policemen in Rio, also known as the Candelária massacre. It brought a horrifying knowledge to a sanguine world that, despite all vacuous homilies about children being ‘divinely’ protected, it is an unsafe and insane world even for infants and toddlers.

‘Street children’  is

a term used to refer to children who live on the streets of a city. They are basically deprived of family care and protection. Most children on the streets are between the ages of about 5 and 17 years old, and their population between different cities is varied.

Street children live in abandoned buildings, cardboard boxes, parks or on the street itself. A great deal has been written defining street children, but the primary difficulty is that there are no precise categories, but rather a continuum, ranging from children who spend some time in the streets and sleep in a house with ill-prepared adults, to those who live entirely in the streets and have no adult supervision or care.

A widely accepted set of definitions, commonly attributed to UNICEF, divides street children into two main categories:

1. Children on the street are those engaged in some kind of economic activity ranging from begging to vending. Most go home at the end of the day and contribute their earnings to their family. They may be attending school and retain a sense of belonging to a family. Because of the economic fragility of the family, these children may eventually opt for a permanent life on the streets.
2. Children of the street actually live on the street (or outside of a normal family environment). Family ties may exist but are tenuous and are maintained only casually or occasionally.

Street children exist in many major cities, especially in developing countries, and may be subject to abuse, neglect, exploitation, or even, in extreme cases, murder by "cleanup squads" hired by local businesses or police.^[2]

In Latin America, a common cause is abandonment by poor families unable to feed all their children. In Africa, an increasingly common cause is AIDS.

Let’s take a gander at some stats, shall we?

• India 11 million
• Egypt 1,5 million
• Pakistan 1,5 million
• U.S. 750,000 - 1 million
• Kenya 250,000 - 300,000
• Philippines 250,000
• Congo 250,000
• Morocco 30,000
• Brazil 25,000
• Germany 20,000
• Honduras 20 000
• Jamaica 6,500
• Uruguay 3000
• Switzerland 1,000

The top 8 offenders are in bold. And, surprise! The top offenders are also the most highly religious countries.

One can easily ascribe these numbers to superstitious bullshit. India is often touted as the most religious country in the world. Egypt and Pakistan? Guess what those numbers are? The US comes in at a staggering 3/4 of a million to a million stray ‘sewer rats’.

I lay these crimes of overpopulation at the stair of superstition – I hammer this thesis to the door – I rant and rage at the bullheaded stupidity of ensoulment, for it is from this unprovable, ridiculous romanticism that is laying the bed of millions of vagrant children in blood and shit and tears.

Religion has done a piss poor job of controlling our loins, because it is fostered in the weltering weird fear of the sex drive, and it takes away the tools of education, the implements of prevention, the logic of critical thought, and replaces it with hierarchal horseshit and infanticidal delusions.

Religion. It’s gotta go.

Till the next post, then.

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Pro-Life/Anti-Life: The Frippery Of Framing And Overreaction.

Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master – that’s all.’ –Through The Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll.

I may have mentioned this before, but I’ll bring it up again:

I am both pro-life and pro-choice. Not necessarily in that order.

I admit freely and without qualms, that I am a speciesist. In that vein alone, I am bigoted. I am a bigot towards my own species. It is not that I consider lesser species to be our slaves, toys, or any other ridiculous thing. I simply value human beings above other animals. As such, I do lend value to human embryos, zygotes, blastocysts, or other variations of how a child comes to be.

Hold it right there.

This isn’t meant to be an insinuation, an inference, an implication, that any of these stages have attained the value of personhood, especially contrasted with person of the mother. The woman gets a choice. Simple enough?

My point here, is that through all these years of blogging, I’ve seen numerous EPIC FAIL arguments because of the intense polarization of the dispute. And as polarizing arguments go, both sides go too far. Ours as well as theirs. I’ll cite a few:

A. The growing child in the womb is a parasite.
This fails spectacularly, because actually, parasites don’t detach from the host, grow up, and end up taking care of the host in the host’s golden years.
B. Anybody who is pro-life is a practitioner of ‘sperm magic’
Again, fails. Sperm is only one component, so this is the logical fallacy of composition, not to mention a strawman. I find this particularly obnoxious, so do avoid this stupidity.
C. Accusations of ‘ensoulment’. I don’t need supernatural tendencies to value a child, or the beginnings of a child.

I’m sure numerous others will be brought up, and I’ll deal with those on a case-by-case basis. Here’s the point that grinds my gears:

It’s not a ‘in for a penny in for a pound’ situation. To clarify, the two sides of the issue go to ridiculous extremes. The pro-lifers holler that an embryo has full personhood value, the pro-choicers holler that it has zero. (This is also the fallacy of the false dichotomy.) As it is in real life, the actual answer lies somewhere in-between. As does my point. It’s natural, a part of the human condition, that we go to extremes. You, me, everybody, in some order, in some way, we all go overboard. And on polarizing issues, well, the extreme is almost cliché.

