a reader question – selling body parts
A couple of blogs I read publish posts answering questions from their readers. I thought I’d do the same and pretend readers come to me seeking my sage advice. Unfortunately, my question wasn’t from a fan or actually to my blog. It’s just a tricky question from my blogging buddy Silence of Mind (who’s not a troll, if anyone asks, and he’s only my buddy when he’s funny, not when he’s obscenely rude).
Here’s the question:
Have you heard about Planned Parenthood making coin from the harvest and sale of baby body parts?
What do you think of such a thing whether true or not?
Yikes, it’s the sort of question that’s difficult to get into, but it deserves careful consideration. First off, I should point out that I’m not in the USA and I haven’t followed the story in any detail, just from the occasional blog post.
- For me, the question focuses on the wrong issues – why are such high numbers of women needing abortions? High levels of abortion are unnecessary, especially in a rich country that could easily ensure young people get a decent education about sex and could easily make sure birth control in its various forms is freely available.
- Anyone who still feels they need to access to abortion services should be able to choose if the fetal tissue is donated to medical science – much like we do with the rest of our body when we die or have something removed.
- I think all healthcare should be funded by our taxes and universally available free at point of delivery. American healthcare is such a mess it’s a profit driven venture. Making money out of any kind of human tissue and any kind of dead body creates a market with odd drivers.
Conclusion
- I don’t think anyone should be making a profit out of any body parts from any sentient being.
What does everyone else think? Thanks for your question SOM!
The abortion issue is the elephant in the room for me and likely to be for the foreseeable future.
Prevention is better than ”cure”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Elephant in the room” – how so?
LikeLike
Because of the emotional issues that surround it.
LikeLike
I feel like I’m missing some context.
LikeLike
I’m sure everyone in the world believes prevention is better. The frustrating thing is that it can be relatively simple and effective in the great majority of cases. American Christians are more interested in pretending that young people don’t have sex than giving them the education they need to make sensible and informed decisions throughout life.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The header is stunning. Any ideas on the flowers?
LikeLike
Looked it up for you in my handy wild flowers book. Cornflower is the blue one. It’s a strip of planted wildflowers in our Botanic Gardens here. It’s where my last bee shots came from too, and many more to come.
LikeLike
Considering the dubious nature of the source, we should dismiss the question. Playing into the anti-choice rhetoric (have you seen the abortion tag lately?? ) will not bring more clarity to the issue.
It might be worthwhile to further define ‘profit’. Because loosely defined as is, people who receive donated organs most definitely profit from the body parts of other sentient beings.
Also – the proper storage an transportation of said organs, fetal or otherwise, is not free and does incur cost – it is these costs the fatuous videos are up in arms with – along with of course MURDERED BABEEEE PARTS emotional appeal to soft-headed legions of the anti-choice brigade.
This, just like the “incinerating babies to generate power” hoopla, is the cynical attempt to remove the focus on women and their reproductive healthcare, and replace it with a focus on what religious men think ought to happen to the bodies of women.
IBTP forever.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Huh, ya learn stuff.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=IBTP
LikeLiked by 1 person
Twisty has/had a blog called I blame the patriarchy, and for some years had a radfem forum of the same name. The forum was good, although her blog never did much for me. IBTP is very much about singling out the faults of the system rather than blaming the individuals involved. It’s fairly radfem in usage I suppose. Logical though.
LikeLike
You’re right. I’m going through a phase of answering questions that are best ignored. 😀
It’s still interesting to hear the opinions floating around, and get more information on it.
LikeLike
It isn’t uncommon for non-profit corporations to play in a grey area between making money and getting facilitation costs for services. That is what PP is doing. Hard to say if it is illegal or not. I don’t think that is the point.
The impact of the videos is not so much the shady legality and ethics as the fact that late term abortions are talked about in a way completely stripped of euphemism. The abstraction of “choice” is one thing, talking shop about dismembering fetuses and haggling over livers is another.
A word on comparing Europe and America: the reason the US cannot have nice smooth functioning welfare systems is that the US is not Germany: it is Germany, England, Italy, Greece, Venezuela, Mexico, Poland, Cambodia, Ireland and Nigeria all rolled into one. I’m not just talking about the racial component, but mostly the cultural divisions. So you can’t say “your system should be like Denmark’s” because it will inevitably turn out to be something like Greece’s.
Yes the heathcare “system” is a feudalistic mess of state, federal and private interests, and that drives costs through the roof. But the care itself is excellent. When I lived in Europe I got to see some of my friends get surgery and I always prayed I’d never get sick or injured until I got home to America.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“When I lived in Europe I got to see some of my friends get surgery and I always prayed I’d never get sick or injured until I got home to America.”
