Kevin Woster’s article on Kristi Noem’s endorsement from South Dakota’s one-note anti-abortion fanatics points out a couple of amusing contradictions in her campaign.
First, Noem plans to expand state government by hiring an “unborn person advocate”:
Noem listed some objectives on the abortion issue if she is elected governor.
* Assign a staffer within the governor’s office to be an “unborn person advocate” who would “monitor, report and recommend legislative and policy changes….
I asked Noem campaign staffer Brittany Cummings to explain some of those points. She said the “unborn person advocate” would be an assignment within the governor’s office, and the advocate “may have other roles as well” [Kevin Woster, “Sutton’s Style Gentle, Noem’s Anything But,” SDPB: On the Other Hand, 2018.09.10].
Wait a minute: when Noem was campaigning against Marty Jackley, she committed to fight the growth of government. She pounded Jackley into the primary dirt by pledging not to create a bunch of new task forces and roundtables. But when she needs to excite her red-meat base, she’s more than happy to have us pay for a new executive branch dedicated to single-issue hollering.
I guess as long as Kristi Noem’s new hires don’t all meet as a task force, government isn’t really bigger. Let Kristi plant thousands of new FTE trees; just don’t call them a big government forest.
Noem includes another noteworthy objective in her crusade to stop every woman from controlling her own pregnancy:
…”Work to defend South Dakota’s pro-life policies, engaging the top legal minds to litigate on behalf of our values, if necessary” [Noem, quoted in Woster, 2018.09.10]
Top legal minds? That sounds like an endorsement of Randy Seiler for Attorney General, since the Republican nominee certainly doesn’t understand the law. Noem is signaling that even though Ravnsborg is anti-abortion, he won’t be able to handle the serious anti-abortion litigation:
“Kristi believes South Dakota has a great pro-life attorney general candidate in Jason Ravsnborg. But she wants South Dakotans to understand she takes the ongoing litigation very seriously and will ensure we have an entire team of pro-life legal minds ready to take on Roe v. Wade and related decisions” [Noem, in Woster, 2018.09.10].
Even Kristi Noem recognizes that the fact that you oppose abortion won’t by itself win court cases. So if we elect the Republican ticket this year, not only will Noem be hiring a new anti-abortion crusader for her office (and stop and think a moment: does that one issue, already minimized to a few hundred instances in South Dakota each year, really warrant a whole FTE?), but she’ll be hiring extra lawyers to do the job her Republican Attorney General should should be able to handle but can’t.
You can’t make government big enough to handle the crusading incompetence of South Dakota’s 2018 Republican ticket.
No women or girls choose to utilize there God given rights to motherhood in South Dakota. They go to the Mayo Clinic where you’re treated with dignity and the hospital is clean. Women’s rights in South Dakota are just a wedge issue to get the “shallow gene pool” off the couch. You can be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time since the procedure never happens. Arguing a hypothetical is nonsense.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/medical-abortion/about/pac-20394687
Here we go again, the abortion obsession.
Sutton is pro-life also, Kristi, so quit thinking you have the right to life vote. I know Noem and her team wishes they could clobber him on that but they can’t.
I don’t know of any other people that are as obsessed with abortion as South Dakotans.
Let’s look at how that position might be made into a positive. Take away Noem’s apparent genuflection to the needs of fetus fetishist and professional weeping and praying actors one can see decorating any Planned Parenthood office and there might be something of value to having a point person with professional experience in fetal and neo-natal health spearheading ways to improve services to prospective mothers and their prospective children. My own views of abortion are that it should be safe, legal and rare. Getting unwanted pregnancies down to zero requires stepping up on delivery of services, birth control and education. One part of the FTEs position could be to advocate for and provide for this.
But there could be more. Providing good medical care to women and their newborns is certainly worth at least one, and probably more FTEs. Rural areas are under served by medical providers, and that has consequences for rates of miscarriage and neo-natal deaths and medical emergencies. These could be lowered by having a real advocate with real medical credentials. This person could also advocate for environmental standards on polutants that would be protective of the health of babies and children.
Rather than make such a position a political sop to one interest group stuck in a Governor’s cubical, put it in the Department of Health, where real work on real health issues get done.
Comrade NOem wants to hire sexual predators to stalk women as they seem the only ones qualified to do that job description.
If Ravnsborg and Jackley are considered top legal minds, wingnuts sure use funny definitions for top.
Hire Drumpf. Afterall he is smarter than any lawyer or general or his tenured MIT professor uncle.