I can pretty much get an all around agreement that the majority of readers here love children. Why do we? Because of all the near-magical possibilities, the potentialities that can reach into the future. Most cultures are based on potentialities anyways, that foresight, looking to the future. And there are fewer more powerful symbols of that than children.

And while being pro-choice as well, I can haul out an extreme (but extremely possible) example: if say a woman who was two days away from giving birth went nutso, and decided that she was carrying the Antichrist, and wanted it cut out of her, there’s no way I could stand by and mumble that I was ‘pro-choice’, because obviously this lady’s brain has landed somewhere south of Pluto and obviously she isn’t fit to make a decision of that import.

And let’s face it: abortion is a no-win situation. Nobody’s in favor of it ‘just because’ – there’s long-term ramifications that have to be examined on a case-to-case basis. Tubular pregnancies, incestual rape (or any rape for that matter), drug addiction – it’s a necessary evil. Not a cause for celebration for anyone. The biggest concern is poverty – because being poor means a lack of education, lack of security, lack of everything that would be optimal for a child’s upbringing. Concerns such as birth control, religious folderol, and varied other variables put forth by the far right in their efforts to control the common woman.

So a wee bit o’ advice: the next time you (figuratively) inhale to bellow at some nimbulb who’s blattering on about abortion, take a bit of a breath, and think first. It’s natural to take the other side of the argument and go to extremes (I’ve done it too, guilty!) – but we promote ourselves as the rational ones, and it behooves us to walk the talk as such.

And that, dear readers, is my nickel’s worth. Spend it freely, or sock it away for a rainy day.

Till the next post, then.

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When Philosophy Fails: The Futility Of Utility

Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!

I have been made aware of Peter Singer and his utilitarianism, through blogversations with atheists and theists alike – I cannot say I approve enthusiastically. In fact, I’d go as far as saying I disagree, with a slight curl of the lip. Of all the –isms to choose from, I find this one less than satisfactory.

Just because I agree with his take on religion, is not an agreement in toto.

Utilitarianism:

Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its contribution to overall utility: that is, its contribution to happiness or pleasure as summed among all people. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. Utility, the good to be maximized, has been defined by various thinkers as happiness or pleasure (versus suffering or pain), although preference utilitarians like Peter Singer define it as the satisfaction of preferences. It may be described as a life stance, with happiness or pleasure being of ultimate importance.

Utilitarianism is described by the phrase "the greatest good for the greatest number of people". Therefore, it is also known as "the greatest happiness principle". Utilitarianism can thus be characterised as a quantitative and reductionist approach to ethics. It can be contrasted with deontological ethics (which do not regard the consequences of an act as the sole determinant of its moral worth) and virtue ethics (which focuses on character), as well as with other varieties of consequentialism. Adherents of these opposing views have extensively criticised the utilitarian view, but utilitarians have been similarly critical of other schools of thought. And like any ethical theory, the application of utilitarianism is heavily dependent on the moral agent's full range of wisdom, experience, social skills, and life skills.

Easily dissected, I cannot agree. As human beings (both on an individual basis as well as collective) have proven multitudinous times, the strong swim towards pleasure can often lead towards disastrous results. The sexual revolution, for instance, came about because of the ability to treat STDs like gonorrhea and syphilis with the pop of a pill (there are other reasons of course, but I consider that a primary). Decades later, penicillin-resistant strains of these poxes bedevil us still.

Singer is the foremost proponent of animal liberation:

In Animal Liberation, Singer argues against what he calls speciesism: discrimination on the grounds that a being belongs to a certain species. He holds the interests of all beings capable of suffering to be worthy of equal consideration, and that giving lesser consideration to beings based on their having wings or fur is no more justified than discrimination based on skin color. He argues that animals should have rights based on their ability to feel pain more than their intelligence. In particular, he argues that while animals show lower intelligence than the average human, many severely retarded humans show equally diminished, if not lower, mental capacity, and intelligence therefore does not provide a basis for providing nonhuman animals any less consideration than such retarded humans. He also points out that many primates have learned to communicate with American sign language (ASL) or symbol languages. These include chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos and an orangutan. Primates that have learned ASL or symbol languages include Washoe, Koko, Chantek, and Kanzi. Likewise, pigs, birds, primates and cetaceans can rank as being as intelligent as children. Singer does not specifically contend that we ought not use animals for food insofar as they are raised and killed in a way that actively avoids the inflicting of pain, but as such farms are uncommon, he concludes that the most practical solution is to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet. Singer also condemns vivisection except where the benefit (in terms of improved medical treatment, etc.) outweighs the harm done to the animals used.

I am foursquare and unapologetically a speciesist. Because of the commonality of biology I share with my fellow human beings, I will likely rate them higher on the value scale (there would be exceptions: people who would prey upon animals for the mere enjoyment may incite me to some level of anger, and devalue themselves). So I would still value a human being (mentally challenged) higher than a primate. I am not in favor of animal suffering: I see that as irrational.

