Cand86 feminist, queer, kinky

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

@AbortionFunds:

Let’s reject “rare.” If abortions are legal & accessible, number of abortions performed should = exactly the number of abortions necessary.

In response (I imagine) to another garbage article by the garbage king himself, Ross Douthat. Seriously, only click on this link if you want to be induced with huge amounts of rage.

I’ve always thought we should change our slogan to “Unintended pregnancy should be rare, and abortion should be safe, legal, and accessible.” If both halves of the statement are true and achieved, the end result is that abortion *will* be rare- without ever having to stigmatize it by using the “abortion should be rare!” argument, nor without restricting abortion rights.

@AbortionFunds:

Let’s reject “rare.” If abortions are legal & accessible, number of abortions performed should = exactly the number of abortions necessary.

In response (I imagine) to another garbage article by the garbage king himself, Ross Douthat. Seriously, only click on this link if you want to be induced with huge amounts of rage.

I’ve always thought we should change our slogan to “Unintended pregnancy should be rare, and abortion should be safe, legal, and accessible.” If both halves of the statement are true and achieved, the end result is that abortion *will* be rare- without ever having to stigmatize it by using the “abortion should be rare!” argument, nor without restricting abortion rights.

“ I can assure you if abortion is illegal, it will have a dramatic decrease in the number of abortions that take place. Now the opponents in the opposition argue that whether we make it illegal or not, people are going to get abortions. Well, we’ve illegalized [sic] murder and drugs for a long long time, and yet those crimes continue to take place. And it’s not our stance here to say that “just because people smoke pot and break the law or use heroin and break the law, then we should legalize it.” There are many who say we should. But we don’t agree, we don’t think so. We think it’s wrong and it’s best to keep it illegal…This is the pro-life bill. And I think you’d be in a difficult situation if you voted against this bill and tried to convince everybody that you are ardently pro-life.

—

John Labruzzo, claiming that all women are potential abortion addicts. I wish I could make as many bad analogies as the modern GOP. (via forgottenether)

How the hell can he assure me that making abortion illegal will dramatically decrease the number of abortions that take place? Please, sir, point me to just one- JUST ONE- country where criminalizing abortion has made the rates drastically lower than any country where it is legal. I’ll bet you $500 that you can’t.

prospectiveprospector:

I have a problem with this. I completely think that abortion is a woman’s choice and no one should ever be made to feel bad about having an abortion but this isn’t a just argument. If abortion is illegal then the person supplying the service would be punished, not so much the woman. Just like it’s illegal to get a tattoo under 18, you can’t get arrested for having a tattoo at 16 but the person who gave it to you could be punished by law. I do think this video is important for the people they asked, so that they can really reflect on their position but I don’t think that question really proved anything else.

I’ll take just a brief moment to do away with that false analogy; it is illegal to give a tattoo to a minor because legally, a minor cannot enter into a legal contract/render informed consent for such a procedure. Applying that logic to criminalizing abortion only works if you believe women cannot give informed consent regarding their uteri- or if you don’t believe they should be allowed to.

Now, to the main point: this ignores the reality that abortion- particularly when illegal or difficult to access- is often self-induced. Women who do not want to be pregnant but have no one to help them terminate- legally or illegally- will use wire hangers, knitting needles, toothpicks, pencils, and other sharp objects to try and puncture their cervices. They will drink bleach, mild poisons, and consume substances with proven or rumored abortifacient properties, in order to cause miscarriage. They will throw themselves down stairs and beat their abdomens. And plenty of women have set out not necessarily to self-abort, but rather to intentionally cause bleeding, knowing that if they show up at a hospital, they will receive competent medical care to finish the abortion and ensure there are no complications. If the law was made to punish those who provide abortion, rather than those who seek it, then this is definitely the biggest loophole that exists.

What’s more, if you want to make the argument that the provider is the one actually perpetrating wrongdoing, then logically (and according to legal precedent), she pregnant woman at the very least would have to be charged the same as those who engage in contract killing (i.e. hiring a hitman).

Portraying those who seek out abortion services as innocent victims of the “real criminals” who provide it is not coincidental- it is the calculated tactic of a movement that knows it they will not get far if it demonizes women.