I see, you’re someone who can afford it. No concern for your fellow Americans who can’t afford treatment or lose everything trying to pay bills? You should have prayed for them to get in sick in Europe. Typical selfish Christian, praying for themselves. 😉
LikeLike
I spent all of my twenties working for non-profits getting paid in peanuts and without health insurance, so I just haggled for cash payments the two times I had to go to the hospital. The bills were awful but I made do.
The main thing that drives expense in America is collusion between insurance companies, hospitals and the state. Maybe a single payer system would be better but based on some of the butcher jobs I saw in Europe I doubt it.
I’ve heard theories that a market / cash based system with some kind of government cash reserve for the poor would be best, I really don’t know.
LikeLike
Try this:
From a 2014 report/study.
LikeLiked by 2 people
This article’s performance parameters seems to be payment systems and IT, which is not medicine but something else. It is judging an organised system, which may as well be delivering coffee as knee repairs. It is not about how good your surgeons are.
I’m talking about what doctors really do: diagnosis, drugs and surgery. I’d prefer to go under the laser knife of an American doctor than get one of the Frankenstein hatchet jobs I saw in Europe.
LikeLike
Really?
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2014/jun/mirror-mirror
LikeLike
“the U.S. is last or near last on dimensions of access, efficiency, and equity.”
Really.
The article is about bureaucratic systems, I’m talking about the actual service provided by the actual doctor.
LikeLike
To rich people like you, I guess access and equity don’t matter.
LikeLike
They don’t matter as far as this conversation is concerned.
I’m not talking systems.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Would that not be this:
Or do you want clinical audit results for every single doctor? Because that’s the only way you will ever find out how good a doctor is.
As you said before, you really don’t know much about it. Possibly the wisest comment you have ever made. Stick with it.
LikeLike
The quality of care benchmarks are things like doctors asking patients their preferences, nagging them to quit smoking, and how easy it is for doctors to pull their file, not how good the doctors are.
What I don’t know is the best solution for cost control in the US.
What I do know is that no one travels to England for heart surgery, no matter how highly rated it is.
LikeLike
Here’s one for you. It’s easy to find quotes to suit isn’t it?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oooh, didn’t see that one. Was it from the same article?
LikeLike
Nah! I managed to do two googles in one day!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did my own google research last night and it seems like US hospitals do quite well treating cancer, heart disease and other such. I could not find anything on other surgeries.
Sorry no links, I haven’t the patience to go combing back over the internet.
But it seems like the whole polemic in the articles was really over the superiority or not of single-payer systems, which I only have a theoretical interest in.
I have no attachment to one form of system over another, and freely acknowledge the American “system” (three public systems, a state and federally regulated employer based private insurance system, and this nebulous thing called the ACA) is ridiculous.
LikeLike
What he’s talking about is a heavily edited video that was put together to make PP look bad. They’re not selling body parts.
LikeLike
In fairness, the group also published the full footage, and every single video you ever see on the nightly news is “heavily edited”.
And while you can make the argument they were not “selling”for a profit but offsetting costs, the things they were haggling over most certainly were body parts.
LikeLike
No. It was fetal tissue. And they were discussing the handling and transportation of the tissues. Then they took that video and dishonestly edited it to make it look like it was about profiting off body parts. And it’s been used as an emotional device ever since.
Fetal tissue is then used to save lives: “Fetal tissue has been used since the 1930s for vaccine development, and more recently to help advance stem cell research and treatments for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease. Researchers typically take tissue samples from a fetus that has been aborted (under conditions permitted by law) and grow cells from the tissue in Petri dishes.”
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/17/health/fetal-tissue-explainer/
LikeLiked by 2 people
1) Then watch the entire videos to find exculpatory evidence.
2) The end uses of the “tissues” are not relevant to their definition.
3) Thanks for the education in semantics and euphemism, but I’ve read my Orwell and know about it already.
So livers, lungs and hearts cease to be body parts because you wave the magic semantic wand and change them to “tissue”?
Aren’t you one of these internet atheists who calls believers “indoctrinated” and “superstitious” “intellectually dishonest” and addicted to “magical thinking”. Look in the fucking mirror.
Here is what you would say if you were intellectually honest about abortion: “Yes, these are body parts. Yes, they are doing violence to late-term fetuses which outside the womb would be called premature babies, because that what they are. Late-term abortion is basically infanticide. But violence is sometimes justified: there are some things more important than unwanted babies, so we should let this violence continue.”
There, is that so hard?
LikeLike
1) I just gave you the evidence. It would seem it is you who needs to watch the unedited version instead of parroting about the edited version.
2) I didn’t say they were.
3) I’m sure Orwell was a great teacher.
Oh wait, he wrote fiction.
“So livers, lungs and hearts cease to be body parts because you wave the magic semantic wand and change them to “tissue”?”
