Letters to the Editor
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The baby and the petri dish and the hypothetical
What amazes me is that no one noticed the more realistic hypothetical elephant in the maternity room that should have shut that gasbag Wilkow up once and for all on this.
Here's a more realistic hypothetical encountered in hospitals since the dawn of hospitals. You the expectant father are greeted by a somber doctor in the waiting room. He explains to you that there have been complications in the delivery and your wife is in extreme distress and hemorhaging. You have two choices: carry on with the delivery and save the "late term unborn child Jesus human life non-choice" or save your wife.
I imagine there might have been someone like Newt (sorry about the cancer, but I can't wait for you to die and am leaving you now) Gingrich who might have said "Save my male heir, I can get another broad, but most of us with any conscience would have sacrificed the fetus for our spouse.
How is this different from the 2 year old vs. five blastula? Ok, suppose the doctor offered the choice of saving the quintuplets the fertility treatment had blessed you with or saving your otherwise infertile spouse? My guess is you still go with the spouse.
The point is, the choice between a living and breathing human; one who has gasped her first breath, suckled at her mother's breast and smiled at her father's first greeting is what we all recognize as a living human being, a child, not a choice. We choose once that child is with us not to abandon them, and millions of liberal commie pinko fags like us consider such newborns children not choices.
Yet the rightwing nut Wilkow is so terrified acknowledge and agree with this, to the point of looking stupid first on air and then on Salon, he fails to recognize the difference. He easily could have, for he had lots of support on his side.
The governor of South Dakota, the one who couldn't wait for Roberts and Alito to let their robes dry, and the first governor of South Dakota to make North Dakota seem more inviting, signed into law an anti-abortion bill he pushed and rode like a bunch of drunk spring breakers on a ten peso Cancun whore, but which completely backed up "Commie" Mike's hypothetical: When forced to choose between a living and breathing human - i.e. the mom - and an unborn (or "hypothetical") child, the doctor can go ahead and deep six the kid. The law bans any abortion except if forced to choose between the mother and the fetus. Never mind the circumstances of the child, rape, incest, love, fertility medication, or the age of the mother or even the fact she might be delivering just hours before being executed for mass murder; if its the choice between her or the fetus, the fetus gets the suction tube the clamp and the metal bin by the side of the or table.
While there are lots of examples of rightolifers throwing mock funerals for these "unborn" children, there are probably ten times as many examples of them caught in the contradiction of not really recognizing a fetuses human existence that are far better hypotheticals, hell, downright realities for us to ask the likes of Wilkow and his ilk. Funny how the governor of South Dakota gave nary a thought to laws that would treat miscarriages lost in a hygienic pad or down the toilet as desecration of a corpse. But that gives us a good start on calling these yahoos out on their supposed respect for the "unborn."
Perhaps we can start with their opinion on child support. Shouldn't it begin when their mistress calls to say she is pregnant? We can start there and by the time we get to probate law and the Rule against Perpetuities we can have our way with the likes of Wilkow and his unbornhypotheticaly-hypocritical ilk. Maybe then we can finally reduce this argument down to the issue properly addressed by the Warren Court: abortion is not an issue of "unborn" children, but the right of a woman not to be reduced to a mere vessel for carrying another's offspring. Pregnancy without choice is slavery. That is what the Supremes acknowledged in 1974. Let's see if Roberts and Alito get the idea.
Montcj
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5 to 1
I agree that Mr. Wilkow, if he answered authentically, would probably opt to save the small child, and sacrifice the petri dish. That said, it would probably leave his head ringing with dissonance. But it's not really all about the numbers. Faced with similar dilemmas, all of us would weigh the alternatives using more factors than numbers.
If Mr. Wilkow were asked whether he would save one teenaged boy, or five old men who could not remember what they had to eat for breakfast, or whether to save one republican or five democrats, he might believe that all are living organisms with as much right to live as any other and still choose to save the teen and the republican and feel that he made the best choices that he could have made under the prescribed conditions. So I think that Mr Wilkow could go ahead and say that he would save the small child, and he could reasonably defend his choice without being made to look like an ass. I suspect that he could handle that on his own......
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An easier question, that he would have to answer
The hypothetical posed is ridiculous, so he can quite credibly refuse to answer it. However, the following hypothetical is quite real, and is significant to all of us. I can't take the credit for it because Jerry Springer introduced me to it on his Air America radio show, but it is an excellent question to ask.
1) "Do you support the death penalty for women who have abortions in the first trimester?"
2) "How about life imprisonment"?
If the answer to 1 is no, a good followup question is "Do you support the death penalty for a mother who kills her child after it is born?". If the answer to that is yes, well, we have a conflict, don't we?
One can hardly argue that this is a crazy hypothetical designed as a Catch-22. This is a real life dilemma, and something that will definitely come up if abortion is outlawed.
The fact is that only the zealots and nuts will answer yes to question 1, but many who claim to believe that zygotes and infants are the same thing will answer no. This shows that, deep down, they actually realize it is not the same.
Another situation to think about is this: suppose abortion carries a death penalty or life imprisonment sentence (for the woman who has it) in some states. So now, if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, she could be killed or imprisoned for it on top of it.
It's scary to think about, and if you think I'm just painting pictures here, think again. I actually know people who hold these kinds of beliefs.