Category Archives: Pro-Choice

PZ Myers: Irrational Humans

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I really have a hard time wrapping my mind around the strategies of anti-choice activists. I’ve encountered a few, and I’ve browsed some of their websites, and am so unimpressed with their tactics . . . but they seem to work effectively with some people. . . .

The argument is never about whether some state is alive or not. Your appendix and tonsils are great masses of living cells, but if the organ becomes inflamed, doctors will cut them out and throw them away. Every time you poop, about a third of that mass that you excrete and flush away consists of living bacterial cells, yet no one hesitates and feels regret at the tragic loss of life when their hand is on the handle.

The argument is about whether that living thing is a person requiring extensive legal and moral protection, and it’s entirely clear that “life” is not a sufficient criterion, or people would be lobbying for the protection of turds and tonsils. We are not absolutists about protecting all life; we can’t be.

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Catholic Church [the well-renowned international child raping organization] tired of being ‘whipping boy’ for that whole molesting kids thing

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And the Lord said, “Thou shalt not charge priests who rape and molest children because after all, they do some good stuff sometimes too, and besides, those brats should just get over it already because it happened years ago.”This story is just gonna break your heart:Cardinal [Timothy M.] Dolan criticized a legislative proposal that would, for a year, drop the statute of limitations for filing civil claims for sexual offenses, allowing for lawsuits by people who say they were abused long ago. The cardinal said he was concerned that a flood of lawsuits over abuse by priests could drain the church of money it is using for charitable purposes.

“I think we bishops have been very contrite in admitting that the church did not handle this well at all in the past,” he said. “But we bristle sometimes in that the church doesn’t get the credit, now being in the vanguard of reform. It does bother us that the church continues to be a whipping boy.”

Aw. Poor bishops. They are just so sick and tired of being blamed for that whole covering-up-the-widespread-rape-and-molestation-of-children thing. Don’t you secular ingrates understand that they can’t do really important stuff—like . . .

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The danger of the current arguments on contraception

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. . . Despite Rush Limbaugh’s campaign against what he possibly fantasized Sandra Fluke’s personal life to be, it is very important to remember that none of her testimony centered around the primarily intended use of hormonal contraception—that is to say, pregnancy prevention. Instead, Ms. Fluke’s testimony mainly centered around a friend who needed hormonal contraception as a method of controlling symptoms related to ovarian cysts. . . .

If the defense of the contraceptive mandate, and of contraception in general, focuses heavily on its use for treatment of other medical conditions, it risks creating a bifurcation between uses that are “legitimate” for the purposes of an employer mandate—such as treatment of cysts or menorrhagia—and the use that is not: namely, allowing a woman to control her own fertility. . . .

Examples of the other uses of contraception are very effective at showing the pathetic shortsightedness and tragic indifference of the right, but they cannot distract from the key prize: fighting for a woman’s right to self-determination.

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In politics, the concrete usually wins over the abstract [Because thinking is hard!]

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. . . [M]ost people value [Christian privilege] as an abstract principle, they don’t make decisions based on abstractions. They tend to look at the concrete manifestations of those abstractions. . . . So while many people will say they support [Christian privilege], they are going to be angry if [women workers] access to their contraceptive services are taken away. The situation is similar to those older Tea [Bagee] supporters who say they support getting government out of health care as an abstract principle but will fight tooth and nail to retain their Medicare.

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Just say No,! to the Susan G. Komen Foundation

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Source: MoveOn.org

One may enjoy reading the comments associated with this MoveOn.org post, for some of them realize, and speak to, the metaphysical realm of the argument. Of course, many others mix the physical with the metaphysical, while some write purely on an emotional level. Once one realizes the differences between the physical, metaphysical, and emotional levels of argumentation it is quite entertaining to sit back and observe the incoherence of others arguments.

It makes one wonder how is it that many of the sane end up in insane asylums, while the insane aimlessly wonder through life without ever breaching the physiological senses, what’s more, voting for the reactionary ticket, and reproducing like there’s no tomorrow. [MSH]