Read the link provided for the answer. I know it goes against your talking points, but give it a shot.
“Aren’t you one of these internet atheists who calls believers “indoctrinated” and “superstitious” “intellectually dishonest” and addicted to “magical thinking”. Look in the fucking mirror.”
Nice red herring. This has nothing to do with the subject.
But in answer to your question – no.
““Yes, these are body parts. Yes, they are doing violence to late-term fetuses which outside the womb would be called premature babies, because that what they are. Late-term abortion is basically infanticide. But violence is sometimes justified: there are some things more important than unwanted babies, so we should let this violence continue.”
There, is that so hard?”
It is hard because I don’t want you speaking for me. That’s not what I said or meant. Speak for yourself and I’ll do the same, thanks.
You can disagree with abortion. But don’t pretend this video was honest or that they’re ‘selling’ body parts. That’s just not true.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sorry for dropping an F-bomb, I’ve been a jerk today.
One can argue about the “selling”, not what what the product actually is, or where it comes from.
If you can’t call a body part a body part then your head is on exactly backwards. Incantations of “tissue” does nothing. You are indoctrinated and engaging in magical thinking. Wake up.
Orwell wrote mostly non fiction. Try his “Politics and the English Language”, about people like you.
LikeLike
“Sorry for dropping an F-bomb, I’ve been a jerk today.”
No worries but thanks.
“One can argue about the “selling”, not what what the product actually is, or where it comes from.
If you can’t call a body part a body part then your head is on exactly backwards.”
The original post is about the selling of body parts, which clearly isn’t happening and the dishonesty surrounding the video.
Whether you agree with abortion or not is one thing.
However, abortion is legal. They can take the aborted fetus and throw it in the garbage or use it to create the vaccines and cures I mentioned earlier.
“Incantations of “tissue” does nothing. You are indoctrinated and engaging in magical thinking. Wake up.”
Fetal tissue isn’t magical. It’s a real medical term.
“Orwell wrote mostly non fiction. Try his “Politics and the English Language”
Yes. I know. I hope your education consists of more than Orwell.
“Try his “Politics and the English Language”, about people like you.”
Since you know pretty much NOTHING about me, you’re basis for making that statement is nonsense.
Considering your site is called ‘Truth and Tolerance’ you show a remarkable lack of either.
LikeLike
Well, I know you have your head spun around by a stupid euphemism, which is my argument with you. You refuse to call a simple physical reality for what it is and hide behind semantics.
If I buy a calf liver at the market it is a calf liver. In biology class someone might call it a bovine tissue, but that does not magically change it into something that is not part of a cow.
Is the fetus thrown in the garbage a body, as any honest person will call it? Of course. Are its parts parts? Yes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Well, I know you have your head spun around by a stupid euphemism”
That’s you. You keep going back to body parts when the medical freaking term for it is fetal tissue. Call it what you want. Even if I grant that it’s body parts as you so fervently wish, you haven’t engaged with anything I’ve actually said.
It changes nothing!
Abortion is legal. The video is dishonest. Fetal tissue (body parts) are used for science or would you prefer it be thrown in the garbage? The tissue or body parts were not being sold and have never been sold.
Those are the issues. I’ll not entertain any more of your red herrings, veiled insults or nonsense semantics.
LikeLiked by 1 person
1) Thanks for being willing to use plain language.
2) I already granted that what PP was doing wasn’t “selling” strictly understood. I’ve worked in non-profits and understand the useful distinctions, even if they are sometimes ignored in practice.
But if your accusation that the videos are dishonest are based on “they are not selling baby parts” then you are only part right. No, not quite selling, but yes, baby parts.
3) The legality is not relevant to the morality of the violent act. You don’t know my opinion on the legal questions surrounding abortion, I don’t feel like discussing it here.
4) And personally I’d rather see the bodies buried. Abortion is an act of violence; even using them for scientific progress seems ghoulish.
LikeLike
“Considering your site is called ‘Truth and Tolerance’ you show a remarkable lack of either.”
Ouch! Hope that stung dp! It’s all very well putting your silly head on for arguing with Ark or Arch, but you should be ashamed of yourself for launching into that tone with anyone and everyone you come across in Blogland.
LikeLike
You are right.
LikeLike
Also, you will be pleased to know that I no longer hunt squirrels or birds. Rather, I harvest rodent and avian tissues.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This post has more information and links on the subject for anyone interested:
https://amusingnonsense.wordpress.com/2015/08/10/profiting-from-dead-babies/
LikeLike
Got to give you that one dp. Cracking retort.
LikeLike
Really? I mean, I know you have an odd sense of humour. But you found something dp said about killing animals for fun to be humorous?
LikeLike
Not humorous, but cutting.
