…and this is a 
The height of anti-abortion logic
Category: Kooks • Reproduction
Posted on: February 11, 2008 9:09 PM, by PZ Myers
It's been yet another long, long day — I was one of many invited speakers at a conference on Networks and Neighborhoods in Cyberspace at the Twin Cities branch campus of the University of Minnesota Morris, and I got to make an early morning drive there and a late afternoon drive back. Drive, drive, drive. It gets old. Especially on those mornings when it is -15°F (around -25°C for those of you who insist on more civilized measurements.) If you've seen the movie Fargo you know what the scenery is like: endless snow-covered fields, endless rows of posts for barbed-wire fences, a succession of teeny-tiny farm towns. There is one thing I watch for — and this is a measure of how boring the drive is — and that's the anti-abortion signs.
These are an institution on Midwestern country roads. Most are by MCCL (Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, but I don't think it's actually an acronym — it's the Roman date to which they'd like to roll back civilization), but there are also some from Prolife Across America. These signs are everywhere. They're also incredibly stupid, and I watch for them and laugh maniacally in my car (did I mention that I'm desperate for entertainment on these drives?)
Except for the homemade ones that farmers put up alongside their "No Trespassing" signs, they all have pictures of cute babies, around six months to a year old, bright-eyed and smiling. Then they say inane things like, "My heart began beating when I was 18 days old!" I think they should have a photo of a pale comma of a worm-like embryo with the texture of snot if they're going to be talking about the importance of events at 18 days.
But my excitement today! Prolife Across America has a new campaign! A new sign, just west of New Munich on I94! It was so exciting I'm finding it hard to write in complete sentences … and it's the stupidest slogan yet!
GOD knew my SOUL before I was born!
Of course it had the obligatory cute baby picture with it. I chortled.
I want to see a sign like this.
GOD knew my SOUL before I was born!
Do think about the logic of this kind of sign. It simply assumes the existence of a being called "God," of a "soul," and that the authors of this nonsense have knowledge of both this God's communications and the existence of individuals prior to their instantiation as physical forms. It's unwatered stupid. Who needs a rational argument for a position on human life when you can just make up shit.
And these things are everywhere. Really, I only laugh to keep from crying.
Politics
Comments
We have those here in Oklahoma, too. I always see them and think how embarrassing it is for our state that this is the impression that people driving through from other states will get.
Posted by: Wes | February 11, 2008 9:16 PM
I'm actually much closer to what is generally called pro-life than what is generally closer to pro-choice, but yeah those are idiotic. Does it imply for example that we shouldn't kill anything with a heartbeat. Strictly vegetarian pro-lifers would at least make some philosophical sense.] Incidentally, the particular stupid sign appears to be a garbling of Jeremiah 1:5 which many pro-lifers are fond of taking grotesquely out of context.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | February 11, 2008 9:18 PM
Amanda over at Pandagon has a post up regarding the defeat of a bill ensuring contraceptive availability in the state to your west.
It's not about abortion; it's about controlling who has sex and what kind they have.
Posted by: MAJeff | February 11, 2008 9:18 PM
They have them in Kansas too. But then they have all sorts of weirdness in Kansas.
Sigh.
Posted by: Paula Helm Murray | February 11, 2008 9:20 PM
Someone please correct me if I'm wrong (don't have my developmental bio book in front of me), but don't the stats say something like "Of 20 hypothetical fertilized eggs in an average US woman, 6 are carried to term successfully."
Someone needs to put that on a billboard, with the tagline "God is the biggest abortionist of 'em all." Let them put that in their religious crack pipes and smoke it.
Posted by: Shigella | February 11, 2008 9:22 PM
It's about punishing those who had sex. A lot of it is about thinking about evil women having sex. And some of it's just plain unthinking. For everyone who says, "I don't approve of abortion but I wouldn't stop someone else from having one," that's s pro-choice position. A girl bled to death in my old university residence one week after Canada's parliament passed a law re-criminalizing abortion. She was trying to perform an abortion on herself. She was the first one in years. The irony is, she didn't have to -- the law wa not in effect because it hadn't yet been passed by the Senate--and it never was. The most horrific part of it all is that when anti-abortionists want an abortion, that's different. It's them. They're not evil. And they still don't get the point.
Posted by: Monado | February 11, 2008 9:26 PM
Uh, Godwin.
Just sayin.