Abortion:

Singer states that arguments for or against abortion should be based on utilitarian calculation which weighs the preferences of a mother against the preferences of the fetus. A preference is anything sought to be obtained or avoided; all forms of benefit or harm caused to a being correspond directly with the satisfaction or frustration of one or more of its preferences. Since a capacity to experience suffering or satisfaction is a prerequisite to having any preferences at all, and a fetus, at least up to around eighteen weeks, says Singer, has no capacity to suffer or feel satisfaction, it is not possible for such a fetus to hold any preferences at all. In a utilitarian calculation, there is nothing to weigh against a mother's preferences to have an abortion, therefore abortion is morally permissible.

Similar to his argument for abortion, Singer argues that newborns similarly lack the essential characteristics of personhood — "rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness" — and therefore "killing a newborn baby is never equivalent to killing a person, that is, a being who wants to go on living."

I would go along with the first paragraph, but no to the second – again, my speciesist tendencies revolt. This is an evolutionary mechanism built into us. It is not the only yardstick. There is the potential future folded into the infant – it is a (non-supernatural) wonder waiting to blossom, a flowering of a new being…I could go on some rhetorical flourish, but the short version is I’d likely give my life to save a baby. Hard to argue with that, I think.

I have no argument with his stand on poverty – it’s sensible.

Zoophilia – now I have an issue.

In a 2001 review of Midas Dekkers's Dearest Pet: On Bestiality,^[35] Singer stated that "mutually satisfying activities" of a sexual nature may sometimes occur between humans and animals and that writer Otto Soyka would condone such activities. Singer explains Dekker's belief that zoophilia should remain illegal if it involves what he sees as "cruelty", but otherwise is no cause for shock or horror. However, Singer does not claim to endorse the views of either Dekker or Soyka, merely to be explaining them. Singer believes that although sex between species is not normal or natural, it does not constitute a transgression of our status as human beings, because human beings are animals or, more specifically, "we are great apes". Some religious individuals and animal rights groups have condemned this view.

This is a major problem – where one can indeed be too liberal. It may not ‘constitute a transgression of our status as human beings’, but regardless of the fact that we are animals, bestiality is rated as a mental disorder, and for good reason. An inability to form a sexual liaison with another adult, a frisson for something that’s not human, is decidedly abnormal. I am not committing the naturalistic fallacy when I state that animals are incapable of granting consent – so are children, because when it comes to human beings, either you can communicate, or you can’t. Silence as assent was bogus when Plato said as much, and it still is. And really, how many dumb animals can actually say no?

I would go as far to say – that the application of bioethics vis-a-vis utilitarianism lends itself to a breakdown of moral universalism (of which I’m a proponent). Consider:

It is widely considered that infants are a high value to any society at large, regardless of level (we shall grant this a high degree of universality, shall we?). It’s a survival mechanism to breed in numbers. By applying the above principles (i.e., giving animals a higher value rating than infants, despite the ability of the latter to develop cognition incrementally), we lose fundamental values we normally ascribe to potential moral agents. One might argue that the word ‘potential’ is meaningless, but we live in a society (and indeed a world) that is built on the concept of potentiality. Potentiality has value. “The children are our future!”, while somewhat trite and cliché, still stands.

The slippery slope is not my favorite specter to invoke -  I see it abused gratuitously on the internet. But there is merit in it sometimes. If we change the moral value of an infant in society’s eyes, it stands to reason the infant will become more abused. If we grant the non-human animal greater status than we grant our own children (a sentence that I personally never dreamed I would write or speak), then it is my opinion that we lose – both in the short term as well as the long term.

As to the zoophilia angles – well, I’m sorry, but there is such a thing as being TOO liberal. With the rising tide of pandemics (from the Avian flu to the Swine flu), this option is anything but viable.

Anyways, that’s my nickel’s worth. Flip it or spend it, it’s up to you.

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And The Bleat Goes On…More Ditherings From The Reichwing Katlicks

YouTube - Bill Donohue Compares President Obama To David Duke!

(Cross posted @ God Is 4 Suckers!)

(hat tip to Rob Boston @ Talk To Action)

The word ‘unbelievable’ comes to mind. Donohue makes some sort of distinction between practicing Catholics and non-practicing Catholics, the former allegedly agreeing with him (oh hey, they don’t eat hagus either, right?), he also carries on about how the ‘bishops are energized’ about Obama receiving a degree at Notre Dame.

At 6:48, the blonde tries to fire Boston up about honoring pro-death penalty speakers at the university – and Donohue spewing ‘It’s not intrinsically evil’. So…abortion is intrinsically evil, but putting people to death isn’t? I smell the fresh new-fallacy smell of special pleading.