LikeLike
Oh I see. So you can spot the parallels between men killing defenseless animals for fun, and women dying in back alley abortions because men who like killing defenseless little animals think if a woman gets pregnant she should be forced to carry the child to term? Interesting how our minds all work differently.
LikeLike
Er …. did you get out the bed the wrong side again?
LikeLike
I just don’t appreciate dp being given any kind of praise for being his foul self.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The post is highly emotive. His comment hit hard.
Doesn’t mean him and I are planning on getting engaged anytime soon.
LikeLike
The subject is emotive. His comment is completely illogical in the context and an insult to the decision many women have to make in their lives.
LikeLike
His remark was largely in response to the issue surrounding tissue and organ harvesting from aborted fetuses, yes?
LikeLike
You mean the fabricated scandal orchestrated by the anti-abortion movement in the USA seeking to deny women access to safe and legal abortion facilities? And this relates to killing animals for fun … how?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Mind if I interject?
It is interesting how prochoice people claim the context is women’s choice, prolife people would claim the context is a baby’s life.
My comment was meant to remove the euphemism surrounding the actual procedure of abortion. Eating meat implies and act of violence against an animal. Abortion is also an act of violence. Lets call things what they are.
Your reaction was to relate back to your prochoice mental furniture of “backalley abortions” and all that, which are not related to what I thought was the subject at hand.
I just think the way people talk right past one another in this subject is interesting. No wonder everyone gets emotional.
LikeLike
“Your reaction was to relate back to your prochoice mental furniture of “backalley abortions” and all that, which are not related to what I thought was the subject at hand.”
Ah, okay. Your reaction was to relate back to your forced birth advocates mental furniture of “babies” and all that, which are not related to what I thought was the subject at hand – termination of pregnancy at the pre-viable fetal stage of development.
My mental furniture may mean nothing to you, but women harming or killing themselves because they don’t have access to legal medical facilities is the inevitable backdrop to all discussions on abortion.
LikeLike
Of course it means something to me. Abortion is a subject where euphemism abounds and people on both sides avoid hard truths.
Here are some truths: unwanted pregnancies are bad experiences, some people will always be negligent with contraceptives, laws against abortion would have to be enforced with some sort of punishment, at least for providers, the only difference between a six month “product of conception” and a premature baby is location, and “terminating” it means violently dismembering it.
Unless all these things are acknowledged by all parties there is not much point in discussing it.
LikeLike
You live in fairy land. Late term abortion accounts for somewhere between 0.5% and 2% of all abortions – and in the vast majority of those cases it’s for medical reasons. Of course no-one wants to chop up a developed fetus on a whim. Unless you acknowledge that abortions rarely happen at 6 months, there’s not much point in discussing abortion with you.
LikeLike
OK. I concentrated on late abortions because organ harvesting assumes it. The conversation turned to abortion in general but I was still thinking in terms of late.
LikeLike
“For me, the question focuses on the wrong issues – why are such high numbers of women needing abortions?”
Because they’re busy heroically saving lives, violet. As Godless has said above, “Fetal tissue is then used to save lives “Fetal tissue has been used since the 1930s for vaccine development, and more recently to help advance stem cell research and treatments for degenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease.”
So the question Silence has asked you still goes answered. Let’s rephrase it. Do you see anything wrong with young women getting pregnant so they can have abortions so that the fetal tissue can than be used to create vaccines?
LikeLike
That’s like asking – do you see anything wrong with people getting ill so that they can die so that their bodies can be used for medical science? I mean, to think all those fearfully created bodies crafted and killed by your god then being used by scientists to undermine His plan of suffering and disease for mankind!
Women aren’t getting pregnant on purpose to have evil abortions. There’s something seriously lacking in a society in this day and age that has so many people getting pregnant by mistake. We need to learn lessons from the countries that have tackled this by being more open about sex.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/feb/27/teen-pregnancy-netherlands-sex
For the women who do chose abortion, of course it makes sense that the fetal tissue is used for something productive. I would object if there was a profiteering market for it, but apparently that was all made up by the forced birthing propaganda machine.
Would you leave your own body to medical science, or will it resurrect on the second coming?
LikeLiked by 1 person
“There’s something seriously lacking in a society in this day and age that has so many people getting pregnant by mistake.”
Very few women these days get pregnant by mistake, Violet. Nearly everyone knows what causes it and how to prevent it, both men and women. What is lacking is respect for women’s bodies including by women themselves, and an understanding of the value of human life.
LikeLike
Very few. I d not wish to sully your high class blog Violet, but I call bollocks on this crap.
http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/News/Media-office/Press-releases/2013/Press-releases/WTP054814.htm
LikeLike
It’s the year 2015. Nearly everyone knows where babies come from, sex education is everywhere, birth control is available for both men and women, and yet we keep having huge numbers of abortions. Condoms are available on every street corner, birth control is passed out in our schools, so the need for abortion is no longer a matter of people just not understanding what causes pregnancy.