So, a person working to save lives in South Dakota is a bad thing but a person who kills the unborn is a good thing? Up/down, black/white, men are women, women are whatever and you folks want to use the potty of your choice while wearing pink pussy hats. . .
. . . . and you all consider yourselves rational . . .
Ignorant wingnuts wanting to rule a women’s autonomy for them is a bad thing. You are a bad thing. Wingnuts are, by and large, bad things. Forcing a fetus to term and refusing to pay for the results is a bad thing. Moar unwanted kids is a bad thing. Taxcuts for the koch bros is always a bad thing. You are still a bad thing. Not wanting to,feed, clothe, educate or insure unwanted kids is a very bad, very right wing bad thing. Being phony kristians is a bad right wing thing. Your constant thread hijacking, name calling, and constant lies are all bad things. You pretending to play victim is another bad thing.
Donald selectively ignored that Kavanaugh has the Catholic view of abortion- Birth control is abortion and those are words out of his mouth .It comes with a caveat though. Those born must come from perfect specimens.Keep in mind is that Kavanaugh by his own rulings is pro non-consensual sterilization for people with obvious defects – They might not be able to be a productive part of the GDP and instead be tied to government support, meaning the Government will have a cost with no productive labor to go with it.
Noem didn’t think up the Government agent on her own , she doesn’t have the intellect to realize what it means- What it means is that by having the fetus bound to the Constitution , ordinary citizens will have to come up with an ingenious way to circumvent the Government to win back the right to have an abortion. Good luck with that.
The topic among economists and the wealthy has been labor power for quite some time.
Baby boomers are dying, Millenniums can’t afford college and babies so death rates are exceeding birth rates . Immigrants are being deported ( Even with citizenship) GDP needs to be maintained with labor power.
There is only one way to get labor power and it isn’t by hatching eggs.
Now that the Government is slashing what is left of social programs it will be cheap labor at that.
Anti abortion laws take away the right to be and limits economic choices as well.
Saving lives is good, Old Sarg. No one has a problem with reducing abortions. No one is really for abortion. Not you, not me and not your bogeymen behind the tree.
The more people have access to accurate sex education, reliable birth control, and strong families, the fewer abortions there will be. But Republicans don’t want to actually save lives. They don’t want to put much money behind any such effort. Not only do they fail to expand Medicaid to provide coverage to more pregnant women and their fetuses, but they want to take Medicaid away from some women.
And, really one political operative in the Governor’s office is a joke. This is a political slogan, a nothing burger solution is search of lawsuits rather than real solutions. It is worse than doing nothing at all, unless stirring up the fetus fetishists who are all about death is the goal. I know this because they put very little effort in the areas that will actually reduce abortion and save lives. It’s all bullsh*t. You know it. I know it.
Saving lives is good, Old Sarg. No one has a problem with reducing abortions. No one is really for abortion. Not you, not me and not your bogeymen behind the tree.
The more people have access to accurate sex education, reliable birth control, and strong families, the fewer abortions there will be. But Republicans don’t want to actually save lives. They don’t want to put much money behind any such effort. Not only do they fail to expand Medicaid to provide coverage to more pregnant women and their fetuses, but they want to take Medicaid away from some women.
And, really one political operative in the Governor’s office is a joke. This is a political slogan, a nothing burger solution in search of lawsuits rather than real solutions. It is worse than doing nothing at all, unless stirring up the fetus fetishists is the goal. I know this because they put very little effort in the areas that will actually reduce abortion and save lives. It’s all bullsh*t. You know it. I know it.
Full disclosure: I am pro-life. I’ll say it again, however, that if my party wasn’t so busy fomenting stupid culture wars, we could seriously reduce abortion rates by easing access to contraceptives. But I truly believe that it’s not about “saving lives” for many Republican politicians, but about driving wedge issues to power.
When there is a will, there is a way. The sooner women either vote these barbarians out of office the better. But there are other ways, in the UK for instance, where abortion is legal and has been for 50 years, there are do it yourself ways.
“According to BPAS spokesperson Clare Murphy, the solution is to overhaul our existing healthcare policies to make them more women-centred—and to immediately decriminalize abortion, too. “It’s high time to create a framework that meets the needs of women today, respects their ability to make their own decisions about their own pregnancies, and provides them with accessible high quality healthcare services to exercise that choice.””