Posted by: wÒÓ† | February 11, 2008 9:27 PM
If an unborn child has the same rights as a born person and an unbuilt house is a good shelter, then ss an unaged Senior Citizen, I want my pension now.
Posted by: Monado | February 11, 2008 9:28 PM
Exactly! Frick'n Duh!
Posted by: Andy James | February 11, 2008 9:31 PM
LOL
70% of fetuses are aborted, by God!
Posted by: dzho | February 11, 2008 9:32 PM
If you're Catholic and married, you don't even get to decide whether or not you want to procreate. It's already been decided for you.
Posted by: Alicia Morgan | February 11, 2008 9:37 PM
Hopefully this means they've stopped trying to convince the middle on this and are just preaching to the choir.
I know, I know, don't tell me how "the middle" in this country would at least have to roll that slogan over in their minds like "Hmmmm, you know God would know souls before they were born, hmmmmmm"...
Posted by: Rey Fox | February 11, 2008 9:42 PM
The philosophical implications of the pro-life stance is interesting, particularly when it's manifested in someone who shows little to no concern for the lives of the already born.
For people who believe in both original sin and the perfect judgement of a loving god, they place an overly high premium on the perception of innocence.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 11, 2008 9:46 PM
One thing I would like to know is that if people who are anti-abortion claim to be "pro-life", do they condemn the death penalty and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq? If not, they are not "pro-life".
Posted by: Corey Schlueter | February 11, 2008 9:46 PM
GOD knew my SOUL before I was born!
Why not just make a heaven with a bunch of happy souls floating around like little happy birdies? What's with all the earth and the hell stuff? It don't make any freakin sense man.
Posted by: birdiefly386sx | February 11, 2008 9:48 PM
Posted by: Fernando Magyar | February 11, 2008 9:50 PM
I've been meaning to post a picture of the specific one we have here in Morris, next to the McDonalds. The baby on it is less cherublike as they were attempting, but more "God Know My Soul Before I Was Born...and Now I'm Going to Eat Yours!" Seriously. Buy a cheeseburger and stare at it for a while. It's frightening.
Posted by: PhoneFeminist | February 11, 2008 9:50 PM
It don't make any freakin sense man.
God works in mysterious ways, except of course when he agrees with me.
Posted by: Brownian, OM | February 11, 2008 9:52 PM
Echoing #7. Come on, now. These signs are absurd enough as it is.
Posted by: FishyFred | February 11, 2008 9:54 PM
I think you need to get on iTunes and start subscribing to podcasts. Abortion sign counting can't be good for you.
Posted by: Paul | February 11, 2008 9:55 PM
As I recently read a post over at the forums of RichardDawkins.net in which the OP said his friend claimed that since a cross-section of a carrot looks like an eye, and carrots are good for your eyes, there must be a creator, I simply cannot be impressed with this pro-life logic right now. It sort of pales in comparison.
I guess I'll read this again after I get over that one.
Posted by: Kytescall | February 11, 2008 9:57 PM
For it was you who created my being,
knit me together in my mother's womb.
I thank you for the wonder of my being,
for the wonders of all your creation.
Knit one pearl two... Voila! What a cutie! Off you go, Adolph, to wreck havoc on the world! xxoo God.
I wonder what people with birth defects feel about this whole God in the womb thing?
Posted by: CalGeorge | February 11, 2008 9:59 PM
The religious go insane over abortion...I mean even more so than the religiousness makes them insane. I know some fairly rational people who just glaze over with caring for the innocent embryos. You can't begin to reason with them. They are totally gone on this issue. Like Krikkit robots: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krikkit#Krikkit
Posted by: afterthought | February 11, 2008 10:00 PM
Knit one pearl two... Voila! What a cutie! Off you go, Adolph, to wreck havoc on the world! xxoo God.
Favorite bathroom graffiti:
"My mother made me a lesbian."
"If I bought her the material, would she make me one too?"