People don’t want to talk about it, but flat out women’s bodies are not being valued and respected, often by our own selves, the value of human life is now being disregarded, and abortion rather than being perceived as something safe, legal and rare, is now viewed as empowerment, as embracing your rights, as in bettering humankind. Violet herself equates getting pregnant with being sick and Godless speaks of fetal tissue saving lives. Given our attitudes it is only natural for women to start feeling a moral obligation to have an abortion, to “do the right thing,” and that is exactly what is being promoted. Women who do decide to carry babies to full term often find themselves heavily shamed for making such a choice. They’ve thrown their life away, they’ve contributed to over population, they’ve condemned a child to poverty, they’ve trapped a man, they’ve self righteously snubbed their nose at abortion rights. Carrying life is no longer socially viewed as an honorable profession, but rather a shameful thing, something women parasitically do to society when we’re selfish. “Choice” has a lot more to do with social expectations and psychology than it does with what is legal and illegal.
LikeLike
Thank you. I am aware of the current year.
But sex education is not everywhere. And peer group pressure still encourages unprotected sex. Or tell me, how else do you explain the statistics in the report I linked to?
Carrying life is an honourable profession? Huh? You mean like architecture, or law or medicine? You are really having a laugh. Getting pregnant is not an honourable profession. Abortion is a last resort for people where contraception has failed, where they failed to use it, or when they are raped. Nobody chooses abortion as a right. It’s a last resort. What part of that don’t you understand?
LikeLike
“Getting pregnant is not an honourable profession.”
Well, then I apologize for being such a shameful, fallen woman who failed and dishonored the world four times over by deceiving myself into believing I was doing something valuable.
Obviously I have failed as a human being. I thought bringing a child into the world had at least as much value as having a degree in architecture, but apparently I was mistaken.
And that is why so many women seek abortions. It is the only socially acceptable choice in the eyes of many and peer pressure does indeed have a huge influence.
LikeLike
Wiki: it will serve as well as anything else for the level of this conversation.
And pregnancy/childbirth fits that, just how?
LikeLike
“And pregnancy/childbirth fits that, just how?”
As I’ve stated, I’m very sorry I’m such a fallen woman who has done such a dishonorable thing as to bring life into this world. Obviously the fact that I have received no compensation indicates that I have no worth and value in the world, and clearly motherhood is a pursuit for the ignorant and uneducated, requiring no specialized educational training or skills of any sort.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What an odd line of harping to take on this. Why do you feel so insecure about being a mother? It’s quite a common pursuit among women, don’t put yourself down so. However, we can also do other things in life, and we can be mothers while doing others things too! It’s nice to diversify.
LikeLike
I don’t feel the least bit insecure about being a mother, Violet, but the perception that motherhood is something shameful is exactly the idea that some people are presenting on your blog.
You still haven’t yet answered my question. If a fetus is just a clump of cells, then what is your moral argument against women getting pregnant as many times as they like and having an abortion simply to provide fetal tissue for the “good of humankind,” as Godless implied?
LikeLike
Hi Inanity,
She did answer. I know, i’ve just been reading the threads. She said that’s like saying someone gets purposefully ill so they can die just to denote their body to science.
Did you not see that?
I might add another… A person cutting off their hand so they can donate it to a surgeon to attach to little Jimmie who lost his in the mill.
Are you pro-amputation, Insanity?
LikeLike
I did respond to your question, and that wasn’t what you wrote last time. This time it’s even more silly. Ever had a miscarriage? It’s not an easy procedure physically shedding a pregnancy, nevermind the obvious emotional aspect. When people decide to terminate a pregnancy they are weighing up consequences with a little more depth than the flippancy of your one-dimensional forced birth games. Once they’ve made the decision, there’s no reason the fetus can’t be used by medical science in the same way that any fully developed dead body is used.
LikeLike
By the way Insanity, I think I met you over at Bigot initially. Have you seen this post? https://justmerveilleux.wordpress.com/2015/08/11/ideological-poison-part-i-grace-church-seattle-askthebigot
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was there when pink attempted to doxx her and to bully her, so color me completely unsympathetic to those who would try to bring harm upon others because they believe their own agenda and political views give them the right to act like total wankers.
LikeLike
Hope you’re planning to stick around and read all about it. 🙂
LikeLike
@insanitybytes22
Nice drive-by.
Except in the bible belt in the US where the failed abstinence sex ‘education’ programs are still in full swing. Why should we believe your claim when the social forces you have defended in the past are actively encouraging ignorance about sex and how babies are made?
Birth control is marginally available despite the pearl-clutching misogynistic outrage that typifies the debate in the US. Or did the Hobby Lobby thing *not* happen?
Probably the only time we are going to agree on anything.
I’m not a big fan of the empowerment ‘thing’ being celebrated by much of the liberal fun-feminist crowd. It is a misdirection of energy being spent trying to work within the system, rather than trying to dismantle it.
Abortion and the umbrella of reproductive health services that go along with it are fundamental to women and their rights. Control of our reproductive cycles must be a given for women as it has been the means to oppress us until very recently.
Have you seen the list of side effects both temporary and permanent? Looking at pregnancy through rose-coloured glasses and the soft lighting of patriarchal nostalgia is not helping women either. Pregnancy is dangerous stuff for women.
Stem cell research saves lives. Would you like links to the positive benefits of research in this area and all of the people it is helping or are you more concerned about poor Mr.Fetus?
A woman seeks an abortion of a myriad of reasons. She has to decide what is best for her and her family given her circumstances. If even a 1/10th of the energy and passion being spent on pro-life rallies, making dubious videos, harassing women at clinics – was spent on providing the social institutions,education, and support to women that they need in their lives we wouldn’t be talking about abortion at all.
The only moral obligation necessary here is the one that says *all people* should have the right to live without fear and have access a basic level of dignified existence (shelter, food, medical care, justice, education) in our society.
Who is shaming these women? It looks to me like you are taking a pot-shot at a poorly constructed caricature of Feminism. Beating straw-women up to make your points only proves you either lack the will to find out what feminism actually says or that your arguments won’t stand against what feminism is actually about.
Having a choice is hard won feature for women in our society. Choice about our reproductive decisions, our careers, our lives, was not given freely. Pining for the days when woman’s roles were more harshly circumscribed by the patriarchal paradigm may not be the most helpful solution to the problem.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Speaking of strawmen:
“Except in the bible belt in the US where the failed abstinence sex ‘education’ programs are still in full swing.”
If I recall, NYC and its environs have the most abortions per live births in the US. I think DC is second. Hardly the Bible Belt. OTH Louisiana has lots of abortions. The driver of high abortion rates seems to be poverty, not thinking sex is best saved for marriage.
“did the Hobby Lobby thing *not* happen?”
Did the SCOTUS decision affect rates of contraceptive use in the U.S.? Of course not. Something you can get for ten bucks at Target does not qualify as “marginally available”.
“Pregnancy is dangerous stuff for women.”
It is certainly a pain, but for a healthy young woman the danger is quite small, almost as if it were, you know, normal and natural.
“Stem cell research saves lives.”
Stem cells produced from the patient’s own body save many. Fetal stem cells, less. Even if they did save many, the ethical treatment of corpses is a separate question from whether or not they should be made into corpses in the first place.
“Who is shaming these women?”
The fathers, husbands and boyfriends who don’t want extra mouths to feed. Abortion: getting bros out of child support payments since 1973!
I agree, no turning back the clock and no point in being mean to women who feel isolated, poor and cornered.
But if the logic of the sexual revolution leads to dismembering fetuses then likely there was some kind of mistake made at the beginning that needs rethinking, right? I mean, it is an obvious dead-end; any honest person contemplating abortion should think “Wait, I didn’t mean to end up here.”
LikeLike
@DPM
My mistake. The maiming of effective sex education is prevalent in 37 states, and not just the bible belt.
And did I make the claim that shitty sex education was ‘the driver’ of the abortion rate? No, I did not.
So how about you address the things I say, not what you think I mean?
Because you just need one set of pills and you’re good for your entire fertile segment of your life. Jesus-fuck, the temerity of privileged white dudes talking shit they know nothing about.
From the Guttmacher Institute:
1) “did I make the claim that shitty sex education was ‘the driver’ of the abortion rate? No, I did not.”
So sex education is unrelated to abortion rates?
2) So Hobby Lobby in reality has zero effect on access to contraceptives, and they are readily available but must be purchased, but Hobby Lobby serves as some kind of vague moral cause to get excited about.
Spending money on contraceptives makes more sense than getting an abortion, which in turn makes more economic (not moral) sense than having a baby. Therefore everyone buys contraceptives and no one gets abortions and no one has uneconomical babies right? Wrong. People who have access to contraceptives do not use them because they prefer short term gratification. Providing them for free would not change that. I know people whose rent is provided by the government and they still can’t pay it; they spend it at Best Buy first.
3) 800 women a day out of 350,000 live births. You are making something normal out to be some kind of weird disease.
4) Non-ghouls generally show respect for corpses. It is a human thing.
5) So men forced contraceptives and abortion on women, and those are good things?
I think you are just looking for stuff to be angry about. Biology and human nature are great targets because that way there is always something to complain about.