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/9k3az3/even-with-universal-healthcare-diy-abortions-are-on-the-rise-in-the-uk
So, there ya go ladies, stop taking crap from men and turncoat corrupted women, only interest in the money on this. Remember this, Comrade NOem had years in office not only in South Dakota, but in Washington and accomplished nothing. She is a fraud and a big fibber just like the fraud and big fibber she wrapped those arms around in Sioux Falls for 5 grand a pop. Take control of your bodies and take control of your lives.
The best thing we can do is nip religious freedumb bs in the bud before it gets any more insane.
The scotus has been largely politcized by one party over the last 40 plus years and all them litmus tests wingnuts claimed they didn’t have have manifestered themselves bigly in the last four picks by wingnuts.
I think jerry pretty much nails it – if you sit back and whine about something without doing anything to help fix it, you are just a whiner. So many people just complain about things and don’t vote…or they vote for the person whose physical appearance appeals to them the most rather than for the most capable candidate who will advocate for that person.
I have no sympathy for people who can’t do anything in their own best interest, like people who get knocked up because they didn’t take sexual intercourse seriously or people who vote for morons and then are surprised those morons don’t have their best interest in mind.
Robin Pearce wrote:
Birth control is abortion and those are words out of his mouth
Are you lying on purpose Robin or are you just ignorant due to the far left echo chamber?
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/sep/10/kamala-harris/brett-kavanaugh-birth-control-abortion-inducing/
But I truly believe that it’s not about “saving lives” for many Republican politicians, but about driving wedge issues to power.
I agree 100% with Dicta on this subject.
I live in a city of three million souls. I can count on one hand the times I’ve heard abortion even mentioned in 45 years. The difference between the real world and South Dakota on this issue is one thing. The Catholic Church. It plays on people emotions to control the lawmakers.
Jason was raised in religious school. He was brought up to honor and look up to leaders who live by the model of celibacy, male masturbation, pedophilia and suppression of women’s rights and dignity. What else would you expect from a childhood of this influence except a twisted mind.
Comrade Jason again fails to read his links, what a dummy. Did you see who he tries to go after, a woman. Troll fellers like Comrade Jason, hate you. They hate women. Women, you’re much smarter than the this feller, another Russian troll. Do yourself a favor and stand up for yourselves. Don’t even think that at this time in history, these kind men actually care, to them, it is all about the money and the position they want to have to keep you down baby. They want that more than anything, keep you down and in your place, subservient to them. Stand up and fight! You can be sure of one thing, if Comrade NOem has one of her daughters knocked up, she will be looking for away to terminate, cause it is all about her.
“Out in the hall they were talking in a whisper
Everybody noticed she was gone awhile
Somebody said she’s gone to her sister’s
But everybody knew what they were talking about”
Bruce Hornsby & Jonathan Hornsby The Valley Road
“”Kavanaugh chooses his words very carefully, and this is a dog whistle for going after birth control,” Harris tweeted. “He was nominated for the purpose of taking away a woman’s constitutionally protected right to make her own health care decisions. Make no mistake — this is about punishing women.””
Harris’ tweet takes Kavanaugh’s statement out of context.
Harris cut an important second out of the clip — the attribution. Kavanaugh said, “They said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to.”
“They” refers to a Catholic nonprofit group, Priests for Life. Kavanaugh was answering a question from Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, about a case in which he argued Priests for Life shouldn’t have to provide women with the contraceptive coverage mandated by the Affordable Care Act for religious reasons.
We rate this statement False.
Perhaps SoDak voters should elect a born-person advocate. That would be a whole lotta candidates whose names are not Kristi.
Old Sarg, you are a tiresome boor.
I have a “job” grudgenutz. I had to go to work. I have been observing something though. Yes, I went off on the abortion tangent, it is disturbing, but what I have noted today is it doesn’t matter what or where you read, what channel you watch or radio statin you listen to; The message from the left is they all hate Trump. No health care, borders, nothing but hate Trump. That is the whole message. That is all.
Born person advocate? Brilliant, Nutz …
~ What Noem is proposing has tried and failed around the USA, many times. It’s called “personhood” and it’s a total ban on all women’s choice, in total. Even birth control pills. Personhood movements are active in all 50 states. Personhood is so extreme The National Right to Life Committee and the USA Conference of Catholic Bishops have refused to back state level measures. Now, Noem want to appoint a “personhood official” within South Dakota state government? Without any input from the opposition? That’s filthy!! [click the link below to see how each state has voted when “personhood” was on the ballot.]
