If you still don't get it, you should read Rebecca Terk's powerful post on the issue:
The wider question of Initiated Measure 11 is not just about babies. The question is whether women are persons in their own right, with their own lives and motivations and needs, and with their own bodies that they are in full possession of.
The question is whether or not we should “allow” women life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–or whether we should circumscribe what should constitute their lives, the extent of their liberties, and what ought to make them happy [Rebecca Terk, "Trying to Find Words," Flying Tomato Farms, 2008.10.27].
As Terk says, we shouldn't have to ask this question. We should be able "to ignore it—not even to dignify it with a response."
Unfortunately, some people in this state think that their ticket to salvation lies in making South Dakota a territory where women's constitutional rights are perpetually subject to a public vote. And so we must respond:
No. No. No. No. No. No.
Cory, I've noticed this is a powerful argument for you. The only thing is it crumbles when you reason it through. It'd only be true if we were talking about a woman's kidney. (But even there, we don't have the right to do whatever we want with our own bodies, and especially so if others are affected.) The fact that a scientifically recognized additional human life is involved changes everything. And this other life has the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as the woman.
ReplyDeleteWhy can't we love them both? Why can't they both enjoy the protections under law that the narcissist feminists like Rebecca Terk want only for themselves? Laws like IM11 are necessary when other people disregard the rights of others.
Steve Hickey, your argument also crumbles when you reason it through. While nobody is in favor of abortion, passing Initiated Measure 11 does absolutely nothing other than allow those who vote for it to pat themselves on the back and say "Look what we did" when really they did nothing.
ReplyDeleteIt will not curb the numbers. Abortion rates will not decrease in South Dakota. Women will simply cross borders or worse. We're talking numbers that have decreased to less than 800 annual abortions in South Dakota, the lowest in the nation, and while that number is still too many, educating young women and men will change them generationally instead of slapping a torn bandaid over the problem. It will never go away, so let's keep trying to reduce the numbers as an educated society, not through legislation. Vote NO on IM11 because it does nothing to reduce abortions.
anonymous - you have been fed and swallowed the false fears of those who profit from abortion. Self-abortion death numbers were negligible prior to 1973 in America - they will be even fewer today since better medical care is available. One of the men responsible for inflating those number now says NARAL lied and made up the stats to push their pro-abortion mentaility on the rest of America and the Courts.
ReplyDeleteThe news reports that you will cite to counter me here are based on numbers provided by the abortion industry itself (Guttmacher Institute IS Planned Parenthood). Listening to Planned Parenthood right now is like listening to the tobacco companies tell you smoking is good for you.
I don't want to live in the world that says "let's do away with laws and just educate people instead." Neither do you. Both are important.
Steve--Your professed love for both women and their unborn fetuses would be so much better taken if it didn't so closely resemble the "I controlled her because I love her" mentality of abusers. This is the kind of "love," "care," and control women can quite honestly live without.
ReplyDeleteYou seem to confuse a woman's ability to give birth to a child with her being one. It is not narcissism to want to maintain control of one's own body, one's own personhood, one's own ability to make decisions that provide for oneself and one's family.
To give an embryo those "protections under the law" you desire at the moment of fertilization/conception/implantation necessarily denies some of those rights to the woman carrying it and puts her under the control of the state for the benefit of the embryo inside her.
You cannot deny that women subject to this law would lose some of their own rights should they become pregnant. The question is whether, for all your professed love, you believe they are entitled to those rights to begin with.
Cory, you forgot the 'Flush the Kids Down the Sewer' Part in your headline.
ReplyDeleteI believe all Life should be protected! Sometimes that means lives need to be taken to protect others, like the Death Penalty.
ReplyDeleteThis measure addresses issues that may arise where the family might need to choose. But it still protects Life.
There are no women being discriminated against here, only the unborn! And it protects there life from being ignored. But then so it was during the days of the Civil War.
I'm still waiting for an explanation of how people can reconcile the taking of a human life while still professing to be pro-life. That is simply what the abortion issue boils down to. I would much rather err on the side of protecting life than not when it comes time to face my Maker.
ReplyDeleteVote YES on 11!
Cory,
ReplyDeleteThank you.
This it does not have nothing to do with feminism. I hate feminism.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is if you are a woman, if this measure pass, you might be in jail later, as it happens in the country I come from.
Vote NO.
Rita Morales
for what its worth, i love this quite from God is Red by Vine Deloria, Jr.
ReplyDelete"An increasing number of Americans have become members of the religious right, the fundamentalists. As mainline churches lose members through their constant efforts to pander to the unchurched and make themselves relevant, mindless fundamentalism makes amazing strides, even among the educated people in society. When the fundamentalists seized on abortion as an issue, they found the key to political power. Thus was created the irony of modern American life. The fundamentalists could(n't) care less about human life after birth. They unquestioningly accept American military ventures around the world and cry for more blood with each invasion or carpetbombing of small countries. They steadfastly support the death penalty and see nothing wrong with its one-sided application to racial minorities. They close their eyes to blatant theft of American assets by government officials, savings and loan executives, and bankers, and oppose every social program that is proposed. Yet on the abortion issue they wax eloquent about the sanctity of human life as if their salvation depends on it."
Watch this for an explanation of why IM 11 must be defeated.
ReplyDelete