Letters to the Editor
-
Meh.
People are already inundated with the warning that seatbelts save lives. If they aren't listening, it doesn't strike me that one more warning, aimed at pregnant women, will accomplish much.
This article *may*, however, change the behaviour of those ignorant enough not to buckle up for fear of harming their unborn children. As such, I think it is appropriately titled so as to attract attention from those people whom it might actually help.
-
Not everything aimed at protecting a fetus has to be seen as a threat to abortion rights
This is why the pro-choice movement has lost so much ground in this country. Yes, seat belts save lives. But some women, too many, are willing to put their own lives at risk under the misguided notion that they are protecting their babies (and yes most women who are willingly pregnant call their fetuses babies) by not wearing seatbelts. Trying to educate women that it is safer for their babies/fetuses/pregnancies for them to wear seatbelts is not something to get upset over. It isn't enough to tell everyone to buckle up; that message is out there already and conciously being disregarded by pregnant women. The specific myth about seatbelts potentially causing miscarriages has to be refuted and I don't know how you do that without referring to the baby/fetus. Perhaps they should have said "the thing that grows inside a woman when she's pregnant."
-
Foolish Hypersensitivity
It is an important distinction that accidents which would not cause serious bodily harm to an adult female could in fact kill the fetus she was carrying at the time of the accident.
I don't see how any reasonable person could see this article and the study it is about as a threat to women's reproductive rights. This sort of reaction is not at all helpful to anyone's cause.
-
Way to overreact
I'm as pro-choice as they come, but I don't see any problem with protecting babies against getting harmed in an accident.
-
You've made the harm very clear
Black Sheep, babies weren't mentioned, fetuses were. Thank you for sliding down the slippery slope on the first page, maybe it will spare us pages of people denying that slope exists.
-
It's about protecting the ones that *will* be born
This is a lot like the smoking-while-pregnant issue. As a strong pro-choicer - in fact, I've called myself on the record as "pro-abortion" - I don't care if you do something that kills your fetus. But when it comes to taking actions that can result in a child, later on, that has difficulties because of what happened during its pregnancy, it doesn't bother me to be judgmental. If I came out missing an arm (yes I understand this is medically unlikely but I'm trying to make a more general point) because mom didn't wear her seat-belt, I'd be pissed. If I was aborted, I wouldn't have the capacity to be pissed.
On an unrelated note: what's with feminists and puke?
-
Low blow.
Horton hears every creature, no matter how small, because they are people too. It has nothing to do with fetuses. Animals are sentient, independent beings that should have rights too. Fetuses are not.
-
burgeoning, irrational rights of fetus
Susan Faludi documented those scary movements in Backlash. Together with Stiffed, important books illuminating some of what went horribly wrong in America during the 20th C... still wrong and getting wrong-er.
-
I'm sorry
but did I hear correct?
if a man accidentally kills a fetus, he is guilty of murder, but if a woman accidentally kills a fetus she is not?
And you women want support from us men?!?
My ears cannot deceive me so...
-
Oh yeah STIFFED
Together with Stiffed, important books illuminating some of what went horribly wrong in America during the 20th C...
I read that chronicle of bullshit, the one that told us men what to think, because you damn feminists know so much.
How's about a man writes about women, describing in his favorite ways, using his perspective, what is wrong with women today.
Why is it women always presume to have a clue about men and their lives? You would think women came back from the dead after living their lives as men in a prior life.
-
Slippery slope? Precipice, maybe
"Animals are sentient, independent beings that should have rights too. Fetuses are not."
I agree about animials, but wow. It's pretty clear that a fetus becomes sensing and sentient at some point while living in the womb. Or does the fetus somehow undergo a sentience-giving process on the way out on the day of birth? Or maybe sentience is just somehow in the air outside the womb?
As for independence, my grandmother cannot sit up without help, can barely feed herself, and would probably die within days without nearly round-the-clock help. By the logic expressed above, she might as well be aborted. I disagree heartily.
-
For that matter,
the same logic would say a day-old baby could be aborted with no implications. Anyone in favor of that?
-
Oh, for heaven's sake
Presumably, the people targeted by this report are pregnant women who want to be pregnant and who are afraid that seatbelt use will harm their (wanted) fetuses. It's a useful thing to tell them that seatbelts will actually save these (wanted) fetuses in a collision.
I'm pro-choice enough to volunteer at an abortion clinic, and I don't think that there's anything wrong with this report. There are many women who want to be pregnant and to give birth to healthy children (and who, therefore, want to carry healthy fetuses). Giving them information about how best to achieve that can only be a good thing.
-
I've seen pretty nasty stomach bruising...
...caused by a seatbelt during a relatively minor accident. Even without the seatbelt, it is unlikely that the person would have been killed in this particular accident. And women have miscarried from being struck in the abdomen since time began. So I can see how the rumor gets started that seatbelts can cause miscarriage. Educating people that this is not so seems pretty important.
-
the horror
Thinking of fetuses as people - what a terrible, terrible thing. Our country is, indeed, on a slippery slope.
-
Bat Shit
Personally, I think the whole subject is bat shit. This country started going to hell in 1962 when automakers were forced to offer seat belts. Next it was collapsible steering columns, padded dashboards, "crumple zones" and side-curtain air bags.
Am I the only one who misses the phrase "thrown from the wreckage.." in the paper?
This safety craze started America on its long spiral downward. That and using scientific terms for things like boobs and lobs, too. I for one long for the old days af reinforced concrete roadside markers and the old Spear-O-Matic steering wheels. Every car on the friggin' road is like a Goddam Volvo, for fuck's sake!
Jesus H Christ Almighty, I just wasn't made for these times.