Posted by: MAJeff | February 11, 2008 10:03 PM
What a crock of shit these morons intone about how their
god gives life and only it can take it. So all the humans
that have been slaughtered throughout history both for
religious reasons and just plain natural human butchery
have been directed by their god. And all those abortions
must also be god directed as this is also the underlying
hand in the termination of life. Why doesn't their freaking
god stop those abortions? I put this to an anti-abortion
idiot a few years ago, and she finally got through all the
religious insane prattle and frustratingly gave up with the
free will crap. We have several churches in my area that
are being occupied in vigils by the faithful insane after
the catholic diocese closed them for meager attendance and
to sell them and the land to pay off the debts of litigation from the child molestation by god's horny cretins, the freaking slimy priests. Not one of those
deranged occupiers has ever questioned why their god does
not come down and wield the power to keep those houses of
insanity open and solvent. It just boggles the mind!
Posted by: Holbach | February 11, 2008 10:05 PM
I thought that Hector Avalos did a pretty good job on the stupidity of the anti-abortion position:
Anti-abortion Christians could save a lot of effort on proselytizing just by sending fetuses straight to heaven at the abortion clinic.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | February 11, 2008 10:20 PM
It's a pity Ian Spedding's mental gymnastics on this topic wouldn't fit on a billboard.
Posted by: Azkyroth | February 11, 2008 10:31 PM
You don't have to be a bible thumping idiot to be pro-life.
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2007/11/secular-case-for-life.html
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2007/11/secular-case-against-abortion.html
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2007/11/secular-case-for-life-equality-under.html
http://bigwhiteogre.blogspot.com/2007/11/secular-case-for-life-on-animals-and.html
Posted by: Jon | February 11, 2008 10:31 PM
I remember a time when, out of some massive generosity on my part, I went to an adult Sunday class with a lovely friend of mine. The topic du jour was, of course, abortion and abortion providers. All they could talk about was figuring ways to ban abortion, to picket clinics and try to embarrass and harrass these desperate young ladies.
The whole time I wanted to scream, "How about treating the cause and not just the problem? How about educating these people instead of threatening them during one of the most vulnerable and frightening times in their lives?!?" But that would mean actually discussing SEX with youngsters, and we can't have that, can we? Much easier and more satisfying to impose one's own moral code on others, I suppose.
I was never so happy to get away from such a collection of ignorance. At least my friend had the decency to be embarrassed by it all...
Posted by: Sir Craig | February 11, 2008 10:39 PM
There is one thing I watch for...
I was expecting you to say "ice scraper." If you see one, pull over. Dig.
Posted by: J Myers | February 11, 2008 10:40 PM
Stop calling it "pro-life". There's nothing pro-life about denying women medical care.
Posted by: Zombie | February 11, 2008 10:47 PM
Is there a similar gynecological technique to weed out abortion clinic bombers?
Posted by: danley | February 11, 2008 10:53 PM
About an hour south of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, there's a 200-foot-high cross on the east side of I-57. It was frightening first time I saw it; as if I had wandered into some dystopian Handmaid's Tale future.
Now I just see it as another embarrassing advertisement of the "heartland values" that make the east- and west-coasters think of us Midwesterners as hicks.
Of course, the cross has a website: www.crossusa.com
Posted by: Dr. Drang | February 11, 2008 11:04 PM
Sorry, the URL for the big-ass cross is http://www.crossusa.org.
Posted by: Dr. Drang | February 11, 2008 11:05 PM
GOD knew my SOUL before I was born!
Does wanting to go around spray-painting "Existence Precedes Essence" on these things make me as huge a nerd as I think it does?
Posted by: Sophist, FCD | February 11, 2008 11:12 PM
Ah makes you long for the entertainment of
Shaving brushes
You'll soon see 'em
On a shelf
In some museum
Burma-Shave
the old Burma Shave roadside signs
(for those of you too young to remember, and that would likely be most of you here, they would be on boards tacked up on farmer's fences, one line to a board and spaced far enough apart so that a passenger in a car traveling around 50mph (that would be ~80kmph) could easily read them.
Posted by: Doug Alder | February 11, 2008 11:13 PM
Considering what "knowing" someone means in the Bible, isn't that basically blasphemous?
Just sayin'...
Posted by: Azkyroth | February 11, 2008 11:21 PM
I find that the root of a lot of anti-abortion positions stems from the fear that they might have been aborted.
Seriously.
I've tried to figure out the tortured logic behind this....I've actually had people ask "what would have happened if you had been aborted?" I've tried to explain that I simply wouldn't exist to care, and then they say "just think about all your experiences.....would you deny them to someone else?"
The only answer is, of course, "Of course. There's no consciousness there, and no net loss."
But they're afraid of being aborted after the fact. The illogic is beyond imagining.
