Image from theaustralian.com.auThere are people who should know better who seem to be unclear about the nature of democracy. I’m thinking of The Australian’s star turn Chris Kenny, who today tweeted that the US women’s march was “undemocratic” and an act of “mass petulance.” (I’m sorry I can’t re-post his tweet. Kenny and I entered into an exchange of views and he blocked me. Gutted.) Kenny appears to claiming that in a democracy an elected leader is owed unquestioning allegiance from those who did not vote for him or her. He also seems to be arguing that protest is undemocratic. Both these assumptions demonstrate an appalling ignorance as to the nature and purpose of democracy, whose definition Kenny and his ilk are apparently attempting to renegotiate. In pre -Trump times I would have largely ignored Kenny, except in relation to canines, however, in the new world order alternate facts, post truths and just plain old lies have to be challenged, otherwise we’ll all end up being ruled by giant babies excreting giant piles of reeking faecal matter. I’m not a woman who is inclined to identify with other women just because we all have vaginas. Neither am I likely to exult that I am proud to be a woman, because I can’t see any merit in an accident of birth. However, President Trump’s attitude to women and the Republican Party’s determination to strip women of hard-won reproductive rights stirs in me a profound identification with my sex, and the difficulties that are peculiar to us because of our sex, and I’ll wear a pussy hat in a march any time as an indicator of where my loyalties lie. Kenny’s dismissal of the global protests of millions of women as “mass petulance” encapsulates the reasons we march. Kenny does not have to fear enduring a backyard abortion because Roe v Wade is overturned. Kenny does not have to fear the lack of resources to see him through a pregnancy because his health care has been terminated. Kenny does not have to tolerate being paid significantly less than his female counterpart for doing the same job. Kenny cannot deal with being the subject of television satirists, so quite how he would cope with the myriad daily insults and abuses heaped on women just because we have vaginas, I can’t begin to imagine. Kenny apparently believes he is justified in “standing up for [his] rights” when he feels abused, but women are not. It’s undemocratic when we do it. It’s a human right when he does it. Sorry Chris. You won’t be remembered as the journalist called the dog f**ker who stood up for his rights. We’ll just remember you as the dog f**ker, with a big serve of petulance on the side. This article was originally published on No Place For Sheep. [textblock style=”7″]
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Jennifer, who has a PhD, has worked as an academic and a scholar, but now works at little of both her careers. She has published short stories in several anthologies, academic papers and book chapters, frequently on the topic of human rights. Her interests and writing are wide ranging, including cultural analysis. Jennifer has written for On Line Opinion, Suite 101 and ABC’s Drum Unleashed. Jennifer is well-known for her long-running blog No Place for Sheep: an eclectic blog that covers politics, society, satire, fiction and fun stuff.
62 Comments
Jennifer, I just love your nose for hypocrisy.
I think Chris Kenny’s son expressed it well when he said of his father….
Kenny is a staunchly neo-conservative, anti-progress, anti-worker defender of the status quo. He is an unrelenting apologist for the Liberal Party. He was one of Alexander Downer’s senior advisers at the time of the Iraq War. He’s been known to argue for stubborn, sightless inaction on climate change. He spits at anyone concerned with such trivialities as gender equality, environmental issues or labour rights from his Twitter account on a daily basis. Recently, he characterised criticism of the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s Cabinet as a continuation of the Left’s “gender wars”. He is a regular and fervent participant in The Australian’s numerous ongoing bully campaigns against those who question its editorial practices and ideological biases. The profoundly irresponsible, dishonest, hate-filled anti-multiculturalist Andrew Bolt has recently referred to Kenny on his blog as “a friend”.
And it’s a jokey picture of a bestial embrace that I should be afraid of discovering online?
I would have largely ignored Kenny, except in relation to canines
🙂 Made me wonder, has he a fascination with vampires? Later came the dog flucker reference and it clicked. Oh, the other kind of canines. Chris Kenny deserves to be a nobody. He’s part way there. I’d never even heard of him. With that level of intelligence and integrity he certainly should not have anything to do with public media. His embarrassing view of women should be hidden far out of sight.
A little while ago I read of a USA senator who proposed a hilarious law to restrict men’s reproductive rights, so that men who want a prescription for Viagra have to see a sex therapist (who is required to suggest celibacy as a viable lifestyle choice), receive a cardiac stress test and “get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency.” I love the way she put it forward. Here is part of her speech:
“The men in our lives, including members of the General Assembly, generously devote time to fundamental female reproductive issues—the least we can do is return the favor,” Senator Turner said. “It is crucial that we take the appropriate steps to shelter vulnerable men from the potential side effects of these drugs. When a man makes a crucial decision about his health and his body, he should be fully aware of the alternative options and the lifetime repercussions of that decision,” Senator Turner said today. “Men will be more easily guided through the process of obtaining treatment for impotence so they can better understand and more effectively address their condition.”
Another senator introduced a bill that would allow a man to obtain a vasectomy only when not doing so could cause him serious injury or death.
Of course these don’t get anywhere, but they’re not really expected to. They’re simply intended to highlight the absurdity of men legislating to give them control of women’s genitalia. It is astounding that in the 21st Century some men still just don’t get it. It is horrifying that these primitives have any power at all.
If Kenny thinks that march was “mass petulance”, perhaps he should heed the signs which read “You think I am a nasty woman? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
So the sort of misery welfare beneficiaries are going through and the dreadful reasons for it would be just “petulance”?
Oh yes.. the sort of horrors to be infllcted on the US working classes will make our local Centrelink fiasco (same idea, actively promoted by the likes of Murdoch, who employs Kenny) look compassionate by comparison.
Nobody has to fear a backyard abortion. The vast majority of abortions are simply unnecessary. Use the pill. A condom. Even a morning after pill. If you mess up, but don’t want to raise a child, then see it through to completion and place the child for adoption. In the past two years, four friends/acquaintances of mine have had an abortion. All of these pregnancies came about through personal choice (unprotected sex + no contraceptives). All of them terminated the pregnancy (killed the unborn child) because “I am not ready to raise a child”.
It’s weird to hear abortion described as a reproductive right anyway. Isn’t it an “anti-reproductive” act?
Sooo, wait a minute. Is this the same intrepid reporter who travelled to Nauru, a failed state, to investigate the alleged rape of a Somalian refugee? The same failed state that decreed that a woman’s right to abortion does not exist? The same failed state that relied on that ‘thing’ dutton, to look after the woman who had been ‘allegedly’ raped, yet was undeniably pregnant? Only at Christmas time could you possibly believe in an immaculate conception over an inarticulate misconception.
“Kenny apparently believes he is justified in “standing up for [his] rights” when he feels abused, but women are not. It’s undemocratic when we do it. It’s a human right when he does it.”
Whilst kenny and I share one similarity, the absence of a vagina, I can’t help but think of him as a cu…
(I’m sorry I can’t re-post his tweet. Kenny and I entered into an exchange of views and he blocked me. Gutted.)
Try and contain your grief. You have written this insignificant excrement the most wonderful of epitaph’s.
“Sorry Chris. You won’t be remembered.” Thank you Ms Wilson. Take care
All the sensitivity of a house brick. Yes, Kyran as you have said elsewhere, it could be worse.
We could be Chris Kenny.
Despite my disdain for Kenny I suggest others read his article before (or after) ingesting Wilson’s in one unchewed swallow.
The Woman’s March: what exactly was its purpose?
The march was to protest and show strength against a demonstrably misogynist fool becoming president, who is leading an extremely misogynist Republican party which constantly attempts to curtail women’s rights and their control over their own bodies. It also gave vast numbers of men a chance to show they stand with women.
The timing of the march was to show a clear contrast between those who support Trump and those who support women. Note the difference in crowd sizes for the pathetic inauguration and the enormous women’s march?
What did you think it was for Robert?
The Kenny article is behind the Newscorp paywall, and the Murdoch monstrosity does not need or deserve my coin.
Not being either an organizer or a participant in the worldwide woman’s march (me is male), I cannot definitively speak for the strategic motivations of the millions who attended, but I imagine one fairly common purpose was to publicly register concern at the elevation to highest office of someone who boasts of sexually molesting women without their consent.
As to the practical benefit of such an exercise; well, that’s about as debatable as the exact value of blogging.
Look everyone, we have a barely literate, Murdoch loving inbred in our midst-aka “Skeptic”. Hey moron, for a lot of people on low incomes contraception isn’t always an easily afforded option, nor is it 100% effective. Also, f**ktard, what about pregnancies as a result of rape or other forms of sexual abuse? Your comments, Skeptic, truly highlight why people with IQ’s lower than double digits should never be allowed near a computer. Now, run along and hang out with the rest of the troglodytes on one of the News Corpse’s web pages.
BTW, Skeptic. It is a Reproductive Right because it gives women the right to decide when or even if they will reproduce. I know that might be a difficult concept for your tiny, inbred brain to grasp.
Though the post by “The Skeptic” has disappeared now, I feel I should also point out to any males who think they should control what women do with their bodies, that pregnancy remains one of the leading risks of death for women, even in developed countries. It’s not just a case of “Oh, I’ll just let this little collection of cells grow into something that will eventually be a baby, pop it out and everything will go back to normal.”
Abortion is never an easy choice for any woman. To cast it as a casual decision completely lacks any understanding of what the woman goes through, both before and after. The change in hormones after a pregnancy ends, either through birth or abortion usually makes women extremely prone to depression. They need support, not mindless ideological diatribes by self-righteous ignoramuses.
“The Skeptic”, calling the pregnancy an “unborn child” is emotive nonsense. At the point that an abortion is possible it is no more an unborn child than the sperm you spill when you wank off in the shower. It doesn’t even have a minimally functioning brain until late in the pregnancy (about 6th or 7th month). The brain is special. It is the only organ where you’d prefer to be the donor instead of the recipient. That’s because without the brain you don’t exist. There are even indications that awareness doesn’t actually begin until some months after birth.
No, it’s still there, Miriam.
🙂 Oops. My mistake. I wasn’t scrolling back far enough. Silly me.
Thanks to all who totally dissed Skeptic – I was apoplectic with rage when I read his drivel, and then felt immediately relieved at the responses.
There shouldn’t need to be any specific rules for women and reproduction, or men. It should be simply everyone’s right to do as they wish with their own bodies. The fact that we have to make laws to ALLOW women to make some choices is the reason millions have marched. And will keep on marching. Note to all those in positions of power ( mostly men) better start listening to the women of the world – some of them may be your own wives and daughters. Be very afraid.
“Critics are calling it the “Block Traffic and You Die” bill, an apt name for a bill that has co-opted the phrase “any means necessary,” used famously in speech delivered by Malcolm X during the Civil Rights movement, turning it into a threat against government dissent (with no apparent awareness of the irony).” The Anti-Media
Harquebus, I didn’t realise that was moving so swiftly. Scary… and so incredibly short-sighted.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
Kenny is one of the very good reasons why the women marched.
Miriam English I agree. That quote I believe was from JFK. Cheers.
male, elderly ( horrible term and horrible to have to contemplate) but i loved this one from Jennifer and totally agree with all comments about the dog rooter. Also add my support to those who suggest Skeptik take his inanities elsewhere.
Harquebus, scary stuff. One wonders what comes next.
The only words I am capable of today, after reading this and that Trump has banned funding to overseas aid organisations giving women health advice on abortion, is KICK THIS MOB OUT. Sadly, we cant get rid of Trump, but we do need to stand up to the Trump Agenda, and keep a close eye on the hypocritical lying Ms Pauline Hanson.
Having just finished reading the link from Kaye Lee, I want to know what was on Liam’s christmas card to his father. I don’t think ”I really respect you and want to be like you” was in the mix somehow. Has the entire world gotten to the point where anyone who voted for not the winner of said election is a traitor, and being un-democratic in voicing their disappointment, or am I missing something here? Uncle rupert’s glove puppet reporter, kenny, seems to think that because he is on the side that is currently holding the big stick, and is all to willing to swing it at will, he can say and do whatever he wants about anything in the entire universe and it must be true and right because he said it, but any voice of opposition, regardless of its source, reason, accuracy, or in the case of the women’s march sheer volume of people must therefore be irrational, irresponsible and in need of reprisal of 9/11 counter terrorist proportion. I do think it is offensive to the Australian public that all 3 specimens, dogflucker, dudone and bestmastubaterintheworldhunt, members of the species ”moronica dumbasfukus” which has the unfortunate characteristic of having its braincells develop within its hair roots, therefore losing both at the same time, are put into positions of such high power and persuasion. They with the loudest mouths should beware the swing of the pendulum. We the Voter may be an apathetic bunch 95% of the time, but piss us off, and they will need a f*cking big rock under which they can die quietly and in their own time, because when the Revolution catches up with them and the rest of their ”friends” WtV will have found some bloody high yard-arms, and the willingness to use Rule 303. Bring it on!
At least he didn’t say ‘mass hysteria’ – but I bet that was on his mind.
Roswell It’s here already and it is called mandatory detention. Cheers.
Harquebus, yep, John F Kennedy, but he was quoting John Adams. I’s an oldie, but a goodie.
Miriam English Thanks for that. It has been noted. Cheers.
Kenny is an idiot for taunting his multitudinous opponents while smugly on the side with the big stick.
When the tide turns and the People come with their pitchforks, Kenny might be the first feast on the barbeque.
Thank you Michael for loving my nose 🙂 Since writing this piece, as has been noted above Trump has today withdrawn any aid funding that provides reproductive education and assistance to developing countries. The images on social media of Trump signing the orders, surrounded by seven or eight men, not a woman in sight, is chilling. Also a timely reminder that late Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine and John Howard made a similar order on the use of aus AID funding. No money was allowed to be used for reproductive education in our overseas aid packages. Overturned by Rudd when he became PM. These attacks on women’s rights are only ever a hair’s breadth away, which is why we march. Skeptic, you are wrong. Cheers, everyone, Jennifer.
It is the vagina that sustains men and the prick drives the bus.
The power comes from the flaw god gave women.
When we can resolve the power of god’s men over menstruation mysteries. women can escape the curse.
Till then, it is great that the attitude of trump and his coats brought millions of women protesters.
However there are still billions of women acceptors. who are in the ‘skeptic’ camp. .
Who said there are “billions of women acceptors (sic) who are in the ‘skeptic’ camp”?
Billions is f-a-r fetched, even for you, wam.
Thanks for your thoughtful responses to my point of view. Unfortunately, I have failed to understand the reasoning behind the responses. In response to all of you who specifically replied:
@Marcus: On most occasions, women in American and Australia have the right to choose when to reproduce, by using commonly available contraception, or getting their partner to use it, or by choosing when and whom to have sex with. This is the reproductive right we all share. As a result, abortion is unnecessary most of the time, and is not a reproductive right.
@Miriam: It is the body of the baby that is cut apart and discarded. And although the brain of the baby is not functional until approx. 25 weeks, my opinion is that this does not make him/her less of a person prior to 25 weeks. The lack of personal awareness does not make him/her unimportant or worthless. Calling an unborn child a “baby” is in-line with what the vast majority of people do when they become aware that they have conceived.
@Keitha: I am striving to master my rage – at people who take and promote the taking of other peoples lives. Everyone has the ability to do as they wish with their own body, but their rights end when it impinges on another persons right to exist. Your warning to “be afraid” is quite right. There is everything to be afraid of when we take away life so easily from those who do not have any choice.
@Richard: I am engaging with issue that has been presented, and sharing my point of view. I have not engaged in foul-mouthed abuse or simplistic sloganeering. Please show me how my position is wrong, or inane.
@Jennifer: How am I wrong? In the words of a successful female politician whose views you may find hard to accept: “Please explain?”
“Successful”…..”female”…..”politician”…. Skeptic, I find that hard to accept, …please explain. That sounds like simplistic sloganeering…mate (assuming your a bloke). ? One wonders Skeptic if’n you can see how your last sentence has bought you undone?..oh, and bless you 😛
r 😳
come on jms there are over three billion women in the world
how many are not free to choose, have no access to termination under any terms and are openly ‘unborn child’ acceptors? (3 million in Aust?)
How many are under church and/or men like skeptic, the rabbott or trump?
Granted they are not quite skeptic-ians but definitely not pro-choice protesters
“The Skeptic”, abortion is never a first option. You make it seem that a woman casually chooses. That isn’t so. It is a horrible choice and the woman makes it with great weight upon her. The man doesn’t have to deal with the trauma to his body, possible death, hormonal ravages, and social isolation, along with potentially permanent damage to his career that come from an unintended pregnancy. Abortion, though it can very unpleasant, is generally preferable to having to go through an unwanted pregnancy. Unfortunately people like you, moralising about things they know little or nothing about muddy these waters considerably and increase the anguish for women already in a bad position.
Pregnancy can and does arise from rapes and from failure of contraceptives. It is unfair and rather sinister of you to characterise unwanted pregnancies as resulting from irresponsible unsafe sex. It is especially unfair when you consider that some of the primary causes of young women having unprotected sex are (a) religious people who incorrectly believe that teaching about contraception encourages kids to have sex, (b) the climate of shame encouraged by religious people that makes it difficult for young women to obtain contraceptives, and (c) males who feel condoms interfere with their pleasure. This puts women and girls in a lose-lose situation, where they must somehow educate themselves about something while being condemned and shamed for wanting to learn about it, and having the whole weight of contraception fall on their shoulders, along with the weight gain, mood swings, and other effects that birth control pills bring. Of course you’ll suggest abstinence, but in the whole history of the human race that’s never worked — even in monasteries young boys and girls get raped by the priests.
It doesn’t make any sense to call the little lump of unwanted, unconscious cells an “unborn child”. It is fine for a couple wanting a child to call their’s that because they’re looking forward to a desired future with a child in it. For a woman who doesn’t want the dangers and damage to her life, her career, and her body it is just an unconscious bundle of cells. It has no future. Potential counts for nothing unless the desire to fulfill that potential also exists. As the Dolly the sheep cloning experiments show, almost every cell in your body is a potential child, but you you’d think it absurd to consider the cells sloughed off each day as murdered children. Do you consider the sperm you destroy during masturbation killed potential children? (And don’t try to tell me you don’t masturbate — you’re a male.) The ants that cover the plates when you forget to do the washing up one night are far more mentally complex than a foetus during the period it can be aborted. Do you hesitate before killing them? I bet you don’t. But they have much more reason to exist than a foetus before 25 weeks. Do you see the contradiction in your thinking?
Miriam, thanks for your responses to the skeptic. I’m afraid I just don’t have patience for compulsory pregnancy rhetoric these days. The people promoting it are usually the same people who will happily send those dear little bubbas off to war a few years down the track.
Could I point out that the pill has an abortifacient capacity in that the lining of the womb doesn’t grow to the proper thickness to allow implantation of a fertilised egg. Technically this also is “killing the unborn child.”
Good point Kaye.
wam,
there are women in the world who agree with Skeptic but they are not billions as you said. By the way, why refer to women as “acceptors”. Very impersonal and condescending, don’t you think?
I believe in Pro-Choice, as long as it is within the 25 weeks period. However, if there were circumstances that demanded a later term abortion, I believe they could be considered on a case by case, basis if life and death based.
Miriam’s explanation makes much sense to me.
I went to university with Tony Abbott who was very anti-abortion and anti-contraception and anti-feminism. The grafitti at the time was classic.
For example….
If abortion is murder, is miscarriage manslaughter?
Another was a poster that said “Free Vasectomies Now” under which someone had scrawled “I didn’t know he was in jail”
I’m beyond outrage. WhoTF are you that he will block you and not me. I don’t use stars either when I refer to him as a dog rooter.
Goodness gracious me.
A woman I was in relationship with let herself get pregnant so that I would marry her. When I refused, she had the fetus aborted without informing me. I wasn’t happy about it and the relationship soon ended.
There is something about abortion that irks me. I do not support it.
That said, I do not feel that I have any right to dictate to women what to with their pregnancy. My preferred option is to double down on education and contraception to limit as far as possible unwanted pregnancies. For those that do fall through the gap and become pregnant, I think that we should offer more support to them and to single mothers who have decided to continue and have the child.
I know the last sentence goes against my depopulate ideology but, deliberate killing of any human life is something that I have never supported. Education and prevention therefore has to be the priority.
Cheers.
“let herself get pregnant”??
She can;t do that alone. It could equally be said that you let her get pregnant by not using a condom. Your refusal to marry her probably made her scared that she would be facing a lifetime commitment on her own. Whilst I understand your dismay at having no say, to be frank, you were taking no responsibility.
“Education and prevention therefore has to be the priority.”
The woman is the priority. It is her body, her life, her choice – one that is very hard to make and not helped by judgemental men like you who want all the fun without the consequences. Obviously prevention is the best option. No-one would disagree.
Well said Kaye. You beat me to it.
Harquebus, your lack of awareness sometimes stuns me. You seem to feel (like a surprising number of men) that having an abortion is like changing socks. I’d like more education of men and for them to understand what’s really involved. It would especially be great if they could have to wear one of those heavy pregnancy bag costumes so they could begin to understand what a pregnant woman goes through.
Kaye Lee I was a younger man then and she fooled me. It was a mistake that I have not repeated.
Miriam English Lucky for me that I have you and K.L. to set me straight.
Cheers.
Miriam, there are so many things I wish men could understand – like breast feeding with cracked nipples, or the hemorrhoids that so often accompany childbirth. I vomited every day for about 7 months with both pregnancies. Try having a 20 month old baby to look after as you are 9 months pregnant, vomiting into the toilet while farting and wee coming out and then your nose starts to bleed. As tears rolled down my face. my baby boy patted my back as he handed me a tissue…..sigh….the highs and lows.
Kaye Lee, you’re making tears roll down my face too.
Sounds horrible though. I can’t imagine how awful it is.
Well, the Dutch are reported to have set up a fund to minimise the effect of Trump’s return to the “Mexico City” policy started by Reagan, continued by Bush and reversed by Clinton. Not that Trump gives a shit about this, he’s just appeasing the religious fundamentalists he needs to keep on side. With luck, governments around the world will step forward as the Dutch have in this case. The big one will be funding for renewables in developing countries. Success in this will mean America lags further and further behind, an international pariah with a bunch of oil nobody really needs. Yes, unrealistic outcome, but it’s heading in that direction with India and China both embracing renewables.
@Miriam – thanks for sharing your perspective. I’d like to address your points one by one:
1. Abortion is an agonising choice because it involves the killing of a child. Yes, pregnancy can be difficult. But (most of the time) pregnancy is an outcome from a free choice, and the right thing to do is not the easiest choice. Your words “unwanted pregnancy” are a real giveaway. I see new life as something to celebrate. Some see it as something to destroy.
2. Most abortions do not arise from rape, and are a result of consensual sex without contraceptives or with lapsed contraceptives. In circumstances of rape, or for physically vulnerable women, there are some terrible issues to grapple with. If the mothers life is at risk as a result of the pregnancy, abortion should be considered.
3. I agree that there is way too much a burden on women for contraception, and that men who pressure women to have sex without condoms are making life very difficult for (mostly young) women. I also agree that a culture of shame is horrid – and pushes women to a “no-win” position. I am not advocating abstinence (it doesn’t work unless it is an informed “no pressure” decision by an individual). More like a bit of discipline and self-control on the part of couples.
4. Obviously, conception (the only natural reproductive process) is different to cloning (which should not be performed with humans). I disagree with your “clump of cells” position. Once you have seen a baby at 10 weeks moving in the womb, you can’t really accept that there is no life to preserve.
The Skeptic, Since the only legislative change that has occurred thus far has been a Trump executive order stripping funds from foreign aid agencies that offer abortion information/services, I was wondering whether your assertions regarding abortions mostly being a frivolous choice of personal convenience resulting from the voluntary decision to have sex without using any of the readily available forms of contraception would also be applied to all third world situations.
The Skeptic,
1. I’m sorry, but you’re completely missing the point for most women. You have the luxury, as a male, to loftily consider an unformed, potential child as if it really is a child. It is not. For the woman or girl caught in the terrible situation of having an unwanted pregnancy the choice is mostly unpleasant because of people like you moralising over what someone else does with their body. You being a male and not facing the prospect of putting your body and mind through the wringer you have the luxury of airily calling an unwanted pregnancy “a new life” and “something to celebrate”. I’ll bet you don’t celebrate the new life of a tumour, or finding out that you have a two meter tapeworm in your belly. Suddenly that new life doesn’t feel so good. That’s something you can personally identify with. For some reason religion apparently makes it impossible for people like you to understand what a woman feels in that situation.
2. I agree that most accidental pregnancies arise through lack of contraceptives or failed contraceptives. Excuse me falling into sarcasm here, but it certainly calls for it: How very generous of you to allow for a woman to be able to decide what to do with her body if her life is at risk. Ugh! How I wish you could hear yourself.
3. You don’t advocate abstinence, just discipline and self-control. What a wonderful world it would be if everybody exercised discipline and self-control. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. We need practical ways to deal with that fact, not moralising and wishful thinking. Also, I suspect you feel some grim pleasure in punishing a woman who has accidentally fallen pregnant.
4. Actually, most reproduction on Earth is carried out via cloning. Reproduction via sex is unusual among life on Earth. But you’re making a slight mislead. We were talking about the potential of a human child. You irrationally regard the clump of cells that arises from normal conception as having some right to existence, long before it has a mind that might reasonably make it an entity. When you speak of it moving at 10 weeks old you attempt to color what you see with illogical moralising. Those movements have no more consciousness than the twitching of a dead frog’s leg when its nerves are jolted by wires from a battery. There is no brain, just growing, randomly firing nerve cells making early muscle cells contract. To call it more than that is like ascribing thunder to the god Thor hammering his anvil. It’s a romantic picture, but it is wildly inaccurate and, worse, impedes dealing with reality.