~ “Personhood” laws have been a favorite tactic of anti-choice activists for decades, but efforts to pass these laws have met with little success.
In Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the notion that a fetus is a person. In addition, no federal or state law bans abortion or presents any obstacle to reproductive health care on the basis that a fetus is a person.
https://rewire.news/legislative-tracker/law-topic/personhood/
Roe v. Wade? I think there is a time window on that old law. It’s looking to go the way of slavery being Constitutional.
Porter, Even if a fetus is declared to be a “person” it has no greater right to use a woman’s body against her will than OS or any other “person” has the right to use a woman’s body against her will, even if it means OS or the fetus will die if he cannot subjugate the woman for his needs.
For example, if OS needs a liver or kidney transplant to survive and he finds a woman who is a perfect match and can give up a kidney or part of her liver and survive, but declines to do so, OS still has no right to rely on the government to force the woman to allow OS to use any part of her body to save his life. No “person” has this right.
Dicta, I’m glad you and I can focus our disagreements on policy matters of greater practical import.
Will there be laws if one is caught with a morning after pill?
Will the penalty be jail time or just a harsh scolding from the unborn advocate? Maybe that will be in the “other duties”
Cory wondered if personhood would come to SD. Well, it’s on the table. This was after personhood failed on the CO ballot for the third time, last election. I asked Cory if it had been voted on in SoDak. He said it hadn’t.
BCB – Of course I agree with your assertion.
T – Yes. Women have been arrested. Doctors have been charged. Personhood is a ban on any contraceptive based on the harm contraceptives do to a legal person. That’s why the “law of the land” states that a fetus is not a legal person.
Mr. grudgenutz, from Comrade old sarge’s lips to Putin’s ear. “I have a “job” grudgenutz. I had to go to work.” I think with this statement, the Comrade wants a raise on his paytroll this week. Dude gets paid by the nonsense he spews.
bcb, that is the best argument yet on how a woman should be in charge of her own body. It is her choice to make, not some sexual predator that Comrade NOem wants to hire. The Handmaid’s Tale is alive an well in the mind of NOem and the rest of the zealots.
Look, I understand that killing an unborn child is legal but I will never agree that it is socially or civilly acceptable or moral. The vast majority of you will end up dependent on government handouts. Who will feed you? I will not and nor will I feed a man who supported the killing of our future for the convinance of today. It is gross.
Cash your paytroll check old soviet, women will be just fine. They have the strength to outlast the terrible future you and Putin/trump and Comrade NOem want for them. Move along son, your words are galling.
OlClownie is like the characters in The Northern Beacon post by David Newquist. The theme is family members commenting that the old man in their family can’t blame dementia when he’s been a horses ass all his life.
Comrade NOem follows in lockstep to what Comrade trump and Putin are doing to this democracy. Big government for nationalists. Abortion, once again is a smokescreen to hide the real objective:
“On July 18, Air Force Brig. Gen. John Teichert assumed command of the 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base. Less than one month later, on Aug. 12, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation filed a 22-page complaint against him for violating military rules and regulations about religious proselytizing, based on the online record at Teichert’s Christian ministry website, “PLUS” (“Prayer at Lunchtime for the United States”), which has been in operation for five years, well before his latest promotion. Within the week, the MRFF, a watchdog group founded in 2005, received word that the Department of Defense was beginning a formal investigation.” https://www.salon.com/2018/08/19/exclusive-is-a-senior-air-force-general-using-his-power-to-spread-far-right-christian-nationalism/
The Secretary of Defense, General Mattis tried to end this, but was overruled by Comrade trump. Are we really now just an annex of Russia? How did NOem and the rest sell us out and for how much? We need leaders in this country, starting in the governor’s chair and moving further into Washington with a man who understands the law and will stand up to tyranny. Women, don’t count on the men to defend you, we have failed you, stand up and vote for freedom and choice.
jerry the soviet union outlawed religion and even the belief in God yet God is back in Russia and God is here in the United States today. Your fear of religion is a bit overblown as no one is dragging you to church, denying you employment or taking food from you mouth based upon religion. If you really think about it religion never did anything to you other than give you a focus for your hate. Religion loves. You hate. Ying and Yang. To and Fro, back and forth. In the end God and morality wins as the corrupt destroy themselves.