An old post of mine, illustrates a number of problems with the modern religious viewpoints on abortion:

Still even Jerome - while saying some of the most awful garbage about women in recorded history, was not as hardcore about abortion as today's Religious Right, writing "The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and it [abortion] does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired their external appearance and their limbs ("Epistle" (121, 4))"
Neither were early church organizational meetings unanimous. The Synods of Elvira and Ancyra (306 ACE, 314 ACE) explicitly called abortion a sin, while the Apostolic Constitutions (380 ACE) disallowed it only after the fetus took on a "human shape."”
(Snip)
“In the early 7th Century, the Church began codifying what it considered sexual sins and abortion made the list, but was well behind the "sins" of birth control, oral sex, and anal sex. In fact, the punishment for oral sex was at least 7 years of penance, while the punishment for abortion was a mere 120 days.”
(Snip)
“Even St. Thomas Aquinas himself - arguably the most influential theologian in Roman Catholic Christianity, did not consider a fetus human until the quickening.
This was the way it was for the most part until - and are you sitting down for this? - 1869. That's when Pope Pius IX declared all abortion to be homicide. That's right, for nearly the entire history of Christianity, the Catholic Church was officially tolerant of first trimester abortion. The change was well after the Enlightenment, after the Civil War, and into the modern scientific era. In fact, it was only as recently as 1983 that all vestiges of the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" were quietly purged from Canon Law. (Yes, that was 1983... only 23 years ago)”

The entire argument hinges upon (and fails miserably) ensoulment. It fails because there is no substantial proof that there is anything resembling a soul – and when evidence is demanded, we become subjected to innumerable personal anecdotes, retrofitted laws of conservation, and anything else under the sun, excepting any sort of solid proof.

Tell me that I as an individual will survive death, and I will hold up a DVD (or CD-ROM), cut it twice with scissors,  and quietly request that the claimant retrieve the information on it.

In the meantime, we are yoked by the superstitions of the populace overly fond of their precious little fables, who will spend copious monies as well as time and energy to protest in favor of something unprovable, rather than address the root of their grievance, that of poverty, lack of education, and improved living standards for their fellow human beings.

It is to weep, sometimes.

Till the next post then.

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MORE NORRIS NONSENSE - TISSUE HAS INTRINSIC VALUE TOO!

Man, do I get fed up with these people.

Chuck Norris is at it again, bleating out a bunch of nauseating Neo-con neologisms. Article is dated January 22nd 2007.

"On Jan. 22, 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court decided (via Roe v. Wade) existing laws against abortion (at both federal and state levels) violated a constitutional right to privacy and due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

As a result all national laws prohibiting or limiting abortion were reverted. The primacy of a woman's rights prevailed and the rights of the unborn were not only abandoned, but their nature legally reduced to nonhuman. "

As I've amply demonstrated before, in my post titled The Quickening, abortion's been with us since the time of Aristotle, even the 7th century church fathers rated it as a lesser sin than oral sex, and Aquinas didn't consider the fetus to be human until the quickening. And indeed, Judaic custom dictates the child is a 'person' upon the crowning of the head from the vulva.

So there's plenty of historic precedent. From their own theology, no less. But nooooo...select things have changed.

I find this next set of statements somewhat...amusing:

"A history of justifications

Both Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist strongly dissented the 7-2 majority decision on that winter day 34 years ago. In fact Rehnquist jeered their justification, ''To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.''

Why am I amused by this? Because, not long ago, Mr. Norris was carrying on about how we need to stick to the letter of the law as outlined by the Founding Fathers! (see this post - it's vague, but the wisps of 'Original Intent' are there to be found.)

Onwards:

"We've continued to cloak the truths about abortion with a vast network of ethical justifications, inconsistencies and avoidances. ''The child will not be taken care of properly,'' ''She's too young to have children,'' ''Aborting unwanted children reduces the number of abused children,'' ''Nobody can tell me right from wrong,'' ''It's a woman's right to choose,'' ''If abortion is outlawed women will return to back-alley abortion clinics,'' etc."

These are all valid reasons.

"And guilt and accountability are often subsided by an interchange in language: instead of baby we say fetus; instead of killing we say aborting; instead of dissect we say research; instead of extermination chambers we say abortion clinics – ad nauseam. Who could ever imagine the aftermath of three decades of legalized abortions?"

Wait: what? More word-juggling. A baby can be a synonym for fetus - but when I hear the word, I think of a pink, wiggling little bundle of joy. But the word fetus is used properly, as in: "

1. The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal.
2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo."

The phrase 'extermination chambers' is of course used to conjure up the Holocaust - a thoroughly inappropriate equivocation. In short, weasel wordage.

And of course, the old tried 'n true: blame evolution for it:

"What is human? And what's its worth?

"In an evolutionary, self-centered world, in which man is nothing more than a glorified ape aimlessly shooting for stars of deification, it's not difficult to understand how the slippery slope of human degradation has led from fetal devaluing to discarding. "

Say like, throwing away valuable stem cells because they have intrinsic value? Puh-LEASE.

I have no problem being an evolved primate. Human degradation? Isn't that the forte of religion? We're all sinners, born as spiritual Thalidomide babies, incapable of lifting ourselves from the mire imposed on us? Why, yes it is.