Miriam,
when I form government with The ALLiance, I will appoint you Minister for Common Sense.
The Skeptic,
A grove of trees may be a potential house, but it is not a house.
The growing cells in a womb may be a potential child, but they’re not a child.
Men who interfere with a woman’s life using a false equivalence between a potential child and an actual child are bullies. They use a pretense at moral superiority in order to control women. It becomes obvious when you see their belief in the specialness of that potential child miraculously evaporate once the child is born. Help the woman and child that you forced into that situation??? Of course not. She deserves nothing. No, she’s an immoral woman and must be punished, along with the little bastard she gave birth to.
heheheh 😀 Thanks Jennifer.
I am ever so grateful that my mother did not abort me and I have thanked her more than once.
Cheers.
Your mother may not have had an important reason to do so, H.
Same goes for me, thank goodness.
Jennifer Meyer-Smith She did and that is my point. Couldn’t bring herself to do it. Lucky me. Cheers.
H,
good for you but don’t judge everybody the same as your family circumstances.
This article was originally published on No Place For Sheep. [textblock style=”7″] 
Jennifer, I just love your nose for hypocrisy.
I think Chris Kenny’s son expressed it well when he said of his father….
Kenny is a staunchly neo-conservative, anti-progress, anti-worker defender of the status quo. He is an unrelenting apologist for the Liberal Party. He was one of Alexander Downer’s senior advisers at the time of the Iraq War. He’s been known to argue for stubborn, sightless inaction on climate change. He spits at anyone concerned with such trivialities as gender equality, environmental issues or labour rights from his Twitter account on a daily basis. Recently, he characterised criticism of the lack of women in Tony Abbott’s Cabinet as a continuation of the Left’s “gender wars”. He is a regular and fervent participant in The Australian’s numerous ongoing bully campaigns against those who question its editorial practices and ideological biases. The profoundly irresponsible, dishonest, hate-filled anti-multiculturalist Andrew Bolt has recently referred to Kenny on his blog as “a friend”.
And it’s a jokey picture of a bestial embrace that I should be afraid of discovering online?
http://junkee.com/in-defence-of-the-chasers-picture-of-my-dad-having-sex-with-dog/19967
I would have largely ignored Kenny, except in relation to canines
🙂 Made me wonder, has he a fascination with vampires? Later came the dog flucker reference and it clicked. Oh, the other kind of canines. Chris Kenny deserves to be a nobody. He’s part way there. I’d never even heard of him. With that level of intelligence and integrity he certainly should not have anything to do with public media. His embarrassing view of women should be hidden far out of sight.
A little while ago I read of a USA senator who proposed a hilarious law to restrict men’s reproductive rights, so that men who want a prescription for Viagra have to see a sex therapist (who is required to suggest celibacy as a viable lifestyle choice), receive a cardiac stress test and “get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency.” I love the way she put it forward. Here is part of her speech:
Another senator introduced a bill that would allow a man to obtain a vasectomy only when not doing so could cause him serious injury or death.
Of course these don’t get anywhere, but they’re not really expected to. They’re simply intended to highlight the absurdity of men legislating to give them control of women’s genitalia. It is astounding that in the 21st Century some men still just don’t get it. It is horrifying that these primitives have any power at all.
If Kenny thinks that march was “mass petulance”, perhaps he should heed the signs which read “You think I am a nasty woman? You ain’t seen nothing yet.”
So the sort of misery welfare beneficiaries are going through and the dreadful reasons for it would be just “petulance”?
Oh yes.. the sort of horrors to be infllcted on the US working classes will make our local Centrelink fiasco (same idea, actively promoted by the likes of Murdoch, who employs Kenny) look compassionate by comparison.
Nobody has to fear a backyard abortion. The vast majority of abortions are simply unnecessary. Use the pill. A condom. Even a morning after pill. If you mess up, but don’t want to raise a child, then see it through to completion and place the child for adoption. In the past two years, four friends/acquaintances of mine have had an abortion. All of these pregnancies came about through personal choice (unprotected sex + no contraceptives). All of them terminated the pregnancy (killed the unborn child) because “I am not ready to raise a child”.
It’s weird to hear abortion described as a reproductive right anyway. Isn’t it an “anti-reproductive” act?
Sooo, wait a minute. Is this the same intrepid reporter who travelled to Nauru, a failed state, to investigate the alleged rape of a Somalian refugee? The same failed state that decreed that a woman’s right to abortion does not exist? The same failed state that relied on that ‘thing’ dutton, to look after the woman who had been ‘allegedly’ raped, yet was undeniably pregnant? Only at Christmas time could you possibly believe in an immaculate conception over an inarticulate misconception.
“Kenny apparently believes he is justified in “standing up for [his] rights” when he feels abused, but women are not. It’s undemocratic when we do it. It’s a human right when he does it.”
Whilst kenny and I share one similarity, the absence of a vagina, I can’t help but think of him as a cu…
(I’m sorry I can’t re-post his tweet. Kenny and I entered into an exchange of views and he blocked me. Gutted.)
Try and contain your grief. You have written this insignificant excrement the most wonderful of epitaph’s.
“Sorry Chris. You won’t be remembered.”
Thank you Ms Wilson. Take care
All the sensitivity of a house brick. Yes, Kyran as you have said elsewhere, it could be worse.
We could be Chris Kenny.
Despite my disdain for Kenny I suggest others read his article before (or after) ingesting Wilson’s in one unchewed swallow.
The Woman’s March: what exactly was its purpose?
The march was to protest and show strength against a demonstrably misogynist fool becoming president, who is leading an extremely misogynist Republican party which constantly attempts to curtail women’s rights and their control over their own bodies. It also gave vast numbers of men a chance to show they stand with women.
The timing of the march was to show a clear contrast between those who support Trump and those who support women. Note the difference in crowd sizes for the pathetic inauguration and the enormous women’s march?
What did you think it was for Robert?
The Kenny article is behind the Newscorp paywall, and the Murdoch monstrosity does not need or deserve my coin.
Not being either an organizer or a participant in the worldwide woman’s march (me is male), I cannot definitively speak for the strategic motivations of the millions who attended, but I imagine one fairly common purpose was to publicly register concern at the elevation to highest office of someone who boasts of sexually molesting women without their consent.