Old soviet, you must want more in your paytroll with a hot one like that. You know better than that old soviet, check out your employer, I have. The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest and most powerful and is joined at the hip with Evangelicals in the United States with the NRA as the bag man. Islam is the second. Both allow abortion as Russia was the first country to legalize it. But now, coincidentally, Comrade Putin wants to put an end to that, just like we try to do here. https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/03/putins-next-target-is-russias-abortion-culture/
You see women, the dictators could give a damn about you, they just want you to produce workers. Not educated ones either, just enough education to know how to do the mundane work that we see our workers here perform for crap wages on each of the three jobs they have to survive. Indentured servants to the elite class.
Old snapdragon sure gets tiring doesnt he,folks.
“You can’t make government big enough to handle the crusading incompetence of South Dakota’s 2018 Republican ticket.”
That’s hilarious Cory. 😆😆😆
There are masculinity challenged males who just can’t stand it when women function as fully autonomous, adult, humans. Not every anti-women’s freedom male falls into that category, but most do.
A minority of women feel their best option is not independence, but serving as an auxiliary to a male, or group of males. Most of us women find that, well, heartbreaking really, but understandable.
With time, as more and more women assume leadership roles and fill them successfully, that will change. That’s terrifying to misogynist males.
So, Rep. Noem probably falls into the latter category. She uses this issue to bolster her stature among misogynists and the misled. She is to be pitied, not voted for. No state does well with a pitiful governor. SD is a case in point over the past few decades.
Not surprising, but the left on here is overlooking lies by Harris and Booker.
Do South Dakota voters know that Sutton held a fundraiser with an employee of planned parenthood?
Noem should get that info out in an ad so all of the SD voters are informed.
I would think Cory would agree with that.
Jason … Every Attorney General is being told to demand that the hidden incidents of Catholic Priest pedophilia be turned over for prosecution. Your twisted mind may indeed be freed.
You folks worry more about prosecuting anyone you disagree with than anything else in your lives. Who does that remind you of? How about “A Mob!” You are like the mobs in the old south chasing down the Black man accusing them of rape or today the radical left chasing down cops. You will all claim “ not me” but read your words. As I said before you are becoming more dangerous. Every day it is worse. Religion, Trump, conservatives, Janson, me who else are your targets? Which one of you will crack to the point you hurt someone? This is also why we fight for gun rights and you fight against us. Could you imagine someone stumbling across the blog and them reading what you write in your attacks? I am so glad you all live in places other than South Dakota.
I think the only people on this thread that live in SD are Cory, Jason, Tiff and me. The rest of you are all from someplace else. Weird. Are all the folks on the places you live such nasty bullies?
Amazing how far OS and J have to run to get away from the original, unrefuted thesis of the post:
(1) Noem hypocritically plans to expand government to pursue her policy goals.
(2) Noem recognizes Ravnsborg can’t do the job and will have to hire more lawyers to do the Attorney General’s job.
Neither of those conclusions has anything to do with where commenters’ location or Cory Booker. Start your own blogs to talk about those topics.
Cory,
Why do assume she won’t get rid of some useless positions to pay for the new one?
Robin is the one that lied in this thread about Kavanaugh.
Look, I understand that killing an unborn child is legal but I will never agree that it is socially or civilly acceptable or moral. The vast majority of you will end up dependent on government handouts. Who will feed you? I will not and nor will I feed a man who supported the killing of our future for the convinance of today. It is gross.
The stoopid is strong with this one. If you pay your taxes you already support retirees and I’m sure some of them are doctors or other healthcare personnel. You gonna ask them all if they had anything to do with abortions, fool? What about all the retired military geniuses that got soldiers killed for nothing in useless illegal wars? Our future?
Do South Dakota voters know that Sutton held a fundraiser with an employee of planned parenthood?
Only true, right wing nut jobs could believe Planned Parenthood, with all the services provided to low and middle income women, could be evil.
I guarantee many wingnut women have sought services from PP. Thank god Jason and OldSqualus aren’t in charge of cancer surgery. They find a patient with a tumor on 3% body mass they’d go ahead and kill the patient.
Honest to god: people just need to ignore Old Sarge. He provides nothing of value to conversations. Jason, while I do disagree with him a fair bit, at least presents arguments and argues the merits.
Cory, you are right. This thread is totally off track. I’ll go back to trying to stay within the script or topic.