Posted by: Matt | February 11, 2008 11:22 PM
Why would Omniscient God choose to put souls into the fetuses which He knows will be aborted? Do these Christians really think God's plans for dimpled, cooing little Madison are going to be overset before they even have a chance to begin, and baby lives long enough to throw her faith behind the religion of her fancy? There'd be no point at all in creating a soul -- complete with personality and potential -- for someone who won't ever be born -- or even make it past the second trimester.
If they think God does this, then it seems to me their God has some explaining to do. Or, maybe, they do.
Posted by: Sastra | February 11, 2008 11:25 PM
Speaking of the comment made by #26, have any of you heard of the Chx challenge? It was proposed by a poster who used to frequent the "Passion of the Christ" message boards at IMDb, and this challenge had its own Wikipedia entry, although only briefly.
Basically, kill all the children: send them to Heaven or Purgatory before they have a chance to sin their way into Hell. You're basically finishing what Jesus started! You're saving the world! Sure, you will probably be damned, but you will be one of the last to be. Isn't that what self-sacrifice is really all about?
Posted by: Kytescall | February 11, 2008 11:30 PM
By that reasoning you can claim anything that happened, no matter how horrible and destructive, was actually a good thing, since if it didn't we might not be here.
Posted by: tim gueguen | February 11, 2008 11:33 PM
Matt, the argument isn't as bad as you make it out to be since you could apply the same logic to shooting a person and say "well, there's no more consciousness so..."- the issue that it comes down to is that they are implicitly assuming that the fetus is beyond some threshold of consciousness whereas you are assuming that it is not.
Posted by: Joshua Zelinsky | February 11, 2008 11:34 PM
Oops, my response was to the kind of thinking Matt was talking about in #37.
Posted by: tim gueguen | February 11, 2008 11:34 PM
Some of them try that:
And by their religious doctrines, and her crazy thinking that allowed her to act upon it, she did her kids a favor. Now they'll go to heaven, they won't be spoiled by decadent western culture.
Posted by: Moses | February 11, 2008 11:42 PM
SCROD knew my SOLE before ALBACORE!
Posted by: cm | February 11, 2008 11:45 PM
If you take the natural embryo survival to term rate at 25% and the world birth rate at 120M/y, this gives a natural embryo death rate of 30,000,000 a month. How does this stack up against a few in the freezer?
Also, I would like to know how many embryos do not make it (of those 30M) because fertilization happened too late in the cycle (equivalent to using an IUD).
Posted by: Quine | February 11, 2008 11:49 PM
I trace these intrusions into procreation back to the formative years of religion, when it was tribe against tribe and size mattered. The size of the tribe, that is.
Homosexuality, contraconception, abortion, even masturbation all had to be proscribed in order to maximise the birth rate. A fertile womb must always be in use. The OT shows that young widows were not left out, it being the duty of the dead man's brother to 'come in unto her'. Since ignorance of sexual matters breeds better than knowledge, it's 'don't tell' as well. All of this was for the good of the tribe, and its leaders.
Or at least it was back when there weren't 6,650 million of us on the planet, and more arriving every minute. Now these ossified echoes of ancient strategy are counter productive.
If the Pope for example, were a competent shepherd for his flocks, he would recognise when the capacity of the pastures had been exceeded and stop making things worse by pushing for more sheep.
Posted by: JohnnieCanuck, FCD | February 11, 2008 11:52 PM
...the old Burma Shave roadside signs...
...or exactly how far you are from Wall Drug.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | February 11, 2008 11:55 PM
So, how can I get the PZ version of that sign as a bumper sticker for my car?
Posted by: blue collar scientist | February 12, 2008 12:11 AM
Or how many I-95 miles you have to go before you reach Pedro's South of the Border!
Posted by: Bill Dauphin | February 12, 2008 12:11 AM
Take me when
I'm still a fetus,
Because Cthulhu
Will only eat us.
Burma-Shave.
Posted by: Kseniya | February 12, 2008 12:22 AM
My favorite sign is in Texas, just south of Ft. Worth... every time I pass it I burst out laughing. It's basically a huge gun barrel with this little kid behind it, and in really big letters it says: If he doesn't love God, does he love you?
Because obviously kids who don't love God are going to shoot their parents. Gotta love it.
Posted by: Mel | February 12, 2008 12:23 AM
Yet the christotards don't mind all the fertilized eggs that go down the sink during in vitro fertilization...
