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Post by onthewindscreen on Aug 31, 2012 12:03:18 GMT -5
I feel like I've been screaming at the top of my lungs, but no one is hearing me.
Why haven't we acknowledged that Republicans stopped talking about abortion a long time ago, escaping the tricky question of the relationship of rights between a *zygote* and the woman in whose body it resides. That's what people actually disagree on.
We aren't even talking about when the "baby" has full personhood. The sanctity of life act makes it very clear that a zygote has as many rights as a child, so there is no need to discuss blastocysts or embryos or fetuses.
Abortion is what happens, either spontaneously or medically, to terminate a pregnancy. The term's definition hasn't changed.
Why are we now talking about criminal law? Why are we getting distracted with how much at fault a person has to be in order to have a crime perpetrated against her?
Why are we talking about how, as is quite strongly insinuated, that most women lie about enduring this particular crime?
Why are we arguing points of medicine and biology? When someone uses a clause like "shuts that whole thing down," why don't we just let it stand in its own stupidity.
Instead, we are talking about when a person has the right to *withdraw* consent. We presume that she has given consent by having two X chromosomes.
(Let's not get caught up in whether she has breasts. Or ovaries. Or a uterus. Or a vagina. Or even just a vulva. We're not going to get in to a woman's medical history here. And anyway-- can't boys or men be raped?)
Hypothetically, we have to start this dissection presuming that the person in question is not lying. Let's all take a moment to let that sink in.The first step in defining rape is determining whether the survivor is capable of telling the truth.
The term made popular recently is "legitimate," which is described more precisely as "forcibly." Now we have to define force, which means we have to decide on questions of law regarding violence, intimidation, intoxication (college girls better not take any roofies!), age, mental capacity-- all in light of how much the victim did to bring this crime upon herself.
Let's break this down.
The zygote indelibly has full rights of personhood that should never be compromised.
Some politicians are willing to sacrifice those rights ONLY IF the woman in question:
1. is not lying;
2 was wearing appropriate clothing, sober, walking in a well-lighted area or during the day, sound of mind and body, and adult;
3. refused allowing a man to have sex with her for good reason;
4. and could not physically prevent the act from happening.
The only reason I can think of that people are getting distracted by how much we are giving the zygote without question is because we are so insanely incredulous that anyone could believe these things.
Ten years ago we were talking about heartbeats and brainwaves and first breath. The question used to be at what point is that collection of cells turns into an individual capable of living on its own. Now the question is whether the hunk of meat holding it should breastfeed.
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Post by onthewindscreen on Aug 31, 2012 12:20:18 GMT -5
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Post by d murphy on Sept 2, 2012 1:27:55 GMT -5
i love the name of your blog, and i think you make a valid observation of the difference between conservative and liberal positions on abortion. conservatives feel the pregnancy is more important than the woman carrying it, liberals feel that the woman is more important than the pregnancy.
though i obviously agree with the liberals, to me the best way i feel to demonstrate why such a position makes the most sense is to cite examples where both the woman and her pregnancy will die if nothing is done. in such circumstances is there a way to save the pregnancy? no, but is there a way to save the woman? yes. so why write a death sentence for both?
whenever a conservative says a pregnancy needs to result in the birth of a child, they're really saying a pregnancy needs to result in the birth of a child or death (because what happens if anything goes wrong with the pregnancy? medical science is not at the point that every pregnancy can occur safely). they haven't done any research about the medical realities of pregnancy and their lack of understanding of the female reproductive system unfortunately seems to extend to a lack of understanding for the circumstances that may have caused the pregnancy.
i think a lot of this is further complicated by the differences between men and women's reproductive systems and poorly educated men assuming that a women's system works similarly to his own. men have a lot more control than women over whether or not they want to get a woman pregnant. ejaculation and orgasm are (usually) simultaneous experiences, meaning a man needs to "enjoy" his sexual encounter with a woman to get her pregnant. meanwhile for women, orgasming has nothing to do with ovulation, yet if it did it'd give her an equal amount of control over sexual encounters and could possibly explain the bizarre logic used to justify some of the ridiculous victim blaming that occurs with rape for if her body worked like a man she could "shut that stuff down."
another part of the victim-blaming has to do with how shameful most people making these claims view sex. having sex without the intention to conceive (or consumate a marriage) is viewed as a sin by at least catholicism (and i'm guessing a ton of other sects of christianity but i'm iffier on those). fortunately for men, they're raised to believe they're falible and prone to make mistakes while women are the fairer sex (it's very interesting to note how important the bible stresses that a woman remain a virgin before marriage while it makes no indication it expects the same from men). these men then believe women have better control over their sex drive or don't enjoy it as much or that the female orgasm is a myth. all indicating women are better equiped to resist their sex drive and not have the "baby causing orgasms" that the fallible man feels he needs to have. so the man is free to "sew his seed" as much as he wants, but it's the woman's job to keep him in check and only allow his seed to procreate when she wants (by resisting her supposed less strong urge to enjoy sex).
so then here's where the victim blaming comes in again. conservatives feel dressing provocatively results in a woman allowing herself to enjoy sex more than she's supposed to as she's the one supposed to be keeping men in check. conservatives feel the rape victim can only get pregnant by enjoying the encounter. conservatives feel a woman's reproductive system works the same as a man in which men think they can control it but every once in a while they don't pull out in time.
i think this is their logic, not that it's factually correct at all. but people also used to believe the world wasn't round just because it looks flat (and they sentenced people to death over that one too).
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Post by onthewindscreen on Sept 4, 2012 15:00:20 GMT -5
Thank you. You have fantastic insights and I appreciate your response.
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