As to the practical benefit of such an exercise; well, that’s about as debatable as the exact value of blogging.
Look everyone, we have a barely literate, Murdoch loving inbred in our midst-aka “Skeptic”. Hey moron, for a lot of people on low incomes contraception isn’t always an easily afforded option, nor is it 100% effective. Also, f**ktard, what about pregnancies as a result of rape or other forms of sexual abuse? Your comments, Skeptic, truly highlight why people with IQ’s lower than double digits should never be allowed near a computer. Now, run along and hang out with the rest of the troglodytes on one of the News Corpse’s web pages.
BTW, Skeptic. It is a Reproductive Right because it gives women the right to decide when or even if they will reproduce. I know that might be a difficult concept for your tiny, inbred brain to grasp.
Though the post by “The Skeptic” has disappeared now, I feel I should also point out to any males who think they should control what women do with their bodies, that pregnancy remains one of the leading risks of death for women, even in developed countries. It’s not just a case of “Oh, I’ll just let this little collection of cells grow into something that will eventually be a baby, pop it out and everything will go back to normal.”
Abortion is never an easy choice for any woman. To cast it as a casual decision completely lacks any understanding of what the woman goes through, both before and after. The change in hormones after a pregnancy ends, either through birth or abortion usually makes women extremely prone to depression. They need support, not mindless ideological diatribes by self-righteous ignoramuses.
“The Skeptic”, calling the pregnancy an “unborn child” is emotive nonsense. At the point that an abortion is possible it is no more an unborn child than the sperm you spill when you wank off in the shower. It doesn’t even have a minimally functioning brain until late in the pregnancy (about 6th or 7th month). The brain is special. It is the only organ where you’d prefer to be the donor instead of the recipient. That’s because without the brain you don’t exist. There are even indications that awareness doesn’t actually begin until some months after birth.
No, it’s still there, Miriam.
🙂 Oops. My mistake. I wasn’t scrolling back far enough. Silly me.
Thanks to all who totally dissed Skeptic – I was apoplectic with rage when I read his drivel, and then felt immediately relieved at the responses.
There shouldn’t need to be any specific rules for women and reproduction, or men. It should be simply everyone’s right to do as they wish with their own bodies. The fact that we have to make laws to ALLOW women to make some choices is the reason millions have marched. And will keep on marching.
Note to all those in positions of power ( mostly men) better start listening to the women of the world – some of them may be your own wives and daughters. Be very afraid.
“Critics are calling it the “Block Traffic and You Die” bill, an apt name for a bill that has co-opted the phrase “any means necessary,” used famously in speech delivered by Malcolm X during the Civil Rights movement, turning it into a threat against government dissent (with no apparent awareness of the irony).”
The Anti-Media
“Man beaten, detained for alleged dog raping”
http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0822/c90000-9103605.html
Harquebus, I didn’t realise that was moving so swiftly. Scary… and so incredibly short-sighted.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
Kenny is one of the very good reasons why the women marched.
Miriam English
I agree. That quote I believe was from JFK.
Cheers.
male, elderly ( horrible term and horrible to have to contemplate) but i loved this one from Jennifer and totally agree with all comments about the dog rooter. Also add my support to those who suggest Skeptik take his inanities elsewhere.
Harquebus, scary stuff. One wonders what comes next.
The only words I am capable of today, after reading this and that Trump has banned funding to overseas aid organisations giving women health advice on abortion, is KICK THIS MOB OUT. Sadly, we cant get rid of Trump, but we do need to stand up to the Trump Agenda, and keep a close eye on the hypocritical lying Ms Pauline Hanson.
Having just finished reading the link from Kaye Lee, I want to know what was on Liam’s christmas card to his father.
I don’t think ”I really respect you and want to be like you” was in the mix somehow.
Has the entire world gotten to the point where anyone who voted for not the winner of said election is a traitor, and being un-democratic in voicing their disappointment, or am I missing something here?
Uncle rupert’s glove puppet reporter, kenny, seems to think that because he is on the side that is currently holding the big stick, and is all to willing to swing it at will, he can say and do whatever he wants about anything in the entire universe and it must be true and right because he said it, but any voice of opposition, regardless of its source, reason, accuracy, or in the case of the women’s march sheer volume of people must therefore be irrational, irresponsible and in need of reprisal of 9/11 counter terrorist proportion.
I do think it is offensive to the Australian public that all 3 specimens, dogflucker, dudone and bestmastubaterintheworldhunt, members of the species ”moronica dumbasfukus” which has the unfortunate characteristic of having its braincells develop within its hair roots, therefore losing both at the same time, are put into positions of such high power and persuasion.
They with the loudest mouths should beware the swing of the pendulum. We the Voter may be an apathetic bunch 95% of the time, but piss us off, and they will need a f*cking big rock under which they can die quietly and in their own time, because when the Revolution catches up with them and the rest of their ”friends” WtV will have found some bloody high yard-arms, and the willingness to use Rule 303.
Bring it on!
At least he didn’t say ‘mass hysteria’ – but I bet that was on his mind.
Trump has already moved against women around the world – US funded organisations will not be permitted to discuss abortion. So much for Free Speech. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/trump-makes-early-move-on-restricting-abortions-around-the-world/8206444
Roswell
It’s here already and it is called mandatory detention.
Cheers.
Harquebus, yep, John F Kennedy, but he was quoting John Adams. I’s an oldie, but a goodie.
Miriam English
Thanks for that. It has been noted.
Cheers.
Kenny is an idiot for taunting his multitudinous opponents while smugly on the side with the big stick.
When the tide turns and the People come with their pitchforks, Kenny might be the first feast on the barbeque.
Thank you Michael for loving my nose 🙂
Since writing this piece, as has been noted above Trump has today withdrawn any aid funding that provides reproductive education and assistance to developing countries. The images on social media of Trump signing the orders, surrounded by seven or eight men, not a woman in sight, is chilling.
Also a timely reminder that late Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine and John Howard made a similar order on the use of aus AID funding. No money was allowed to be used for reproductive education in our overseas aid packages. Overturned by Rudd when he became PM. These attacks on women’s rights are only ever a hair’s breadth away, which is why we march.
Skeptic, you are wrong.
Cheers, everyone, Jennifer.
It is the vagina that sustains men and the prick drives the bus.
The power comes from the flaw god gave women.
When we can resolve the power of god’s men over menstruation mysteries. women can escape the curse.
Till then, it is great that the attitude of trump and his coats brought millions of women protesters.