This is just abrahamic bullshizzt to punish women for having sex.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | February 12, 2008 12:28 AM
So god knows souls before they are born, Does this mean he knows the infinite number souls which will never be born.
And since he knows the souls of these people I assume he knows what kind of people these are. People he would deem worthy for hell for example.
So god is creating an infinite number of souls which he is constantly sending to hell?
What a dick.
Posted by: Karl | February 12, 2008 12:28 AM
In the old days, Christian parents never resorted to abortion. They just waited till the kid became a teenager and wised off at them, then they had him stoned to death. Ah, those Christians where there's Gods will, there's a way.
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | February 12, 2008 12:35 AM
Or:
Kill me as
an embryo
'cuz straight to heaven
I will go
(Burma shave)
Posted by: beth | February 12, 2008 12:36 AM
You know, even when babies are born they're not all that special. I think it's very shallow for people to think babies are better people because they're cute. I have a baby brother, and while I don't want him to die or anything, he has no personality, and he hasn't done anything for us but look cute. If I could pick my older sister or him, I'd pick my sister in a heartbeat. She's been invested in, she has a personality, she has friends, she's made contributions, she's chosen a general path.
I read a book in middle school, My Daniel. The mother lost three children when they were babies, and she was okay. She wasn't happy about loosing her babies, but she moved on. However, when her 17-year-old son died, she was absolutely crushed. Because he was a person, an opinion-having, work-doing, thinking, loving person. A baby's not much more than a cute bundle of genes and flesh. When they're in the womb they're so much less than even that.
Posted by: Kristin | February 12, 2008 12:41 AM
Absolutely right, Monado. Very few of the "pro-life" folks support ready access to birth control material and information for young people. But in cities, states, or countries where it *is readily available, the young people have less sex. When they have sex, the couples are less likely to get pregnant. When they *do get pregnant, they are less likely to have an abortion. Birth control prevents fetus death, but how many "pro-lifers" are pro-birth control? They are less interested in saving zygotes and fetuses than they are in punishing girls for having sex.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Kermit
Posted by: Kermit | February 12, 2008 12:42 AM
A Texas group is promoting gun control?!
(insert smilie if necessary)
Posted by: Tulse | February 12, 2008 12:47 AM
How in life
Shall I abide?
Abort me now
For my free ride
Burma Shave
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | February 12, 2008 12:53 AM
Hamburger... stops a beating heart.
[Love the pseudo-Burma Shave signs.]
es
Posted by: eyesoars | February 12, 2008 1:00 AM
Late last year I did a 10K drive around the country. Oregon to Florida and back. Through the heartland. Tried to stay off the interstate. I did see some of those antiabortion signs but they weren't nearly as common as I expected.
And I did catch a string of Burma Shave signs on a short stretch of Route 66. Ah, nostalgia.
Posted by: Gerry L | February 12, 2008 1:24 AM
"[Love the pseudo-Burma Shave signs.]"
Yes. Brings back memories of fifty years ago. Never thought I'd be making up my own. Funny, but sad in a way.
Posted by: C. M. Baxter | February 12, 2008 1:25 AM
I'd be OK with pro-lifers if they were consistent. So let's say a fetus is a person. I can accept that; there isn't much biological difference between a fetus 10 minutes before birth and a baby 10 minutes after birth. So let's ignore all the logistical issues of calling a fetus a person and just do it.
The fetus (person) has the right to use my body in an invasive and direct way against my will. Its right to do so it protected by its right to life - without my body, it would die. It doesn't matter that continuing this parasitic relationship will restrict my movement, damage my body, harm me in non-physical ways (job prospects, relationships, emotional well-being, communal approval), and may even result in my own death. All that matters is that the other person live.
Well, I am also a person. OK, so if my kidney's fail and someone is a match to me, pro-life logic dictates that I get to take one of their kidneys. It doesn't matter that it is invasive surgery that will result in both physical and emotional hardship. It also doesn't matter that there is a chance that he will die from it. All that matters is that I live.
If this were pro-life policy, if I ever heard a pro-lifer advocating this sort of thing, I'd be able to muster some bit of respect for them. I wouldn't agree, but at least I would respect their opinion. But as it stands, the whole pro-life movement is nothing but lies and a thinly-disguised excuse to hurt women. Sure, some may care for the fetii, but these are idiots who haven't thought things through and are just going along because of an irrational gut reaction. But the leaders, the ones who should know the implications of their arguments, get absolutely no respect from me.
