Wednesday, January 25, 2012

I Have a Whole New Perspective on Something Seminal and Controversial

My mega mega flip-flop deserves an explanation.  I have completely changed 180 degrees on this.  I am now of the absolute diametric opposite mind that held my approval for the first thirty-one years of my life.

Just as it is impossible to consider the fetus and have complete disregard for the mother's well-being in pro-life viewpoints, so too is it equivalently impossible to pretend the mother has nothing to do with the fetus in pro-choice stances.

...That supposedly all men are absolutely unabashedly pro-life and pro-fetus and hate women's bodies and they absolutely love fetuses at all costs and that they absolutely love love love babies at all costs.

Ha ha.  Yeah fekkin right.

...And supposedly all women are pro-choice because they are all independent capable women in charge of her own life and they love sex and the city because it is a show about strong independent women who are capable of making their own decisions and are in charge of their own life.  And that any woman who is pro-life absolutely must be brainwashed and subjugated by the menfolk and regards herself as a submissive second-class piece of property for the Christian right-wing religious zealots.  Again, yeah fekkin right.

I used to champion this abortion curiosity, I held this idea up on the prodigal altar, it was my sacred inalienable right.  It was my sacred and precious life-affirming decree that honored my ability to live in peace, with complete freedom, dignity, and the right to my own bodily autonomy.

I have now changed my stance absolutely on this, from a moral, philosophical, and spiritual standpoint.

Up to and including about a month ago, I was one hundred percent in favor of abortion, philosophically, morally, existentially, ecumenically, epistemiologically.  I saw little difference between an abortion, and as one blog commentator put it, "setting a mousetrap, then taking an antibiotic medicine."

I know someone is going to call my attention to the fact that violation of women, r--, incest are still rampant.  There is r-- abuse of children who have gotten their menses and are therefore biologically capable of producing offspring.  Thus is the fact that they are being victimized twice -- once by the sick asshole that assaulted them, and once by being punished even further through a biological operation that they have no control over.

To you lot of debt debaters, I say, thank you for illustrating my point.


The sad thing is, I agree with you.  I am not disputing you on those statistics.  Those are all facts.  The CDC has documented that, local law enforcement, state law enforcement, and federal law enforcement have all documented that.  Practically, I know from a legal standpoint it must still be allowed.  Legally it still needs to be completely accessible, 100 per cent.  Philosophical about-face or not, the world is still a sick, misogynistic place in which some males think it is perfectly logical and justified to violate women.

That is exactly why it is so sickening.  What kind of sick, nauseating, depressing, disgusting, vile society do we live in?  What kind of violent, misogynistic, nasty world is this, that a woman is forced to kill her child -- and this is considered to be a *solution*?

It is one that is filled with hatred and seething vitriol towards women.

What kind of society do we live in wherein a culture is perpetuated, nay, encouraged to treat women like less than the separate assemblage of each of the individual body parts?

What kind of sick, sad society do we live in wherein something as sick as puncturing the forming skull of a human being is considered and actively proponated as a *solution*?

What kind of sick, sad society do we live in, that it needs to be safe and legal to offset the victim of a violent crime?  That it needs to be a readily available response so as not to add injury to injury?

Abortion is symptomatic of a society that does not give a 3hi+ about women.

I'm not necessarily worried about the fetus's rights.  The fetus is not its own entity; the fetus is part of a woman's body.  And this is precisely why abortion is violating a woman's right to bodily autonomy.  Sucking out the fetus is committing an act of violence against the woman who is housing said fetus.  I am concerned with the woman's rights.

Performing an abortion is committing an act of violence against that woman's organs.  It’s like punching someone in the kidney to get rid of kidney disease.  It’s like cutting out a lobe of someone's lung to get rid of lung cancer.  The lung cancer thing is barbaric, but unfortunately it is the only thing that can be done for now.  We have no other alternatives currently.  Like I said, abortion is not a solution; it is a symptom of a society that has no other way to help that woman, and which also evidently does not have easily accessed birth control.  (I do not mean that there needs to be "free" birth control; only that birth control should not be so regulated as to be essentially blocked.)

I am talking about a consensual pregnancy, with a healthy mother and a healthy baby.

I'm not really sure quite how I stumbled upon this.  I was looking for atheist philosophy...  Oh, I know.  I was counter-pointing the insidious claim that just because people do not believe in a deity, that this somehow means they now have no morals.  Astonishingly, this claim is mostly being made by the very people that do not believe in a deity.

And then some desperate grasping for straws, some desperate reaching "atheists," in reality just badass-wannabes (some dumbass overgrown peter pan still stuck in teenager mode never having evolved past that trying to rebel and shock and awe against authority) were trying to say that, no there is no morality, morality does not really exist blah blah, morality is a fabricated made-up construct to force people into not being in charge of their own life, or something like that.

