Letters to the Editor
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Reply to Previous (1st) Comment - Control, Slavery, and Rights
First, I believe there will not be an agreement between ProLife and ProChoice people (about abortion) during my lifetime. I believe this because many people’s arguments are based on religious beliefs, which are themselves based on dogma. Dogma, in the short term, is immune to argument.
So I am replying to points raised in a previous comment.
Point 1: “Abortion deprives vulnerable human beings of the right to control THEIR bodies.” (THEIR is referring to the fetus.)
Reply 1: Fetuses, during most of their existence, do not have control over their bodies, at least in regard to existing by their own means. What would happen to a fetus if it is removed from the host body after 5 weeks? The matter of the life or death of a human fetus is initially controlled by the host body.
Point 2: “Unborn babies are treated like disposable property…much like slaves…”
Reply 2: Slaves in the USA were highly prized and sought after possessions. They were not treated as disposable property.
Point 3: “The right to our bodies is limited to that which will not harm another human being.”
Reply 3: Self defense is considered to be a universal right even though self defense may readily cause harm to another human being. - AGJ
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I'm Sorry
I just had to reply to this:
"Abortion deprives vulnerable human beings of the right to control THEIR bodies."
Maybe I missed it, but I don't EVER remember having any control when I was in the womb. In fact, I never remember being asked if I even WANTED to be born. That decision was made for me, without my input or consent. And believe me, had I been given a choice, with all knowledge of what I was going to be facing with the parents I was born to, I might have said "No thanks". But I wasn't given that choice, I was not allowed to make the decision as to whether I was going to be brought into this world. Whether born, aborted or miscarried, fetuses have absolutely NO control over anything. This argument is ridiculous.
My favorite anti-abortion bumper sticker:
"Pro choice it's a lie unborn babies don't chose to die". Yeah, well, they don't chose to be born either.
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Shameful!
Bill Shanks and his anti-abortion minions have trivialized the struggles of African Americans with their co-option of rhetoric from the Civil Rights Movement. I find such political maneuvering to be extremely offensive, given the probability that these rightwing antiabortionists are just as racist as the reactionary segregationists of the not-so-distant past in Mississippi. Shanks and company should spend less time pushing for "pre-born" legislation and more time advocating for the poor children of Mississippi, who need better schools, better nutrition, and better healthcare.
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Best coverage of the protests is at www.jacksonfreepress.com
Thanks for picking up on the anti-abortion protests in Jackson. However, if you're relying on the Clarion Ledger, you're not getting the best of information. Go to the Jackson Free Press website (they're our local Altnerative News Weekly, and recently won 6 awards at the AAN Conference) at www.jacksonfreepress.com. There's great photos and blogging happening.
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Appropriation of civil rights tactics
There is a Bruce Sterling short story called "RU486?" in which the protagonists are smuggling RU-486 and are confonted by right-to-life antagonists using the tactics and language of the civil rights movement. It's very interesting how faction-neutral such things can be.
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Don't have one?!
All right, I'm pro-choice for sure, but the next time I see see someone say, "Don't like abortions? Don't have one!" I'm going to clock that person upside the head.
People who are anti-abortion (the serious ones, anyway--the ones who aren't *just* doing it for religious, dogmatic reasons) believe that abortion is murder. Saying "don't have one" doesn't address their concern at all. You might as well say, "Don't like murder? Don't commit it!" Or, "Don't like thievery? Don't steal!"
See? Their concern isn't about what THEY do, it's about what's being done. They may be totally wrong (I sure think so), but "don't have one" is a moronic way to approach their position.
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Moronic
LukeC - it is a moronic answer to a moronic attempt to control someone else's choice. Are you really pro-choice?
Personally, I don't think that men EVER have any right to have an opinion about whether or not abortion is legal, illegal, or otherwise.
You sir, are the moron.
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Rights of the Born...
...and no more, Chana.
I do not believe, nor maintain the political doctrine, that something magical happens at birth entirely altering the status of the fetus from non-entity to full-fledged person under the law. As anti-choicers frequently point out, birth is a rather arbitrary distinction from the perspective of the fetus. It's for this reason I'm uncompromising on reproductive rights: Under no circumstances may anyone be compelled to donate an organ, bone marrow, blood, or even platelets, to save another person's life. Under no circumstances may anyone be compelled to endanger their own health and life to save someone else, not even an emergency worker who has signed up for the job of saving lives and is under some special legal constraints. Let me strengthen that last point a bit since I consider it especially relevant to the question of coerced pregnancy. As an EMT we were expressly trained to take no risks with our lives, our firefighter comrades were instructed in the same. Once things get dicey, we're supposed to run like cowards. This injunction is so sacrosanct my own instructor, as strapping and heroic a man as I've ever known, stood idly by and watched as a large family burned to death in a car fire screaming and hammering at the windows the whole way down. Why? Because if he'd tried to help he'd have run the risk of not going home to his family that night. He'd have certainly been injured or compromised to the point that he couldn't render aid to the victims when no one else was available to help. In other words, his sacrifice might have gotten him an above the fold heroic mention in the news, but more than likely everyone would have died anyway. That's some shabby moralizing. He did the right thing, I would have done the same.
But another EMT could have done his job if they'd been there, a mother is not so replaceable. If a woman compromises herself in any fashion for a pregnancy, she compromises herself as a mother as well. That baby, voluntarily acquired or otherwise, has no more right to compell a woman's assistance than I have the right to compell a paramedic to risk their health for me, and certainly no right whatsoever to coercing the use of a woman's body. If I don't have that right to coerce you to save my own life while I'm fully born and evident, neither does a fetus. Not for five seconds, not for nine months, not even to borrow the use of your vascular system whether you know me or not, whether I'm related to you or not.