LikeLike
Don’t mind me…
LikeLike
Ach, never do.
LikeLike
Sorry about the mess. I’m sure someone will clean it up
LikeLike
@dpm
Sex education is related to abortion rates.
Is it, as you assumed, what I was saying that it was the “main driver” of abortion rates? – No.
Honestly, do you only have two settings: hyper-critical and obtuse?
RGB would disagree with your cavalier appraisal of the situation.
“Would the exemption the Court holds RFRA demands for employers with religiously grounded objections to the use of certain contraceptives extend to employers with religiously grounded objections to blood transfusions (Jehovah’s Witnesses); antidepressants (Scientologists); medications derived from pigs, including anesthesia, intravenous fluids, and pills coated with gelatin (certain Muslims, Jews, and Hindus); and vaccinations (Christian Scientists, among others)?”
But hey, just a “vague moral case”, amirite?
And this is based on what? Because right now, it sounds like you’re just pulling random argumentative shit out of your ass.
Are there any other social support systems you’d like to invalidate(?) with your important personal experiences? Social security because you once saw a destitute individual purchase a cigarette instead of baby formula? Maybe it was *you* who actually saw the ‘Black Welfare Queens’ driving around in their Cadillac’s?
Let me just reiterate from a previous post –
“• Publicly funded family planning services help women to avoid pregnancies they do not want and to plan pregnancies they do. In 2013, these services helped women avoid 2 million unintended pregnancies, which would likely have resulted in about 1 million unplanned births and nearly 700,000 abortions.[22]”
So, really you just don’t like public institutions – welfare, social security, unemployment insurance. They are the facets of society that promote a dignified, more egalitarian, human existence for all – I get that – but let’s not allow your (bollocks) opinion qualify for anything more that it is.
Especially when said opinion is contravened by fact.
Errr..no. Just putting some numbers in there to battle the patriarchal ideal that pregnancy is some kind of natural happy-fun-times for women with unicorns and rainbows that spurt out from their episiotomy incisions.
Pregnancy, despite your adherence to the naturalistic fallacy, is dangerous for women.
Poisoning-the-well is also on your rhetorical checklist, quite the combo with naturalistic fallacy. Full marks.
If the fetus-fetishists get their druthers, women that happen to pregnant will have less rights than a corpse.
Are you mounting a noble defence now for foetal tissue? Are we now hyper-valuing your important personal disgust along with (see earlier) your important personal anecdotes – did you need to add an “I have spoken…” to augment the authority of your arguments?
Would you rather foetal tissue be processed and destroyed with other medical waste, and thus denying a valuable resource to medical research?
I’m not sure you wanted to go there with your statement, but past its fallacious value(?),I can’t really puzzle out any more reasons why you’d state it.
Men wanted more access to pussy – hard to believe, I know – and thus supporting the legalization and mass-availability of birth-control wasn’t that hard to get behind.
Well if you stopped farting out baseless, libertarian-esque, dudely-horseshit, I wouldn’t have to be angry then would I?
LikeLike
You seem to be arguing both sides of an issue sometimes, my “obtuse” questions are just trying to get some clarity… OK, get clarity and be an asshole, but mostly clarity.
1) You seem to argue that sex education is essential to lowering abortion rates (then you don’t, then you do) but at first glance there does not seem to be a correlation between abortion rates and sex ed: there are no preachers of abstinence pounding Bibles in the public schools of Manhattan or North Jersey, yet abortion is very common in greater NYC. Liberal progressive cities like DC and Chicago have high abortion rates. So does Louisiana, a rural conservative state. Has nothing to do with abstinence programs.
2) Muslims not eating Jello has to do with contraceptives? Or with the SCOTUS decision? Your quote is a non-sequitur. Do women use contraceptives the same as before Hobby Lobby? Yes, of course they do.
I’m not a fanatic one way or another about social programs but I am a realist about the difference between how they are supposed to work and how they do. People simply do not make the choices the central committee wants them to make.
The proof is that while it is much wiser to buy contraceptives and avoid pregnancy, PEOPLE DO NOT IN FACT DO THIS. The expense of contraceptives is an even wiser investment if you are poor, BUT THEY DO NOT IN FACT DO THIS. The problem is not lack of knowledge nor lack of funds, since abortion isn’t cheap either, and a baby is expensive. If they won’t make the decision you want them to make with cheap contraceptives (extremely cheap compared to the difficulty of abortion or expense of childbearing), why should they make it with free ones?
3) I’m not a romantic about pregnancy, it is uncomfortable and painful. It is also perfectly normal. It is not dangerous for averagely built women. Your hatred of nature is fascinating. Very sorry you were born a mammal and couldn’t lay eggs like a fish. But then if you were a fish you would have less opportunities to work yourself into an outrage, which you seem to enjoy, so I guess it all works out in the end.