"At the heart of these issues, however, are a couple of questions we all must answer: What is human? Is a fetus human, even in its embryonic stage? And does human life have any intrinsic worth?"

Answer number one: looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, etc. No, a fetus doesn't qualify for personhood. Yes, the life extant does: but I will not elevate the life potential above that.

"Our contemporary world has indoctrinated us to believe humanness cannot be uniquely defined, a fetus is nothing more than a cellular mass, and there is no special value to being human."

Let's see - crapola on the first, yes on the second, horse manure on the third. Like all wingnuts, he mixes 'n matches freely.

"Before our embryonic twins were surgically placed into my wife Gena, the nurse told her, ''I want to show you something.'' She wheeled Gena to the incubator where they were kept and gently opened the door. The incubator was bathed in warm light and soft classical music. Gena later told me it was the most incredible sight she had ever seen. ''It was like looking at something from heaven,'' she explained. That was only 2 days after conception! Whether or not Gena had become pregnant, we were fully convinced at that moment that life begins at conception. Thirty-two weeks later our twins were born."

It's a wonderful story. Touching, really. Problem is, how do you know it's something from Heaven if you've never been there? I do wonder where they received the...tissue that was surgically placed. No disrespect intended.

Sentimentality is fine and dandy on a personal level, but you sure as hell can't legislate based on it.

"A creed that needs to be cloned

From our Founding Fathers forward, there were some basic creeds by which most Americans lived, and I believe we should go back to if we are to restore civility in our land. Here are three:

1. I believe human life is made in the image of God and as such has intrinsic value, worthy to save.

   And, as human beings, all zygotes are ''created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.'' (Preamble of the Declaration of Independence).

2. I believe aborting or destroying human life is morally wrong and goes against God's law.
3. I believe ours and others' mistakes can be forgiven and even turned around for the good."

Waitaminnit: didn't he say something earlier about the Founding Fathers? Let's see: right here - In fact Rehnquist jeered their justification, ''To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment.''

So much for the strict constructionist viewpoint. Apparently, it only applies when it's convenient.

Let's take a look at the 14th amendment while we're at it, shall we?

"Section 1 of the amendment declares that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are American citizens and citizens of their state of residence; the citizenship of African Americans was thereby established and the effect of the Dred Scott Case was overcome. The section forbids the states to abridge the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizens, to deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law (a similar provision restraining the federal government is in the Fifth Amendment), and to deny any person the equal protection of the laws."

Of course, it's an amendment, and as such, can be changed to include the unborn, but then, what would the Founders do? Can we alternately cherry-pick that we wish to keep, and stay within the boundaries of 'original intent'?

From here:

"Harris v. McRae
Dissenting opinion by Thurgood Marshall
"The consequences of today’s opinion—consequences to which the Court seems oblivious—are not difficult to predict. Pregnant women denied the funding necessary to procure abortions will be restricted to two alternatives. First, they can carry the fetus to term—even though that route may result in severe injury or death to the mother, the fetus, or both. If that course appears intolerable, they can resort to self-induced abortions or attempt to obtain illegal abortions—not because bearing a child would be inconvenient, but because it is necessary in order to protect their health. {Footnote: Of course, some poor women will attempt to raise the funds necessary to obtain a lawful abortion. A court recently found that those who were fortunate enough to do so had to resort to "not paying rent or utility bills, pawning household goods, diverting food and clothing money, or journeying to another state to obtain lower rates or fraudulently use a relative’s insurance policy…. [S]ome patients were driven to theft." Women’s Health Services, Inc. v. Maher, 482 F. Supp. 725.} The result will not be to protect what the Court describes as "the legitimate governmental objective of protecting potential life," but to ensure the destruction of both fetal and maternal life. "There is another world ’out there,’ the existence of which the Court …either chooses to ignore or fears to recognize." Beal v. Doe (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). In my view, it is only by blinding itself to that other world that the Court can reach the result it announces today."
A little further down:
"In this case, the Federal Government has taken upon itself the burden of financing practically all medically necessary expenditures. One category of medically necessary expenditure has been singled out for exclusion, and the sole basis for the exclusion is a premise repudiated for purposes of constitutional law in Roe v. Wade. The consequence is a devastating impact on the lives and health of poor women. I do not believe that a Constitution committed to the equal protection of the laws can tolerate this result. I dissent."

For the record, I'm both pro-choice and pro-life. But it's standard fare for the Neocons - they go after the symptoms, rather than the disease. So do us all a favor, Herr Norris, and the rest of you - focus more on the reasons behind the problem.

Or as Traditional Chinese Medicine tends to view it - go to the root of the illness, and fix that first. Till then, it needs to stay safe, legal and rare.

I'd be willing to wager, that if these people spent half the money they splooge on anti-evolution propaganda and gay marriage on reducing poverty, it would save a helluva lot more unborn children.

So stop spending all your dough on some fringe-theory scientific community that produces absolutely nothing in the way of contributions, and start taking care of the people that are forced to do this, via financial hardship.

And that's the way of it. You want change? Fix poverty, or at the very least, address it in a manner that reduces the need to seek out this procedure.

In short: fix the problem, not the blame. Stop judging from a distance.

Now get to it.

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THE QUICKENING

No, it’s not the latest B-movie/penny-dreadful novel from Bantam, nor is this a Highlander reference (the TV show was a bit of all right, the first movie rocked, the last one sucked the big hairy bird).

This is actually a very old phrase, which the Medical dictionary defines as: “The initial signs of fetal life felt by the mother as a result of the movements by the fetus.” It was also the yardstick by which it was determined as to whether or not an abortion was permissable.

You see, contrary to the misconceptions among the religious right activists here in the 21st CE, the abortion ‘industry’ wasn’t born squalling and mewling from the loins of Roe vs. Wade (Sorry for the rude metaphor, but had to make the point), nor was it invented by the ‘godless heathens’. Instead, it’s been a common procedure since time immemorial.

From here:

“Modern (17th-century to present)
Nineteenth century medicine saw advances in the fields of surgery, anaesthesia, and sanitation, in the same era that doctors with the American Medical Association lobbied for bans on abortion in the United States [17] and the British Parliament passed the Offences Against the Person Act.
Various methods of abortion were documented regionally in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. After a rash of unexplained miscarriages in Sheffield, England, were attributed to lead poisoning caused by the metal pipes which fed the city's water supply, a woman confessed to having used diachylon — a lead-containing plaster — as an abortifacient in 1898. [13] Criminal investigation of an abortionist in Calgary, Alberta in 1894 revealed through chemical analysis that the concotion he had supplied to a man seeking an abortifacient contained Spanish fly. [18] Women of Jewish descent in Lower East Side, Manhattan are said to have carried the ancient Indian practice of sitting over a pot of steam into the early 20th century. [12] Dr. Evelyn Fisher wrote of how women living in a mining town in Wales during the 1920s used candles intended for Roman Catholic ceremonies to dilate the cervix in an effort to self-induce abortion. [13] Similarly, the use of candles and other objects, such as glass rods, penholders, curling irons, spoons, sticks, knives, and catheters was reported during the 19th-century in the United States. [19]
A paper published in 1870 on the abortion services to be found in Syracuse, New York, concluded that the method most often practiced there during this time was to flush inside of the uterus with injected water. The article's author, Ely Van de Warkle, claimed this procedure was affordable even to a maid, as a man in town offered it for $10 on an installment plan. [20] Other prices which 19th-century abortionists are reported to have charged were much more steep. In Great Britain, it could cost from 10 to 50 guineas, or 5% of the yearly income of a lower middle class household. [13]
Māori who lived in New Zealand before or at the time of colonisation terminated pregnancies via miscarriage-inducing drugs, ceremonial methods, and girding of the abdomen with a restrictive belt. [21] Another source claims that the Māori people did not practice abortion, for fear of Makutu, but did attempt feticide through the artificial induction of premature labor. [22]
The 20th century saw improvements in abortion technology, increasing its safety, and reducing its side-effects. In 1971, Lorraine Rothman, a founding member of the feminist self-help movement, invented the Del-Em, a safe, cheap suction device that made it possible for people with minimal training to perform early abortions. In 1980, French researchers developed mifepristone (RU-486), a drug which induces abortion by blocking hormone action.”

And from here, courtesy of the Daily Kos:

“Few influenced the perspective of the early church more than Aristotle, and the Aristotelean view of the soul in the unborn was the "delayed ensoulment" - that is, the fetus isn't animated with a human soul until 40 days after conception for males, 90 days for females - both having a vegetable soul before then. In fact, there are early Greek texts and advice on how to perform abortion, so this is the history that Aristotle's views emerged from and which informed early Christian thinking.”Hmmm…why the 50-day time lapse? Onwards.

“When the Church became more organized, opinions started changing. As a theological narrative took shape in th mid 2nd Century into the 4th, more Christian thinkers began to equate abortion with infanticide. St. John Chrysostom called it "murder before the birth" (Homily 24 on Romans). Worth noting here is that thinkers like St. Jerome (infamous for, among other things, blaming women for the fall from grace) and St John Chrysostom (women are "a necessary evil") are also responsible for hardwiring some of the most disturbingly anti-woman theology into early Christianity - presenting women as something other than human, and sexuality as evil, or at least the pathway to evil. It's no coincidence that, even at this early date, anti-choice extremism goes hand-in-hand with misogyny. Still even Jerome - while saying some of the most awful garbage about women in recorded history, was not as hardcore about abortion as today's Religious Right, writing "The seed gradually takes shape in the uterus, and it [abortion] does not count as killing until the individual elements have acquired their external appearance and their limbs ("Epistle" (121, 4))"
Neither were early church organizational meetings unanimous. The Synods of Elvira and Ancyra (306 ACE, 314 ACE) explicitly called abortion a sin, while the Apostolic Constitutions (380 ACE) disallowed it only after the fetus took on a "human shape."”
(Snip)
“In the early 7th Century, the Church began codifying what it considered sexual sins and abortion made the list, but was well behind the "sins" of birth control, oral sex, and anal sex. In fact, the punishment for oral sex was at least 7 years of penance, while the punishment for abortion was a mere 120 days.”
(Snip)
“Even St. Thomas Aquinas himself - arguably the most influential theologian in Roman Catholic Christianity, did not consider a fetus human until the quickening.
This was the way it was for the most part until - and are you sitting down for this? - 1869. That's when Pope Pius IX declared all abortion to be homicide. That's right, for nearly the entire history of Christianity, the Catholic Church was officially tolerant of first trimester abortion. The change was well after the Enlightenment, after the Civil War, and into the modern scientific era. In fact, it was only as recently as 1983 that all vestiges of the distinction between the "fetus animatus" and "fetus inanimatus" were quietly purged from Canon Law. (Yes, that was 1983... only 23 years ago)”
(End snip)

[Minor note: in accordance with the link given below, it was 1917 and 1983 – it’s unclear at this juncture, which was purged first.]

And there’s more info here, for those interested.

So there you have it. It’s not quite as cut-and-dried as the fanatics would have it. There really isn’t any ‘burden of guilt’ to be had – the legislation clearly echoes Aristotle down from the ages. For the most part, I’m surprised to find myself agreeing with Thomas Aquinas of all people (at least about the quickening stage) about this subject.

And so again, I reiterate my personal stand: I’m pro-choice and pro-life – the woman gets the choice, but let’s keep it legal, safe, and rare.

Or, to echo two women I hold in high esteem:
"The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities."- Ursula K. Le Guin

"The emphasis must be not on the right to abortion but on the right to privacy and reproductive control." - Ruth Bader Ginsberg

Till the next post, then.

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UTERUS INTERRUPTUS: OF FALLACIES, FINGER-POINTING AND FALLOPIAN RESPONSIBILITY

My apologies if the title offends: I'm making no effort to be glib here. It's a serious topic, to be sure.

As I'm a white, middle-aged single male, I've avoided this topic for some time (at least here), because:

1. I've never fathered a biological child, and


2. I don't have a uterus.

I walk the middle road on this. I am pro-choice, but to quote Harlan Ellison, "I'm not anti-abortion: I am anti-waste."

I am of the position that all human life is sacred (yeah, it's a religious term. I'm an atheist, but I'm still going to use it. Don't like it? See ya in court). I am of the opinion that it should indeed be safe, legal, and rare.

Now, I realize that atheists and theists alike will likely never agree on this point. The issue being: the soul. Efforts to inject an unquantifiable abstract into real life seem to us to be ridiculous, at best. That is observation only.

For the theists, I give you this:

Genesis 9:4 "But flesh with the life thereof, [which is] the blood thereof, shall ye not eat."

Leviticus 17:11, 14 (cp. Deuteronomy 12:23) "For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.... For it is the life of all flesh; the blood of it is for the life thereof ..."

Exodus 21:22-25
"And if men struggle and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide. But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise."

I have not found any history of induced miscarriages vis-a-vis the ancient Hebrews, so it is hard to say whether or not they practiced this. Midwifery is mentioned twice (that I know of) in Genesis, I can only speculate in this regard.

I do view it as the slaughter of innocents. I also view it as a necessary evil. This is by no means contradictory. I am going to inject the observations of Thurgood Marshall, who stated my position with far more eloquence than I could ever muster [note: yes, it IS a dissenting opinion, ergo not law]:

http://www.vindicatingthefounders.com/library/index.asp?document=50
Harris v. McRae
Dissenting opinion by Thurgood Marshall [Harris v. McRae]
"The consequences of todays opinion has consequences to which the Court seems oblivious are not difficult to predict. Pregnant women denied the funding necessary to procure abortions will be restricted to two alternatives. First, they can carry the fetus to term even though that route may result in severe injury or death to the mother, the fetus, or both. If that course appears intolerable, they can resort to self-induced abortions or attempt to obtain illegal abortions not because bearing a child would be inconvenient, but because it is necessary in order to protect their health. {Footnote: Of course, some poor women will attempt to raise the funds necessary to obtain a lawful abortion. A court recently found that those who were fortunate enough to do so had to resort to "not paying rent or utility bills, pawning household goods, diverting food and clothing money, or journeying to another state to obtain lower rates or fraudulently use a relatives insurance policy.... [S]ome patients were driven to theft." Womens Health Services, Inc. v. Maher, 482 F. Supp. 725.} The result will not be to protect what the Court describes as "the legitimate governmental objective of protecting potential life," but to ensure the destruction of both fetal and maternal life. "There is another world out there, the existence of which the Court ...either chooses to ignore or fears to recognize." Beal v. Doe (BLACKMUN, J., dissenting). In my view, it is only by blinding itself to that other world that the Court can reach the result it announces today."