However there are still billions of women acceptors. who are in the ‘skeptic’ camp.
.
Who said there are “billions of women acceptors (sic) who are in the ‘skeptic’ camp”?
Billions is f-a-r fetched, even for you, wam.
Thanks for your thoughtful responses to my point of view. Unfortunately, I have failed to understand the reasoning behind the responses. In response to all of you who specifically replied:
@Marcus: On most occasions, women in American and Australia have the right to choose when to reproduce, by using commonly available contraception, or getting their partner to use it, or by choosing when and whom to have sex with. This is the reproductive right we all share. As a result, abortion is unnecessary most of the time, and is not a reproductive right.
@Miriam: It is the body of the baby that is cut apart and discarded. And although the brain of the baby is not functional until approx. 25 weeks, my opinion is that this does not make him/her less of a person prior to 25 weeks. The lack of personal awareness does not make him/her unimportant or worthless. Calling an unborn child a “baby” is in-line with what the vast majority of people do when they become aware that they have conceived.
@Keitha: I am striving to master my rage – at people who take and promote the taking of other peoples lives. Everyone has the ability to do as they wish with their own body, but their rights end when it impinges on another persons right to exist. Your warning to “be afraid” is quite right. There is everything to be afraid of when we take away life so easily from those who do not have any choice.
@Richard: I am engaging with issue that has been presented, and sharing my point of view. I have not engaged in foul-mouthed abuse or simplistic sloganeering. Please show me how my position is wrong, or inane.
@Jennifer: How am I wrong? In the words of a successful female politician whose views you may find hard to accept: “Please explain?”
“Successful”…..”female”…..”politician”…. Skeptic, I find that hard to accept, …please explain.
That sounds like simplistic sloganeering…mate (assuming your a bloke). ?
One wonders Skeptic if’n you can see how your last sentence has bought you undone?..oh, and bless you 😛
r 😳
come on jms there are over three billion women in the world
how many are not free to choose, have no access to termination under any terms and are openly ‘unborn child’ acceptors? (3 million in Aust?)
How many are under church and/or men like skeptic, the rabbott or trump?
Granted they are not quite skeptic-ians but definitely not pro-choice protesters
“The Skeptic”, abortion is never a first option. You make it seem that a woman casually chooses. That isn’t so. It is a horrible choice and the woman makes it with great weight upon her. The man doesn’t have to deal with the trauma to his body, possible death, hormonal ravages, and social isolation, along with potentially permanent damage to his career that come from an unintended pregnancy. Abortion, though it can very unpleasant, is generally preferable to having to go through an unwanted pregnancy. Unfortunately people like you, moralising about things they know little or nothing about muddy these waters considerably and increase the anguish for women already in a bad position.
Pregnancy can and does arise from rapes and from failure of contraceptives. It is unfair and rather sinister of you to characterise unwanted pregnancies as resulting from irresponsible unsafe sex. It is especially unfair when you consider that some of the primary causes of young women having unprotected sex are (a) religious people who incorrectly believe that teaching about contraception encourages kids to have sex, (b) the climate of shame encouraged by religious people that makes it difficult for young women to obtain contraceptives, and (c) males who feel condoms interfere with their pleasure. This puts women and girls in a lose-lose situation, where they must somehow educate themselves about something while being condemned and shamed for wanting to learn about it, and having the whole weight of contraception fall on their shoulders, along with the weight gain, mood swings, and other effects that birth control pills bring. Of course you’ll suggest abstinence, but in the whole history of the human race that’s never worked — even in monasteries young boys and girls get raped by the priests.
It doesn’t make any sense to call the little lump of unwanted, unconscious cells an “unborn child”. It is fine for a couple wanting a child to call their’s that because they’re looking forward to a desired future with a child in it. For a woman who doesn’t want the dangers and damage to her life, her career, and her body it is just an unconscious bundle of cells. It has no future. Potential counts for nothing unless the desire to fulfill that potential also exists. As the Dolly the sheep cloning experiments show, almost every cell in your body is a potential child, but you you’d think it absurd to consider the cells sloughed off each day as murdered children. Do you consider the sperm you destroy during masturbation killed potential children? (And don’t try to tell me you don’t masturbate — you’re a male.) The ants that cover the plates when you forget to do the washing up one night are far more mentally complex than a foetus during the period it can be aborted. Do you hesitate before killing them? I bet you don’t. But they have much more reason to exist than a foetus before 25 weeks. Do you see the contradiction in your thinking?
Miriam, thanks for your responses to the skeptic. I’m afraid I just don’t have patience for compulsory pregnancy rhetoric these days. The people promoting it are usually the same people who will happily send those dear little bubbas off to war a few years down the track.
Could I point out that the pill has an abortifacient capacity in that the lining of the womb doesn’t grow to the proper thickness to allow implantation of a fertilised egg. Technically this also is “killing the unborn child.”
Good point Kaye.
wam,
there are women in the world who agree with Skeptic but they are not billions as you said. By the way, why refer to women as “acceptors”. Very impersonal and condescending, don’t you think?
I believe in Pro-Choice, as long as it is within the 25 weeks period. However, if there were circumstances that demanded a later term abortion, I believe they could be considered on a case by case, basis if life and death based.
Miriam’s explanation makes much sense to me.
I went to university with Tony Abbott who was very anti-abortion and anti-contraception and anti-feminism. The grafitti at the time was classic.
For example….
If abortion is murder, is miscarriage manslaughter?
Another was a poster that said “Free Vasectomies Now” under which someone had scrawled “I didn’t know he was in jail”
I’m beyond outrage. WhoTF are you that he will block you and not me. I don’t use stars either when I refer to him as a dog rooter.
Goodness gracious me.
A woman I was in relationship with let herself get pregnant so that I would marry her. When I refused, she had the fetus aborted without informing me. I wasn’t happy about it and the relationship soon ended.
There is something about abortion that irks me. I do not support it.
That said, I do not feel that I have any right to dictate to women what to with their pregnancy. My preferred option is to double down on education and contraception to limit as far as possible unwanted pregnancies.
For those that do fall through the gap and become pregnant, I think that we should offer more support to them and to single mothers who have decided to continue and have the child.
I know the last sentence goes against my depopulate ideology but, deliberate killing of any human life is something that I have never supported. Education and prevention therefore has to be the priority.
Cheers.
“let herself get pregnant”??
She can;t do that alone. It could equally be said that you let her get pregnant by not using a condom. Your refusal to marry her probably made her scared that she would be facing a lifetime commitment on her own. Whilst I understand your dismay at having no say, to be frank, you were taking no responsibility.