I am in Watertown, and made the conscious CHOICE to stay in the state to live.
o … Oh! No wonder you’re so damn awake. :0)
Whether Noem’s proposed expansion of our state government is wise or a mistake seems a more important consideration than whether she generally seeks to reduce the size of our government. Hence it seems more rational to discuss the merits of her new proposal rather than pointing out her arguable hypocrisy. Even a hypocrite can come up with good ideas that will protect the public and advance the interests of our state. If implemented in manner that Donald Pay suggested above, perhaps Noem’s proposal could benefit our state. If used as a jackboot to deny women the choice of whether to procreate, then perhaps it is a bad idea.
It would be interesting to see some meaningful comments supporting Noem, rather than comments that label and attack those who disagree with Noem’s proposals as hateful killers. Unfortunately, the latter comments seem to be what Noem supporters offer here and simply are not helpful and undermine any rational discussion in support of Noem. It appears from an analysis of these comments compared to the comments opposing Noem’s position that her idea is a bad idea that will harm, rather, than benefit, our state.
In the furtherance of repealing Roe, McCTurtle announced today that he will keep the Sinate in session in October to prevent Dems from campaigning and to clear the slate of the last 30 some district court judges and others in case wingnuts lose the Sinate this fall.
Wingnuts are dead serious about court packing and repealing Roe and who knows what else since they have a virtual rubber stamp judiciary to play with.
Jason, we don’t assume she’s gong to reduce other positions because that’s not what she said. I’m not going to put words in her mouth.
She said against Jackley that she opposed expanding government and creating new task forces or boards.
Now she’s saying she wants to create a new executive branch position and hire a bunch more lawyers. She does not in the same breath say, “And I will pay for these positions by eliminating X Y Z.”
Noem is saying she is going to create new government positions, after campaigning against Jackley on the promise not to create new government positions.
If the only way you can defend Noem’s comments is by assuming other things that she hasn’t said, then you’re conceding that Noem’s own words are not consistent.
“The forced birther view on abortion is that the rights of an unborn fetus to continue developing outweigh the rights of a woman to bodily autonomy. If that is your actual belief, then it stands to reason that if I need a kidney donated I am welcome to yours whether you want to give it or not, right? I mean, if a collection of cells that has the potential to develop into a human has rights to use my body whether I want it to or not, surely a mostly functional adult human with thoughts and feelings and so on has a right to life that trumps your interest in keeping your spare organs. It seems pretty straightforward.” There is no difference, not in the least. Are NOem and her family on the donor list? How about the rest of the forced birthers, Mr. Evans, Mr. Hickey…
I am always a bit perplexed by people who seem to treat the moral issues surrounding abortion as easy. While there is room for practical argument that banning abortion will lead to more subpar procedures that harm more women, I don’t understand the argument that “clump of cells” != human. I haven’t seen a lot of persuasive arguments about when a fetus becomes a human. Legally, born alive is typically the case, but does anyone believe that morally? If a man punches a pregnant woman in the stomach, I recoil at that thought in a way that feels morally different than a man punching a woman alone (though neither is, in any way, acceptable). This is a rambling post, and I know it. But don’t paint all of us who don’t like abortion and would like to see it vanish as a practice as misogynists. I know that there is A LOT more at stake here for women than me. That doesn’t mean the practice isn’t a morally abhorrent one.
Why don’t people obsessed with abortion ever promote contraception more? It is very easy to not get pregnant with today’s contraception choices.
Oh, that’s right, the far right and Catholic church aren’t supposed to say talk about birth control. They’d rather ostracize women and places like Planned Parenthood where a large amount of their resources goes towards effective and safe birth control choices.
You’re right, Dicta. It isn’t about you and making yourself the victim is what’s abhorrent. You have the right to like women’s rights or dislike women’s rights. You don’t have the right to tell women what to do with their choices. If you do interject and try to persuade then you’re open to the wrath of whomever decides to deride you for that arrogance.
Jenny: I have actively called out the idiocy of the Catholic church (I am a non-practicing member) for its stupidity in railing against abortion while simultaneously saying no to contraception. Access to contraception should be eased and encouraged in all cases. I completely agree with you that the Catholic Church is utterly full of it here (and on many other issues).
Porter: I am not sure what post you are responding to. I know righteous indignation is a powerful sauce and you wanted to condescend a little bit, but I never painted myself as the victim. I explicitly said women have a lot more at stake in this game than me. I just said that me thinking abortion is bad does not necessarily make me a misogynist. Nuance is hard.
Dicta … Saying you’re being unfairly called a misogynist is claiming victimhood. Arrogance is personified by trying to justify it.
Justifying your position is how argumentation works, Porter. Stop trying to eliminate discussion when people are attempting to do so respectfully.