Let's now defer to a historical example:

"English common law generally allowed abortion before the "quickening" of the fetus (i.e., the first recognizable movement of the fetus in the uterus), which occurred between the sixteenth and eighteenth weeks of pregnancy. After quickening, however, common law was less clear as to whether abortion was considered a crime. In the United States, state legislatures did not pass abortion statutes until the nineteenth century. After 1880, abortion was criminalized by statute in every state of the union, owing in large measure to strong anti-abortion positions taken by the American Medical Association. Despite the illegality, many thousands of women every year sought abortions. Under a heavy cloak of shame and secrecy, women often had abortions performed in unsafe conditions, and many died or suffered complications from the procedures."

Now, let's move to the caricatures:
A. Pro-choicers are farcical vaudevillian villains of the Simon Legree variety.

This is a poor fallacy, silly at best and stupid at worst. I find it highly unlikely that doctors who perform these procedures are rubbing their hands maniacally, pulling their handlebar mustaches, all the while revelling in infanticide.
Grow the fuck up, people. These two-dimensional cartoon characters are, in a word, puerile. I can barely stand them in movies: real life ain't like that.

B. Abortion as a means of post-contraception.

There's just so much wrong with this...misperception, words almost fail me. Give me an example of a woman who's had ten abortions, or more. You can? Okay, multiply that by a hundred. Show me, as the old Missouri adage says. What? Can't hear you. You can't?

C. No one told them to have sex!

Oy gevalt! This one's propagated by middle- to upper-middle class to rich folks. Yeah, you try sitting around (when you're not working 3 or more jobs), with nothing to do because you HAVE NO MONEY - let's see how you spend your time. Further on this: if a man goes and has unprotected sex, gets an STD, is he refused treatment? Or the 'extreme' sports nut falling off a mountain and breaking his leg? After all, no one 'told' these two guys to 'go out and do that!' Besides, most folks will object to having their biological needs subject to scheduling and permission.

D. Use abstinence.

See commentary above. I also refer to the faith-based 'Abstinence Now' program, which, before it went defunct, had an 88% failure rate.

E. premarital sex is wrong!

Good luck legislating that. Most pro-lifers don't want to let MARRIED folk have the operation either.

You want it gone? So do I. Can you just slam a door, and throw away the key, and never will the subject broached again? Highly unlikely that'll EVER happen. So let's stop this 'blame the victim' nonsense. The Japanese have a wonderful saying: "Fix the problem, not the blame."

We're talking about the less prosperous portions of society here. We're talking about women who have very few options in their lives. Let's reform the social ills that this stems from. Be honest: this is a SYMPTOM, not a disease. More education, more personal responsibility, higher standards of life, I mean, my list just goes ON and ON. Meanwhile, let's teach RESPONSIBILITY, and SEX EDUCATION, fer cryin' out loud, while we're at it. Hey, you don't want your kids learning it from someone else? Fine. Teach them when they ask: let's dump the Victorian nonsense already, we're in the 21st CE, instead of the kid learning some idiocy at the HS locker about 'how you can't get pregnant if you do it standing up.'

In the past, I've made efforts to shame pro-lifers with the following statement: "If you feel so strongly about abortion, how about offering to adopt the child?" Because, hey, if you're willing to go out and TAKE a life because of how strongly you feel (which to me is just so...hypocritical in the extreme), howzabout you shoot for the LONG-TERM ramifications? If you're so passionate about this, how about something a little more proactive than, say, harassing some poor woman who's agonizing over this decision anyways (because, as I understand it, it's a pretty hard choice, and somewhat scarring afterwards as well), or pointing a gun at a doctor, or distributing literature aimed at provoking a knee-jerk reaction? There's so many knee-jerk responses in this country anyways, chiropractors'll be raking in the bucks for years to come. So do something ELSE besides ranting and raving in the streets, or interfering with someone's free will.

I have an idea. I don't know if it's been implemented before, so it may or may not be original, but who cares?

Let's combine the abortion clinics with adoption agencies.

Hey, the government already regulates them both, right? Sure, it'd be a bureaucratic nightmare at first. But an outright ban? Something like this isn't a light switch, folks: you can't just flick it on and off. You're talking about human nature here: you can only legislate so much of it, before it goes ka-plooey! in your face (Prohibition comes to mind). Let's start providing OPTIONS, alternatives, instead of this 'either/or' nonsense that's becoming a such a rut, you can see the circles worn into the ground from miles away.

Passion is a fine thing: it runs in my veins as well. But it cannot be the ruling force here. Else we will have violence in the streets. And there's enough violence in the world, without us adding to it.

I leave you with these words, from one of the Founders of this country:

"Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. "
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

That is my nickel's worth, dear readers: spend it wisely, and well.

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