“Education and prevention therefore has to be the priority.”
The woman is the priority. It is her body, her life, her choice – one that is very hard to make and not helped by judgemental men like you who want all the fun without the consequences. Obviously prevention is the best option. No-one would disagree.
Well said Kaye. You beat me to it.
Harquebus, your lack of awareness sometimes stuns me.
You seem to feel (like a surprising number of men) that having an abortion is like changing socks. I’d like more education of men and for them to understand what’s really involved. It would especially be great if they could have to wear one of those heavy pregnancy bag costumes so they could begin to understand what a pregnant woman goes through.
Kaye Lee
I was a younger man then and she fooled me. It was a mistake that I have not repeated.
Miriam English
Lucky for me that I have you and K.L. to set me straight.
Cheers.
Miriam, there are so many things I wish men could understand – like breast feeding with cracked nipples, or the hemorrhoids that so often accompany childbirth. I vomited every day for about 7 months with both pregnancies. Try having a 20 month old baby to look after as you are 9 months pregnant, vomiting into the toilet while farting and wee coming out and then your nose starts to bleed. As tears rolled down my face. my baby boy patted my back as he handed me a tissue…..sigh….the highs and lows.
Kaye Lee, you’re making tears roll down my face too.
Sounds horrible though. I can’t imagine how awful it is.
Well, the Dutch are reported to have set up a fund to minimise the effect of Trump’s return to the “Mexico City” policy started by Reagan, continued by Bush and reversed by Clinton. Not that Trump gives a shit about this, he’s just appeasing the religious fundamentalists he needs to keep on side. With luck, governments around the world will step forward as the Dutch have in this case. The big one will be funding for renewables in developing countries. Success in this will mean America lags further and further behind, an international pariah with a bunch of oil nobody really needs. Yes, unrealistic outcome, but it’s heading in that direction with India and China both embracing renewables.
@Miriam – thanks for sharing your perspective. I’d like to address your points one by one:
1. Abortion is an agonising choice because it involves the killing of a child. Yes, pregnancy can be difficult. But (most of the time) pregnancy is an outcome from a free choice, and the right thing to do is not the easiest choice. Your words “unwanted pregnancy” are a real giveaway. I see new life as something to celebrate. Some see it as something to destroy.
2. Most abortions do not arise from rape, and are a result of consensual sex without contraceptives or with lapsed contraceptives. In circumstances of rape, or for physically vulnerable women, there are some terrible issues to grapple with. If the mothers life is at risk as a result of the pregnancy, abortion should be considered.
3. I agree that there is way too much a burden on women for contraception, and that men who pressure women to have sex without condoms are making life very difficult for (mostly young) women. I also agree that a culture of shame is horrid – and pushes women to a “no-win” position. I am not advocating abstinence (it doesn’t work unless it is an informed “no pressure” decision by an individual). More like a bit of discipline and self-control on the part of couples.
4. Obviously, conception (the only natural reproductive process) is different to cloning (which should not be performed with humans). I disagree with your “clump of cells” position. Once you have seen a baby at 10 weeks moving in the womb, you can’t really accept that there is no life to preserve.
The Skeptic,
Since the only legislative change that has occurred thus far has been a Trump executive order stripping funds from foreign aid agencies that offer abortion information/services, I was wondering whether your assertions regarding abortions mostly being a frivolous choice of personal convenience resulting from the voluntary decision to have sex without using any of the readily available forms of contraception would also be applied to all third world situations.
The Skeptic,
1. I’m sorry, but you’re completely missing the point for most women. You have the luxury, as a male, to loftily consider an unformed, potential child as if it really is a child. It is not. For the woman or girl caught in the terrible situation of having an unwanted pregnancy the choice is mostly unpleasant because of people like you moralising over what someone else does with their body. You being a male and not facing the prospect of putting your body and mind through the wringer you have the luxury of airily calling an unwanted pregnancy “a new life” and “something to celebrate”. I’ll bet you don’t celebrate the new life of a tumour, or finding out that you have a two meter tapeworm in your belly. Suddenly that new life doesn’t feel so good. That’s something you can personally identify with. For some reason religion apparently makes it impossible for people like you to understand what a woman feels in that situation.
2. I agree that most accidental pregnancies arise through lack of contraceptives or failed contraceptives. Excuse me falling into sarcasm here, but it certainly calls for it: How very generous of you to allow for a woman to be able to decide what to do with her body if her life is at risk.
Ugh! How I wish you could hear yourself.
3. You don’t advocate abstinence, just discipline and self-control. What a wonderful world it would be if everybody exercised discipline and self-control. Unfortunately that’s not the world we live in. We need practical ways to deal with that fact, not moralising and wishful thinking. Also, I suspect you feel some grim pleasure in punishing a woman who has accidentally fallen pregnant.
4. Actually, most reproduction on Earth is carried out via cloning. Reproduction via sex is unusual among life on Earth. But you’re making a slight mislead. We were talking about the potential of a human child. You irrationally regard the clump of cells that arises from normal conception as having some right to existence, long before it has a mind that might reasonably make it an entity. When you speak of it moving at 10 weeks old you attempt to color what you see with illogical moralising. Those movements have no more consciousness than the twitching of a dead frog’s leg when its nerves are jolted by wires from a battery. There is no brain, just growing, randomly firing nerve cells making early muscle cells contract. To call it more than that is like ascribing thunder to the god Thor hammering his anvil. It’s a romantic picture, but it is wildly inaccurate and, worse, impedes dealing with reality.
Miriam,
when I form government with The ALLiance, I will appoint you Minister for Common Sense.
The Skeptic,
A grove of trees may be a potential house, but it is not a house.
The growing cells in a womb may be a potential child, but they’re not a child.
Men who interfere with a woman’s life using a false equivalence between a potential child and an actual child are bullies. They use a pretense at moral superiority in order to control women. It becomes obvious when you see their belief in the specialness of that potential child miraculously evaporate once the child is born. Help the woman and child that you forced into that situation??? Of course not. She deserves nothing. No, she’s an immoral woman and must be punished, along with the little bastard she gave birth to.
heheheh 😀 Thanks Jennifer.
I am ever so grateful that my mother did not abort me and I have thanked her more than once.
Cheers.
Your mother may not have had an important reason to do so, H.
Same goes for me, thank goodness.
Jennifer Meyer-Smith
She did and that is my point. Couldn’t bring herself to do it. Lucky me.
Cheers.
H,
good for you but don’t judge everybody the same as your family circumstances.