Don’t tell me what to do. You may have left the Catholic church but clearly the Catholic church hasn’t left you. That church is foundationally misogynistic and dictatorial. If you self-labeled yourself as such, you may be on the right track of self-analysis.
“Self-labeled yourself”
Wow. Keep telling me about who I am as a person. You have the monopoly on morality, it seems.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Did someone choose the nickname “Dicta” for you or are you subconsciously proclaiming yourself “dicta-torial”? The arrogance to interject yourself into a woman’s right to choose isn’t morality on any level. In short, it ain’t any of your beeswax.
The dicta quip is a weird combination of playground jab and dad joke. Nice? My education is in law, though I don’t practice. I picked the name because dicta is generally used to refer to the portions of a legal opinion that carry no precedential weight; they are often just expressions of opinion. It felt appropriate, given the setting we are in.
Speaking of opinion: what I say here is my opinion. I leave room for the fact that I may be wrong on things. I have been wrong in the past and I certainly will be in the future. What I can’t quite agree with, however, is the idea that a person can’t provide a dissenting opinion on this site regarding abortion without you getting in such a tizzy that you ascribe negative personal traits to a person you have never met. You keep negatively referring to catholicism, but you are displaying a very catholic tendency: that some ideas are so sacrosanct that people cannot raise the spectre of disagreement without being a bad person.
I’ll say it again, then. Your opinion is as valid as anyone else’s. However to claim victimhood for your opinions being labeled misogynistic isn’t realizing the risk you take when opining. If you choose to say what you want that opens the floor to others criticizing you the way they want.
LWIY … (last word is your’s)
Of course my opinion is as valid as everyone else’s, no more and no less. I didn’t suggest we pass legislation on the basis of what I thought, Porter. I expressed confusion with everyone who thinks this is an easy topic (be they pro-life or pro-choice). And people can criticize however they want. That doesn’t mean they will do so in an adult or reasonable manner, as we just saw. You seem to be acknowledging that you were a bit of an ass here but are going to fall back to a “whatever, I do what I want” Cartman-esque kind of position.
Dicta, you have peaked my curiosity. It is a bit unclear to me from your comments exactly what specific point or points in the abortion debate from which you dissent. The abortion debate typically can address multiple issues, such as:
Should abortion be legal or should the law outlaw the procedure?
If outlawed, what should the punishment be for women who abort, or attempt to abort, a pregnancy? Should this be treated by the law as murder, with the corresponding mandatory life sentence, or death (due to the aggravating circumstance of the age of the victim), or some lesser crime?
Should the law punish anyone who provides medical assistance to a women who seeks, attempts, or has attempted an abortion?
If outlawed, should there be exceptions? If so, what are the exceptions and how are they justified?
The abortion debate raises numerous other issues, such as what are the unintended consequences of changing current law (e.g. would the government be permitted to mandate abortions or sterilization if we remove the constitutional right of privacy in such matters), how can the laws be evenly applied (e.g. should everyone be subjected to involuntary organ donation if they can survive the donation and their organs can be used to save lives), etc.
The one point that seems to be a matter of personal conscience is whether an abortion is a moral act. Since moral judgments are basically personal, rather than a matter of public policy, there does not seem to be any meaningful dissent on that issue, whichever position one believes is the moral position.
Given the above complexities, what are the issues you dissent on and would consider exploring with others?
Allow me to throw another fly into the ointment: will this “unborn person advocate” only be an advocate for citizens – or can non-citizens be persons too?
Dicta, as a follow up I do believe there is the possibility of debating the morality of abortion, but such a discussion would need some criteria from which to measure that morality. Once the criteria is identified, then there could be a basis for dissent from particular theological or philosophical positions.
Step one to any resolution of an abortion debate would have to include a precise determination of exactly, EXACTLY, when does “life/personhood” begin.
I think abortion is morally abhorrent…. usually. And the thing is, there isn’t logical consistency for me, because I think in cases of rape, incest, and life of the mother, it is… more moral?
But from a philosophical perspective, it shouldn’t make a bit of difference. If the fetus is conceived through no fault of its own, what does the cause matter as it pertains to its moral right to life? Are we not acknowledging there is a different claim for mother versus baby in these exceptions? Why? Another problem is that the application of personhood to a fetus leads to all sorts of bizarre outcomes in practice. If a woman who is one month pregnant decides to cliff dive, is she endangering a child? That seems a bit nuts. Is the forced imbibing of alcohol by a fetus from a mother’s consumption constitute assault? If FAS results, is it aggravated assault?