Posted by: Grimalkin | February 12, 2008 1:34 AM
So take the TGV for fecks sake.
Oh.
Sorry.
Wrong continent.
Is the lack of sensible transport related to the non-use of sensible units?
Posted by: blf | February 12, 2008 1:37 AM
I've talked to people who only became religious because of the abortion issue. They say they're "single issue voters," and my guess is there are a lot of them. I just don't understand why they don't think things through. Why are they moved by fetuses but not by suffering and dying adults or an environment that's being destroyed? I just don't get it.
Posted by: deang | February 12, 2008 1:39 AM
Deang: Because the fetus is a person who hasn't yet Had A Chance. An aborted embryo or fetus is a person who Never Had A Chance. Once you are born, you Have A Chance. Once you Have A Chance, it's all about Self Reliance and if you fail or die, it's your own damn fault.
Posted by: Kseniya | February 12, 2008 1:44 AM
@ 64. But you only get to use the kidney for 9 months.
Posted by: natural cynic | February 12, 2008 1:48 AM
I didn't realize the ability to pump fluids solidified one's membership into humanity.
Pork basters everywhere rejoice.
Posted by: Jon McKenzie | February 12, 2008 1:55 AM
@ 37:
It gets more complicated than that. One of the things that a religious person tries to do is to "know God". That may be even more blasphemous.
The KJV is soooo ambiguous about *to know*, ya' know.
Posted by: natural cynic | February 12, 2008 1:58 AM
Grimalkin,
Refreshing to see that someone mentions the idea of another being to consider in cases of abortion: The Mother. Even in the tedious, disconnected-from-life, logical cluster-fuck that Jon linked to ignores the rights of the Mother.
Until a baby is born and separate from its mother it has no "right" to life. It's life is dependent upon the choice of the Mother. Period. I would even go so far as to support infanticide in many countries where adoption is not a option and destitution and disease promise a short haggard life. Also (Jon), to define something as a "person" does nothing to answer a single ethical question about what should be done in specific situations, abortion being one of them.
In the end, abortion is not centered around the fetus. It is about the Mother.
Bluey has some words for those that disagree.
Posted by: Michael X | February 12, 2008 2:02 AM
No offense, but the argument that passed-out drunks are equivalent to embryos, since both have the potential of becoming conscious, is not very impressive.
Posted by: windy | February 12, 2008 2:13 AM
As long as we're pointing out inconsistencies in anti-choicers' behavior: US infant mortality rates are a national disgrace. If these people were really motivated--as they mendaciously claim--by a concern for the wellbeing of unborn babies, this would be at least the hot-button issue for them that abortion is.
Instead, anti-choicers were against S-CHIP, as well as any other program that might give medical help to neonates and their mothers. (Of course, when Republicans talk about their concern for the unborn, they sure as hell don't mean the black unborn--which is who you'd be mostly helping if you tried to reverse these dismal statistics.) (Seriously, how often do you see one of those billboards with a black infant on it?)
Posted by: Molly, NYC | February 12, 2008 2:20 AM
Joshua,
Matt's argument holds. But for a different reason that you're assuming. An adult human being for example has "preferences." Wants, wishes, plans, etc. A being who was never born does not. Thus, when someone says, "What if I were aborted?," the question is irrelevant. You only care because you've made it to a state that allows you preferences. If you hadn't been born you wouldn't, in fact couldn't, care if you weren't in such a state.
This is of course different from shooting someone. In that case we would be interfering in their preferences. Namely, to live. A fetus cannot have preferences as you or I do, thus we regard them as less than ourselves. This is born out in the fact that if you were in a burning building and you could save a 5 year old, or 60 fetus', you'd save the 5 year old every time hands down.
Posted by: Michael X | February 12, 2008 2:27 AM
I love listening to godbots on topics like this, it never takes long to get any godbot talking on the subject of death to talking about god's big plan. But they never take the idea to the logical conclusions. If a child dies and it is part of god's plan, they surely the child was born as part of god's plan, which means the child was conceived as part of god's plan, which means the child's parents met as part of god's plan, which means free will is an illusion and can't support the righteousness of your average godbot.