4) Respect for corpses is an almost universal human ideal, even if people might fall short. Even enemies on a battlefield are supposed to be buried.
5) So the solution to male manipulation of women through abortion and contraception is more of the same? Aren’t you just playing right into the plot of the patriarchy?
LikeLike
These exchanges got heated, VW. Abortion posts tend to do so. Especially when there’s a cause celebre in the air.
Thanks for the link to my post. One of the major things I didn’t get into there was that PP did do a great job of hanging out in the gray area of the law. What they did should have been illegal, per the third item on your list. They were trying to make a sliver of money off of the transport and storage of fetal tissue, and U.S. law (as I am aware of it right now) does allow for that. Really, the videos show an atrocious process which should never take place.
It’s a shame that the conversation has gotten away from this. I think that people who might consider themselves “pro-choice” would agree that this is a terrible practice that should not happen, just as people who might consider themselves “pro-life” would do the same. Sadly, there’s so much other divisive rhetoric in the traditional abortion debate that PP is going to get away with what it’s doing, continue to do what it’s doing, and nothing will happen as a result.
LikeLike
It’s a murky area that’s best left up to each woman personally, and made with as much information as possible. Drives me mad that Christians try to get involved with their made-up theology on the subject.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“It’s a murky area that’s best left up to each woman personally, and made with as much information as possible. Drives me mad that Christians try to get involved with their made-up theology on the subject.”
Okay, so with no theology at all and totally leaving it up to the woman personally, do you have any kind of moral argument against a woman being allowed to just get pregnant as many times and she wants and to than sell the fetal tissue?
I can’t argue against it outside the context of faith. If it is her body, that is just a meaningless clump of cells having no life, and fetal tissue goes to the betterment of mankind, than what’s the objection? In fact, why don’t we just take it a step farther and encourage women to seek payment for their fetal tissue not unlike we do for people who donate blood?
It makes me a bit ill to say such things Violet, but this is the natural progression that comes from moral ambiguity. If you’ve got a secular argument against such things, I’d sure like to hear it.
LikeLike
Okay, so with no theology at all and totally leaving it up to the woman personally, do you have any kind of moral argument against a woman being allowed to just get pregnant as many times and she wants and to than sell the fetal tissue?
”Allowed”? Odd choice of word.
In a democratic society you cannot prevent a woman from choosing to get pregnant.
However I am pretty sure measures could (and probably would) be put into place to prevent such a practice allowing the an open market system of selling fetal tissue.
This being said, considering what a woman would have to go through to ”sell” such tissue I doubt there would be many, if any, takers.
I could be wrong, of course. As the English say, ”None so queer as folk”, but I wonder if there are any women on this thread who would contemplate doing such a thing just for money?
Wouldn’t simply having sex for money be the easier and more profitable alternative?
LikeLike
@IB
Hmm… Let’s look at an hypothetical inside theology…
Reasons to stone people from the skeptics annotated bible:
For cursing or blaspheming:
And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him. Leviticus 24:16
For adultery (including urban rape victims who fail to scream loud enough):
If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto an husband, and a man find her in the city, and lie with her; Then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die; the damsel, because she cried not, being in the city. Deuteronomy 22:23-24
Do you have any moral arguments against the biblically sanctioned stoning of people? I mean, it says it right there – that is the moral prescription ordained in said magic book.
What is the moral number of children who blaspheme should we stone to death to preserve the biblical ethic?
And hence, the problem with hypothetical situations.
Indeed. If we were to pay attention to the medical science of the situation, there isn’t a problem here.
The problem comes when people, who are ignorant of the facts of the situation, start making up labels and actively misnaming key parts of the birth process – in a naked appeal to emotion rather than reason – to make the fetus more important than the women in the state we call pregnancy.
Hence we get emotive descriptions of ‘millions of babies murdered’ per year in the US. In light of the fact that 70% of all viable embryos do not implant or are miscarried the greatest scourge present in the debate would be ‘nature’ or if you believe in magic, ‘god’.
So really, if you want to stop the all out war on babies, wouldn’t it be logical to work on reducing the rate of miscarriages and unsuccessful embryonic implantations first, rather than trying to strip women of their reproductive rights, as abortion is responsible for but a mere 30% of war on babies?
I’m borrowing figures from JZ’s recent Fisking of an anti-choice christian dude.
Moral ambiguity is inseparable from morality. For morality to have some some sort of reasonable connection to reality ambiguity is necessity.
When someone claims to possess moral certitude – it is time to duck and cover – because nothing good ever spawns from such rigidity.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Pingback: abortion: the context of faith | violetwisp
Pingback: a challenge for christians: the moral argument against abortion | violetwisp