This doesn’t even begin to dissect the issue of women getting abortions anyway due to prohibition and doing so through incredibly dangerous means.
The answer is: I have no idea. Its a really, really complicated damn topic. And I don’t know what, if any, the practical implications of a moral claim about the status of abortion should lead to from a practical perspective. But that is kinda the point I was attempting to make before Porter went and said… whatever it is he said.
Maybe instead of only focusing on the abortion act, we ought to look at the contributing factors that go into that act and work to ease those stains in our society? Health care, employment, economic surety, child care, education . . .
o, that is a great question. If it is answered that there is not another “person” until actual birth or the first breath of air, for example, that could strengthen the pro-choice argument. Yet, if answered that a “person” is formed at conception, it raises the second important inquiry:
Assuming life begins at conception and creates personhood, at what point does any “person,” from zygote to fetus to child or adult (e.g. someone needing an organ transplant to survive), have the legal or moral right to use the body of a second “person” to survive, to procreate, or for any other purpose, against the second person’s will and without that person’s consent?
Look at that, bearcreekbat and I mostly see eye-to-eye (based on earlier readings of posts), work from mutual criteria, and still hit a brick wall 20 seconds in. That is why I have such disdain for politicians and religious leaders who peddle the “simple answer.” This is not an issue (in fact, few are) that can be resolved on a bumper sticker.
And does a third party, whose body is not directly or indirectly involved in either the first or second “person” have any legal or moral involvement in decisions of the owner of the body or the zygote/fetus using that body?
That’s the one easy question on this list. The answer is, of course, no. Er, NO.
Good question. Currently on my phone. Give me some time to get back to a computer so I can inadequately try to wrestle with it.
Dicta, off the top of my head I can think of a couple reasons why abortion might be considered morally abhorent.
First, for example, it might be considered morally abhorent to refuse to give of our body to save the life of another helpless being that needs to use our body to survive through no fault of his own. In that case, since I have two functioning and healthy kidneys, is my decision not to seek out a match and donate one kidney to save the life of someone dying of kidney disease a morally abhorent decision?
Second, it might be considered morally abhorent to engage in sexual activity with the knowledge that it could result in a pregnancy but then refuse to carry the pregnancy to term. In other words, perhaps it is morally reprehensible to refuse to accept the consequences for an improvident sexual decision when that refusal results in the termination of a pregnancy. This might support the idea that abortions after rape are not morally reprehensible, as the issue of failing to preserve a life is simply not as important of a moral question as is female cupability for a careless sexual encounter. But then, that assessment might make abortions morally acceptable after an attempt to use birth control failed, which could include condom failure, IUD failure, pill failure, or even a failure for the man to comply with his promise to “pull out” in time.
Bottom line, Dicta, these are not easy questions with easy answers, but they are well worth thinking about before we impose our own views on women facing the dilemma. Do you have an opinion about what exactly underscores your view of morally reprehensible conduct as it relates to abortion.
The law would say that starving person (no matter how “good” or “innocent”) does not have the right to break into my house and take food he needs to survive – even food that I really do not need to survive. Bearcreekbat’s question is well-taken in that context about extending a more invasive right to use not just the property but the body of another to survive.
This would not be the first time society held property rights above a right to life.
Interesting discussion, but really the focus needs to be much much more on how we as a society can promote safe and very effective birth control methods today.
Women from generations before us would be amazed with all of the safe and proven methods of contraception that are out there today.
You never hear rabid pro lifers mentioning birth control.
If Kavanaugh gets confirmed, all these ideas go by then wayside. Abortion will be relegated to the dustbi…..back alleys and coat hanger days of olde.
That’s right Mike. More deaths, not less.
Dicta, I do not consider the moral issues around abortion easy. I’m not sure any commenter here does.
It is exactly the complexity of the moral issues (and the apparent inability of many of our current legislators to think complexly) that tells me the state cannot impose a single solution for every woman in every situation and that we must instead leave the decision and the hard moral deliberation up to the woman and the people she chooses to involve in that decision.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/09/former-trump-aide-jason-miller-allegedly-gave-pregnant-woman-abortion-pills-without-her-knowledge-report/
Let’s outlaw legal and safe and rare abortions and put Drumpf’s former aide in charge f abortions.
There are no depths Pootie’s Puppet and his minions won’t sink too. Whatever we might imagine is not as low as the facts.