Good times. Let's nitpick, shall we?
You'll notice around the 43 second mark that they mention that about 1% of abortions are because of rape and incest. That is true, but they do fail to mention the 2.8% of cases in which the health of the mother is at risk. And the 3.3% wherein fetal health is a factor. And the 10.8% of abortions which were caused by the mother's inability to juggle a child with education and/or work. And the 12.2% in which the mother was too young or faced parental disapproval--abstinence-only education and the stigmatization of pregnancy FTW! Tellingly, they also leave out the 21.3% who simply cannot afford a baby.
Now, health issues aside, that leaves us with >40% of all abortions caused by socioeconomic factors, factors about which the "pro-life" movement is essentially silent. Are they looking to provide childcare, adoption, and financial assistance to women who would have otherwise aborted? Some of them are, to their credit, but not nearly enough to make them credible. But they must at least be trying to destigmatize pregnancy so the girls and their parents will not feel the need to abort to maintain a moral facade?
Oooh, right.
What the abortion 'debate' ought to be about is a fairly simple question: under what circumstances is it acceptable to interrupt the process which leads to the formation of a new human being? Factoring large in our answer is another question: at what point may human life be said to have begun?
That is, or at least should be, the entire focus of the debate. But it's not, because it's not what the debate is about, for most people. It's about punishing and controlling female sexuality. Witness this article in which Victoria Jackson attempts to answer the question: 'How is babby formed?'
Jannique works at a Pregnancy Crisis Center and in her spare time travels the country as a pro-celibacy and pro-life speaker. ...Or again from the same article:
"How do teenagers get pregnant?" she asked me.
I stammered, "W ... w … what?"
She answered herself: "'Making out.' Every pregnancy begins with 'making out.' ... Does your teenager make out?"
... When I got home I asked my teenager [N.B--her daughter]. ... 1 Corinthians 6:18: "Flee fornication."
I just spoke with a fellow parent from school, a Democrat/liberal. She bragged, "I'm so proud of my son for getting to 18 and not having two babies …"I defy anyone to make any sense of those passages apart from the notion that unplanned pregnancy is God's punishment for screwing around--and not just screwing around, experiencing any sexual pleasure at all. The pro-life movement is merely trying to ensure that divine justice is not interrupted by human agency.
... She isn't proud that her son is a virgin, but that he didn't get caught.
It gets worse, of course. You knew that it had to. I obviously haven't googled everything they spout off in two minutes of rapid-fire narration, but the other thing that really stood out were their remarks on Planned Parenthood around 1:20. Planned Parenthood is an old bugbear for these people: "Want to know how your money was used? The ration of abortions to adoptions was 62 to 1."
And never-you-mind that Planned Parenthood isn't an adoption agency. Or that abortions constituted only 3% of its total procedures. I'm sure that information isn't at all important in letting your viewers make up their minds about the organization. Or their work with cancer screening, infertility, STD's, and contraception--contraception, of course, being something that prevents pregnancy and therefore reduces abortion. Dishonest in the extreme. And again, the bizarre dichotomy, seen especially among Catholics--abortion bad! contraception also bad!--only makes sense in light of the proposition that unplanned pregnancy is God's punishment for sexual deviance.
We will merciful skip over their playing the race card while doing nothing to improve the socio-economic conditions facing black women and move straight to the kicker: their grand solution to ending abortion by 2020.
Are you ready to hear what it is? Are you really ready?! We've got a plan, and you can be a part of it! Brace yourselves! It's ... it's ...
Wear black on Fridays.
Wear.
Black.
On.
Fridays.
These folks literally claim to be witnessing a crime four times the magnitude of the Holocaust, and their solution is to ... WEAR BLACK ON FRIDAYS.
Not bombing the ovens of the new Holocaust. Not assassinating the twisted angels of death that man them. Not addressing the socioeconomic issues that cause so many abortions. Not chaining themselves across the entrances, not non-violent resistance, not manning the phones at pregnancy crisis centers, not promoting contraception, not adopting, not donating every penny they have to anyone who can help, not inconveniencing themselves in any goddam way. Wearing black on Fridays.
Circle-jerking slactivism at its finest.
they do fail to mention the 2.8% of cases in which the health of the mother is at risk. And the 3.3% wherein fetal health is a factor [etc.]
ReplyDeleteAnd the 100% of cases in which it's nobody's damn business except the woman involved.
not inconveniencing themselves in any goddam way. Wearing black on Fridays.
I've always argued that nobody (except a microscopic number of real nutcases) truly believes that embryos are persons or that abortion is literally murder. They don't behave as if they did. The anti-abortion movement is about re-asserting theocratic control over other people's sexuality. Psychological bullying and restrictive laws are more effective tools for that purpose, which is why that's what they use.
"I've always argued that nobody (except a microscopic number of real nutcases) truly believes that embryos are persons or that abortion is literally murder. They don't behave as if they did."
ReplyDeleteyes, exactly. they claim to believe that they are witnessing state-sanctioned murder on a scale that dwarfs Hitler almost four times over, but there's hardly a one of them that acts like it.