And then in an effort to counter-point this I began looking for vastly contradictory emblems of belief.  Honestly this was mostly out of irritation and impatience with rebel-wannabe atheists still-in-the-mindset-of-a-stupid-teenager.  Typical atheist theory states that supposedly the only objection to abortion would be religious ones.  If there is no religion nor deity, there is no case for being pro-life.  (Their argument, not mine.)

Well, just to put these rather predictable, profound-as-a-melted-ice-cube atheists in their place, by god I was going to find atheist arguments that were in favor of pro-life stance.  (I doubt they pondered atheism more critically before settling on it, seeing as how they automatically parroted all stereotypical liberal views.)  I tend to be contrary when I'm irritated.

The Liberal Case Against Abortion, By Vasu Murti, Carol Crossed
[Side note:  I think a better choice of semantics for the book title would have been "feminist" rather than "liberal."  Lord knows liberals are misogynistic underhanded sneaky aholes.]

The earliest feminists in this country, the ones in the late 1800s who genuinely were working towards women's human and family rights, educational rights, and employment rights, were surprisingly against abortion.

They were overwhelmingly AGAINST abortion because they rightfully saw through all the haze and dust and fleas and lies.  They were able to cut through all the rationalizing politically correct BS and were able to see abortion for what it truly is.

It has demeaned and objectified women in the absolute most disgusting sense of the word.  This has reduced women, into nothing more than a vehicle for sperm disposal.  Abortion is an abhorrent act that is in fact the sickest act of violence against women.

The society-wide acceptance and normalization of abortion has done inconceivable harm to women.  And of course it has done harm to children.

Liberals claim that conservatives are trying to shame a woman into keeping the fetus.

But no; now I feel that I see a little more clearly.  Liberals are trying to shame a woman into getting rid of the fetus.  It is a dirty little secret, a filthy little piece of trash that she should just "take care of" by having an abortion.  They are trying to psychologically bully a woman into pretending that she has no feelings toward her child.  Extremists no matter what the stripe, will go ballistic and rabid and foaming frothing at the mouth when confronted with logic, be they liberal or conservative.

Liberals are forcing a woman into not having any emotional connection to her fetus.  They force women into thinking that a new life growing in her body is simply an inanimate object, a throwaway, disgusting piece of trash.  Which she should be ashamed of housing.  A non-living object, no different from a shoe or a toothpick.

----
I had seen a few little whispered snippets of this prior to now, scattered here and there, but not many.  Just a few hushed hurried whispers of this from some republicans who, astoundingly, were not talking about being anti-abortion in regards to the fetus.  They were talking about being anti-abortion in favor of the woman who is getting an abortion.  They were not discussing the fetus taking priority over the woman.  They were genuinely concerned with the well-being of the woman who found herself in such a desperate, bleak situation that she saw this as her only recourse.

If that is the case, then the woman does not honestly, truly have a "choice."  She is in fact being forced into having an abortion.

I noticed it, I put a tabulation on it, then I moved on.  But not before drawing up a list of mental arguments about why this does not solve much.  I was receptive to their opinion and I saw the logic in it.

They saw the [[[combined]]] effect that society imposed on a woman to put her in such a situation that she saw abortion as a logical solution.  So in a way, these republicans convincingly made a pro-woman case against abortion.

And I do remember that even Ms. magazine, pain in the azz though it was to read, was somewhat prescient on this.  Back about twelve years ago, they had a feature article documenting how abortions are forced on local women in vacation hotspots around the world.  And I remember thinking, 'wait a minute, "forced" abortions?  If abortions are good, if abortion is my right as a woman, then why is it ever bad?  Shouldn’t a woman be jumping for joy if she is given a chance not to have to carry a fetus to term?'

I also do remember wondering way back in the day, about particular disconnects that existed.  One school of feminist thought used to love the old pagan nature-y tribal matriarchy-based belief systems.  They were all pro-woman up in this biz.  We are told that those olden, pre- abrahaimic/monotheistic thought systems celebrated women's fertility.  Women's monthly menstruation cycles were referred to as life blood, wise blood, all that good stuff.  The female menarche, the onset of puberty bringing about the ability to carry life within their bodies, was a joyous occasion in a girl's life.  Women were hailed and revered as the bearers of life.  Women gave the greatest possible gift a human being can give another human being:  they gave life.  For this, women were cherished and shown utmost respect.

So if all that is true, then how can this possibly be reconciled with abortion, in which the life blood is sucked out of a woman?  Straight answer, it cannot.

Pro-Woman, Pro-Life.

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