As a male I don't believe I have the right to tell a woman what to do with her body, so I'm pro-choice. More to the point so long as adequate education and access to birth control is restricted by the ignorant godbots I couldn't endorse a pro-life position. If we had perfect protection and a well educated general population, and allowances where made for medical reasons or abortion in case of rape I'd be willing to support a pro-life position, because only with all those considerations could it be considered a rational choice.
Posted by: Venger | February 12, 2008 2:38 AM
Back in December, we went back home for the holidays in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Between St. Paul and Madison, I-94 has some lovely scenery, but it's also got plenty of "teh signz". My favorite one is the abortion billboard put up in front of a cement factory: when I'm looking for moral authority on homan reproduction, I ask myself "what would the owner of a cement factory in Western Wisconsin think"? Normally, there are plenty of the obligatory "Support-R-Troops" and anti-choice signs, but this year I saw a real seachange: all the President Bush signs were gone, and a whole new crop of Ron Paul signs were up. There's no mistaking it: Ron Paul has the coveted doofus vote of Western Wisconsin all sewn up.
Posted by: j.t.delaney | February 12, 2008 2:41 AM
I'm used to seeing stuff like when when I take cross country drives too, either here in Illinois or back when I lived in Michigan. But to me it was two types of signs, the anti abortion ones and also the "get us out of the UN" signs. To me the two now go together, the paranoid xenophobia of people who think that the organization that we created, and that we largely control, is somehow an evil plot against us, and the overly exaggerated concern over the fate of a small clump of cells that could one day become a human being.
Posted by: Nomad | February 12, 2008 2:42 AM
We have those billboards in Des Moines--mostly on the south side, where the big bad Abortomat is located. My favorite one says, "Embryos... are just tiny babies!" With a chubby, happy baby, to demonstrate more clearly the fundamental dishonesty of the pro-life movement. SO MUCH FUN.
Posted by: iamnotanoctopus | February 12, 2008 2:44 AM
How very Calvinist. And I do not mean the cartoon boy.
Posted by: Janine | February 12, 2008 2:48 AM
Venger,
Would you support a mother who first decided to get pregnant, but after any number of situations, decided to abort?
In effect I'm asking if, even with perfect protection and education, does not the woman retain the right to her body?
I think I'd be with you (and I think you may have been pointing towards this anyways, though I might be wearing rose colored glasses), if you were of the mind that if we had perfect protection and education that abortions would nearly disappear, but in no case does a woman lose the right to her body.
Am I misreading you on this?
Posted by: Michael X | February 12, 2008 2:50 AM
This is natural. We are hard-wired to love little babies. That's just the way evolution made us, so that we will put tremendous efforts in procreating and in rearing our offspring. Pro-Life people are just those people with whom biological urges are stronger than sense. What is is bad for the individual organism, might be beneficial to the species.
The unfortunate thing is that those same urges, which used to be so beneficial to out species in primitive times, are now undermining modern society.
Posted by: mousomer | February 12, 2008 2:59 AM
Off-topic: Mike Dunford's recent post reminds me that "New Atheist Noise Machine" would still be a great name for a band.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | February 12, 2008 3:09 AM
This is natural. We are hard-wired to love little babies.
But not fetuses...
Posted by: windy | February 12, 2008 3:40 AM
I think that,
From a purely framing point of view,
That using the term eviction,
And decrying the lack of donated wombs,
Would be a better way to go,
Tis not an aborted fetus,
Merely homeless.
Posted by: Veltyen | February 12, 2008 3:42 AM
Janine @79:
How very Calvinist. And I do not mean the cartoon boy.
Actually Bill Watterson did name his Calvin after that Calvin. You can see predestination in the way the cartoon Calvin thinks so highly of himself, just as if he was one of the "chosen". see the wiki
Posted by: natural cynic | February 12, 2008 3:49 AM
Iamnotanoctopus,
And to further your ideal of embryos being tiny babies. Single human cells are tiny embryos, which are tiny babies.
The fundamentalist commits murder with a scratch of their nose...
Posted by: Michael X | February 12, 2008 3:58 AM
I've never seen such signs here in Australia but then again our pro-lifers are not nearly as rabid ( I've never seen anyone picketeing outside the clinic here). Maybe they're too tight to cough up the funds.. which means not only are they dickheads but they're cheap bastards too.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek | February 12, 2008 3:58 AM