(Source: lasthenia)

samanthab:

If abortion was illegal, what should be done with the women who have illegal abortions?

via: unreasonablefaith

OMG PEOPLE. Do you not understand what “illegal” means? This makes me absolutely furious. (Not to mention that it’s fascinating that a large chunk of the same people believe that making guns illegal would not stop those who want guns from getting them, but they’re just absolutely certain that making abortion illegal will somehow magically put a stop to all abortions.)

Let me reiterate this, because it’s important: Wanting others to make the choice you think is appropriate is not the same as removing their freedom of choice.

It’s why all the praise Sarah Palin got for “choosing life” is such complete and utter bullshit. Either it’s a legally-protected choice and you can celebrate your not choosing it, or it’s illegal and the response to that cover should be “As if you had any other option!”. You don’t get to have it both ways.

Remember how brilliantly Samantha Bee covered this topic on The Daily Show?

(Also, on a related side-note, it’s pretty sad … I once asked my dad what he thought the punishment for women who got abortions should be, sure that I had him ideologically cornered. Without hesitation, he responded that they should be forcibly sterilized. So depressing.)

(Source: lasthenia)

If You Let One Religion Dictate Laws …

… . you’re going to have to let the others do so, too.

I don’t understand people who believe it’s acceptable for religious values to determine what medical services the population at large is able to receive under their insurance.

From this article, quoting Chuck Donovan of The Heritage Foundation:

“”People who are insured don’t want to pay for services they don’t need or to which they have moral objections … Parents want to have a say over what’s covered and what’s not for their children.”

I see.

You don’t want your children- in this case- to be able to access free birth control. So rather than stopping your own children from doing so (which I’d still posit is a bad idea, but whatevs), you would like to take that option away from everybody, child and adult alike, because of your religious belief.

God forbid the Jehovah Witnesses decide to dip their feet into the legislative-influence pool, because then we might have to contend with those who would try to take away your right to receive a blood transfusion under your insurance. After all- they do not need that service, and they have moral objections to it, and by your logic, that makes it just fine and dandy for them to raise deductibles or defund coverage of the procedure your non-JW child might need.

And I’m not even touching the last paragraph of that article; I think it should go without saying that the response to “married women should just abstain if they don’t want kids” ought not waste the time of a good argument- it just needs a big “Fuck you.”

Arizona enacts ban on abortions based on gender, race

keepyourboehneroutofmyuterus:

Today in WTF:

Under the new Arizona statute, doctors and other medical professionals would face felony charges if they could be shown to have performed abortions for the purposes of helping parents select their offspring on the basis of gender or race.

The women having such abortions would not be penalized.

State legislators have said no such law exists anywhere else in the nation.

Backers of the measure said the ban is needed to put an end to sex- and race-related discrimination that exists in Arizona and throughout the nation. They insist the issue is about bias rather than any broader stance on abortion.

“Governor Brewer believes society has a responsibility to protect its most vulnerable — the unborn — and this legislation is consistent with her strong pro-life track record,” a spokesman said.

But opponents have maintained that while such abortions may be happening in other countries like China, no clear evidence can found of it occurring in Arizona.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America also said the measure may erode a woman’s rights, fearing that doctors for the first time would feel compelled to ask their patients the reasons for seeking an abortion.

Ugh. You know, I’m gearing up to write a whole big, long, nuanced, and hopefully good post about sex-selective abortion in India, which I think is a massive and terrible problem. But until I finish it, may I please point this out:

Even if sex-selective abortion were rampant in the U.S- which it isn’t- making it illegal would not stop it. Sex-selective abortion is ubiquitous in India … and it is illegal. Much in the same way that women who want abortions will get them regardless of legality, those who do not want female children will find a way to do so as well: before ultrasound technology and abortion availability in those countries, female babies were the victims of infanticide. Beyond ultrasounds that must be administered by doctors, there now exist methods available over the Internet for individual laypeople to use. And even when those who don’t want girl children don’t engage in female feticide or infanticide, they routinely give their daughters less care, medical access, and even food, than their male siblings- which leads to the deaths of more girls.

Remember when I wrote about treating the symptom and not the disease? Same applies here. People don’t just naturally hate little girls and want them to not exist; they have socially-created reasons- sometimes very good reasons- for using sex-selective abortion. If Arizona had a problem- AND IT DOESN’T- but if it did, the answer would not be to ban abortion sought for those reasons, but to work hard to eliminate what it is that is making female children so unwanted.

I know that it’s all a stupid anti-choice ploy and that they don’t really care about sex-selective abortion. But still- the fact that so few other people point out what I have above … well: